Keith stood in a dark alley behind Eric, his hands on his shoulder, both of them invisible.

  “Why are we hiding in an alley if no one can see us anyway?” he whispered.

  Eric shrugged. “It’s what I’m used to.”

  “Seems like it’d make things harder.”

  “Shut up, I’m trying to concentrate.”

  People walked past them. Eric had told Keith he searched for wealthy-looking people with wallets in their pockets; which Keith knew, it’s how he lured him out, but he didn’t like to interrupt him when he spoke. He didn’t talk much already, why would Keith stop him when he finally did?

  Eric stuck his hand out. He strained and flexed his fingers like he tried to move something carefully. A wallet flew into his hand and disappeared from sight at contact. Keith looked over his shoulder. Eric took all the cash out, some bills and a few coins, then tossed the wallet back onto the street in front of him.

  “This is what you always do?”

  “Yep.”

  “We could do something more efficient with me here.”

  Eric pushed the money into his pants pocket and looked up at Keith. “What’s your bright idea then, blondie?”

  Keith grinned. One of his hands slid down Eric’s shoulder to his hand, he pulled him onto the street. He pushed his finger against his lips at Eric.

  They walked to the city centre, an area filled with wealth compared to the outskirts. Fancy restaurants, jewellery stores, expensive clothing stores. Keith felt Eric pinch his hand, he must not come here often, if ever. He dragged Eric into a narrow space between two buildings.

  “These people must carry a lot more cash,” Keith whispered.

  Eric stared up at him, holding his hand and squished together a little. He turned his head back to the street with a sudden jerk. “Yeah.”

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  “We don’t have to hide here, either.”

  “It’s so busy, people would see wallets flying around and disappearing. And then reappearing on the ground out of nowhere.”

  “We could only target nearby people, and toss their wallets here into this space.”

  “That’d be so obvious, a pile of wallets on the ground.”

  Keith shrugged. “We’d be gone by then. What are they gonna do, search for us?”

  “Hmm, true.”

  “Search for the fat wallets, these types carry either piles of cash or credit cards. Not much we could do with those. Older people are more likely to be the first category.”

  “How do you know all that?”

  Keith tensed. “Observation.”

  Eric squinted his eyes. “Mhm.”

  Keith pulled him into the open. He leaned against a wall and signed for Eric to go ahead. He watched Eric do his thing again. Wallet after wallet flew into his hand, had their contents taken out and thrown behind him into the darkness. Keith was fascinated by how smoothly he did this. Made sense, if he’d been perfecting this technique to survive for eight years. Keith only removed his biggest obstacle; being seen.

  He wondered what they’d spend the money on. They didn’t need it for supplies, Keith could steal those. Clothes weren’t as easy to steal, they always had those tags and shop alarms and such. Some nice, fresh clothes would be great. If they got good enough at this, they might even be able to rent an apartment or something. Now that would be amazing, a sturdy roof over his head. He hadn’t had that in a decade. It would need to be a landlord willing to accept cash, which wouldn’t be the highest quality apartment, but it was better than a flimsy hut in the woods.

  Eric looked at the ground behind him. Keith followed his gaze. A pile of wallets lay there.

  “This is enough for today,” Eric whispered. “My pockets are full.” He pulled Keith into the narrow space again.

  “What are we doing back here?” Keith asked, facing Eric, pressed against him again.

  Eric shrugged. “Being out in the open makes me uncomfortable.”

  “We could go home.”

  Eric seemed surprised. Keith realised he’d called his hut home. Not my hut, not my home, no, their home. If he could see the colours on Eric right now, he wouldn’t be surprised to see a blush.

  Keith let out a shocked hum when he felt a sudden pressure against his lips. It was gone as soon as it appeared. He was frozen, Eric looked down as if to avoid Keith’s face.

  “Did you—”

  “Shut up, let’s go home.”

  “No, I won’t gloss over that!”

  “We’ll talk at home, where it’s safe.” Eric dragged Keith further into the darkness.

  “Fine,” Keith lightly mocked.

  Even at age seventeen, Keith never had much time or opportunity to think about what he liked. He couldn’t remember a single moment where he gave himself the mental room to be attracted to anyone, and he wasn’t surrounded by other teens. But that, as short and barely noticeable as it was, was nice. Even though Eric was another boy, Keith knew that wasn’t exactly the norm. But he couldn’t imagine having this feeling towards a girl.

  He stared at Eric’s back as he dragged him along and smiled a little.

  Boys it was.