Chapter 656 | The Raccoon Report

Chapter 656: 656 | The Raccoon Report

I lifted the first boot out of the box and nearly dropped it on my own foot, because it weighed about as much as a medium-sized bowling ball and had the emotional warmth of a cinder block. The steel cap clanked against the desk leg when I set it down. On the radiator, Mr. Stitches tipped two degrees to the left, which Ophelia would definitely count against me later.

"Your nephew had some huge feet for a guy who decided to spend his life staring into other people’s mouths."

"He was fifteen when he bought them, and he grew into the wrong career."

Dralun went back to his yellow form and his sister’s mug. He pretended the conversation was over, though his tail had stopped sweeping across the floorboards. I knew from four days of data that a stationary tail meant he was watching me out of the corner of his eye.

I sat down in the creaky chair and started unlacing my sneakers. They were the beat-up white pair I had worn through the dome and the Delancey fire and roughly forty-seven doorways. A faint grey film of soot still lived in the stitching, and no amount of scrubbing in the dorm sink had convinced it to leave.

"Belmont, if you take your socks off in this office, I’m calling the county health department, and they will believe every word I say."

Ophelia had lowered her parasol about three inches, so her grey eyes and the top of her pink curls were visible over the lace. She was holding the latte in both hands against her chest and watching me with open horror.

"I’m keeping the socks on, because I have some shame left."

I pulled off the left sneaker. My big toe immediately poked out through a hole in the sock that had not been there this morning, a pale pink thing waving hello to the room.

Ophelia made a sound I had previously only heard from Caden’s microwave right before it died.

"Mr. Stitches is going to need therapy after this, and you’re paying for it, and that’s another fifteen points." She snapped the parasol back up. "Negative two hundred and fourteen, for the record, and I’m only being generous because of the oat milk."

"Mr. Stitches has seen worse things on this block than my foot."

"He has never seen anything as sad as your foot, and I’m going to post about it."

Dralun opened his top desk drawer without looking at either of us and dug around in it. I heard paperclips, something rubbery, and a cassette tape I had no intention of asking about. He pulled out a pair of thick grey wool socks bundled together into a ball and tossed them across the room in an underhand lob. They hit me in the chest and dropped into my lap.

"My sister knitted those, and she knits for everybody whether they want them or not, so wear them."

The socks were itchy and heavy, and I loved them instantly in a manner I refused to examine. I peeled off the tragic cotton pair and stuffed them into the shoebox, then pulled the wool ones on. They went up past my ankles and halfway to my knees. I looked like a Norwegian fisherman who had lost a bet.

The boots went on next. I shoved my foot into the left one, and the leather gave a long, tired creak. It was a half size too big, which gave my heel room to slide when I flexed. The right one was the same, though the steel cap pressed down on my second toe hard enough to make its presence known.

I stood up and took two steps across the office. The floorboards complained under every footfall, and the boots made a solid thunk that echoed off the pressed-tin ceiling. I sounded like a guy who could kick a door down, which I could, though usually I didn’t need the footwear.

"They fit, Belmont?"

"They fit perfectly, and I have honestly never been happier in a pair of shoes."

\[Interface Notice: Host has delivered a falsehood to a supervising Hero. Fit discrepancy estimated at one half size. Supervisor instructed the Host to lie if they did not fit. Compliance rating: excellent. Honesty rating: also, technically, excellent.\]

Dralun grunted once, which meant yes. He went back to his form.

"You’re lacing them wrong."

Ophelia had climbed down from her desk while I was busy admiring my own footsteps. She stood a few feet away, the latte left behind on her desk, her parasol hooked over one elbow. She was looking at my boots with the face of a museum curator watching a toddler fingerpaint on a Monet.

"There’s no wrong way to lace a boot, because laces only have one job."

"You’ve crossed them three times in the same hole, and that’s how your ankle ends up rolling on a curb. Then Dralun has to carry you to the clinic, and I have to post a sad photo and pretend I care." She set the parasol against my desk. "Sit down, and don’t say anything stupid while I do this."

I sat. She dropped to her knees in front of my chair before I could argue, and the black velvet skirt pooled across the floorboards around her in a wide circle. The red underskirt peeked out at the edges. She grabbed my left boot by the heel and yanked it toward her so my leg straightened out across her lap.

Her fingers worked the laces loose one hole at a time. She bent her head to see what she was doing, and her drill curls swung forward and brushed against my shin through the denim. From up in the chair, I had a direct view straight down into the square neckline of the corset, which had given up all pretense of covering anything about three lace-ups ago. The pale curve of her chest pushed up against the velvet every time she pulled a lace tight. A tiny silver cross on a black ribbon sat right in the middle of everything, catching the window light.

I looked at Ohio again. Ohio had not changed since the last time I checked.

\[Ecchi Logic Event: Ophelia Lin. Subject has initiated proximity voluntarily. Host is experiencing elevated cardiac output. Temptation Gauge 6% to 8%. Note: the Host’s continued reliance on the ceiling stain suggests a coping mechanism that will not survive the week.\]

"You’re breathing weird up there, Belmont."

"I’m breathing completely normally, and you’re imagining things because you’ve had too much caffeine."

"I’ve had one latte, and you bought it, so if I’m imagining things, it’s your fault." She pulled the top lace through the last eyelet and looked up at me. Her eyes were wide and grey, and the eyeliner made them look even bigger at that angle. "Your ears are red, and Mr. Stitches can see them from the radiator."

"The radiator is very hot today, and it’s a temperature thing."

She tied the laces into a bow. It was a double bow, with two loops on each side, and she tugged the loops until they were perfectly even and fat like bunny ears. Then she did the same thing to the right boot. Her thigh pressed against my calf through about four layers of skirt the whole time, and I thought very hard about the raccoon report.

When she finished, she sat back on her heels and admired her work for longer than strictly necessary. Then her face went pink all over again, as though she had just realized she was kneeling on the floor between a boy’s knees in her best dress. She grabbed her parasol and scrambled up.

"That was a professional favor, not a personal one, and I’m billing Halloran for the labor."

"The bows are very cute, and I appreciate the effort."