electric blue;

Daniel smiled, picking up on Rhett’s sarcasm. He felt a sense of camaraderie to other educators, a degree of comfortability to ‘complain’ about the students with the underlying understanding that they cared about them. “It feels cyclical, no? Hell, I didn’t believe in astrology until I started spending all of my time with teenagers.” He said, only half-joking.

Laughing, he nodded, relating to the quickness of Rhett’s ‘no.’ Raising his eyebrows, Daniel took a swig from his water bottle. “Yeah– I definitely feel that. Though, I’m not sure that I’m not a trainwreck even still.” 

Pushing his breath through his teeth, Daniel shifted uncomfortably in his seat. A Twitter community? Surely this was not so common. “That’s bizarre. Keep… pushing them. Any other tips for me? I could stop showering, grow out my hair…” 

“Oh, you’re doing better than me in my twenties. It was rough, and you’re gainfully employed and not living in the party capital of the world, so you win,” he throws out there. It’s a... little bit more information than he’d normally give, but Daniel is about as harmless as they come - he’s probably never even shoplifted. Rhett’s not concerned. 

He laughs, though, and Daniel’s panicked face. There’s thousands of romance novels about teachers and students - why would he think there’d be no students in love with their teachers? He’s not 60 years old and he’s nice to the students, that makes him prime material for a student to fall in love with. 

“You have to promise me this is not an “enhanced” brownie before I’ll consider eating it,” Rhett has done some pretty stupid things in the past, but going for the only brownie in a plastic bag and accidentally taking drugs in his office had made the top of the list (not as high as “accidentally an accessory to murder” still) almost immediately. He’d gone to his hotel room and slept for sixteen hours after that. 

The bakery, though, shouldn’t have any weed brownies on sale. At least... not in the display case. 

He looks around the little patisserie and accidentally makes eye contact with someone else. There’s another customer who’s now eyeing their croissant suspiciously after his comment, but he ignores that and turns back to... Remi, the nametag reads. Huh, he liked the moniker “Bakery Bitch” better. 

When Frankie turned around, she was greeted with the sight of no one and nothing, the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. The sensation hardly retreated when a figure stepped out of the shadows a moment later, though the wide-eyed look on her face morphed into evident confusion when she realized that she recognized the other person skulking around the funeral home. It was the guidance counselor from the spring celebration.

His greeting evidenced that he remembered her too, and Frankie only offered up a brief nod of recognition.

“Are you offering on-site counseling, or something?” She tried after a minute, but the attempt was half-hearted, and the smile she added was uncomfortable. Frankie couldn’t think of any good reason why the new-in-town guidance counselor would be hanging around a funeral parlor where a body had gone missing some hours earlier. But then again, she didn’t have a good reason, either. 

He shakes his head, his smile a little misplaced. It’s just - who the fuck would be out here, offering on-site counseling, after a body was stolen? Especially someone as horrifically unqualified as a guidance counselor. Honestly, the whole thing is laughable. There’s a million reasons that Rhett could make up, but he opts for the truth, this time. 

“Nah. Onsite counseling would be a disaster here, really. I’m just curious. Like, the body’s missing and no one knows what’s going on? Someone at the bar said the cameras glitched, it’s just... way too weird for me,” he shrugs. 

TIME/LOCATION: around 10 pm, post “funeral services;” kane funeral home. STATUS: open for all!

Like every other lifelong Wadian – and probably like most of the short-termers – Frankie had come out with her Grams in tow to pay respect to Mrs. Johnson. When Fred Kane had come out and told everyone to go home, the Abbot women hadn’t resisted – Grams had remarked that today wasn’t the day with a kind of finality that had drawn a peculiar stare from her granddaughter, and had requested that Frankie drive them home. 

When Frankie had grabbed her keys a few hours after dark and told her grandmother that she would be out for a little bit, Grams hadn’t batted a lash. “Behind all things are reasons,” the old woman had remarked to herself, before looking up at her granddaughter with a smile. “Don’t stay out all night.”

Frankie had told herself that she was just going out for a drive to get some air, and to clear her thoughts. She’d ignored the pang in her gut when she’d found herself driving in a familiar direction, up until that uncomfortable feeling sat like a lump in her throat. When it finally became unbearable, and Frankie felt like she couldn’t breathe, she pulled the car over and killed the ignition. After a few minutes of in four seconds, hold seven seconds, out eight seconds, Frankie felt the suffocating feeling start to dissipate. When she finally looked up and out her windshield, she could make out the distant red door Kane’s Funeral Home about a quarter mile up the road, illuminated by a porch light.

Why she’d gotten out of the car, Frankie didn’t know – she’d told herself that maybe it was because she could breathe better in the fresh air. It didn’t account for why she’d started walking – just to calm down, she decided – or why she’d found herself dangerously encroaching on the funeral home’s property. By the time that she’d decided it was stupid – not to mention inappropriate – for her to be there, she’d already stepped foot onto the perfectly-manicured lawn surrounding the place. 

“Idiot,” she mumbled to herself, shaking her head and turning promptly on her heel to head back to the car. No way the cops aren’t all over this place, she thought to herself, and what the fuck would you even say? “I don’t know what I’m doing here either,” she whispered out-loud to herself, trying out what her response to local authorities would be. Huffing, she shook her head and repeated: “idiot.”

Frankie had made it off the lawn and back onto the street when she’d heard – or maybe just felt – another person nearby. She tried to ignore the sensation until it became undeniable, and with a harshly whispered fuck, spun around to see who (or what) was there.

Rhett honestly wasn’t sure how he got himself into these messy situations. 

The choice to stick around in Wade was seeming more and more like the wrong one with each passing day, but he’d committed with the job and the identity, so he was stuck for... god, at least six months? He couldn’t just skip town during something like this - he’d end up on the list of suspects. And, as the whole life he presents to people is just a con, that wouldn’t be good. Looking any deeper than “guidance counselor” could be disastrous. 

Yet, here he was. Standing outside the funeral home, like something would make sense. First, the rumors of cannibalism. Then the glowing red lights. Now, Josie’s body was gone just when her poor husband was about to get some closure. Rhett just had an overall sense that something was wrong. He hadn’t felt like this since twenty minutes before an armed robbery in Las Vegas that changed the entire course of his life. 

And wasn’t that the real kicker? That shit had at least  been his own fault and not the fault of a town that was as unsettling as a horror flick. At least he had a bit of control (that was a lie) in that portion of his life. Here, it felt like things just... happened to people, not because of people.

And wasn’t that a change? Living in the underbelly of modern cities had led him to feel like things didn’t matter. A sense of being out of control was probably the worst thing he could have developed. Because now he’s realizing that... maybe all of this mattered, a little more than he’d thought it did. Maybe everything that happened, for lack of better word, sucked. And there was nothing you could do about it but sit around and suffer the consequences. Wasn’t that a summary of his life? 

They’d probably put it on his headstone: Here lies Rhett Gregory or Jack West or Michael O’Farrell or Eliot Shulz, they suffered the consequences. 

That’s about he point in his train of thought that he realizes that someone else has returned to the scene. And he’s, honestly, surprised. Small town people probably don’t know the implication of returning to the scene of a probable crime. They’re probably fine with being seen near the funeral home. Doesn’t stop him from stepping into the shadow cast by the tree as if on instinct, before he realizes who it is. 

She’s struggling not to agree with Rhett. Of course, knowing Red, she feels sympathy for him; she understands exactly what he’s feeling, and just how low this whole situation has gotten him. Still, she can’t excuse his actions; surely there must be other ways to prove the same point. Many people looking forward to the Spring Celebration, and while she’s certainly not one of them, she does feel bad for the soccer mom’s on their hands, and knees picking up shards of their good dishes. 

She nods slightly in agreement, though there’s a twinge of guilt in her stomach. That’s her boss. She feels bad. He’s certainly not wrong about the whole town not needing to know the gritty details of Josie’s murder. “Things have a way of getting out in Wade.” It’s the truth. No one can shut their damn mouths. Still, she doesn’t like to think about the gruesome facts of Josie’s case. That sweet old lady… she stops herself dead in her tracks. It’s not important. 

“Daphne,” She extends her hand towards him for a shake, chuckling slightly at the comment about ranting (she likes to listen, she didn’t mind). Similarly enough, her father instilled her with a sense that manners were of the utmost importance. “Last week?” Bad timing. “Well, on behalf of the town, welcome.” There’s a slight smile; she does feel sorry he’s shown up at a bad time, though there are likely other townspeople who would be more suspicious than her. “Ya’ like it here so far?” 

It would be interesting to hear about Wade from an outside perspective. She’s been here too long herself, her judgement’s probably skewed. 

-“I’m just way used to people keeping their mouths shut,” spending a decade in a city run entirely by the Irish mob would do that to you, spreading details was one way to get yourself excommunicated at best and disappeared at worst, “But that’s a consequence of where I lived last, you just... didn’t gossip as much, it never turned out well in the big city. Plus, who would you gossip about? Almost no one knows the same people there.” 

“Nice to meet you,” he says. He means it. It’s nice to actually be acknowledged. This might be the most... himself  that he’s been since he was in Vegas. He’s never considered the toll of being the “bad guy” all the time before this last week. “Thanks, that’s the first welcome I’ve gotten,” he smiles, it’s kind of a joke. His boss wasn’t really the welcoming type, and most of the people he met weren’t either. “I think it’s fine, if you pull all the creepy stuff that’s going on out of the equation.” 

Mason laughed. It was weird that the two of them were just standing there in a cemetery discussing the logistics of either of them being a ghost and M. Night Shyamalan movies, but Mason had done weirder things. And though she didn’t necessarily want to admit it, especially since he was still under investigation, Mason was growing fond of Rhett. He was an odd guy, no doubt, but he was funny. 

“You’d be surprised what people can put up with. Anything can become normal after a while. I just think with the Josie case it was too jarring to ignore. It didn’t help that it became slightly publicized and now people outside the town know about it. I don’t think the mayor is too crazy about this minor ‘indiscretion’ marring Wade’s sparkling reputation.”

“I’m sure he’s not too fond of the fact that I’m blasting it out on the air waves for everybody to hear, either. So, you know. If I go missing under suspicious circumstances, you know who was responsible.” Mason was mostly kidding. She didn’t think Mayor Daniels actually had the gall to do something like that… or at least she hoped. 

“I don’t know if I could ever get used to creepy glowing lights out my window,” and he’d just picked an apartment that looked out towards the woods. Great. Too late to go and sign a different lease, now. He sighs, thinking he should have come and talked to random people in the cemetery before he considered where to live for the next... year, almost. 

“Yeah, I can’t see how anyone can’t look at what happened to Josie and think everything that’s happening here is normal,” he’s an out-of-towner, so he feels a little bit more like he’s seeing things without he veil of growing up here, like some of his coworkers do. “I mean, the smaller crimes are never publicized. Big stuff, like a murder, that always dominates the news. There’s no stopping it.” Damn, why did that sound so suspicious? It’s probably because he’s been involved in both of those types of crimes. He shouldn’t sound like he knows so much. Especially around this girl, who’s seen him before he got here. 

The woman held her hands up innocently. “No, should it be?” she countered, busting his balls more than anything. In all honestly, she couldn’t give less of a shit over what the hell this guy’s name was — really, she couldn’t give less of a shit about this entire conversation as a whole, but this guy was being nice and allowing her to use his charger when he clearly didn’t have to. Maybe Rosalyn could be cold, but she could still put forward common courtesy when the situation called for it.

“Trading in one cold climate for another,” she noted, brows arched. “It’s a decent school. I hear they have a good pre-med program.” As if he needed her approval, but Rosalyn had a knack for sticking her opinion where it probably didn’t belong. “Must not have been shitty enough for you to get a job at the best high school in Wade,” she offered sarcastically, seeing as there was literally only one of them. “Small-minded towns breed small-minded people. Mine’s name was Mrs. Wheeler. She had a lazy eye and encouraged all the kids that weren’t white to try trade school instead of university.” The doctor rolled her eyes, flipping a page in her text book. “Figures.”

A scoff escaped the dark-haired woman’s lips. “Yeah, who would’ve thought?” she glanced down at the words on the page. “That’s fair. Social media was the worst that could’ve happened to the internet,” a nod. “I’d put my money on both. Some people just shouldn’t have children — most people, actually.”

“I lived in Vegas once, and I’ll avoid the heat for the rest of my life,” he states. It’s the truth. Every bit of living in Vegas made him hate the warmest days of the summer, the way he got clammy with sweat made him want to roll over and die. “That it was, I had a good time when I wasn’t working. I don’t have too much school spirit because I don’t see much use for it, but I could’ve gone to much worse. I didn’t know that many guys in pre-med, I was too busy being an asshole who majored in psych.” 

He pauses, “Well, sometimes you just end up at the place you’re needed.” He sighs, loudly, “So they really, across the board, only hired idiots to work this job? That’s... awful. I try to avoid shoving students towards anything, I think it’s better if they come to me with their plans and I try to make them more realistic.” Rhett honestly can’t believe some of this shit. He’d never even met his own guidance counselor, which is probably a good thing. 

“How do you know I’m not a ghost?” Mason questioned. “I could just be a really lifelike one. Or maybe you’re actually the ghost and you just haven’t figured it out yet. Maybe none of this is real and we’re all just in an M. Night Shyamalan movie… Hopefully one of his better ones. I think I’d jump off a cliff it this ended up being, like, After Earth. Or Lady in the Water. Or The Happening. Dang, M. Night really does have a lot of stinkers.”

“I’ve talked about that on my show,” she said, finding herself growing excited at his mention of the eyes. It didn’t matter that she got to talk about the town’s weirdness nightly on Wade AM, she still jumped at the chance to discuss it with others. Even strangers who might not actually be strangers. “Most people think it’s deer but everybody I’ve spoken to whose witnessed them in person say they definitely weren’t any deer they’ve ever seen. And that when you made eye contact with it, you feel chilled to the bone. Like you’re looking into the eyes of the devil himself.” Unfortunately Mason could not take credit for that metal as hell quote, which had actually come from an elderly man she interviewed just a couple weeks back. She still felt cool saying it. “Did you know that these sitting have been happening for decades? And everybody reports feeling the same sensations. Some truly strange stuff.”

“If you’re a ghost, I’ve only got one thing to say to you,” Rhett holds the pause for the drama of it, “and that is ‘fuck you for not telling me you were a ghost earlier’.” He looks around the cemetery for a second, “Damn, if i’m a ghost... this is the worst ghost life. I’m a fucking guidance counselor  as a ghost instead of haunting people? i want my money back.” He grimaces through the mention of any M. Night Shyamalan movie, after he’d suffered through The Last Airbender he’d sworn off him forever, “He does love to make bad movies. It’s like, his passion. I don’t even know if I can fault him for it.” 

          “Oh, so you must be working at the—Junior High? Senior High?” Guidance counselor wouldn’t have been his first guess. Richard vaguely remembers his being more… monotonous than this guy. “Either way, teenagers. Much respect, man.”

          “Two weeks ago,” he replies, offering a slice of his own backstory in return. “I was looking for a job and they had one.” Tyler holds up the flier, flapping it slightly in a cheeky gesture. “Apparently they’re big money or something. The owners, I mean.” His shoulders move in a dismissive shrug. A town like Wade is an odd choice of business investment, but he supposes they’re the experts at smelling profit.

          (Demon lights. He adds it to the ever-growing list of weird occurrences: voices, eyes, and now lights, all of which seem to be tied to one locationーthe woods.) “You really do?” he asks with a half-smile, half-frown of surprise, before growing somber at Rhett’s mention of Josie. “Man, it really is. I never knew her, obviously, but… stuff like this should never happen to anyone.”

“I’m over at Wade Senior High,” he offers up. His recent hiring had apparently stirred the pot with the adults in this town. Most people seemed to dismiss the kids he helped, and that was a trend he was already growing weary of, “Ah, they’re not so bad once you get to know them. They can be demons, but they’re nice enough if you’re nice to them first.”

“I’ve only been here a week and a half, if that consoles you,” he says, “And same! I was just looking to get out of Boston, and the listing fell right into my lap, like fate or something.” Not exactly true, but the circumstances under which he found the listing weren’t perfect at all. He still felt a bit of fate pulling him towards Wade, but that was only because it was a great place to hide out while the feds hunted him. 

“I thought ADHD was a twenty-first century disorder,” Frankie mused, “and all the twitchy kids before 2000 were just called “high-energy,” or something.” Shrugging, her blue-eyed gaze flitted back over to Sandra, who’d fully engrossed herself back into the dramatic scene by the flipped table. “Average may be a little kind for the younger of the two…he’s a biter. Almost took my finger off once.”

Her brows raised when he informed her that he was a guidance counselor, rather than a teacher at the school. “I wouldn’t think guidance counselor,” she replied honestly. Frankie’s experience with the school guidance counselor had been fairly minimal – once she’d informed the former counselor that she had no intention of applying for colleges, they’d lost interest in her – but something about him felt like it didn’t match up. She chalked it up to the fact that he was actually speaking to her, whereas the previous counselor made a point of speaking at her. 

“Well, I guess that’s kind of cool – I graduated a couple years back, but I don’t really have any fond memories of that office. You don’t just hand out those Myers-Briggs tests and tell people to follow the matching careers, do you?” Pointing to herself, she elaborated: “ESFP-T – they told me I should either be an actress or a farmer, and then told me to go back to class when I asked how those two were similar.” 

“I didn’t know it was ADHD then, but in my twenties they gave me a psychology degree and like, nine diagnoses. It’s a part of graduation, they were like, ‘Rhett Gregory, ADHD and a dash of anxiety’ and then everyone cheered,” he jokes. He never went to a graduation at all, not his own or anyone else’s. “If he bites me and he’s one of my students, I will file charges. They’re supposed to be fifteen at the youngest.” 

“Nobody expects it. Someone told me I looked like a mad scientist the other day, so I guess people assume chemistry?” He shrugs. It’s a bit weird being the topic of conversation like that. He had settled in Boston for too long, hadn’t been introduced to anyone without his reputation ahead of it. 

Daniel chuckled. As much as he loved talking to the kids and hearing about their lives, he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to do it day in day out like Rhett does. “The drama of high school.. it just never gets old, huh?” Daniel reached for a few chips.

“Would you go back? To high school, I mean?” Daniel clarified, leaning back and smiling at his friend. He didn’t know much about Rhett, but it didn’t bother him; a lot of people in Wade were pretty secretive. “I definitely wouldn’t. Couldn’t pay me enough.”

Leaning back in his chair, Daniel laughed, “So sorry to assume.” Hiding his face in his hands, Daniel groaned. “It’s never serious– kids are just kids, you know?” He was trying to convince himself, surely, but it was certainly awkward when people told him what the kids were saying about him. Couldn’t they ever just appreciate his passion for literature? His teaching style?

Rhett sometimes envied the other teachers. He couldn’t bring himself to forge a teaching license, because he couldn’t deprive kids of actually learning something. (He had looked for nearby drama teacher openings, although the guidance counselor one was closer and better pay, so he stuck with that.) “Nope, never gets old. Even if you’re on the third major breakup of the week between the same two students.” 

“Oh, Jesus Christ, no. Not for all the money in the world,” he’d not even finished high school. But that was information to be kept close to his chest, “I probably wouldn’t even go back to college. My twenties were a trainwreck,” Yeah, Rhett killed a man and did a ton of blow, his twenties could be considered one of the largest trainwrecks in human history. 

“Just for future reference, where would I stick that quarter?” Remi asked, raising an eyebrow. She sat up straight figuring the man had about enough of her already. People typically couldn’t humor her for very long, not that Remi could blame them. She knew she was pretty obnoxious.

Remi flipped the lid on the bakery box shut and shook the box a little, the cookies rattling around inside. “Take it,” she said, offering it to him. “Otherwise it’s going in the trash, I don’t want to take it home.” She waited to see if he would take the offering or not, otherwise it got tossed into the trash can. She looked at the far wall for a moment, trying to distance herself from memories of binges past when she’d literally eaten food she had thrown out before after telling herself she wouldn’t touch it. She looked back at him with a shit eating grin. “I might keep your love affair to yourself, because everyone in this town is looking for something to talk about after they finish laying out their conspiracy theories about what happened to Josie, or to talk about instead of Josie.”

She stood up when he began packing and half-snorted at his joke about the drama kids. She agreed with him there. “You definitely don’t know to know what that means, and I wouldn’t even tell my worst enemy. But how of curiosity, how many times has a student told you that? Because if a student pisses you off that’s the first thing you should be using to ruin their life… Walk a lady out?” she asked, largely because she didn’t want to get stopped by any of her former teachers and felt Rhett was her best cover to avoid such a horrible occasion. 

“You just give me the quarter. I should be compensated for my time and sage wisdom,” he responds, trying to hold on to looking like the tough guy. It only last a second before he cracks, though, laughing at the joke. Even if it was at his own expense, he can appreciate how funny the joke itself was. 

“You put weed in anything else?” he asks, just wanting to be sure. Not that he’d turn down some more weed brownies, instead that he wanted to make sure he didn’t eat anymore while he was in the workplace. Pretty much he didn’t want to get right back into the mess he was in right now. Like, his boss could just drop in and it’d be nothing. He picks up the box anyways, stating, “I’ll still eat them, weed or not. So, thanks, I guess. If I give them to my friend, I’ll tell him the Bakery Bitch made them, and then she tried to get me fired.” 

“I’ve heard a couple of those. Something about cannibals taking over town, and if you don’t join them you’ll get eaten. I will definitely not get eaten. I barely have any meat on me, I’m the definition of “lanky idiot” if you haven’t noticed,” he jokes, “but I’m sure my love affair with a random bartender is much more interesting.” 

While Daphne isn’t opposed to social situations, big gatherings like this have never been her thing. There are always too many people talking, too many pairs of eyes wandering… too many conversations happening that she had no interest in being involved in. She could fake the whole “social butterfly” thing pretty easily when she needed to, like when she was at work, but she tended to crawl back into her shell when there were this many people around. 

Of course, this event in particular had come spiraling down quicker than she expected. She had told herself she was going to spend at least an hour, maybe two tops rubbing elbows with her fellow Wadians before gracefully bowing out of the whole charade, and going home to sit on the couch in her sweatpants. 

She’d slipped out shortly after they carted Red away to catch her breath.

“Oh, um,” She lets out a slight chuckle at the other’s words. A stranger. That’s odd for Wade; she thinks she’s seen just about everyone in town. “Something like that.” She says with a short nod, watching the other individual exhale a cloud of smoke. “Ya’ tryna say you weren’t… having a grand ol’ time in there?” 

“Oh, no, that definitely sucked,” Rhett states. “Everything was going well until the guy got upset and flipped a table. Really killed the mood of the whole party, you know? I don’t know - I feel terrible for him, and I think that’s part of what destroyed it.” He sighs, taking another drag and looking out towards the line of cars parked, “And then that was all anyone wanted to talk about, and suddenly I knew way too much  about a murder that I wasn’t in town for. Like, we definitely should not have all these details. It’s horrible.” 

He stops, looking at the girl for a moment, before taking yet another drag to try and calm himself down. 

“Party, huh?” he raises his brows at Rhett, a smirk on his lips. He’s this close to laughing. “Party is a bit of a stretch if you ask me. If there’s no booze then it’s definitely not a party,” Wade says. If there’s no booze officially, that is. He’s pretty sure he’s seen at least four people sneaking alcohol into their paper cups, flasks tucked away in seconds, before anyone notices. Wade himself has taken to drinking straight from the bottle, he’s just been doing that outside so nobody complains. “You should try some pie, I probably ate, like, a whole one at this point.”

“They’re gonna have lasting emotional trauma from having to listen to the DJ play Don’t stop believin’ so many times,” Wade mutters as he looks at the damn DJ again. The song selection has been miserable at best, honestly (and yes, Wade would’ve done a much better job, thank you). “I dunno, I’m still kinda confused why this whole thing is still happening. We haven’t had a funeral yet and this already feels like a wake,” he shrugs. Wade says we, as if he’s one of them, and the second he does, he wants to take the word back because it sounds wrong. Sure, it’s been a while since he’s come here, but he refuses to make himself at home. He hasn’t moved here, him going on six months here is still temporary. “I mean, shit looks normal and all but everything feels off.”

“Wait, there’s no booze allowed?” Rhett asked, a little bit shocked. He’d never really done the whole “Tight-Knit Community” thing, but the television shows he watched led him to believe he’d at least be hammered for it. At least he had a flask in his pocket, so he could get through this. He just expected to be adding more  liquor to an already super alcoholic drink that some soccer mom mixed together. “I could go for some pie, since they’re going to deprive me of the chance to get drunk and embarrass myself.” 

“I only have one ex, and I don’t even have his number anymore, so way ahead of you on that one,” Remi shrugged. She frowned when he mentioned the book, not sure if he was joking or not. Given the quality of service she’d gotten from Mr. Brooks in her time here, she half suspected the book had likely been a welcoming present left on the desk for Rhett. 

“Would your ghost just be your frames floating around behind me?” she asked, leaning forward as if she looked forward to it. “Also–your vision is terrible. You’re really out here living like that? I put them one and it was like a flash bomb had gone off.”

“No, I got it from some kid at his locker and I figured you were smart enough to notice the differences,” she explained in a matter-of-fact tone. “Besides, the poison is in the almond macarons, duh. It helps make the cyanide less obvious.” Her eyes flickered back to him, and a little smirk formed on her lips. “So defensive. That means you do think the bartender is your friend. And to be fair, if I had my way I wouldn’t have seem pretty much anyone I see on a daily basis since high school.”

“So… You gonna sit here and waste that stolen brownie high on a some over-achieving Jenny who’s sure to show up any minute and bore you to death about how she can’t decide if she wants to write her college essay on how much she admires Michelle Obama or Malala?” Remi asked, reminding Rhett how eager he had been to leave just minutes before.

“Good for you,” he says, “Still that was my sage advice and wisdom. You won’t get any more out of me unless you give me money. I’m like those creepy fortune teller machines in arcades, the Zoltar. I need a quarter or I’m useless.” He fixes his glasses on his face, knowing they’re askew after this girl just pulled them off his face. 

“Don’t look at me. Do you think I picked this bad vision?” In fact, he’d just swapped his contacts for the giant frame glasses he’d worn before he moved to Vegas, one of the little things left behind from a kid from San Francisco. 

“No one has ever accused me of being smart, that’s where you went wrong,” the self deprecating jokes were basically second nature to Rhett with how often he told them to lighten the mood. “Give me one of those then, shit. I’d honestly rather die than get high in this school building.” He really wished he’d walked out the door a few minutes earlier, then he could have avoided all of this mess. “The bartender and I might have a deep tragic love story, you don’t know that,” he fires back. 

          “Not yoga, just high intensity indoor cycling,” he quips as a lasting remark, and leaves it at that.

          “Tyler,” he returns the introduction, grinning, and offers a hand for a shake. “Last week? Really? I thought I was the newest addition.” What with the new businesses being built around here, there are quite a few job openings and such for newcomers; that’s how Richard’s own cover identity was able to be forged, after all. He wonders what pulled Rhett into Wade, moving in right in the middle of the investigation on Josie Johnson.

          “Right? It’s just… I don’t know, man, it’s kinda scary,” he says, seemingly uncomfortable, the volume of his voice turning down a notch from his previous chipper tone. “I only found out after I got here. About the whole investigation going on about his wife.”

“That... sounds even worse, I can’t even lie to you.” Rhett would honestly rather die than do whatever “high intensity cycling” was. 

“Yeah, the old guidance counselor retired suddenly and I got the job way too quickly. I drove up as soon as I could for an interview and got hired like, three hours later. I guess they were desperate,” He pauses, “When did you get here? It’s always nice to meet someone else who’s got no idea what the fuck is going on in this town.”