“You could at least try to bring something to the library Christmas party. Something that doesn’t require baking.”
“It’s a cookie exchange, isn’t it?” I growl.
“Well... Partially?”
“So I should have cookies. If I did this. Which I won’t. Because I just have one of those little two-burner flats in myplace, and baking means ovens. Before you offer, no. I will not use your oven. Ever. Not after the great squash fire.”
Manny rolls his eyes. “If you’d stop living in that old crypt and get an apartment—”
“I’m a dead thing, Manny. I’m supposed to live in a crypt.”
Manny’s gray-green hand lands on my wrist. I was trained to attack at such a gesture. To rip that arm off.
But he’s just like me. Some people call us revenants. Made of scraps. I’m more of a chalky gray, or a clay gray. Maybe I was made of different kinds of scraps, or maybe the preservation techniques have gotten better since he was made.
You’re not my dad, I want to tell him.You couldn’t be.
But I don’t say that, because some empty part of me wishes he was.
“We live. We love. We work. We play. We eat.Someof us bake.” Manny smiles at me like he didn’t just see the flash of violence in my eyes. Maybe he did. The main thing is that he saw it vanish, too.
“Let’s put it another way. The sickos who made me and sent Victoria after me will try again one day. I don’t want them to have an address to trace me to. I shouldn’t even be working. Shouldn’t even be staying in one place.” When I see the genuine worry in Manny’s eyes, I quickly add, “But I will. Because this is the best place in the world for a monster to have a good life, doing good things... like fixing cars.”
“And going to the Christmas party—even if they don’t bring anything. Just go. So Victoria won’t be lonely.”
Neither of us points out that his argument is dumb. It’ll be full of people. She shouldn’t be lonely if it’s full of people, and it shouldn’t matter if I go or not.
“I’ll go,” I mutter.
“Good. You know, I think she’s sweet on you.”
“What would make you think that the woman they sent to kill melikesme?” I demand.
Manny’s chuckle is so smug, it makes me want to pop him one with a lug wrench. Not like it would hurt him. Much.
“Well, son, mainly because she hasn’t killed you. Hasn’t even tried since the first time.”
“And that’s flirting?” I scoff, but in my mind I’m wondering if... Yeah. Yeah, for a woman like Victoria, maybe that’s flirting.
And me not actively hating her guts is flirting back.
I’ll go... and I’ll figure out how to make her some damn cookies, even if I have to cook them one at a time in my frying pan.
“I don’t know what she’d even like, Manny. If I make something, I’m not doing it for the rest of these happy, shiny people. I’m doing it for her.”
“Women seem to like chocolate. Chocolate with something. Chocolate and peanut butter, chocolate and raspberry, chocolate and mint, chocolate and caramel. In my experience, chocolate with mint is the biggest gamble, and chocolate and peanut butter is the sure thing.”
“How much time with women have you clocked, old man?” I tease, and then I feel like shit, because Manny and Rhea were literally made as a set, and they were separated for over a century before finding their way together again.
“Two years of married bliss, plus a couple weeks. But I’ve also been around happy couples and in the candy aisles enough to know what’s what.”
“You’re right. Well. Uh. I’m going to figure it out. Nothing like a problem to solve to keep me out of trouble.”
“You can go to the library and check out cookbooks.”
“Yep.”
When Manny leaves, I just pull out my phone and search recipes instead. Libraries are for old people.
