Christine’s Reviews > Luka Meer: Four Short Stories > Status Update

It was like the dirt bike, and my first broken arm. It was like hide-and-seek in a construction site, my toes hanging off the edge of a girder, all that open air beneath me. It was like the first fight I’d been in, a playground scuffle, because Kris wouldn’t hand over the dodge ball, how I’d picked pea gravel out of a scrape on my elbow.
I could close my eyes and see him, six years old with the same wild grin.

“Hello, Luka,” he said.
I nodded. My toxic trait is I talk too much.
For some reason, that made him smile. “I thought I’d see you at the mailboxes today.”
…Even the best nod in the universe couldn’t cover this one, so I said, “Sorry.” And then, my face heating, “I got busy.”
They’ve got a society for bright guys like me. I’d be a shoo-in at Mensa.
But Jude’s smile only got bigger.

“I clenched my teeth to keep the bad words from slipping out. Then I decided to hell with it and said a few of the best ones…
It would have been nice to be able to say that I’d given myself worse shaving, but for that to be true, I’d have to start shaving with a cleaver. Or a nine-millimeter.”
(Love the sort of modern take on noir writing style in this series)