Morning classes dragged the way they always did.
By second period, everything had already started to blur together. One room into the next. One teacher talking over a half-awake class. One bell cutting through another set of notes nobody really wanted to take. The heating in some classrooms worked too well, making the air dry and heavy, while others stayed cold enough that people kept their jackets on and pretended not to notice when teachers got irritated by it. Pens scratched across paper. Chairs scraped. Somebody laughed at the wrong time. Somebody got told to shut up. Then another bell rang, and the whole thing started over again.
By the time the first real break came, the building emptied out fast.
Students spilled into the hallways and then into the courtyard behind the school, moving in clusters that broke apart almost immediately. Some stayed near the doors where it was loudest. Some drifted toward the steps, the railings, the edges of the yard where they could smoke, complain, flirt, or start something that would be talked about for the rest of the week. It was the same every day. Everybody acting relieved to be out for ten minutes, even though they were all headed right back in.
Lip and Mandy ended up where they usually did, near the low concrete ledge at the edge of the courtyard. It was far enough from the bigger groups that nobody had to raise their voice just to be heard. Not private exactly, but better than standing in the middle of everyone else's noise.
Mandy sat sideways on the ledge with one leg bent up, her backpack beside her. Lip leaned back next to her, forearms resting loosely on his knees, looking out across the yard without paying close attention to any one thing. She pulled a folded worksheet from her bag and looked over it for a minute, more out of habit than actual interest.
For a while, neither of them said anything.
The courtyard was loud in the usual way. A group of girls near the far side were already arguing about something that probably didn't matter outside of school but clearly mattered enough right now. A few guys near the back steps were shoving each other around in the half-serious way that usually meant a real fight might happen later if enough people kept watching. Somewhere closer to the doors, somebody was laughing too hard at their own story.
Mandy folded the worksheet again and shoved it back into her bag.
"You ever notice how everybody here acts like their life's falling apart every five minutes?"
Lip followed her gaze toward the group of girls. "For most of them, that probably is their whole day."
She made a face. "That's depressing."
"That's high school."
Mandy glanced over at him. "You say that like you're thirty."
"Feels like it some mornings."
That pulled a short laugh out of her.
She was about to say something else when a familiar voice cut in from a few feet away.
"Well. This is new."
Lip already knew who it was before he turned.
Karen Jackson stood there with her arms folded, looking between them with that same amused expression she wore whenever she thought she had walked into something useful. She wasn't trying too hard yet. That was usually when Karen was at her most annoying.
Her eyes moved from Mandy back to Lip. "Didn't realize this had turned into a full-time thing."
Mandy's posture changed beside him. Not much. Just enough that the ease went out of it.
Lip stayed where he was.
Karen took another step closer. "You used to spend breaks with me too, you know."
Lip looked up at her. "You came over for this?"
Karen tilted her head. "You used to be easier to talk to."
"No," he said. "You just liked hearing yourself more."
That wiped some of the amusement off her face.
Karen shifted her attention to Mandy. "You always this comfortable in other people's places?"
Mandy didn't move. "Only when nobody's asked me to leave."
Karen smiled faintly, but there wasn't much warmth in it. "Funny."
Lip leaned forward a little. "Karen."
She looked at him again. "What?"
"If you've got something to say, just say it."
For a second, Karen held his gaze like she was trying to decide whether he was serious or just being difficult for the sake of it. When she realized he wasn't going to give her anything better, her expression flattened.
"You really don't care?"
"No."
The answer came quick enough that it clearly wasn't for effect.
Karen stood there one second longer, then gave a slight shrug like she had outgrown the whole conversation anyway.
"Whatever."
She turned and walked off toward the building, disappearing back into the crowd before either of them bothered watching where she went.
The noise of the courtyard filled back in around them.
Mandy looked over. "That was easy."
Lip glanced toward the far side of the yard. "She wanted a reaction."
"And you didn't give her one."
He looked at her. "Was I supposed to?"
"No." Mandy settled back a little. "Just checking."
That was enough. Neither of them brought Karen up again.
A minute later the bell rang and everyone started moving at once, all the loose groups breaking apart and funneling back toward the building in the same irritated rush as always. Mandy grabbed her bag, Lip pushed off the ledge, and the rest of the day swallowed the moment up like it had never happened.
By the time school ended for real, the sky had already gone dull and gray.
The cold had crept back in too, not enough to be miserable, just enough that people zipped jackets and walked faster than they had that morning. Lip and Mandy took the usual way home, the crowd around them thinning out block by block as students split off toward buses, corner stores, front gates, and side streets.
Neither of them mentioned Karen again.
At the corner near the Gallagher house, Mandy slowed.
"You going to the Alibi tonight?"
Lip nodded. "Yeah."
She shifted the strap of her backpack higher on her shoulder. "I might stop by."
He looked at her. "You can just come over later."
"I know."
That was all she said about it.
Then she turned down toward the Milkovich house, and he kept going.
He didn't stay at the Gallaghers' long.
The house was in that in-between stretch of the day where it hadn't fully tipped into dinner noise yet, but it was getting there. Fiona was in the kitchen. Carl was somewhere in the living room making enough sound to suggest he was already being a problem. Debbie was arguing about something from another room, though Lip didn't bother figuring out what. He went upstairs just long enough to drop his bag, then headed back out before Fiona could decide he looked too idle.
The Alibi was already half full when he got there.
It smelled the way it always did—beer soaked into wood, fryer grease, old mop water, and something sharp from the cleaner Kev used when he remembered to use it. The usual low conversation sat over the whole room, broken now and then by a louder laugh or the scrape of a bar stool against the floor. The TV behind the bar was on, but nobody looked especially invested in it.
Kev was behind the counter leaning over a stack of boxes that had clearly come in not long ago. Veronica stood near him with a clipboard in one hand and the patient expression of somebody who had already listened to him complain once and didn't plan to do it again.
Kev looked up the second Lip walked in.
"There he is."
Lip came over and looked at the boxes. "This the delivery you were whining about?"
Kev straightened. "You see anybody else dying to help?"
Lip glanced around the bar. "Not a single volunteer."
V didn't look up from the clipboard. "Smart crowd."
Lip reached for one of the smaller boxes and lifted it. "So what am I getting out of this?"
Kev pointed vaguely toward the back. "A sense of purpose."
"That's terrible pay."
"Then move faster."
Lip carried the box behind the bar and set it where Kev told him to. It wasn't heavy, just awkward enough to be annoying. When he came back for another, Kev was already tearing into the next part of the stack like getting angry at cardboard would make the job shorter.
V watched Lip for a second while he picked up another box. "You here helping or here asking?"
He set the box against his hip. "Can be both."
That got Kev's attention immediately.
He stopped what he was doing and looked at Lip properly. "You serious?"
Lip nodded once. "If you need somebody."
Kev glanced at V. She raised an eyebrow and tipped her head toward the boxes still stacked behind him.
"Well," she said, "you clearly do."
Kev scratched the back of his neck. "Mostly nights. Stocking, cleaning, dragging deliveries around, whatever needs doing."
"That's fine."
Kev kept looking at him like he expected the joke to arrive late. When it didn't, he grinned.
"Alright then."
V pointed the pen at Lip. "Show up when you say you will, and don't make me regret this."
Lip smiled a little. "That one's aimed at the wrong person."
"That one's aimed exactly right."
Kev laughed. "Welcome to the Alibi."
It was easy enough after that.
There wasn't much ceremony to it. No paperwork shoved in his face right then. No big moment. Just Kev deciding, V accepting it, and Lip grabbing the next box because there were still too many stacked there and talking about a job didn't move the job itself.
By the time the last of the delivery had been sorted, the bar had filled in a little more. A couple men at the far end were already halfway into the same conversation they had probably been having for years. Somebody fed money into the jukebox. The front door opened and shut every few minutes with a burst of colder air each time.
Lip was carrying one more box from the back when Mandy came in.
She spotted him immediately and came over to the bar while he set it down.
"So you actually did it."
Lip looked at her across the counter. "Kev needed help."
From farther down the bar, Kev called out, "He works here now."
Mandy turned her head toward him, then back to Lip.
For a second she just looked at him standing on the working side of the bar, the boxes stacked by the sink, the rag thrown over one shoulder, the whole thing already looking more natural than it should have for a first night.
Then she smiled.
It was small, quick, and real enough that she seemed to realize it a second too late.
"Well," she said, leaning one arm on the counter, "guess that worked out."
Lip gave one shoulder a shrug. "Easy enough."
Mandy looked around the bar once, then back at him. "You going to be insufferable about this?"
"Absolutely."
"That's unfortunate."
He smiled a little at that, and she did too before looking away first.
Behind the bar, Kev was still moving boxes around badly enough that V had started correcting him again. The Alibi kept humming around them, ordinary as ever, but for once something in the middle of it had shifted in a way that felt useful.
And Mandy, still standing there at the bar, looked entirely too pleased about it.
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