Page 2 of Bro Doll
“Ha! Wrong.”
“It’s not wrong, it’s—”
“It’s empirically, scientifically,mathematicallywrong, bro, and I will explain to you exactly why.”
I take my water and bail to the living room, because I’m not hearing that.
Finn and Miles show up together a few minutes later.
Finn is shorter and skinnier than the rest of the house, but he moves at twice the speed of everyone else because he chugs energy drinks like they’re water. The rest of the house provides the muscle and the brain. Finn has neither.
If Grant is wide, Walker is muscle, and Finn is… well,Finn, then Miles is tall. Tall,tall. Like his skeleton had more ambitious plans for itself than the rest of him, and just kept growing. People are constantly trying to scout him for basketball, but Miles would rather die than play a sport.
He crashes onto the recliner, balances the laptop on his knees, and starts aggressive-typing without a word of greeting.
“Nested if statements,” he tells the laptop. “Nestedif statements, you piece of shit!”
“Dude,” I say.
“There is a null value returning from line forty-two and Icannot—”
“Dude.”
“What!What, man, what?“
“Derek’s gone.”
His face goes through a visible shift from weed-annoyed to weed-relaxed. “Oh, thank God.”
“Man, this calls for a party,” Finn announces, springing to his feet and heading for the kitchen.
He’s back ten seconds later with a Tupperware container.
“Edibles,” he announces. “Blue raspberry. I’ve had four.” He makes a dramatic pause. “I feel like a god.”
“How long ago did you take them?” Walker calls from the kitchen.
“Like an hour?” Finn perches on the arm of Miles’ recliner. “Don’t worry about it.”
“That’s exactly the kind of shit I didn’t want to hear,” Grant groans.
“I’m fine. I’mgood. I feel incredible.” He looks at Miles’ laptop screen. “What are you doing?“
“Working.”
“Dude, it’s Friday.”
“Code doesn’t care what day it is.”
“Yourbraincares.” Finn shoves his phone about four inches from Miles’ nose. “Look. This guy’s cat fell asleep in a tortilla. Look at how relaxed it is. You need to be that cat, bro.”
Miles doesn’t look up. “I need to fix this before Monday or I’m going to fail an assignment that’s worth thirty percent of my grade.”
“The cat issorelaxed.”
“Man...”
“Look at the cat.”
