‘Nothing, Cat. Yet,’ he whispered back. My eyes closed in response, attempting to find some logic or reason. I turned my head and rested it on his...shoulder, his arms coming around me, one hand closing on the nape of my neck, the other lazily stroking my back. My own arms closed around his slender waist. ‘Let’s go back to the table,’ he suggested. ‘I don’t want to be thrown out of here again.’ I threw him a look, to which he only shrugged. ‘It’d be worth it this time,’ he eyed me, considering.. To sob on the dirty alley floor.It was a long time before K.T. recovered enough to stand. Tears stained her cheeks and her eyes were red. Dirt, small sharp stones and pieces of trash clung to her front. She was a mess, more homeless street rat than skatergirl.She rose on shaking limbs and staggered out of the alley. Her body hurt. Random pains shot through her muscles and her joints throbbed. After being in the sky, everything was far worse than before. Far far worse. She started sobbing. . she looked at the blades of the fan and now that she was looking, it seemed almost as if they were sparkling. She hadn’t noticed it at first. She hadn’t noticed it when the fan wasn’t spinning but now ... “That’s it,” she heard her mother coo from somewhere off behind her. “Just look at the fan and feel how cool it makes you.” She was looking at the fan and now that she was looking at the fan, she could feel the wind in her face and it was cool. She liked feeling the wind in her face. “So. He was dressed like a modelin the L. L. Bean Catalog, all plaids and corduroy. He was a good 6-4 andalmost 300 pounds, more muscle than fat."I'm a retired professor from UVA." Gill said. "I'm trying to do acomprehensive study of the birds of the Gulf Coast. Ari is to be the fieldcoordinator for this area." I liked birds, but had nowhere approaching theenthusiasm that Ari had, but Gil described his study and it wasfascinating. He was trying to relate bird populations to pollution bycoordinating.