And there was Xena’s hand on his arm again. He liked it there. He didn’t pull his arm away.
Then he remembered that he didn’t actually feel any attraction to Xena.
That was before she was attracted to him. Now she was very attractive.
I’m such a teenager myself, thought Danny. He remembered Lana, Ced’s wife back in DC. How she made him feel. Xena was much nicer than Lana, and a lot less crazy. What if Danny had a girlfriend for a while? Not somebody who would seduce him and mock him for succumbing. Not a succubus. An actual girlfriend.
Then he remembered the stories of Zeus raping women all over the Aegean. And Hermes-how many women did the old myths have Hermes seducing? There was no lock on a bedroom door that could keep him out.
Xena’s basically saying I can have her if I want. I could go into her bedroom tonight and sleep with her and her parents would never see me come in or go out. And she’d let me. She’d think it was cool.
Until we’d done it. Then she’d think we were together. And we would be. What if she got pregnant? What if she thought it made her cooler than the other girls and it caused a rift in the group?
Keep your pants zipped and your brain out of Xena’s bedroom, Danny told himself.
She leaned her head on his shoulder.
Danny turned his body to face Xena. She put a hand on his chest. He took the hand and held it between his. “We’re friends, Xena. And fellow soldiers in a war. Let’s see what happens when the war is over.”
Xena tossed her hand and stepped to Pat. “I told you he was gay.” Then she laughed as if it had been a joke. Which it was. Mostly. Maybe.
I have no business trying to lead a group of any kind. I should take back all these gates and leave right now and never come back. Everybody will be better off it I do that.
Everybody but me.
He’d been lonely his whole life. This was the first time he had friends. And he couldn’t give them up. He didn’t want to give them up, and he could do whatever he wanted, and so he was going to stay here with them. Because they thought he was cool. They liked that he was powerful. They weren’t trying to kill him. And they liked him before they knew he could do this thing with gates.
And he was going to be thinking about Xena in spite of the fact that he wasn’t attracted to her. Or to any of the girls. He was sixteen now, so any offer was going to make him obsess for a while. Knowing that it was just his hormones making him feel this way didn’t make the feelings go away. Might as well enjoy the feeling. As long as he didn’t do anything about it.
That night Danny went to DC and Stone agreed to let him put the tail of the emergency gate in his attic. “But no gun,” said Stone.
“What if someone’s coming after them?” asked Danny.
“Be creative,” said Stone.
What Danny came up with was a stack of pennies with gates on both sides. As long as you handled them by the edge, you didn’t go anywhere. But if you touched heads or tails, you found yourself someplace interesting and public. Just inside the gate of the White House. The middle of the Capitol rotunda. Lincoln’s lap. On the nose of the giant in the Awakening statue. If one of his friends was getting chased through the gates, they come to Stone’s attic closet, grab a penny, and throw it at whoever comes through the gate after them.
“Weaponized money,” said Stone. “But if one of your friends comes through just for fun, I get to throw a penny at them.”
“They’re nice,” said Danny. “I don’t want them getting treated badly just because they’re drowthers.”
“You know me better than that,” said Stone. “I’ll treat them badly because they’re teenagers.”
When Veevee and Hermia heard about the portable gates, they both demanded some of their own. Veevee had a charm bracelet, which she loaded up with rings, each one a gate leading to a useful place-her condo, the Silvermans’ farm, Danny’s house, Danny’s school, Stone’s bedroom. “I’m his wife, I don’t have to use the attic,” she said.
“What if somebody steals the bracelet?” said Danny. “I suppose if Hermia locks them for you and you only open them when you-”
“While you were playing with your little friends,” said Hermia, “we were working.”
“We can’t make gates,” said Veevee, “but now I can lock them and Hermia can unlock them. We both have lock and key now.”
“We’re working on moving gates,” said Hermia. “I think I moved one. Just the tail.”
“But she can’t do it again,” said Veevee.
“So then it doesn’t have to be a ring,” said Danny. “I can attach a gate to anything, and it only works when you want it to.”
Hermia handed him a euro. “Put a dozen or so gates on this,” she said. “I’ll only open the ones I need, when I need them.”
Her list of destinations was longer than Veevee’s, but she had to stay a jump ahead of her Family. Danny attached two dozen gates to the coin. At first he tried to arrange them in some orderly way, but Hermia just laughed. “Danny, I can see them all, I can tell them apart, I know where they go, and I can keep them all locked except the one I want to use. Go ahead and pile them on in a jumble.”
He gave her Paris, New York, Dubai, Singapore, Katmandu, Accra, Brisbane, Sao Paulo, a dozen other cities-not to mention the Greek Family’s office building in Athens, the North Family compound in Virginia, and the Library of Congress. “It’s practically the whole atlas,” said Veevee admiringly.
“I’ll add as many gates as you want,” said Danny.
“No, I’m not jealous, and I know you’ll open a gate to anywhere I want. What I’m worried about, Danny, is that there’s no gate that takes me to you.”
Hermia nodded. “We have all these gate mouths with us. But we need a gate whose tail always leads to wherever you are.”
“I can’t have you popping out of my pocket,” said Danny.
“I know,” said Veevee. “Have us come out of an old-fashioned oil lamp. We can be your genies.”
“Amusing as that sounds,” said Danny, “I don’t want you popping up when I’m on the john.”
“What if you need our help?” asked Hermia.
“I’ll always know where these gates are. If I need to, I can move the tail of one of your portable gates to a place near me.”
“Unless you’re unconscious,” said Veevee.
“I’ll think about this,” said Danny.
“You can lock it,” said Hermia. “And then unlock it if you need us. We aren’t going to intrude on your privacy.”
“We unlock it ourselves only if we think something is really wrong,” said Veevee.
“We peek through ahead of time,” said Hermia.
Danny hated the whole idea. It was one thing to give them the power to go anywhere by using their amulets. But to give someone constant access to him-that wasn’t going to happen. Even if they promised not to use it.
“I don’t think he sees a difference between peeking through a gate and coming through it,” said Veevee. “He doesn’t want to be spied on.”
“You have to trust us,” said Hermia.
“I said I’d think about it,” said Danny.
“Meaning the answer is no,” said Veevee.
“It’s really unfair,” said Hermia. “You can make a gate anytime you want, no matter what we’re doing. We can’t hide from you, but you don’t think we can be trusted not to spy on you or intrude when you’re kissing some girl.”
“We won’t take pictures,” said Veevee. “Or at least we won’t post them online.”
“I said…” Danny began.
“He’s getting testy now,” said Veevee.
“I don’t spy on you,” said Danny, “and I know you won’t spy on me. But that’s how power is-just because you have a power doesn’t mean you want other people to use their power on you. Fairness only seems reasonable when the other person is more powerful than you.”