When it came time to decide who was going to give Nathan a home, some sort of I.D., and do his taxes, there wasn't much competition. I lived with my parents, who'd never let me get a dog let alone a thirty-something-year-old dude from 1840, so that ruled me out. Fran lived in Pennsylvania with his wife and goes away way too much, Frederick had modest living arrangements but also had a girlfriend, George lived with his wife and animals on some kind of farm, Wil and Orv lived with their father, Ben and his wife were really reclusive and private, and Alex couldn't be trusted where Nathan was concerned. Isaac, however, had no qualms about Nathan staying with him.

Isaac claims to have worked for the U.S. Mint for a spell, as some sort of higher-up. That's why George made him the guy in charge of financing and leasing vehicles on the lot. So, in addition to being able to spit out tons of free Windows 7 activation keys the government just instructed Isaac to throw away - he had our entire dealership hooked up with free Windows – Isaac also knew a lot about counterfeiting. Being so good at knowing how to discern phony stuff, it seemed to aid Isaac in the reverse manner as well. Nathan had an I.D. and papers claiming that instead of being born in Massachusetts in the 1840s, he'd been born in the early 90s. Same place and all, just different dates.

When I had to go over Isaac's apartment condo thing for some stuff George wanted me to pick up, seeing as Isaac translates and prints all of the Snowbaroo service manuals into English, it was apparent that Nathan would be there. What I didn't expect to encounter, least of all from Isaac, was the creepiness of what went on over there. Isaac's apartment, from the time I walked through the door, smelt of ashen chemicals, like he was some sort of warlock. The walls were clad in burgundy wallpaper, and the window curtains were all burgundy as well. And shut. There was gold stuff everywhere, like for the fixtures, and it was generally modern, but so soaked in burgundy that it looked like the room had been just submerged into a vat of cabernet.

In the living area, Isaac had wheeled in a large corkboard, and it was on a burgundy chaise that I found him and Nathan pondering. They were wearing black robes, and Nathan was draped in this cloak-like piece of black fabric that looked suspiciously like a bed sheet or something those phony vampires hid their faces in. On the board, there were several pictures, all of them looking ancient and hieroglyphic except for a pretty nice corporate headshot of Alex. Minus the candles, it looked like some weird combo of séance and police detective work.

"Hey, guys..." I stood in the doorframe between the entrance to the place and the living room.

Nathan was the first to look up, and his grey-blue eyes that shifted tone depending on his very mood gave off a welcome vibe that time.

"Excellent! Alex's chief admirer is in our presence." He pointed at the corkboard with a cheap plastic pen, like the kind that are chained down at banks. "What do you make of this, Grisly?"

Man, for a guy who'd been in 1840 just yesterday, Nathan looked right at home in Isaac's gothic abode.

"Looks like gobbledygook to me," I admitted. "Maybe if you guys put some red yarn between the photos to connect them, you know? Like in those true crime stories."

"Make a note, Grisly as a water bottle caddy operative," Nathan directed to Isaac.

"Water bottle what?" Once again, things were moving quick in the world of Dark Dimension Snowbaroo, even outside its glass and slate walls.

"You'll need to infiltrate the Dark Dimension High School girls' soccer team, Dark Dimension FC," Isaac spoke out. "As a water bottle caddy, you will..."

"Dark Dimension FC, Alex coaches those teams! Why can't I be on the boy's team?" The idea seemed to not have occurred to either of the two robed figures, because it was somehow inconceivable that I'd play soccer. Heck, if I knew Alex coached the boys' team too, I'd have signed up years before.

"It's going to be hard though, because Grisly's a senior. They don't let seniors just sign up at will..." Isaac parsed this out, but seemed to realize the answer. "Goalkeeper."

I knew Isaac was from across the pond, and was probably a closeted Manchester United buff or something, so it was unnerving to come to the realization that he could be one of those soccer hooligan types. And his muttering, "goalkeeper," seemed to place me in one of those goals, net around me, jumping to catch a soccer ball hurtling towards me at such speed as would batter me senseless if I stunk at being a goalie. Lucky for me, whatever Isaac and Nathan needed to infiltrate to figure out about Alex that they couldn't from literally working in the same place six days a week, I was going into prepped. Or so I hoped.

Before I'd even be able to collect on Isaac's stack of papers, he'd led me outside into the parking lot outside of his two-floor condo unit. He opened the garage up that the whole unit sat over, and tossed a slightly deflated soccer ball at me. It fell into a lump at the tips of my Nike Downshifter sneakers.

"Isaac, do you have a way to inflate this thing?" I asked him, picking up the ball, which now resembled one of those tricorn hats that George liked.

"Sure." He rummaged through something on the other side of his white Impasta and produced a balloon pump.

A few seconds later, I was back in business. Isaac took the opportunity to tell me he'd been a striker on some FC – that's "football club" but said coolly – back in England. I had no idea what a striker was, but it didn't sound good. Sure enough, when Isaac gave the ball a little thwack with the inside of his foot, the ball effortlessly passed above my head and crashed into his Impasta's roof with a hollow bang.

"Grisly! Focus! Oh my God, did it take paint off?!" Isaac abandoned his position on the stretch of asphalt to survey the roof of his car.

"Maybe we should find a patch of public grass." Nathan proposed, finally speaking up. He'd been delicately savoring yet another Boston cream donut while Isaac and I attempted to practice.

A ride in Isaac's Impasta, which was immaculate, of course, and we were at the only field without a foot of snow on it. Nathan was miffed because Isaac would not allow him to eat yet another Boston cream donut in the car. He was getting addicted to those pastries, Nathan, and I'm pretty sure that even though he took his coffee black, he wouldn't be better off calorie-wise. When we rolled up to the field though, Nathan jumped right out and was ready to exert himself. Isaac was first up, and had given me this pair of winter gloves he had, to try cushion the brunt of the ball impacting my hands, if It did. Isaac didn't tell me what to do after that except, "Take it to the ground."

I hadn't really watched pro soccer, so I wasn't quite prepared for what came next.

"Ow!" I yelped as Isaac's pointed kick, originating probably like three or four yards away, connected the ball with my raised arms like a rounded brick.

"That wasn't even a good kick!" Isaac shouted back. "One of my better kicks would have broken something if you'd tried that!"

I didn't try anything except try to catch the thing.

"You want to appear skilled in the midst of Alex, do you not?!" Nathan yelled at me, like he was a coach himself.

"I guess..." I spoke it loudly, but it was hard not to begin to whine. My arm, the left one, had been pummeled by the ball and had a real sting going on.

"Might I try, Isaac?" Nathan's proper punctuation of his ideas gave me hope that his kick would be just as refined. Unfortunately, it was such a good goal that Isaac, who'd backed away to the side as Nathan's instep wailing on the ball, gave a celebratory yip, like he was watching the whole thing on TV.

"Superb!" He crowed, as Nathan's shot went clear to the side, like a curveball, and flew into the net behind me. It wasn't as precise as Isaac's were, but it was still smooth and incredibly powerful.

"You needed to lunge after the ball, Grisly!" Isaac reprimanded, likely in the same breath. "Treat it like tackle football; take the ball to the ground. Do you think Alex wants a goalkeeper with an aversion to turf?!"

"No, Isaac..." I drew out his name to try and make a point; he didn't hear me.

And so the afternoon went on. And on. We were stuck there until well past the lights from the Domino's Pizza next door served to illuminate the "pitch". Nathan and Isaac? They were having a heck of a time, chipping that soccer ball into the goal like they were training for the World Cup or whatever soccer teams do. Each shot saw Isaac get more reacquainted with his skills, and Nathan develop new ones. Soon, they were loosening up and just running the ball around and passing it to each other, like I was playing against an invisible team.

"Guys?" I asked, after I tried smothering a ball Isaac had sent wheeling my way; I fell onto empty dirt just as the ball cleared my left forearm. I was still brushing mud and grass off my winter coat and jeans as I watched Isaac and Nathan catch their breath in the red and blue glow of Domino's. "Can I try doing what you're doing? Maybe I'll be good."

You could tell Nathan and Isaac were ready to hang up their pinnies – yeah, Isaac had these nylon gold sleeveless jersey things that he and Nathan wore; they were tucked away in Isaac's trunk. So, they sort of just relented and told me I could try if I wanted to. Then, we went to Domino's.

I could tell you all about the bacon and pepperoni pizzas, but I'll spare the details for the sake of talking about my tryouts. Well, they weren't exactly tryouts...

"Hey, Alex!" I stood on the precipice of my high school's soccer field, which was bounded by a near-vertical wall of tall grass and weedy flowers. Alex stood by down below, watching a handful of guys running around the field. We didn't have anything fancy; matted grass painted over by white spraypaint. But the way the early evening sun crowned the forest which formed the boundary of the other span of the field... it was pretty.

"Grisly!" She waved me down, and I had to be careful not to trip. Isaac had lent me his old cleats, but since his feet were a good size smaller than mine, it felt like I was running in elf shoes. "I never thought I'd see you in Dark Dimension colors!"

My "colors" consisted of one of those pinnies Isaac had lying around, which luckily fit with our school's colors, and a suit of all black: black long-sleeve shirt and black shorts. At least Isaac possessed larger shins; his shin guards, marred as they were, fit perfectly on me.

"Yeah, right?!" I tried to laugh it off, even as I stumbled on a hidden rock that nearly sent me flying the distance. Alex didn't seem to take amusement, but it was doubtless she'd noticed. "I'm here to try out."

"As a senior?" Her eyebrow transcended her face in a way that reminded me of a gullwing door opening. Naturally, her eyebrows made a perfect wing shape on either side, and so when she made expressions with them, it was all the more engrossing. "Isn't it a bit late to decide you'll be the next Messi?"

She wasn't patronizing, and she wasn't asking me a literal question. If I was Nathan, what would I say?

"If you'll be my coach then, maybe I'll think about it!" I tried to give her a cool smirk, but the comment felt stupid. She gave it a slick little expansion of the grin she already wore, but it was obvious that I was an idiot. Or at least, that was my diagnosis.

"Listen, I'll be honest, Alex..." I trailed off, lifting up my sleeve so she could feast her eyes on the black and blue bruise running from my wrist nearly to my elbow. "Nathan and Isaac have some weird thing they're experimenting with, and it somehow involves me trying to ask you questions or something."

Alex was about to respond, but some flashy dude came up to her and started yapping about some formation or something. With a wave-off, I was dismissed. And with no ride, because Nathan insisted Isaac drive him to a coffee shop so he could get his donut and java fix.

So, I stood by Alex's Decent. Big white affair, you couldn't miss it. Why she'd gone for white too puzzled me; with Isaac it was a practical thing. Maybe the same held for Alex? Though I had to say, the Decent looked pretty cool in white. I couldn't help but look and see if she kept it as neat as Isaac. I'd honestly never been that close to Alex's car.

When practice finally ended, and Alex beeped me into the car, I stepped into Alex's Decent, not quite knowing what I was supposed to expect. At least in the Impasta you got hit with a cacophony of peppers, onions, bacon, pepperoni, and basil; in the Outrun, it was synth beats and time warping; in Wil's Jealousy it was like a Jetsons car or something. But the Decent? I expected it was going to be civilian. But hey, this was Alex, after all.

"Hey, Grisly!" She greeted me with what you might call a fizzy smile or something, a big bag of equipment slung over her shoulder. Kicking off her shoes, which were cleats, and getting on this pair of slip-on sneakers, she slipped into the driver's seat. "Ready for some turbocharged class?"

It hadn't even occurred to me that the Decent had our 2.4 Liter FA-24F turbocharged Boxer engine, which I supposed gave it a leg up over the Impasta that Isaac tried to talk up. He should've known I used to cart pizza pies around in one of those!

"Um, hi..." I don't know if I was more blindsided by the polished chestnut leather interior or the LL Cool J that was already pumping over the speaker system, but it probably was just the fact that I was in some sort of crush cliché. Or that Alex had the heat cranked up to max. Snowbaroos are known to be very good with heaters, and Alex's Decent was modelling that right now.

"Jeez, Alex! How far is this heat up?!" I began fiddling with the dials, but of course, they were the digital and automatic heating system controls that the premium packages had. The Impasta and '01 Jealousy wagon I had driven both had manual heating controls. At least with Wil, his were automatic in the Jealousy, but he always kept it really natural and temperate.

"I'm from the West Coast," Alex quipped back, already shoving the gearshift into Drive, like we were in an action movie. "Sorry if I'm still not used to the land of perpetual ice."

My mind still froze on the image of her wrist flicking to jam the gearshift down, having flashbacks to possibly the quintessential Snowbaroo movie: Brady Driver.

Brady was this kid with no actual relation to that guy, Tom Brady, who was big in New England because he blew up stuff or deflated things or something. Anyway, Brady was a driving prodigy who could only focus on the road if he listened to really heavy metal music, so as to drown out the beeps and bloops from SpySight as it warned him about icy roads, vehicles ahead of him moving, and detected obstacles. I'm pretty sure that's what the gist was. He drove a red TRX and looked really cool, that's about the main point.

George mandated we watch it every year, to inspire us to sell.

"So, you came to practice today to spy on me or something of that nature?" Alex drew out that last bit in her awesome voice, which had a hint of rasp to it. Like Alé's had, minus the accent. Her pitch also changed as she leaned towards the dash, scoping out the blind spots the front A-pillars made. School had been out, like, an hour before, so it was empty save for the sports people.

"I really don't know what got into their heads," I admitted to her. "Get a guy from the 19th Century and a guy who dresses like a ninja and lives in a place that looks like some czar furnished it, and this is what you get."

"You have to admit, Nathan's really cool."

I wanted to point out that by "cool," Alex obviously meant, "hot." But she beat me to the next line as well.

"So, those guys talked you into coming down here today? Why?"

Once again, I debated telling her about my encounter with the two robed philosophers and their fantastical ritual thing, though I wasn't sure if she'd even been over Isaac's house or would understand the context. Plus, it sounded like I made the whole thing up. So, I just made my best guess at what they wanted.

"They wanted to find out more about you and your work outside the dealership." It was hard to conceal a hint of a smirk as I made the call, because it sounded pretty believable to me as well. Maybe the truth was something more sinister, but wouldn't it be better to think about it this way? Made me less afraid to be alone at the dealership with Nathan or Isaac, if the situation ever arose. Though if Nathan really had wanted to kill me, he totally could've done it when we were discussing courtship in that Outrun...

"That's not quite the whole truth."

Alex must've known Nathan was sitting in the backseat of her Decent the whole time, for it was only my yelp of fear that could be heard in the vehicle. Muffled, of course, by our superior vehicle soundproofing.

"Nathan! How'd you even get in here?!" I wheeled around in my seat to eye the suited figure, still wearing that cape thing.

"I got in when you did," He responded matter-of-factly. "I was walking around the parking lot the whole time."

Jeez, you think a guy as conspicuous as Nathan would be visible from blocks away. Apparently, it wasn't just his donut-eating habit that was clandestine.

"Alex," Nathan began informing our driver, "Issac and I are assuming the philosophy that you are, potentially, of the goddess archetype."

You can imagine how Alex reacted; it was lucky we were in a parking lot and going at a snail's pace, because I half expected Alex to pass out into the steering wheel. She pulled over and fixed Nathan with something of a disbelieving gawk, understandable given his grave delivery of the news that he believed Alex to be a goddess or something, and how attracted Alex seemed to be to Nathan himself.

"What does this all mean, Nathan?" I had to beg the question, to see how far this thing went. "Are we all supposed to worship Alex now, or something? Is there some sort of prophecy she'll need to fulfill? Is she going to have to travel to Mount Olympus and become the goddess of automobiles? Will we need to put little naked statues of her out in our gardens?"

"Eww..." Alex said reflexively at that last bit, as if the idea of her bare figure gracing someone's garden wasn't appealing in the slightest. But she honestly thought Nathan might be crazy enough to be onto something, it seemed.

Then Nathan turned slightly to one side, regarding me as if I were the loopy one. "No. I just found it an interesting note."