Read Off the Edge (The Associates) for Free Online Page A

thanks.”
    “It’s the least I could do,” he said. “Your show was…quite moving.”
    Big, fat liar, she thought to herself. He was just a guy hitting on her. Telling her what he thought she’d like to hear. Pretending like he’d listened. He’d been watching the audience and talking with his friend all night. Still, she was polite. “Well, thanks.”
    “You don’t believe me?”
    “No, I appreciate it,” she said.
    “Meaning no, you don’t believe me, but you appreciate my bullshitting about it?”
    She stopped her winding and smiled. “Yeah, I suppose that’s what I mean.”
    He tilted his head, looked into her eyes.
    And she forgot to breathe. She had her answer. Blue—his eyes were light blue with gray shards and a pale line around the iris, as if to emphasize their blueness. But blue was just a color; the word did nothing to suggest content: humor. Intelligence. Sparkle shot through with challenge. He had a look that said, I have something wonderful for you.
    “I meant exactly that,” he said. “Moving.”
    “Okay,” she said.
    “Though I have to say, that song— You in the Alley ?”
    She kept winding. That song listed the junkiest, dirtiest, cheap and chipped dragons in the neighborhood, though it never used the word dragon. Laney didn’t like to be obvious, and also, the dragons were a lot of things. Rajini always insisted You in the Alley was about old boyfriends.
    She sort of wished this guy wouldn’t talk about her songs, because he hadn’t been listening.
    “You left out the best one,” he said. “I was curious why.”
    “The best one what?” she asked.
    “The best forgotten dragon.”
    Her heart skipped a beat. He’d gotten it. She looked up. “Well, aren’t you observant.”
    He crossed his arms, half-sitting and half-leaning on a table top, so calm and confident. Like his posture alone was reply enough.
    Did he know the song was kind of about her? She felt exposed, suddenly, at the thought that he might. Even she hadn’t realized it when she first wrote it. She’d just felt so horribly sorry for the dragons being crushed by the unforgiving city. She imagined that someday they’d be all gone, and it broke her heart. She’d reflected on it only later, realizing it was how she felt, and Rolly was the city, crushing everything out of her with his hard angles and force. “I’m sure there’s a lot of dragons I missed.”
    “You didn’t miss any of the others of that type on Tamron Road or the alleys off it. The song lists out every dragon in this area except the plaster one near the bazaar. I was waiting for it because it’s far and away the best. Well, they’re all wonderful, of course.” He had a whiff of an accent. Like he didn’t learn English in America.
    She narrowed her eyes. “There’s no plaster dragon over by the bazaar.”
    “Oh, yes there is.” He didn’t smile as he said it. Nah, this guy, he shone .
    “That you can see from the street?”
    “Yes. Just before Pim Song Palace.” A lock of blond hair escaped from its swept-back position and kissed his cheek, grazing the gold rim of his glasses. Her pulse sped. “I was curious,” he continued. “I wondered if it was because it didn’t fit your thesis, the idea that they’re losing the battle.”
    Her heart pounded. She felt held…invaded… ravished by how much he’d heard. As if she’d been undressing in front of a mirror, only to learn it was a two-way mirror, and he’d been on the other side, enjoying her. She almost couldn’t believe he was real, this man starting in about secret dragons.
    He smiled lazily. “To the left of Pim Song. You’d like this one.”
    “Because it doesn’t fit my thesis?” Funny that he’d called it a thesis. Like he took her songs really seriously. “Does that mean you think it’s winning?”
    “Well, I think they’re all winning, but with this one, it’s obvious. When you’re a dragon and your habitat is legends , the shadow of a high rise, a bed