“Whoa. Whoa. Whoa,” Freddie said, pushing himself up from the small carpet at the hearth into a seated position. “There’s no way that’s how it all went down.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve never been that cool and badass under pressure.”
“Sure I have.”
Freddie snorted a laugh. “Your investigative questioning style is awkward at best.”
“Hey! Not true.”
“And you gave your mother an I’ve got this face?” Freddie asked with another snort. “What does that even look like?”
I pushed myself up on the bed. “You know what I think?”
“What?” Freddie asked, lying back down and staring at the ceiling.
“You’re just jealous.”
“Ha! That’ll be the day.”
“No, you are. You are totally jealous that I was the one who figured out that Bryson was blackmailing the Arthurs.”
Freddie laughed.
“And that I thought of the antifreeze.”
“Yeah, when it didn’t matter anymore.” Freddie shook his head against the floor before letting out a frustrated shout. “Okay, fine! You’re right. You are totally right! How could you have done all that without me? You wouldn’t have even been at this stupid New Year’s party if it wasn’t for me. I got us this job!”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t plan it that way. It just kind of happened.” I slouched back into the bed. “And it may not have happened exactly like that, but it was pretty close.”
“Hey, I just thought of something,” Freddie said, voice suddenly dropping in intensity to something much more careful. “You don’t think we got killed, do you?”
“What?”
“Yeah. Yeah,” Freddie said. “What if you, me, and Stanley, we all died … and this room is like some sort of limbo?”
“No.”
“You could have at least taken a minute to consider it.”
“No.”
“Fine. What happened next?”