Then I’m suddenly standing over him. His eyes—an icy blue that make me suck in a sharp, cold breath—go wide. At first I’m expecting him to freak out, kind of like how I did this one time I stepped out of my local bodega and found some white dude in my face threatening to kick my ass if I didn’t hand over my cash and candy. (I went home without cash and candy.) But this guy doesn’t look scared of me. His heart-shaped lips actually part into a smile, and I’m lit up like a flaming match to paper.

“Hi,” he says.

“Hi,” I repeat, like he’s teaching me a new language.

“How’s it going?”

He’s not supposed to be leading the conversation, I approached him.

“It’s going good, I mean, as good as the end of the world can go,” I say. Then I realize this could be dead before it begins if I don’t make it clear that I don’t think the world is going to end at midnight. “Not that I think we’re all about to die. Some people have to die obviously, unfortunately, tragically . . . yeah, tragically . . . but I don’t think the whole planet is about to blow up in flames or drown or cave in or anything like that.” I try taking a deep breath, but I feel like my body is rejecting all air so I can take a whole second to shut the fuck up. For some mysterious reason this dude hasn’t run away. “Anyway, I came over here because you were staring at the hourglasses, and I was wondering if you were thinking about all this Death-Cast insanity too.”

He looks up at the jumbotron again, another minute down even though I feel like it took me a thousand years to get to the point.

“Definitely thinking about Death-Cast. And life.”

“Kind of the same thing now, right?”

“Kind of.” He stands, and his eyes find mine again. “I’m Valentino, by the way.”

Shit, that name fits. I don’t know what I mean by that, but I’m one hundred percent right, and I’ll swing at anyone who says otherwise. I mean, I would definitely lose that fight, since I’m zero for one million in fights, but I would fight, fight, fight that fight anyway.

“I’m Orion.”

“That’s so funny, you’re literally the fifth Orion I know.”

“Really?”

Valentino smiles. “Not really.”

Wow, I’m so damn dumb. “I’m too gullible, you can’t play me like that.”

“Ha-ha, I’m sorry! You’re the first Orion I know,” Valentino says. “I promise.”