~~~~~~~~
The debriefing (as Kyle still insisted upon referring to it in his head despite the fact that Connor had actually snorted when he had let the phrase slip) was different this time. For one thing, Anna was present (even though she wasn’t saying much). Kyle was pretty sure that she still wasn’t happy that she had let herself be talked into letting him help them. There wasn’t any open animosity -- they just avoided talking about it (which was so not him and Anna). For another thing, Connor seemed almost detached from the whole situation. He asked questions and everything, but he lacked the whole weight of the world coming down on his shoulders nearly frantic vibe that he had been conveying before. He seemed kind of subdued (in a beaten down kind of a way). Kyle found himself feeling rather worried about him.
He had recited the highlights of his conversation with Lia, and the three of them were sort of sitting in silence when Anna suddenly started peering intently at something on her desk.
“Kyle?” She asked him without looking away from whatever had caught her attention.
“Yeah?”
“I thought you said you only made casual conversation with this girl?”
“I did,” he insisted wondering what was up with his sister.
“Kyle, for future reference, casual conversation does not include providing someone with the means of following you home,” she looked up at him with an expression of extreme disappointment (and a whole lot of disconcertedness).
“What?” The demand (and there was no mistaking it for a mere question, it was a definite demand for further information) came from Connor.
“She’s in my hallway, Connor,” Anna told him still staring at something Kyle couldn’t see. He realized that it was the monitor for the door cam. “Lia Lawson is standing in my hallway getting ready to knock on my door.”
“Anna, it’s . . . .”
“Don’t even try to tell me that this is okay!”
Neither one of them got to finish out their sentences or say anything further. The knock on the door prevented either. Kyle wasn’t entirely sure what Anna and Connor were communicating in the look that they exchanged. He only knew that they seemed to quickly come to some sort of decision which ended in him being the one to answer the door. He wasn’t sure what it was that he was expecting her to say when he opened it. He just knew that what he heard wasn’t it.
“I need to talk to Connor.”
Ten minutes later saw Kyle no less confused, and the situation rapidly increasing in tension. Anna had resorted to her time honored hospitality habits, but they hadn’t served to make the level of awkward in the room decrease. Lia had declined both a seat and a beverage which left Anna with nothing to do but look worried. Connor and Lia appeared to be participating in some sort of staring contest that Kyle couldn’t decipher. He wasn’t sure that he wanted to do any deciphering. This was one of those occasions that he figured would only get more awkward if he knew more about what was happening.
“So, you read my comic books?” Connor directed at Lia from (what seemed to Kyle to be) out of the blue. It wasn’t how Kyle would have chosen to break the ice. Granted, Kyle really hadn’t chosen to say anything to break the ice, but if he was choosing something, then that wouldn’t have been it. Connor, however, always seemed to land on his feet with things like this. It worked for him. Kyle was willing to bet that it wouldn’t have worked for him (of course, there was the fact that he didn’t have a comic book that Lia read to refer to, but that wasn’t really the point of his observation).
Lia offered Connor one of those smirky smiles of hers that Kyle had seen earlier at the shop -- he was still of the opinion that there was something in that smile that implied that you should be wary. “You turned my sister into a super villain,” she told him as her hands drifted to her hips. She settled into what appeared to be an accusing posture. She only managed to hold it for a few brief seconds before she was smiling genuinely and looking at Connor with an expression that Kyle could only classify as awe. “How could I not read your comic books?”
“Wait, you did what?” The words came from Anna’s direction before Connor and Lia could continue.
“That’s really not what’s important right now,” Kyle attempted to interject before Anna could pursue that further. He had a feeling that no good could come from that particular conversational path.
“He turns the people he knows in real life into the cast of his fictionalized epic adventures,” Lia explained (clearly she did not share Kyle’s opinion) before her tone turned confused. “You didn’t know that?”
“So everyone he writes in that thing is based on an actual person?” It was clear that Anna was surprised. Another thought seemed to occur to her (and Kyle tried to do his groaning internally as he watched realization cross her face). “Am I in these?”
Connor demonstrated a complete lack of concern (and, from Kyle’s perspective, a complete lack of self-preservation instincts). Connor, instead, seemed to think that he needed further clarity on Anna’s question. “You don’t read my comics?”
“Are you pouting?” Anna deflected.
“You’ve really never looked at them?” Connor demanded. He sounded hurt. “Not even like glanced through?”
“This is so not the time, Connor.” She dismissed him. They should have, Kyle thought, kept going. Connor’s pouting (and it was so pouting) and Anna’s new knowledge of Connor’s writing habits had momentarily changed the atmosphere in the room. It was quickly sliding back into the tense standoff feel that it had had before Connor had made his original statement.
Anna, bless her, stepped up to end the impasse next. Kyle fully expected her to come out with some apt, carefully worded piece of masterfulness that would smooth over all of the tension and send them all moving forward. What actually came out of her mouth was nothing of the sort.
“Kyle and I haven’t eaten yet. I feel like pizza. Don’t you feel like pizza, Kyle?” She gave him a meaningful look that was completely wasted on him. He was too busy trying to figure out when the smoothing over was going to start. “Right then,” she continued as if he had agreed with her (which he was very sure he hadn’t). “Kyle and I are going to go out and get something to eat, and the two of you can hang out here and talk about . . . whatever.”
He wasn’t entirely sure that it made sense for him and Anna to be the ones doing the leaving. He wasn’t trying to be rude, but it was their apartment. Wouldn’t it be more appropriate for Connor and Lia to do the leaving? Besides, the two of them looked like they were in need of some serious conversation (probably also very awkward) and that seemed liable to take a while. How long could he and Anna waste eating pizza? Wouldn’t it make everything more awkward if the two of them waltzed back into the middle of a still ongoing already awkward (discussion, argument, heart to heart) whatever it was they were going to be having?
Obviously, he wasn’t moving quickly enough for his sister because Anna cleared her throat and inclined her head toward the door. It never got any attention when he did the throat clearing thing -- there must be some trick to it that he hadn’t figured out yet.
He spared a moment from his musing to look at the girl sinking into the cushions on his sofa. She looked younger than she did in the comic book store -- vulnerable even. He felt a resettling of that twinge of guilt he had been pushing away ever since this whole thing started. He had, for all intents and purposes, been trying to play her. The fact that she had figured it out (and maybe had been playing him in turn which technically should sort of make them even -- he would have to think about that) didn’t change his part in it.
“Look,” he directed at Lia. “I just want to say that . . . .” That was as far as he got (which may have been just as well since “Look” was really as far as his brain had planned ahead). Lia cut him off with a dismissive wave of her hand.
“Don’t,” she told him without even bothering to look in his direction. That touched a n
erve for some reason -- likely because he was attempting to offer an apology while she was being ungracious about it.
“I was just trying to . . .,” the words came out huffily this time, but he really didn’t care (particularly because she cut him off again although this time she refrained from including the dismissive hand gesture).
“Really, don’t.” She repeated. She stood and turned so that she was facing him. “I would really rather not hear an apology over you striking up a conversation with me. Regardless of circumstances, it was still nice to have met you.” Well, that certainly wasn’t what he had been expecting. She was doing that nervous habit thing again -- the one where she played with the chain of her necklace. She was waiting for him to say something. He said the only thing he could think of at the moment.
“So, we’re back to nice?” Her hand dropped from its position fiddling with the chain. She gave him a small smile.
“Nice seems to be working for us,” she offered with a shrug. He couldn’t come up with anything in reply to that, so he just smiled back. Her smile brightened a notch, and the two of them just stood there for a moment grinning at each other for no apparent reason. Kyle didn’t care. It felt good -- like the two of them were suddenly okay (which didn’t make any sense because they hadn’t and still didn’t know each other well enough to have a “not okay” status in the first place). Anna was right -- he spent way too much time overthinking things that didn’t require overthinking. He caught sight of Anna staring at him and broke the moment.
“Oh, yeah,” he mumbled, “pizza.” He had a lot of things to think about, but, he reflected as Anna pulled the door to the apartment closed behind him, he apparently had an indeterminate amount of time to mull it all over while eating pizza.