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"Yeah." He nodded. "You know, nothing fancy or exotic. No head caps or veiled anythings, just sleek, like a classic car. A man's fish." He stifled a Tim Taylor grunt, though he felt his lips pull down toward his chin in anticipation. Damned pretentious lips.

"Wen..."

Puzzled, he said, "Today." He wondered if there was some sort of goldfish control law that

required a waiting period, like buying a gun.

"No," she giggled, obviously amused with herself. Ah, geek confidence. Endearing when it

wasn't pretentious. "Goldfish don't have
head caps
. They're called
wens
."

Ian thought head cap was close enough, but he showed his appreciation for the bit of wisdom

with a quirky smile. "Ah. Good one. Exactly why I want a plain, manly goldfish. No fans or veils

or wens or whys or..." Okay, there was no way his joke was any better than hers, so he rubbed

the back of his neck with a dry laugh. "Um, yeah."

"Well," she stammered, "most of our individual goldfish are either fantail or veiltail. But, we do have some feeders. Those are pretty much all common golds."

"Common? Like, if the pet store was a kingdom, they'd be the dudes down at the ale house

eyeing the wenches? Commoners?"

She raised an eyebrow, a well-practiced gesture, he could tell. She was... expressive. Not like

most kids her age, all jaded and putting on airs. He liked her. "Uh, if you say so. They're long,

single-tailed. They can get pretty big, I hear, but," she bit her lip, "I've never seen one full-grown. We only buy them to... feed to the other fish." She walked over to one of the counters. On

top were rows and rows of brightly lit tanks full of fancy, colorful fish. Bending over in a way

that made it pretty obvious she'd never had to worry about anyone checking out her ass, she

opened a cupboard underneath to reveal what looked like a steel cattle tank teeming with fish the

size of Ian's little finger, all moving lightning fast. "They're ten for a dollar," she announced, her knees knocking together a little like she either had to pee or felt like she was betraying some kind

of pet store confidence by offering to sell him under-the-counter fish.

For shame.

"Perfect," he said. "I'll take one."

For the first time since he walked in, Marcy stopped smiling. "You want
one
?"

"Yeah," he nodded. "It's kind of a small bowl."

Go Fish - 12

"I, uh..." She twisted the outer seams of her jeans between her sweaty fingers, a walking, talking fidget. Ian couldn't help but like her. "I'm not sure I can catch just one. But I'll see what I can do.

You don't...?" And she went pasty. "You don't want any one in particular, do you?"

Ian perked up. "I can choose? Well, then." He slid up next to Marcy and looked down into the

tank, squinting as though trying to horn in on just the right one. He drew a circle in the air with

his index finger and swirled it in a tightening spiral before pointing at some arbitrary spot and

saying, "I want that one."

She actually swayed on her feet a little. Afraid if he let the joke go on too long, she'd faint, he

laughed and put an arm across her shoulder, leaning down to speak in her ear. "I'm just kidding,

gorgeous. Any one you can catch is fine."

He was pretty sure he could feel her flush through her store-issued smock. "And while you're

doing that, I'll pick up a few more things. Tell me, you got any of those sunken treasure chests

with pirate skeletons inside?" He wondered if he needed a prescription for an Epi-Pen, because

Cal was going to go into anaphylaxis for sure by the time Ian finished stocking up on all the

cheap and tacky fish junk he could get his hands on.

Giggling, Marcy pointed him to the wall of aquarium ornaments, then went to work catching him

a manly fish likely to lift a wench's skirt in the back of an ale house. He already had a name

picked out. Scrappy.

***

"No."

"Ian..."

"I'm not going in there, Cal."

"Fine," Cal sighed. He plopped the plastic bag, complete with floating Scrappy, down on the

hood of the car, directly in Ian's line of sight. "Then we'll just stand here in the parking lot with our dead fish hanging out for everyone to see."

Okay, so Scrappy hadn't exactly worked out. That didn't mean Cal could drag him back to the pet

store and demand a refund on his behalf like he was some little kid crying over a hard-won

carnival prize.

It wasn't like Ian was attached to the thing. He paid ten cents for it, for Christ's sake.

It certainly wasn't like he was at all traumatized to have Cal sneak into his room that morning

and find it lying on the dresser, glued to the veneer, cloudy eyes fixed on the rainbow-colored

gravel Cal had put in the bowl the week before.

Go Fish - 13

It most definitely wasn't like he was a good-for-nothing, fish-murdering failure who didn't even

hear it flopping around and gasping for breath while he slept soundly in his bed just a few feet

away.

Except, maybe it was like that. In which case, all Ian really wanted to do was sit at home and feel

sorry for himself, not announce it to the world by dragging the corpse back to the store, receipt in

hand, and demanding his dime back. Or worse yet, by sitting in the parking lot where new

customers were coming and going with live fish in hand, waving his little receipt like a surrender

flag.

He came. He bought. He killed. He failed. End of story.

"Ian Jeffries, stop pouting and get your ass out here."

He was
not
pouting.

"Yes, you were."

He was
not
doing a very good job of keeping his inner thoughts inner, either.

"Dude, some girls just came out of the tanning salon next door. They're totally eyeing you up.

Maybe they recognize you from that commercial you did last month. They're probably getting

out their camera phones as I speak. Do you really want pictures of you pouting over a dead

goldfish to be spammed all over the Internet before you start shooting your pilot?" Cal leaned

down, one arm draped over the roof, to talk through the window.

"From where I'm sitting, all they're gonna get is a picture of your ass leaning in a car window. I

doubt the fish is even in the shot," Ian snapped. He knew he was being a brat, and he didn't care,

because he'd totally won this round. Cal was the one who was paranoid about his online persona.

Ian, on the other hand, didn't give a rat's ass. "If I slide down like this, I bet it kinda looks like you're kissing me. Bet they'd love that shot."

Cal stiffened for a second, then grinned in that big, face-splitting way that made Ian do things

straight boys shouldn't do, like notice his best friend's teeth, and his lips, and his dimples. Not to

mention the fact that sitting in the car while Cal leaned in gave him a pretty good view of

everything below the belt. Not that he was looking.

"If I do kiss you, will you get your ass out of the car?"

He was kidding, right? Ian knew he was kidding. He was SO kidding that it should've been

considered cruel and unusual punishment. If Ian had known he was going to be teased like that,

he would've worn looser-fitting jeans. As it was, he had a whole body squirm going on before he

could control the shiver that went down his spine from just the possibility that Cal might
not
be kidding.

Go Fish - 14

The only way he could possibly save face, short of sucking it, which might be nice, but would

land them both in a lot of deep shit, was to open the door. If it sorta hit Cal on the thigh -- high

up on the thigh -- as it swung out, Ian wasn't really sorry. If Ian had to be walking funny, then

they were gonna be walking funny together.

Okay, his logic was definitely faulty on that one, but it was too late for do-overs. He grabbed the

dead fish off the hood of the car and slammed the door shut. On a whim, because he was already

sorta fucked for spazzing anyway, he leaned over and said, "Ask me again when no one's

watching."

It wasn't like he was shaking his ass when he walked ahead of Cal into the store. His jeans were

just too tight.

***

the store. The little bell over the door jingled, and the macaw by the front desk said, "Hello!"

And just like that, Ian wanted to take his floating fish in its plastic bag and duck into the book

section. He could leave the fish on the shelf between the whelping manuals and the breed

literature. No one would be the wiser.

Except for the part where Cal was behind him and strolled right up to the desk. He even rang the

bell for service, like the squawking parrot hadn't drawn enough attention already. "Excuse me?"

Cal called out, craning his neck to see over the rows of shelves. Ian couldn't help but notice how

long Cal's neck was just then. All the better to strangle him. Slowly.

Ian's trepidation inched up a few more notches when the clerk came out of the back, wiping her

hands on the blue store-logo smock and looking minorly perturbed. If she had a name tag, it was

obscured by one of the five hundred buttons she had on her apron that all said something like,

'have you kissed your X breed of dog today.' Her 'manager' patch was frayed at the edges and

barely visible. Ah, they've brought out the big guns.

It wasn't Marcy. Ian didn't know why that mattered, but it did.

"Excuse me," Cal said again, because maybe the nice, grumpy-looking lady didn't see his giant

ass slouching against the counter in the center of the store.

"Yes?" she asked, her smile obviously forced. "Can I help you?" Which was store speak for,

'what the fuck do you want? I'm on my smoke break.'

Cal put a hand on Ian's shoulder, a gesture that was surprisingly effective in quelling the urge to

strangle him, but most definitely did nothing for Ian's urge to put his hands on him. "My friend

bought a fish here yesterday, and unfortunately, it didn't survive the night. The receipt says

there's a ten-day guarantee on all live fish."

She stretched out an arm, made grabby 'c'mon, c'mon' motions with her fingers, and Ian handed

Go Fish - 15

her the floating fishy mausoleum. Raising it up to her face, she rolled her eyes and said, "Doesn't apply to feeder fish."

Cal looked at the receipt more closely. "It doesn't say that here."

She huffed and dropped the baggie on the counter with a splat. "No one's dumb enough to return

feeder fish. They're
supposed
to die. Hence the term,
feeder
fish. Even dead, it's fresher than anything you'd buy at the market. What's the matter? Your other fish finicky eaters?"

"Nope," Ian offered. "One only eats slime and poo."

Cal elbowed him in the ribs. "Dude, you're not helping. I'm trying to get you your..." he looked at the receipt, squinted, looked closer. "Ten cents?! I came all the way down here on your behalf to

get back ten cents?"

"Plus tax," Ian offered. Maybe his bottom lip poked out a little. He had no control over the

damned thing. "And you said 'it's the principle of the thing.'"

"We spent more than ten cents in gas driving over here."

Ian shrugged. "Then, yup. But only 'cause you love me."

"Or," Cal turned in a slow leer to the woman behind the counter, "because it's the
principle
of the thing."

"Are you saying we don't have strong principles here?" She grunted.

"You sold him a fish with an imbalance or something. It was suicidal."

"It committed fishicide," Ian agreed. Poor thing was crying out for help. How did he not see the warning signs?

Just then, Marcy came out of the back, also wiping her hands. The image of store employees

finger painting on their lunch breaks popped into his head. It was just one of those kind of days.

"It jumped out of the tank, didn't it?" she said sadly. "That happens a lot." Ian thought maybe she was wearing makeup today. The mascara was kind of flaking, and one eye was a little red from

rubbing, but he couldn't help but feel proud. His little geek was growing up.

Ian nodded. "While I was sleeping. We tried everything, CPR, mouth to fish resuscitation, but

when we tried to move him and some of his scales stayed stuck to the dresser, we knew he'd

been gone a while." He had to look away, 'cause, whew, he thought he was ready to talk about it,

but he so wasn't.

A second later, Cal's big hand clamped down on the back of Ian's neck and massaged lightly. Ian

wasn't usually big on the touchy-feely crap, but it helped. A lot.

Go Fish - 16

"Ya see!" Cal accused. "She knew the fish was defective! She sold him a defective fish."

Marcy cringed, blinking the red eye a few times more than the other, and her shoulders slouched

a little.

"Cal..."

"I'm sorry," Marcy apologized. "Most people don't buy them for pets. I didn't think to mention that they need a lot of room for swimming, because they go pretty fast and don't always see the

edge of the tank. How big was your tank? We probably have a lid that will fit. I'm sure if you

buy the lid, we can throw in a new fish for free." She raised her eyebrows in the manager's

direction and got a nod of approval. Ian couldn't help but grin to himself either. You go, girl, he

thought.

"Um, it's a bowl," Cal said a little sheepishly. He circled his hands to about the size of the bowl.

"A gallon, maybe two." Then he scratched at his collar.