A Heart Among Ink and Flames

Part 6

       Louis was sulking around the shop, ranting aimlessly to random novels and objects about how pathetically sad his life had become, "I can't even talk to people now" he said to one painting that had a cat who looked unmistakably like Henri who was surveying a party full of drunk, skimpily clad adults with a weird, humanlike smile upon his face.

      He is in one of these rants when Remy turns the corner, Rem listens to Louis pout to a creepy painting of Henri before he says "hello?"

      "Oh hi!" Louis says too brightly, "how are you?"

       "Um, good, et toi?"

       "Absolutely stupendous!"

       "Great." He finishes on a dull note; "I just wanted to apologize for what I said, it was-"it's okay" Louis smiled at Remy, "we both made it weird".

      "Yeah" Rem laughed and said, "I know that it has been cumbersome between us, uncharacteristically so, but I just want to say that nothing will change, we will always be best friends, right?"

      "Right," Louis said heavily. Friends.

      "Also, aren't you absolutely sweltering in that clothing?"

      "Of course not, it's all part of my charm."

      "Are you sure it's not the bookshop's controlled weather system, because when you came in here I swore I saw beads of sweat dotting your face."

     "Are you sure? And also, you saw me come in, what a completely normal thing for a stalker to say." 

      Rem was about to retort but before he could get a word out-"Well, how sweet, almost made my heart puke" said a woman with short bubblegum pink hair, honey brown eyes, several ear piercings, and a sleeve of tattoos that displayed beautiful birds, fish, and dragons in bright popping colors. She was seated in a wheelchair that was covered with stickers ranging from 'this is how I roll' to all of the pride and feminist activism that she does.

      "Bonjour to you too Sam," Louis said with a smirk. "How's it going?"

      "Quite well actually, though some idiot parked in the handicapped spot at the grocery store again" she shakes her head, "I left a sweet little note on their windshield though," she laughed, it was more like a cackle, or maybe a disease because anyone in its proximity is bound to laugh as well.

      "What are you two lovebirds doing back here behind the shelves?" She arched her eyebrows suggestively, "where you ki-

       "Sam!"

       "To be fair, I didn't even get the question out, and it could've been very different or similar depending on how you look at it, kissing or killing each other, each very plausible."

      "We were unquestionably doing nothing of the sort" Rem replied to Sam, who looked disturbingly sad for someone who had suggested potential murder a minute ago.

      "Yeah, little sis" Louis teased Sam, "none of your business," Sam scrunched up her face the way she has always done, similar to the times as children when they played tag in the backyard (one on legs, one on wheels) and she would be the one to get touched. They were adoptive siblings and she absolutely hated when he mentioned the six month age gap that was between them. 

      She promptly flipped Louis off and wheeled her way out of there to find Marci, they were best friends and had become so over the fact that they both loved music and tormenting Louis.

     "And that is how you make an exit" Remy said after she had left.

     "Oui, it is."