51
Marshmallows and a T-shirt
Sketch was asleep on the couch when the sound of the suite door opening caught his attention, at least for a moment. He opened his eyes groggily, but it was only Rush coming back from wherever he’d been. He rolled over, turning his face away from the light of the hallway, ready to doze off again, before his sleep-addled brain finally managed to process what he had just seen.
Rush!
Sketch flipped back over and opened his eyes wide. It wasn’t a dream. Rush was back, standing right there next to the couch, grinning down at him like he had never left.
“Rush!” Sketch exclaimed, throwing his blanket on the floor and scrambling off the couch to hug his friend.
“Shh,” Rush said, chuckling and hugging him back. “Don’t wake Daniel up. I’ll see him in the morning.”
“So you’re staying?”
“Yep,” Rush confirmed.
“For good?” Sketch asked, eyeing him suspiciously.
“For good.”
“What about your competition? You leaving for that?”
“I don’t think so, buddy. I don’t think they’ll let me, but it doesn’t matter now.”
“Why not?”
“Let’s just say you were right. Some things are more important.”
“Like friends,” Sketch said, sounding more than a little accusatory.
“Like friends,” Rush agreed, chuckling quietly. “But listen, it’s late. You should get some sleep. We’re both going to need our rest for tomorrow.”
“Yeah,” Sketch agreed, frowning. “We’re gonna have to summon something bad tomorrow.”
“Something bad?”
“Yeah, like the imp, only worse. Maybe like the thing from the plane.”
“You saw that?” Rush asked.
“Grid made us all watch the news,” Sketch said. “You saw it, too?”
“Yeah. Sketch, I’m so sorry, man. I didn’t know what was on the line, you know? I never would have left if they had told me. I swear.”
“I know,” Sketch said.
“But what’s this about tomorrow? What imp? What do you mean they want us to summon something bad?”
“So they can shoot it,” Sketch said.
Rush paused for a long moment, letting that sink in.
“You know what?” he said finally. “Maybe we should wake Daniel up after all. It sounds like I have a lot to catch up on.”
• • •
“Rush! Wait, are you back? Like, back back? What’s going on? What time is it anyway?”
Rush and Sketch stood in the doorway of Daniel’s bedroom, watching him stretch in bed and rub the sleep out of his eyes. They had decided to wake him up by liberating a bag of marshmallows from the pantry and taking turns tossing them at his sleeping body, which seemed like the perfect way to celebrate the occasion.
“He’s back,” Sketch confirmed, popping a marshmallow happily into his mouth now that they didn’t need it for ammunition.
“It’s 2:15 in the morning,” Rush added, answering his last question.
“Well, that explains a lot,” Daniel admitted. “Oh, hey! Do the girls know?”
“Nope,” Rush said. “I just got in, but it sounds like a lot’s been going on around here.”
“Oh, man, you have no idea,” Daniel said, rolling out of bed and throwing a pair of jeans on over his boxers. “We better get them.”
“Suit yourself,” Rush said, tossing another marshmallow at him just for fun. “I slept on the plane. And again on the bus. If you guys want to be zombies tomorrow, that’s your problem.”
“Are you kidding?” Daniel said. “Gears would kill me if I didn’t get her. I’ll be right back.”
“OK,” Rush said, holding the marshmallow bag in front of Sketch so he could grab another one and toss it at Daniel’s back as he left.
While Daniel was gone, Rush started to unpack his gaming console, only to discover a new one sitting in the spot where his had been set up before.
“What’s this?” he asked Sketch.
“It’s from downstairs. It’s the one you played on,” Sketch explained. “Daniel got it and hooked it up for me after you left, but I never used it. I didn’t really want to.”
There was an echo in Sketch’s eyes of the pain he had gone through when Rush left, and Rush felt fresh pangs of guilt all over again. He was glad to know, at least, that Daniel really had been looking out for the kid, like he had promised.
“Well, that’s gonna be one of the first things we fix,” Rush declared. “That one’s going back downstairs, and mine’s going right there. OK?”
“OK,” Sketch agreed happily.
Just then, the girls walked through the suite door, and Kaitlyn screamed. It was a subdued, middle of the night sort of scream, to be sure, but a scream nonetheless. She ran right up to Rush and hugged him, grinning from ear to ear.
“Are you back?” she asked excitedly. “Like, back back?”
“Yup,” Rush declared. “And apparently, I got here just in time. You and Daniel have been spending way too much time together.”
Daniel blushed, but Kaitlyn only laughed.
“Good to have you back,” Mackenzie said. She didn’t hug him, but she did look genuinely glad to see him, and that was enough.
Sam was the one he had been the most worried about, given how they had left things. He had known Sketch would forgive him, but he wasn’t so sure about the sarcastic Jersey girl with the blue-streaked hair and the anime eyes. He turned to her now, and his worst fears seemed to be playing out. She stood in the doorway with her hands planted firmly on her hips and a scowl on her face.
“Where’s my T-shirt?” she demanded.
“I… what?” he stammered.
“When you leave on vacation, you’re supposed to bring back a T-shirt for everyone who didn’t get to go. It’s like a consolation prize. You know, ‘Sorry you guys had to stay here and summon nasty little imps to try to save the world while I was home sitting on my ass and eating tacos for a week and a half, but here’s a T-shirt to make it up to you.’”
“Oh,” Rush said, trying not to smile. “That T-shirt.”
“Yeah, that T-shirt,” Sam repeated. “If these scrubs don’t want to demand their T-shirt, that’s on them. Me? I want my T-shirt.”
“Um…” Rush said, stalling, but Sam just held out her hand, one eyebrow raised, both eyes twinkling, clearly waiting for him to do something about it.
“Right!” Rush declared. “I almost forgot. Your T-shirt. Of course. I packed it in this bag here. Hang on.”
Sam continued to stand with her arm outstretched, her hand grasping at the empty air, until he selected a T-shirt from his duffel bag and handed it over.
“Thank you,” she said, slinging it jauntily over one shoulder and closing the gap between them. She stood on her tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek. “I forgive you for leaving.” She sat down on one end of the couch, holding out her prize to examine it.
“Well?” she prompted, looking around at everyone’s grinning faces. “Are we going to bring this guy up to speed, or what? We have a world to save, people.”
“I want a T-shirt,” Sketch said hopefully, looking up at Rush.
“Oh you do, do you?” Rush replied, and without any warning he flopped down on the other end of the couch, dragging Sketch with him into the middle seat and rubbing his knuckles quickly but gently back and forth across the boy’s head.
Laughing, Mackenzie, Daniel, and Kaitlyn dragged the coffee table back where they could sit on it, and Mackenzie launched into the story, starting with everything Ammu had told them the morning Rush had left.