Her lips purse, her glare set on the computer screen. “Then you’re the one who rearranged all the action figures on the shelves into an orgy.”

“Not me.” I shake my head. Kyle.

Though her words are a punch to the gut—because I can deflect all day and know that these acts are partially mine to claim.

I never stopped my friends. I couldn’t. And I’m not all innocent either.

“You’re the one who put porn mags in front of every DC comic.”

I shake my head harder. “That wasn’t me.” Hunter, not my brother but my friend.

She tenses and types faster on the keyboard. “Then you’re the one who wrote on the bathroom wall with Sharpie: ‘stop trying to invent the most revolutionary shit. It’s already been done.’ And then you drew a slice of pizza.”

I rub my lips to keep from laughing. Her eyes flicker to me in my silence, narrowing and narrowing.

My mouth downturns, and I drop my hand. “Yeah, that was me.” I gesture to her. “I can go clean it…”

She turns her attention back to the computer and says something in another language. I think Korean. I watch too many foreign YouTube videos that I can just barely detect the language. If I paid more attention, I might’ve been able to catch one or two words and understand her better.

That’s not the point though. She purposefully wants me to not understand her right now. It’s working. I shift uneasily, realizing how much trouble I’ve caused the store manager.

“I’m sorry,” I finally apologize—what I should’ve started with. “I’m really sorry, and I’m going to try to make it up to you.” I extend my arms. “Put me to work.”

I expect her to direct me to the bathrooms, to go clean toilets. “I was going to put Willow on inventory today. You can start in the storage room with her—blasted piece of technology!” She bangs the side of the computer, frustrated.

“Hey, let me see.” I head over to Maya, setting my hoodie on the counter.

She scoots to the side and points at the blue screen of death, pretty much the worst problem for Windows. “I’ve restarted it four times.”

“It might be a hardware problem.”

“How do we fix that?” She drums the counter with two fingers.

“You’d have to buy new equipment.”

Her mouth falls. Before she freaks out, I add, “I’m going to reboot it in safe mode and then check the computer’s memory. You didn’t install any new drivers, did you?”

Maya shakes her head slowly. “No.”

“Hey…” Willow emerges from the break room, hesitantly approaching us at the checkout counter. “What should I do?”

Maya is about to respond, but her phone rings, cutting her attention. She looks frazzled. “This is our indie distributor… I’ll be back.” She answers the phone and sprints into the break room.

I type in a couple commands and then wait for the computer to reboot. “I don’t know if you remember me.” I turn to look at Willow.