I believed Ralston was telling the truth about the consequences if I didn’t find a replacement—he wasn’t just blowing steam. If I disrupted the flow, I’d get my ass kicked, or worse, from people even sleazier than Ralston—who, by the way, is not the “nice guy” he thinks he is.

It was just past nine when I locked up. Then, as I headed for my car, I heard the sound of polyurethane wheels on pavement, and turned to see none other than the twin skaters heading my way. Being as dense as I can sometimes be, I didn’t think anything of it. It’s not that big of a town. You always run into the same people.

“Hey, Ash!” one of them said brightly, like we were old friends. He hopped off his board and kicked it under his arm in a single smooth motion, and the other did the same.

“Hey,” I said half-heartedly. I didn’t know their names, nor, at the time, did I care to.

“Aw, you’re closed,” said the second twin. “We were hoping to get some glucosamine. Good for the knees, y’know?”

I looked back to the store. The register was shut down, and our useless point-of-sale software would take ten minutes to reload if I turned it on. I did not feel like extending this day by a single second.

“Sorry, guys. Can’t reopen once everything’s shut down.”

“No worries, we’ll come back.”

And yet they didn’t skate off, they just lingered. Watching me.

“You need a ride again?” I asked.

“Naah, we’re good,” one of them said. “How’s your headache?”

That caught me by surprise. “How do you know I have a headache?”

He shrugged. “You took a pretty bad hit in the game on Friday, right?”

“Yeah, you told us about how your head hurt when you drove us home,” said the other.

“I did?”

“Sure. How else would we know?”

With two sets of memories fighting for higher ground in my head, it was totally possible that I forgot, so I accepted their explanation. Still, I didn’t want to talk about it with a couple of losers, so even though my head still felt funny, I just said, “It’s okay now.”

“Really? Okay?”

Now they were just being annoying. “Why do you even care? And how do you even know me? I never told you my name.”

“We’re football fans,” one of them said with a smile. “We know the names of all the players on the Tsunamis.”

“Right. Well, I gotta go.”