The waitress set down their coffees, and Bridget took advantage of the pause to gather her thoughts. Even though they ate lunch together every day, Ajay still kept the same distance from her. Close enough to feel his warmth and far enough away that they weren’t actually touching.

“No—he’s just a friend, that’s all.” And she might have to accept that. “I’ve been reading Swords and Shadows to him at lunch. I’ve already finished King of Swords, and I just started Darkest Heart.”

Her dad’s expression morphed again. Bridget wasn’t sure what it was exactly. It couldn’t be disappointment, could it? “That sounds like the Bridget I know.”

“Ajay brings his lunch in these cloth bags saturated with beeswax. If you warm them up with your hands, you can fold them.”

His mouth twisted. “I’ve heard about those. But you can buy dozens of plastic bags for the price of just one of those beeswax bags. Maybe even thousands of plastic bags.”

“That might be the point, Dad. Maybe people don’t want to buy, use, and throw away thousands of plastic bags anymore.”

He scrubbed his face with his hands. “Please, Bridget. I don’t want to argue.”

But they weren’t arguing. Were they?

BOB

All That Crazy Stuff

The boy was finally, finally asleep in his room at the far end of the hall. Moving quietly so his shackles wouldn’t jangle, Bob pulled the quilt off the bed and stuffed it into the crack under the door. With his foot tethered to the treadmill desk, he had to lean over and bear crawl to be able to finish snugging it into place.

Was it his imagination, or was there a little less gut getting in the way? His clothes seemed looser, but that could also be chalked up to the fact that he’d been wearing them for nearly two weeks. He’d only been allowed three showers since Derrick kidnapped him. The soles of his socks were beginning to wear through.

The first chapter he’d written for Derrick had been startling and fun. Bob had tried to keep the momentum going. Derrick’s version of Eyes of the Forest was letting Bob release every wild thought, to vomit it all out on the page, great splashes of purple prose, padded to the point of absurdity. In the most recent section Bob had written today, he had given Rowan a lover, albeit one bought and paid for:

A crystalline sparkle in her eyes, the flame-haired slender harlot let a smile steal across her face as she regarded her rugged paramour, now fast asleep. She knew not his name, and she guessed the coin he had paid her with had been stolen. Yet something about him inspired her to ponder leaving behind this house of ill repute and throwing her lot in with his.