“Kyle! Are you hosting the drinks tomorrow?” The salt-and-pepper caterpillar eyebrows wiggled enticingly from above the fence. Gary rested smudged elbows upon the top bar, a trowel dangling from his gloved hands.

People rarely noticed the retired detective’s inquisitive eyes beneath the wild, wiry growth, Kyle had observed. He’d even asked once, and received only a noncommittal half-smile before his neighbor had turned back to the petunias. But those deep chocolate eyes had tracked him even more sharply after that, the creases around them furrowed.

Those eyes had been under fully whitened eyebrows at last month’s backyard gathering, hadn’t they?

“My turn to host,” Kyle finally answered, and set the grocery bags back down in the SUV’s trunk. He jammed his hands in his pockets while picking his way over lumpy tufts of grass barely worth mowing each week. He’d stopped apologizing for the difference in lawns after the fifth failed application of fertilizer and seed. “Even borrowed some chairs this time. Got your usual, but I can head back to the store if you want to switch it up. Snacks, too.”

Yep, those eyebrows were definitely darker, but the creases looked just as deep under the battered sun hat. Who used dye on eyebrows, anyway?

“I’m good,” Gary said, and pulled off his gloves. “Garden’s overproducing already. Tomatoes the size of melons. I’ll bring some caprese salad. That all right?”

“Sounds good.” Kyle waved goodbye and hauled in the groceries, glad he’d chosen this month to restock his emergency preps. Putting cans and cheese in their proper places was satisfying, especially after the mess the bagger had left him. Sorting was mindless, automatic. Gave him time to think.

Silent didn’t mean stupid, after all, no matter what his ex-wife said. He just liked to mull things over. The world had enough unfinished thoughts and bad logic out there. The Army had developed some brilliant strategists he was honored to know, but every Monday Major Kyle Errant also despaired of the poor choices made by his soldiers over the weekend. So he took the time to think and plan, for the times when emergencies wouldn’t let him.

He’d been welcomed into the neighborhood a year ago, still raw from a divorce discovered via an empty house and in the usual culture shock throes after a PCS to a new base. The invite was more than he’d expected, and also didn’t ask much. Six houses in a cul-de-sac, six groups of neighbors who got together for drinks once a month.

All the earnestly bobbing grandmother had asked of him was to host twice a year, and he’d agreed to the task before he’d had a chance to think, amused by those coke-bottle glasses. She’d zipped back across the street before he could take back the words, knit pompom hat wobbling over short curls and calling back that she’d come back with details.

The details had come with cookies, too. Chocolate-chip, his favorite. So he didn’t regret the impulse, even if Marybeth still wouldn’t hand over the recipe. Besides, she was so hard of hearing he doubted she’d have noticed a denial.

But last month…last month had been different. Oh, they all knew flu was going around, sure. Suzanne and her husband Jeff both worked at the hospital, and the group rescheduled three times before they had enough breathing room to both be off work at the same time. It had been all hands on deck covering for sick medical personnel, even though her specialty lay in cutting-edge cancer treatments and his was administration. She’d even said she’d only gotten the day off – insisted on it – because she’d started making mistakes out of sheer exhaustion.

No, it certainly wasn’t surprising they’d all gotten ill after the monthly shindig. Very ill, in fact; he’d barely made it to sick call. He’d mystified a few doctors before they’d given up and put him on quarters.

Kyle frowned down at the can of pinto beans in his hand. Living alone meant he needed to rely on himself, and those delivery apps were a temptation he avoided simply by not using his phone to order food. But getting the flu usually meant losing weight, not running a fever followed by eating through his entire emergency food stockpile. Normally someone from the street would bring him food, but they’d all been hit simultaneously.

He headed for the front window, ignoring the glimpses of a barren life as he passed, forgotten can still in hand. The vertical blinds were already open, streaking sunlight across the wooden floor. Yes, there was Marybeth, hand-knit pompom bobbling as usual across the street as she tended the roses. She and Gary usually spent the gatherings sharing gardening tips filled with jargon he couldn’t follow, and maybe didn’t want to if they involved fish heads and the rotting garbage they claimed was healthy compost.

And her hair was also darker than usual. Surely the neighbors weren’t sharing the same dye?

Unless – no, they must be taking their friendship to the next level. Gary’s ungloved hands had looked younger, earlier, with fewer age spots. Marybeth must be sharing multiple cosmetics, and he chuckled to think of Gary’s tolerance, unsure he’d have the same patience. The tension left his shoulders as he backed away from the window. Of course. It all made sense. Their relationship was none of his business, either.

Suzanne ran by in a red blur as he started to turn away, much faster than he’d ever seen her jog before. He wasn’t even sure she had her usual stroller until the baby’s faint giggling gurgles trickled through the open windows.

Come to think of it, he rarely saw anyone at PT running that fast, either, and he worked with world-class athletes, even if he did mostly drive a desk at this assignment.

“Everything has a reasonable explanation,” he said aloud.

Across the street, Marybeth looked up and dropped him a wink at his words. He backed away, and stumbled over one of the mismatched, borrowed chairs. A pounding noise thudding into his ears slowly revealed itself to be his slowing heart rate.

How had a half-deaf elderly woman heard him from seventy feet away? Where were the thick lenses that always hid her eyes? For that matter, how had he seen that level of detail?

His mind whirled and retreated back to mundane matters. He still hadn’t found the ice cream or the wine Suzanne liked in the pile of plastic bags. And the can of beans he’d been clutching was dented enough he didn’t trust it. Major indentations in the tin, with four parallel grooves on one side and a fifth alone and up high on the other. His fingers rolled through the concavities perfectly as he spiraled the can like a football at the garbage can, irritable he’d missed seeing the damage in the store.

The damaged tin hit the garbage rim and exploded against the wall.

Ice cream forgotten, Kyle slumped against the cabinets and stared at the ancient linoleum, now spattered with pale pink speckled beans.

The first five minutes were spent admiring the contrast between the beans and the arm resting on his knee, as his mind shied away from the possibilities.

His legs were numb by the time he moved again, this time to slowly reach for his phone. “Jeff. Hi. Yes, we’re still on. Listen, random question for you two. What’s Suzanne’s medical specialty again?” A pause, and if he’d been standing, he’d have dropped then along with that widening pit in his stomach.

“No, no, nothing like that, sorry to spook you. The Army’s always jabbing or testing for something. Protected against every possible variant of bubonic plague, yes, but no cancer as far as I know.” The words came out of his mouth on automatic, filler words to get to the burning question he’d been pondering for the past – hour? More?

“Mmmhmm. Thanks.” His fingers gripped the phone. Plastic stabbed a fingertip, and Kyle consciously loosened his grip, switched hands, and cleared his throat. Blood dripped onto the floor to join the steadily drying beans. “Listen…this might be odd, but does she work with nanos at all?”

Kyle’s throat was dry as he stared as his free hand, smeared with blood with no visible injury. He forced the words out. “Yeah, nanotechnology. The sort of thing that might increase healing speeds, you know?”

“Riiight. Thank you.” He paused for a deep breath. “Change in plans, the group needs to talk before tomorrow night…”

***

This week on More Odds than Ends, Becky Jones offered a prompt I found challenging for most of the week. It wasn’t until I considered that the drinks themselves may have been unusual rather than the event that I hit upon the nanos idea. Might have to continue this one and see where it leads! The neighbors got together once a month for drinks. Until last month…that gathering was odd.

My prompt went to nother Mike: An unfortunate history of warfare involving…

Free prompts at MOTE! Join the fun! Taunt your favorite authors with puzzling prompts! All are welcome!