I click my phone off while my dad is still talking and slide on my hoodie. It’s cold enough for a full winter jacket, but I didn’t pack one and Mom hasn’t bothered to send it. Dad calls back but I let it go to voicemail.

He’s got the same reports I do, which conveniently leave off the fact that I know Peak only works there because Vera can’t really afford more help, and instead basically say Vera Flores is a comics icon and we’re lucky to be alive at the same time as her and this buying-in thing is nonsense because it’s never happening. Never.

As long as I don’t do anything to fuck this up.

•  •  •

Warm air and the jingle of bells greet me when I push open the door to Verona. I breathe in deep, soaking in the scent of comics old and new. And this, this feels like home.

“Hey, Rid.” I follow the sound of Vera’s voice to the back room, where I find her buried in papers.

“Hey, Vera,” I say, propping my skateboard against the wall. “What’s all that?”

“Financial reports. I hate this side of things,” she groans. “You any good with math?” She shoves a pencil behind her ear and pushes the paper a little way in my direction with a hopeful look in her eyes. I can’t decide if I should look at them or if I should look away. Probably both, simultaneously.

“I suck at math,” I say. Avoidance. Good.

“It was worth a shot.”

My eye catches on her laptop, which is open to yet another article about my dad. I wonder what fresh way he’s insulted her now, but then I make out the headline: “If You Can’t Beat ’Em, Join ’Em: Everlasting Inc. Announces New Indie Line, Geekery Ink.”

Shit.

Vera looks up, studying me. “You follow this stuff?”

“A little.” I shrug, trying to play it cool despite the fact that my insides are churning.

“He’s a piece of work, eh?” Vera says. “Starting a new indie line after what he did to Trinity? Mark Everlasting, and everyone who works for him, should be shot into the sun.”

“Yeah, totally.” I swallow hard, trying to ignore the voice in my head screaming to come clean or run or melt into the floor until everyone forgets I ever existed.

Vera tilts her head. “You okay, kid?”

“Great, excellent, why wouldn’t I be? No reason.” Nice, Ridley, smooth.

Vera raises an eyebrow. “Well, Jubilee should be here any second; she just got held up at—” The sound of bells and laughter cut her off. “Speak of the devil.”

I trot out to see Jubilee and Jayla walking in, arms linked and laughing. I feel like I’m intruding somehow, so I hang back, just sort of standing awkwardly near the curtain, caught between two places I probably shouldn’t be.