.5 To Have and To Code (21 page)

 “Want some actual competition there, old man?”

Daniel hurled a brutal backhand pass at the taunting voice behind him—and grinned as he heard Skate’s breath whoosh out.  “Who you calling ‘old man’?”

The dribble came in hard on his left.  Skate was in fine form for 7 a.m.  Daniel feinted and pivoted into the paint, taking a swipe at the ball as he went.  Missed.  Damn.

“Any guy who plays by himself must be losing his touch.”  Skate grunted as an elbow landed in his ribs.  “Or maybe you’re seeing little blue Smurfs out here—I hear they’re recruiting.”

“Smurfs?”  This time his swipe at the ball didn’t miss.  His really nice dunk shot did, however.  Daniel growled and headed after the ball.  “What are you, five?”

Skate fielded a mean second pass with more finesse.  “Wanna talk about it?”

Hell, no.  He’d done plenty of that with Pedro.  “Freaking rules changed on me, that’s all.”

“Poor baby.”  A hot three-pointer swooshed, all net.

Daniel snagged it on the bounce and headed downcourt.  Twenty-one points—and he planned to work as hard as possible for every one.

Skate positioned himself between ball and basket and raised an eyebrow.  “Since when do you pay any attention to the rules?”

“Not those kinds of rules.”  A feint left plowed him straight into tattooed chest.  Damn.  Daniel backpedaled, looking for an opening.  “I just thought I knew how something worked.”  Like the whole freaking universe.  “Turns out it’s totally different than I thought.”

“So?”  Skate’s eyes held zero sympathy.  “You have skills.  Deal with it.  Make new rules.  Find a new playground.”  The last two pieces of pithy advice came between grunts as they tangled under the basket.  “Don’t come sulk here on my court.  You have it good, dude, and you know it.”

Compared with most of Skate’s parolees, his life was full of unicorns and pink balloons.  Daniel swiveled and put a hard shot up on the boards.  Sometimes, there was nothing quite as comforting as a friend who had no pity.  “I like her.”

“Ah.”  Fast hands snagged the rebound.  “Women don’t come with any rules.  They’ll bang you up worse than basketball in the hood.”

That wasn’t exactly comforting.  “She isn’t who I thought she was.”

Skate snorted in amusement and ducked under Daniel’s left arm.  “Neither were you, pretty boy.”  He pivoted, aiming for the rim.  “I figured you for a spoiled white kid looking to prove your manhood with some tough guys.”

There had probably been a little of that going on.  “Changed your mind?”

“Well, you’re still pale.”  His friend grinned and stuffed a pass into his ribs.  “Your shot, pretty boy.”

Daniel looked at Skate’s white skin and shook his head.  He’d given up trying to understand that conundrum a long time ago.  He attempted a second feint to the basket and got a hard elbow in the ribs for his efforts.

“Smart guys don’t try the same thing twice.”  Skate snorted, and then cursed as a graceful three-pointer arced over his head.  “Dammit, man—how do you hit from that far away?”

Good aim and luck.  Tools responsible for most of the success in his life.  And also most of the bruises.  Daniel chased after the rolling ball and grinned.

Basketball psychology always made more sense to him than the real kind.

He’d just have to get back on the court with Nell Sullivan, geek witch and woman who had hacked her way into some places deep inside him, and see what kind of teammate she really was.  And he knew just the way to do it.

Daniel put one up on the rim and grinned.  He was going to borrow Becky’s secret weapons.  The universe was truly weird.

-o0o-

If the guy had to have an emergency, he could at least do it closer to home.  Nell pedaled up the last few feet of the steep hill leading to the house where Daniel was evidently being held captive by small, giggling aliens and parked her bike, gasping for air.

Apparently spending most of your day typing wasn’t actually aerobic activity. 

She headed up the front walkway, ignoring the loud voice in her head insisting that she shouldn’t have come at all.  Let Daniel Walker deal with his own emergencies.

But he’d been sweet.  And said please.  And put his alien abductors on the phone to plead his case.  How could you resist a line like “If you don’t come, we might glue his eyelids shut on accident?”

The door opened—and Nell found herself face-to-face with pink glitter.  Lots and lots of pink glitter, attached to some poor victim of a man.  Her laughter rolled out all by itself.  “I think I have the wrong house.”

A strong hand pulled her inside.  “Save me.”  Eyes that resembled Daniel’s entreated her.  “You’re a girl.  You know all about glitter, right?”

“Nope.  I have six brothers.”  She snickered, spying the source of the chaos.  Carlie and Maddie, ensconced at the table, surrounded by art-supply madness.  “None of that stuff ever got across our threshold.”  And if it had, her brothers would have probably turned it into nuclear weapons.

“Come make something!”  Carlie held up a hand that looked like
Nightmare on Elm Street
meets
The Care Bears
.  “You can have the purple glitter.  We only like the pink stuff.”

“Who knew,” muttered Daniel dryly.

Man totally out of his element.  Nell grinned.  The Sullivan household had been glitter free, but most witches liked sparkles.  She wasn’t entirely without experience.  “It’s easier to clean up if you get the stuff without the glue.”  Easier if you were an air witch, at least.

“Uh, huh.”  Daniel looked thoroughly unconvinced.  And totally adorable.

Self-preservation had Nell moving toward the table.  Adorable and trustworthy were two very different things.  “What are you making?”

“A spaceship.”  Maddie pointed at something that could have been all manner of alien life forms.  “Daniel wants to make little green men, but he didn’t bring any green glitter, so we’re imper… imper…”

“Improvising.”  Fast hands caught what used to be a paper-towel roll before it tumbled off the table.

Nell hoped he’d kept the paper towels.  “Do you have any play dough?”

“Nuh, uh.”  Carlie looked mournful.

It was the eyes.  Nell had never been able to resist cute kids in any form.  “Do you have some flour and salt?” 

“We do, we do!”  The twins started doing a crazy dance on invisible pogo sticks.

It occurred to Nell, rather belatedly, that she had no idea whose home she was in.  She glanced sideways at Daniel.  “Are we going to be in trouble if we make a mess in the kitchen?”

He looked around the dining room, tongue firmly in cheek.  “I’m pretty sure whatever you do in there can’t rival this.”

She looked around the room.  On the witch scale of catastrophe, it was only a minor disaster.  “No point cleaning up until we’re done making a mess.  Any idea where the owners hide the cream of tartar?”

He looked horrified, which was a pretty funny look with pink-glitter eyebrows.  “The what?”

Nell sighed.  “Never mind, we’ll make it the old-fashioned way.”  Flour, salt, and a little magic.  Might as well see how a certain guy did with chance number two.

-o0o-

Daniel stood in a corner of the kitchen, tried to pick pink glue off his face, and wondered exactly how his plan had gone off the rails in sixty seconds flat.

They’d tried her turf.  And they’d tried his.  Both were fraught with issues, and he’d had a terrible need to see her again.  They were two computer geeks with no kids.  Supervising two small girls and a shopping bag full of glitter should have reduced them both to terror—the real-world kind.  Common ground.  A chance to try again.

Instead, Nell and the girls had bonded over their X chromosomes and were now stirring mysterious things on the stove while discussing play dough color schemes.

Double, double, toil and trouble.  Maybe Shakespeare hadn’t been so far off.

He thought witches were old, evil hags,
said a dry voice in his head. 
I’d say that was fairly off target.

Daniel felt his brain freeze.  She was in his head again.

Yup.  I can make fun of you out loud, if you like.

He was pretty sure that wasn’t a whole lot better, but her nonchalant tone was helping him find his feet.  “I thought you only read minds when you have permission.”

Carlie looked up at Nell and grinned.  “You can see what we’re thinking?  Mama can do that.  She’s totally smart.”

“Nuh, uh.”  Maddie leaned over to peer at the contents of the pot on the stove.  “She didn’t know it was really you who colored on the wall with Auntie Chloe’s best marker.”

Nell shot him an amused look and poked at whatever concoction was in the pot.  “Good news—we almost have play dough.”

“Is it hot?” asked Carlie, fascinated.

“A little.”  Nell poked it again.  “But we’ll take it out of the pot in a minute, and then we can make it different colors.”

Daniel moved in quickly—two girls dancing a jig on one kitchen chair seemed fraught with possible disaster.  “Come on, you two.  Let’s go sit at the table and wait.” 

Maddie wiggled around his shoulder until she could see Nell.  “How are we gonna make it different colors?”

“Do you have some food coloring?”

Maddie’s face fell.  “No.  We used it all making the water in the toilet purple on accident.”

Daniel snickered.  “That doesn’t sound like an accident.”

“It was.”  Carlie stoutly defended her sister.  “We were trying to make it orange, but I think we mixed it up wrong.”

Apparently three-year-olds didn’t have a strong grasp of color theory.  Daniel was glad he wasn’t a parent and duty bound to be unamused by such antics.

Try telling that to my mother,
sent Nell, lifting a big blob out of the pot and heading to the table. 
She always says that being a mom is like living on a comedy stage.

Okay, it was still seriously weird to have her voice in his head.  Daniel pulled out chairs, working his way through the experience.  But it was also… fun.  An interesting kind of intimacy.  One that might add a whole layer of cool to certain other “intimate” experiences. 

He saw her cheeks go pink.  And realized how easily she was following his thoughts.  Damn.  He jammed down into a seat at the table and tried desperately to think of turnips.

She glanced his way, apology written all over her face. 
Sorry.  I’m used to hanging out with my family.  My mom and my brother both mindread, so we’re used to hearing each other’s thoughts.  I got sloppy, and I’m sorry.  I’ll back off.

He tried not to squirm.  And aimed his next thought in the general direction of her head. 
It just seems kind of lopsided.

You don’t have to yell—I can hear you just fine. 
She threw a half smile his direction and broke off bits of the play-dough blob for the girls. 
What do you mean by “lopsided”?

He tried not to yell this time. 
You can read me, but I can’t see what’s in your head.

She blinked.  And then eyed him carefully. 
It doesn’t have to be that way.

It wasn’t a dare—something gentler and more nervous than that.  He watched the shifting colors in her eyes and nodded his head slowly.

He felt a touch on his mind.  A soft knocking, asking permission.  Then a strange, twisting click, like something had just clipped into his brain.

And then he felt her.  A strong and easy core.  Threads of humor.  Little-girl fascination with the squishy dough in her hands.  And nerves.

The nerves vanished, her fingers suddenly clenched around the play dough. 
You listen well.

He reached out for her hand, needing to touch. 
Don’t.
 Whatever she’d just disappeared, he wanted it back.  The layers.

The truth.

He felt the mental shutters open again, light streaming in.  The nerves were bigger now.  And something else tickling underneath.  Fascinated, he watched the feel of Nell take shape in his mind.  And marveled at the gift she carried in her head even as he shifted, disconcerted by the close rapport.

It was like being naked.

Laughter sparked down their mental connection.  And he suddenly saw his surroundings through her eyes.  An unholy mess.  Glitter everywhere.  And bright, fascinated little faces watching the invisible byplay between the two of them.

Oh, hell.  He’d entirely forgotten about their chaperones.

Maddie held up an amoeboid handful of beige.  “I made an alien.”  Her sister held up a glob that looked oddly similar.

He tried to process play-dough life forms with the stream of Nell’s thoughts still soaking his head.

Sorry.  I can tone down the volume a bit.

Daniel blinked and tried to find his balance as her presence muted.  And felt a bit like a flower seeking a sunbeam he’d just barely discovered.

Giving up on him as an audience, the twins turned to Nell in unison, holding up their aliens for her approval.  She did a much better job than he did, making all the right noises and even correctly identifying the odd bump on Carlie’s creation.

There were camels in space.  Who knew.

“I guess we can’t make it pretty colors now, huh?”  Maddie eyed her beige lump wistfully.

Nell shot him a glance.  “Sure we can.”

Carlie’s eyes squinted suspiciously.  “How?”

“Magic.”  The connection in his mind shuttered again as Nell winked at the girls.  “But I’ll need your help.  I need you to close your eyes and imagine the colors you want them to be.”

Two sets of eyes flew shut.

Nell smiled at them, waved a finger, and turned two play-dough camel aliens glittery, screaming pink.

He was man enough to be embarrassed by the quiet hiss of breath that sneaked out of his ribs. 

She watched him—steady, cool, and distant—as two squealing girls danced at her sides.

It was a moment he recognized.  Ninth inning, bases loaded, batter at full count.  Get it right—or go home.

They didn’t put MVP on your locker for wimping out in those moments.

He picked up a hunk of play dough and held it out.  “I’ll take mine fire-engine red, please.”