Chapter Text
10 YEARS BEFORE PROJECT BUTTERFLY
The weight of the collar was intense. She stumbled, the toe of her ragged sneaker catching on the leg of her new jumpsuit. She caught her reflection in the nearest one-way window. No doubt there were a whole host of guards behind the mirrored glass.
She barely recognized herself. Orange really wasn’t the best color for anyone. But she guessed flattery wasn’t the intended purpose. They had shaved her head, too, and this just added a new layer of humiliation to the entire thing.
She lifted her hand and pushed against the steel object. It was the size of a bulky infinity scarf but about 100 times as heavy. It was made of steel and hummed faintly. Like the collar bomb that pizza delivery guy wore for his doomed heist way back in 2003. Either way, whatever they were using to dampen her powers was giving her a powerful headache.
“Do I have to wear this if I promise really hard not to do it again?” She said in a quavering voice. She wished she sounded more confident. But she was shaking in her boots.
Amanda Waller glanced around the two guards flanking her on either side. “I’ll have one of my tech guys look at altering it. But as long as you’re in here, it stays.”
And by “here” she meant the Non-Human Internment division.
“What the hell?”
Amanda gave her a narrow look. “You seem to be the only female human inmate we have at the moment.”
Well, that was true. She might have expected to be locked up with Harley Quinn or Ratcatcher. But then she remembered that the two villains had bartered freedom for themselves in exchange for their efforts in Corto Maltese. It was a detail she wasn’t supposed to know. And her efforts to hack into the database had gotten her flagged and—eventually—caught.
Damn those firewalls. Whoever they had hired to do their IT work deserved a raise.
“Why can’t I just be in the female quarters alone?” She said, as they approached the gate.
“Budget cuts,” was all Director Waller would say. “Besides, you’re technically from another planet. It counts.”
The gate opened. Growls and screeches assaulted their ears as several figures bum-rushed the door. Amanda’s determined pace was unchanged. The guards lifted their stun guns and zapped the inmates who got too close.
She gazed around and saw plenty of unusual faces, some of whom she recognized. Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man was seated at a metal lunch table playing with a pile of lumpy mashed potatoes. He was a strange mish-mash of things, just like his stupid name. His half-human head and torso was turned so he could gaze pointedly at her. She saw Crimson Centipede, Fisherman, and even The Shaggy Man. There was the fish girl—Nina, was it? The Bride. Doctor Phosphorous. And some sort of winged gargoyle lady.
The longer they walked, the more she noticed the inmates were chanting something in unison.
“Fresh meat…fresh meat!”
They paused while Amanda unlocked the newest inmate’s cell. Her neighbor was a shark creature with human arms and legs. His beady black eye stared at her with lust. Unlike the others, the only thing he said was, “Meat…” Drool dripped down his gaping maw.
Sweet Jesus. She was going to have to use this heavy metal device like a protective shield to keep from getting eaten alive in this place. “There’s nowhere else I can go?”
Amanda raised one dark eyebrow. “Unless you’d rather risk the men’s quarters. We can’t guarantee your…virtue would remain intact.”
She wondered if she stood a better chance of not being eaten with the men. On the other hand, there was at least one known cannibal among the male villains.
“Welcome home,” Amanda said with the faintest smile as the guard locked her cell.
There was something intensely unsettling about the woman, who was fairly ordinary on the outside. Maybe it was the way she used her little collection of super villains with nocare for their well-being.
And if Amanda’s newest prisoner wasn’t a freak of nature herself, she might find better treatment in a regular correctional facility. But Belle Reve was going to be her home for a long time.
“Meat!” Her neighbor said again in a booming voice.
But someone else was clearly sick of his crap. “Shut the fuck up, King Shark!”
PRESENT DAY, 1 MONTH AFTER BUTTERFLY
The fallout was huge. Well, on the news, at least. Adebayo’s little press conference blew the door wide open on the whole using-convicted-and-sometimes-crazed-criminals-for-covert-missions thing. Amanda Waller was walking on thin ice. No one knew what was going to happen with her.
As for John, it only took 2 days of monotonous paperwork and a little bit of cyber stalking for him to get stir crazy. Which sucked because he was going to be on a crutch for a while with this stupid broken leg. He wasn't even the most injured of the group. Harcourt had a long road of recovery ahead of her, having to learn to walk all over again.
And as for everyone else? Life sort of went back to normal. Or, normal-ish. Vigilante was still stirring up unnecessary shit by day and maintaining his secret identity as a busboy by night. Peacemaker had hung up his helmets for a while to lick his emotional wounds. And Adebayo seemed to be laying low with her wife. Project Butterfly was over, and John was chained to his desk again inside the Belle Reve penitentiary.
At first, he was relieved by the prospect of a much needed break from the chaos. He had a broken leg and other invisible injuries—blows to his pride, maybe even something else…a new aching sense of loss. Task Force X had been one God-awful mishap after another, and his team had been dysfunctional as hell. But things had ended just as they were finally starting to feel like a team.
“So, anyway, I was just thinking that maybe I could come bunk with you sometime?”
“Do what now?” John said, snapping out of his reverie at Vigilante’s words. The guy had called him at least 6 times before John had finally answered. And he was only doing so to tell the guy to stop fucking calling him every day. He didn’t have the clearance for daily chats with his old teammates anymore, because he was about to be assigned somewhere new.
“You know, as like…buddies. Just to hang out. Shoot the breeze. Knock back a couple of brewskies,” Vigilante added (John had him saved in his phone as “Vij”. He rarely called him by his real name. What was it again? Aidan? Adrian?).
“We’ve never done any of those things together. And I’m living out of a different but shittier motel near the prison. You’ve got a way nicer place.”
“Come on,” Vij wheedled. “It’d be fun! We could stay up late swapping manly stories. And in the morning, I'm making waffles!”
“Did you just quote Shrek?”
“I don’t keep up with sports.”
John couldn't bite back a chuckle. This guy was such a weirdo. And that was coming from Economos, who still had his original Ghostbusters action figure collection in a box somewhere, complete with a mint condition Ecto 1 from the 1987 Kenner line.
Someone knocked on his office door. “Oh, thank God.”
“What? Did something really cool happen? Oh, did you see the Weasel? I freaking love that guy.”
John rolled his eyes. “I don’t hang out with the inmates, and I don’t think you and I should, either. Stop calling me, man. I’m serious.”
The person knocked on his door again, harder this time.
But Adrian was nothing if not completely clueless about social norms. About anything normal, really. “Okay, buddy. I’ll just call you later. I just picked up a book on scorpion facts. You’re going to love it.”
“No, I won’t, because I have a natural fear of insects with big fucking stingers—”
The door to his tiny office opened, and he jumped in surprise.
“Scorpions are literally the most essential puzzle piece of the ecosystem,” Vij chirped in his ear. It wasn't true, but he believed it with his whole, sociopathic little heart.
“Economos,” Amanda Waller said in a firm tone of voice.
“Ooooh, someone’s in trouuuble…” Vij said in a sing-song tone.
John just hung up on him. His eyes drifted to the surprisingly tall woman behind his boss and then back to Amanda. “Yes?” He wasn’t used to the director bursting into his office. Then again, she did what she wanted, so he shouldn’t really expect anything less.
“You’ve missed your mandatory follow-up appointment at the hospital.”
He blinked at her. “I’ve been a little—busy.”
“I understand.” Amanda didn’t roll her eyes. She rarely showed much emotion, if any, but the implication was heavy in her tone: we’ve all been a little fucking busy.
“I’ll go next week.”
“You’ve already rescheduled it 5 times.”
John didn’t bother asking how she knew this. No doubt they had someone keeping close tabs on everyone’s professional and personal schedules, whether they wanted it or not. He glanced once more at the tall woman who was wearing a white coat. She had a nametag that just read “Lou.” He cleared his throat. “Like I said—”
“I need your full attention on your work.”
He couldn’t help the defensive note in his voice. “I’d like to think the quality of my work speaks for itself.” Hell, he’d installed 5 new firewalls this morning alone. Just out of pure boredom.
She didn’t bother commenting on that. “What I don’t need is another one of my employees neglecting their health.” She turned to the other woman. “Your turn, Doctor. And good luck. He can be cagey.”
He opened his mouth to protest, but Amanda was already walking out of the room.
The woman stared at him for a moment before taking a few steps closer.
“I didn’t consent to any medical exams,” he said quickly. He couldn’t help himself. He fucking hated doctors.
She said nothing and just displayed a sheet of paper on her clipboard. Sure enough, the signature at the medical liability release form looked identical to his own.
This was a damn ambush. Amanda had probably copied that from some other document. It would be tough to argue against his own John Hancock without more proof than his own complaints.
The doctor set the clipboard aside and crossed her arms over her broad chest. She was tall but not overly slim. Her auburn, shoulder-length hair was pulled back in a loose ponytail. She was striking, not to mention the slightly mismatched color of her eyes. They were both a coppery brown, but the iris of her left eye was dark blue on the bottom. It added a disconcerting quality to the otherwise bland expression.
He gazed up at her, which was an unusual occurrence for someone who was 6 foot 6. It helped that he was sitting down, of course. And still, she just stood there, like she was waiting for something.
“I’m not—”
Quick as a flash, she pulled something out of her pocket and placed it in his mouth.
“Hey, what the hell?” He protested—a little muffled with a thermometer perched between his lips.
In response, she just shushed him before grabbing his hand and putting one of those heart monitor things on his middle finger. He was tempted to flip her off, but even he, with his prickly nature and antisocial tendencies, knew it would be rude.
“I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist saying something. You’re pretty chatty, from what I know about you.”
“How do you—?”
She shushed him again and fixed him with that piercing gaze. Her eyes were focused on the wireless heart monitor, but she continued talking in a steady tone of voice. “White Coat Syndrome is minimized in our society, especially for men. It’s when someone’s blood pressure and anxiety spike—”
“I know what it is,” he said around the thermometer.
Thankfully, the device beeped, and she removed it. “Your numbers tell me otherwise.” She pulled the heart monitor off of his hand and displayed the numbers. 145 over 95.
“I’ve just been busy,” he insisted again. “And I don’t like being ambushed.”
Lou’s wide lips pulled into a rare smirk. “Director Waller thought this approach might be most effective.”
His neck felt hot, and he was sure his pale, freckled complexion showed off a nice mottled blush. He hated being a ginger some days. And so, he resorted to his usual defense mechanism. Use humor to disengage from the center of attention. “Your bedside manner could use some work,” he said with a ghost of a smile.
Lou relaxed a little bit at that. “Sorry if I was a little…brusque. I’m used to working with monsters and meta-humans. Are normal people this difficult?”
He laughed. It was time for his next defense mechanism: self-deprecating remarks. “I don’t think anyone has ever called me normal.”
She narrowed her eyes. He wasn’t sure she liked that.
He cleared his throat, deciding to drop that mechanism for the time being. “But I think most people have a healthy dislike of physicians. No offense.”
She perched herself on the edge of his cluttered desk. “Fair enough.” She pointed to his leg, which was in a boot cast. He was too tall for the desk and had stretched his long legs out to the side. “Can I take a look?”
He frowned. “Do you have to?”
She shrugged. “Only if you want me to give you the all-clear, to get The Wall off your back.”
His eyebrows lifted automatically in surprise. He wasn’t used to hearing people refer to the director with that particular nickname. He’d heard a few more disparaging ones (which didn’t need repeating), but “The Wall” was something used by people who had known Amanda for a long time. Long enough to know that her stubbornness and determination knew no bounds.
“Sorry,” she muttered. “That was probably unprofessional.”
“No, it’s totally fine,” he insisted. “I’m just trying to figure out why I’ve never seen you around Belle Reve before.” He wanted to add, it’d be hard to miss you, but he resisted. Because it was the truth. Lou was striking for more than just her height and mismatched eyes. John surprised himself by noting the many qualities about her that he found attractive. It had been an embarrassingly long time since he’d felt anything towards a woman. Since he had allowed himself to even indulge the thought…
Lou stood up from his desk (a real shame, since she had inadvertently given him a view of her nice ass. Damn, he needed to keep it together). She readjusted her professional dress pants, which didn’t seem to fit her very well. They were too short for her long legs, for one thing. And she looked uncertain for the first time since barging into his office behind Amanda. “I’ve mostly been working with the inmates.”
He nodded. “Makes sense.”
Lou was quiet for a moment too long before pointing to his leg.
He was hoping she had forgotten. He reluctantly perched his long leg on the order of his desk (shoving aside a few piles of paperwork he had been ignoring) and winced when her long fingers worked his pants leg up a little higher.
“Are you still in pain?” She said, looking a little worried.
“No.” He grit his teeth to hide the fact that his entire body had shivered at that single gentle touch. It was more embarrassing than that. He hadn’t been touched in—way too fucking long.
“Well, you’ve got a low-grade fever,” she added, giving him a narrow look. Careworn lines around her eyes and slightly graying auburn hair made guessing her age next to impossible, not that he was good at that sort of thing.
“I’ve been a little stressed,” he said, hoping this would be the end of it.
“Right. Seems like everyone’s keeping their distance from you lately, so I doubt you caught anything contagious.” She quietly went about loosening his boot cast.
Well, fuck. He didn’t like how true her statement was. With all the uncertainty around Amanda Waller’s many side projects, most of the workers at Belle Reve were keeping their heads down. They were doing the bare minimum in the hopes that by next month, they still had a job. And almost everyone was avoiding John Economos. There was no consensus on what they should do about Amanda Waller. But it seemed like they all agreed on one thing—anyone attached to Project Butterfly was like kryptonite. Stay the fuck away.
Not that it was much different than his life before. John Economos was used to being alone. He had championed the bachelor lifestyle after decades of singleness. He didn’t make a lot of close friends because he just didn’t have the time. And he had yet to meet anyone at A.R.G.U.S. or Belle Reve that he got along with well enough to want to “hang out” outside of work.
But after Project Butterfly, he had gotten just a tiny taste of what it was like to have real friends. And then, it was taken away from him just as quickly. Honestly, he was used to being lonely. But it felt so much worse now.
“This looks a little swollen. The stitched-up parts healed up nicely, though.” Lou was poking and prodding at his bandaged leg.
She narrowed her eyes in concentration. He saw the glasses in her jacket pocket. She had probably forgotten to put them on, but he wasn’t about to interrupt her. Not when he was having to hold his breath—not due to any lingering pain, but because the feeling of her fingers on his skin was almost too much. The most painful thing about this was just how touch-starved he was.
She startled him by reaching for his arm and pushing up his sleeve. She was checking his pulse again, perhaps to see if it had calmed down any since she started. There was no hope of that. Not with the way her hand was almost cradling his own. He felt the way his pulse kicked up when she turned his hand over to reposition her index and middle finger against his wrist.
Jesus H. Christ. He was pathetic.
Lou shook her head. A few strands of her dark brown hair fell in her face, and she blew them away with an irritated puff of air. He noticed that her hair tie was knotted and re-tied a few times. The elastic had clearly given up the ghost ages ago. He didn’t know why, but it didn’t seem to match her seemingly put-together outfit and crisp, white doctor’s coat.
“I’m going to go ahead and write you a prescription for some heavy duty ibuprofen. If it doesn’t help with the fever or swelling, then we’ll have to do some exploratory surgery.”
Well, he would rather die.
She turned and fixed him with that piercing gaze again. She saw beads of sweat falling down the sides of his face. “But just take your meds like I tell you, and we shouldn’t have to do that.”
He watched as she quickly and expertly tightened up his cast again. He managed a muttered word of thanks. “I can’t promise to be a model patient…but I’ll do my best.”
She actually laughed at that. “Right.” Lou hesitated. She stood and took a step towards the door and then paused again. “So, I’ll see you in a week?”
They were both quiet long enough for John to see the way she picked at a hangnail on one finger. She wasn’t holding his gaze, either. For all of her confidence earlier, she seemed…nervous. It was a strange dichotomy. And as someone who dealt with crippling anxiety every day of his life, he related to it.
She looked like she wanted to say something else. But her pocket buzzed (her phone, he guessed), and her expression hardened. “Sorry if I was rude. It’s been a shitty day. Okay, bye.” With that abrupt explanation, she was gone.
John stared at his closed door. It began as an ambush. And just when he was starting to let himself enjoy her company, she was gone.
Only, he jumped when the door opened again. It was Lou, looking a little sheepish. “Hanoi Rocks is severely underrated. Okay, bye. Again.”
John was left sitting there wondering if he had dreamed the entire interaction. From her take-charge attitude to the sudden reference to his favorite band in the entire multi-verse, well…it didn’t seem real.
A few days later (less than a week, not that he had been counting the days), he was fighting with one of the vending machines in the staff room. It was a glorified cave with only 2 working bulbs in the overhead fluorescent lighting. Amanda Waller could spout things like needing “workers who took care of themselves,” but the company clearly didn’t prioritize the mental health of its employees.
He was having trouble getting the thing to accept his wrinkled dollar bills and getting more annoyed by the second. Finally, with a pack of M&Ms held between his front teeth, he started hobbling back to his office on his crutches—only to bump into someone in the doorway.
She caught the candy before it hit the floor and then gazed at him with mismatched eyes.
“Sorry, Doctor…Lou?” He faltered. He was flustered, having just collided with her. It was a good thing she was above average in height, because she probably would be flat on her ass right now. And he also didn’t know if Lou was her first or last name.
“Don’t call me Doctor Lou. Sounds like…Doctor Who. Or Doctor Wu. And since I’m not a time lord or a geneticist, I prefer Lou.”
He was quiet for a solid 5 seconds just trying to process that she had referenced two separate fandoms that he enjoyed. Well, if the two of them were going to be friends (it was a long shot, but he was hopeful) he had to know two things. “Alright. Favorite Doctor regeneration and best Jurassic Park movie.”
She arched a dark eyebrow at him. “Is this a test?”
His pulse kicked up a notch higher than it already was. He didn’t know her well enough to figure out if she was pleased or annoyed. Playful banter wasn’t his strong suit (he usually resorted to straight up arguing). So, he decided to be brave and shrug his shoulders. “In a way.”
Lou narrowed her eyes in concentration. “Alright. Tom Baker is the best doctor, in my opinion. And…I’m just going to say it. I really liked The Lost World. Was it a classic? No. But I really wished they had spent more of the movie in the city. That final act was exciting. Just don’t ask me about the newer movies, those Jurassic World ones, because I haven’t seen any of them.”
He couldn’t help smiling. “Solid choice, on both counts.” He paused. “You really haven't seen any of the new ones?”
“Nope. I’m painfully uninformed on anything that came out in the last 5 or 10 years.” She gave him a hesitant smile. “So, did I pass?”
He actually laughed at that. It was a deep belly laugh that was a surprise to himself. He recovered (ignoring the glances being thrown at the pair as they made their way down the hall), and said, “Well, Tom Baker is my favorite. So I’ll give you that one.”
She hummed. “Yeah. There’s just something about a tall man with wild hair. You know?”
Now, hold on a damn second. Was she actually…flirting with him? He didn’t have a chance to study her expression since she had moved in front of him. He wasn’t the most observant person in the world, but he saw that she was wearing her hair down. She fiddled with it several times and seemed annoyed that it kept falling in her face. And she was wearing the same outfit as last time beneath her white doctor’s coat—a dark blue button-up shirt tucked into ill-fitting black slacks.
He fought the urge to invite her into his office, but his coworkers were studying the pair with open curiosity (he hadn’t bothered to learn their names since they rarely talked to him). Instead, he just told her that he’d stop by the infirmary in a few days, on the agreed-upon date.
“Why wait?” She said, shrugging her broad shoulders. “I can check you out now.”
One of John’s coworkers snorted into her coffee.
He felt it wise to move this conversation behind closed doors to avoid adding more fuel to the water-cooler-gossip. Except, he almost tripped over something when he stepped into his office.
“I ordered that for you,” she explained.
He stared down at the single crutch leaning up against the wall.
She walked forward and picked up the item. “It’s adjustable,” she explained, her eyes bright with what he assumed was excitement, possibly amusement. “I’m sick of watching you hobble around all hunched over like Quasimodo on these.” Without asking, she took the crutches out of his limp grasp. “You’re too tall for traditional ones, anyway.”
He was flustered, to say the least. They just stood there looking at each other. He didn’t know what to say. She looked like she was waiting for something.
Just then, his phone started buzzing in his pocket. He saw who it was and huffed out a sigh. It was Vigilante. Still, he found himself accepting the call. “Economos.” He hobbled over to his chair and sank down into it.
“Dude! Ask me a question about scorpions. Ask me anything.” It was Vigilante. He had the best (or worst) timing, depending on whether John was eager to put an end to this spontaneous, one-on-one meeting with Lou.
He glanced back at her and saw the amusement plain as day on her face. John mouthed a silent apology to Lou, but she just shrugged and walked over to perch on the edge of his desk again.
Oh, so she was still going through with the exam. She grabbed his free hand to put the wireless heart monitor on without asking for permission.
“I’m not going to quiz you on scorpions right now, dude. I’m busy.” His eyes followed Lou’s hands as she once again pressed her fingers to the pulse point on his wrist.
“You asked me questions about ants the other day. Besides, you wouldn’t have answered if you were really busy. And also, I know everything there is to know about bugs. Everything!”
“Scorpions aren’t bugs,” Lou blurted out. She seemed surprised by her own outburst.
“Who was that?” Vij asked.
John stuttered. “Uh—she’s—” Could his former teammate be chill for just 5 seconds?
“Scorpions are totally bugs!” Vij insisted loudly. “They have a hard exoskeleton. You know what, put this chick on the phone.”
“You can’t call women ‘chicks’ anymore, dude. It’s rude and outdated.”
But Lou was already reaching for the phone. “Hi,” she said in a clinical tone. “Scorpions are actually arachnids. They are related to spiders.”
But Vij was not one to be easily defeated in a battle of wits (mostly because he didn’t have any). “What about their exoskeletons?”
“They have those, but they don’t have the right number of legs or body sections to be considered bugs.”
“Oh, yeah? And who are you, the bug expert?”
“I’m a doctor.”
“A bug doctor?”
“No, a human doctor.” Lou gave John a wry smile. He just shook his head in response with a hopeless gesture.
“Does that mean you are a doctor who works on humans or a doctor who is a human?”
Lou’s face paled, which was the opposite response John expected. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, Belle Reve is home to a ton of meta-humans, aliens, and alien-like creatures. Who’s to say you’re actually a human doctor?”
Lou frowned and held the phone away from her head. “Who is this asshole?”
John took the phone. “I have to go, Adrian.”
“Dude—don’t reveal my alter-ego.”
He rolled his eyes. “Bye, Vigilante. I’m in the middle of an appointment.”
“Why’d you answer the phone, then?”
“I guess I should get my head examined next.” With that, he hung up.
“Why did you answer the phone?” Lou asked. She didn’t look as pale as she had, but she wasn’t exactly meeting his gaze.
John realized there was a subtext to that question. If he didn’t want to talk to Vij, he could choose to ignore him. But part of him…didn’t want to. Part of him still hoped that someone besides crazy Adrian would actually talk in a meaningful way in their group chat. As it was, the thing was basically defunct. Except for Vij’s misuse of emojis.
He realized he hadn’t answered. “If I don’t, he’ll just keep calling.”
Lou hummed. She met his gaze briefly. He knew she didn’t buy it. Instead, she took a deep breath and asked him to put his leg up on the desk. After poking around on the bare skin above his cast, she said, “I was thinking we would start with a round of shots and then move onto a more intensive medical protocol.” She glanced up with amusement in her eyes, but it faded the moment she saw his expression. “Jesus, John. I’m kidding.”
“Right,” he said, but his laugh was a little shaky.
She leaned down and gripped his wrist. He had a moment of panic like she was trying to comfort him—until he realized she was checking his pulse again. He had gone as white as a sheet, so she was probably making sure he wasn’t going to pass out.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
He blinked at her, noting the way she kept her gaze averted. She was counting his pulse the old-fashioned way, staring at the second hand on her analog wristwatch.
Maybe it was the combination of his embarrassment and the way her fingers pressed into his skin. But he immediately went on the defensive. “Do I want to unpack years of medical trauma with a complete stranger? Not really.” His tone was harsh. He was pushing her away again, and he knew it.
She dropped his arm and leaned back on John’s desk. Her hip was pressed against his leg, which was still propped up on the desk. He did his best to ignore the fact that she was almost standing between his legs. It was not the time or place. Nor was she doing this on purpose. She was a doctor after all.
The whiplash of his emotions left him feeling dizzy.
“Okay,” she said in a decisive tone. “So, let’s get a drink after your appointment on Friday.”
His dark blue eyes widened in complete shock. “You want to see me again in 2 days? And get a drink at 10 in the morning?”
She shrugged, answering both of his questions with: “Why not?” With that, she stood up and walked to the door. Her expression turned pensive. “Thanks for being a better patient today.”
He quite literally didn’t know what to say. Especially when she lifted the packet of M&Ms and ripped into them with a gleeful grin. As she turned to leave, her hair fell across her opposite shoulder. He wasn’t certain, but he thought he saw mottled red and purple marks along the base of her neck.
She had stolen his candy. And before he realized it, Lou suddenly occupied a whole different section of his brain that wasn’t dedicated to his many nerdy interests or overbearing work obligations. He felt a little less lonely.