Chapter Twenty-Three -- The First Confrontation
"So, last night," Kane was the first to start when he went down for breakfast.
Breakfast was one way of naming what he was going to get, mainly because Jonathan, bless his heart, had thought of him and put aside some leftovers. Rusty plopped down on a chair and brought the plate closer. Scrambled eggs were good even cold; Jonathan had left a note, recommending that he heat them up a little, but he couldn't be bothered with that.
He pointed his fork at his housemate. "What do you want to say? Come on, hurry up, I have things to see, people to do."
"Ah," Kane said and raised an eyebrow. "I thought you did Matthew Han all night long."
"Curious?" Rusty asked. "You see, Kane, that story with the bees and the flowers, well, sometimes the bees are by themselves, and they start eyeing their bros, like, you know, damn, look at the fine booty on that bro."
"Are we talking about worker bees or drones here?" Kane, always the smartass, asked.
"Did you just call me a drone?"
Kane rolled his eyes. "But the place is full of flowers," he gestured around. "Why this particular... bee?"
Rusty shrugged. "I'm going to tell Louise if you don't stop with this line of questioning."
"I bet she'd be just as interested in your sudden change from being a flower hopper to one bee's man."
"It's not anything like that," Rusty hurried to deny. "I'm still the same flower hopper. It's just that it's a lot more convenient to have a buttfucking friend right now."
"Buttfucking friend," Kane repeated slowly. "And why is it convenient now of all times?"
Well, that was a hard question. However, Rusty was famous for being perfectly capable of thinking on his feet, so he grabbed his phone and pushed it across the table toward Kane. His friend took it and stared at the screen. "Why are you even reading Xpress?"
"Because," Rusty said with a shrug. "It's cheap entertainment. Free, as it's pointed out in the text. As you can tell, this new sheriff they're talking about is after my ass, and not in any fun way. Obviously, I have to lay low, or I might get burned at the stake. Or, you know, become part of some Mexican standoff." To get his point across, he began to hum a random western theme.
Kane looked at him and narrowed his eyes. "Since when are you afraid of Connor Williams? And what's this story all about?"
Rusty waved. When Matty had tried to explain it to him, he had just brushed it off. Even now, he was none the wiser. "He's in charge of some vigilante group or whatever. They're called the Funbusters."
"Really? The Funbusters?" Kane threw him a doubtful look.
"Not very inspired, right?"
Kane gave him back his phone and began fiddling with his. "What the fuck?" he said out loud. When Rusty waved impatiently with his fork, he continued, "You have to see it to believe it."
It was Rusty's turn to stare at Kane's phone screen. "Well," he said, adopting a philosophical stance on the matter, "if you put 'the' in front, it's clear what they believe themselves to be. But whatever, I'm not in the mood to fight. I don't give a fuck about this new T-man--"
"T-man?" Kane asked.
"Yeah, from--"
"I get it," Kane said quickly and shook his head. "But why don't you want to put this clown in his place?"
"Because, obviously, that's what Xpress wants. And I don't care about doing what other people want me to do. Especially if they're strangers. If Connor Williams wants to become the king, whatever."
"He's more likely to become the leader of a so-called revolution," Kane said.
"And, as we learn from history, revolutionary leaders have a tendency to put their weathered buttocks on the same seat they pushed the other guy down from."
Kane seemed to consider his words for a moment. "I guess you're right. So, you're not bothered by this in the least?"
"Why would I be? Unlike Connor Williams, I don't hate my life enough to want to change it." He got up and took the plate to the sink where he washed it, dried it and put it back in its place. "What?" he asked, when Kane continued to stare at him. "It's the deal I have with Jonathan. He leaves me food, I do the dishes."
"It's good to know you can be house-trained, after all. Anyway, as long as this new wannabe doesn't bother you, I won't care, either. But are you really sure it's because of Connor Williams that you're willing to fool around with your tutor instead of some random girls?"
"No, obviously not. But the point is, Matty's not random. I know him. We have fun. Case closed."
He didn't, really didn't, want to go into details, mostly because they were fuzzy and flying randomly inside his head, and he couldn't be bothered to make them clearer.
***
Mock practice it was since on Sundays that was his favorite physical activity. Sure, he would have liked to keep Matty in for the entire day, but the guy had an ass to care for, and Rusty was damn certain that he was supposed to respect that or else he'd be considered a major douche.
"Have you heard about Connor Williams, man?" One of his teammates approached him as he was putting his sneakers on.
"I heard something," he admitted.
"So? What's going to be your move? You need to put that douchebag in his place."
Rusty shrugged and jumped to his feet. "No one's going to buy the cookies he's selling, so don't worry, my man. I can tell that he's using vinegar instead of sugar."
His mate looked at him nonplussed, probably trying to figure out the joke.
"Oh, shit," Rusty realized his mistake. "You can catch some flies with vinegar, too. They're these little creatures," he began to explain, "and they're called, wait for it, drosophila melanogaster." The other guy began shifting uncomfortably and scratching his head. Rusty patted him on the back. "I'll let Connor make a fool of himself. He has no power here."
"But he runs the Sunny Hill Implacable Team," his mate argued.
"My point exactly," Rusty said with satisfaction and walked out of the locker room. For real, why was everyone getting their panties in a twist over this Connor dude?
***
Matty had slept far into the afternoon, probably an effect of getting naughty with Rusty throughout the night before and only his roommate making noise managed to pull him from his slumber. He groaned and grabbed his glasses.
"It appears that you've been getting all kinds of bad habits since the beginning of the year," John said reproachfully, as if he was Matty's mom or something.
