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And, bonus, you know <span class="mu-i">exactly</span> where to find cazeline. Way down at the harbor, Teddy has a boat parked. With a fucking engine, a— you assume it has to be a big one, to move a <span class="mu-i">boat.</span> And it runs on cazeline, says your head, you've got a tank or two spare for emergencies, but it's not even about the caz. That's the truth. You just want to look at the powered boat before everything goes to hell and back. But Lucky doesn't need to know that, and Lottie will never know it either, and— well— you deserve it, don't you? For going out of your way. You're allowed to look at a boat.
So, anyhow, you were on your way to the harbor. Then you got to ground level and Arledge was accosted by a fellow blue-robe and Lucky muttered something about divided loyalties and slunk after them and now you're... not. On the way to the harbor. Or you're on temporary break. You could just walk there yourself, you guess, get some more quality time with the boat, but knowing your luck it'd reset halfway down. Better to loiter.
...You used to be better at this, the loitering. Could loiter like nobody's business, in bars, in the fringes of conversations. All the hot and happening places. Now it just makes you uneasy: makes your mouth dry up, makes you burrow into your slicker for self-preservation. You fight the rising instinct to hasten after Lucky or to stop a passersby or anything. You're not alone. You're <span class="mu-i">not</span> alone. You've got— you've got—
You've got Teddy! Alright, he isn't very vocal, but company's company. He's <span class="mu-i">present.</span> This alone eases the pressure a smidgeon, and you clutch for a pack of smokes to lighten the rest of it. Does Teddy smoke? Should've asked yourself that earlier, back with the awful mist and cig #1. Cig #2 is the same as that one, longer and slenderer and wrapped different than you're used to, but a smoke is a smoke and you've already got the flimsy lighter out. You strike up and inhale and let a thin stream of smoke leak through your nostrils. <span class="mu-i">Goddamn.</span> You needed this. Your pulse is slowing already.
You're going for your second inhale when it occurs to you: is this rude? Not that you've ever given much of a damn, but you've been gassing up Teddy and calling him a cool guy and all that and you're making him watch you take a smoke. Isn't that sort of cruel and unusual? Shit. You twiddle the cig, think, sigh, and let him have it.
Teddy stares down at your curled hand, then slides the cig back into your mouth. He pushes his glasses up. He leans against the side of a balloon-toss stand. Only then does he inhale deeply— the rush for you is muted— and exhale a stormcloud. "What are you?" your mouth says.
Nobody's around you. Teddy's staring into the evening sky, tracing the vanishing remains of his smoke. He... he has to mean...
"Yeah, you." His voice is a lot deeper than yours. "I'm not mad. I'm just asking."
(Choices next.)
