Chapter Eight

Faith rushed out to meet me in the hallway. She must've heard me come upstairs. She immediately wrapped me up in a hug and it felt amazing. The whole 'no touching in public' rule always had me pining for them by the end of the day. She was so much fun to squeeze because she made these cute gurgling grunts until I let go of her. Hey, did she just use my hug-first tactic against me?

"Okay, get in here!" she shouted, "I know all about what happened en fotografia, but I gotta hear from you."

The demand was hardly necessary since she'd taken hold of my hand and pulled me inside already, but the gesture made me think of Mom. She knew Faith and I had dated once and weren't anymore, but she never had a problem with us being alone in my room.

With Saylor, it'd been the same, but I wondered if she would've felt differently if it'd been someone else. For a moment, my heart was set on figuring that out, then my brain told me it didn't matter. Mom trusted me to make smart decisions. She believed in controlling what she could and not worrying about what she couldn't.

Knowing this, if I had to guess, she'd rather I had sex at home—where she knew it was safe and consensual—if I was absolutely set on having it. As gross as that sounds, I knew how Theresa Evans's mind worked, except when it came to coming out. Or perhaps I did know, which was why I hadn't.

Faith pulled me down on my bed, then sat crossed legged near the foot of it. "You're doing that mind, no words thing again," she said. I smiled and pulled my feet up on the bed to match. "And put your shirt on!" I didn't.

I caught her up to speed on how I saved Juice Williams's life and possibly his entourage's as well. I told her how awesome it felt to have Juice sitting on my lap. I exaggerated several times, but she always knew when and gave me side eye until I told the truth. We laughed until my Mom yelled at us to "callete las bocas," which means shut up in Spanish.

"We really did have a moment. There was this look for a split second. I'm not making it up." I insisted because it was absolutely the truth.

"Sure, but then he slapped you in front of everyone," Faith said in an unflattering tone.

I sighed and rolled my eyes because I knew she wouldn't understand. Juice had barely slapped me. He'd shown mercy. Or maybe I was truly pathetic.

"You should stop grasping at straws and open your eyes to what's in front of you," she said, "There are all kinds of interesting sailboats in the sea."

I knew what she was trying to do and I wasn't going to humor her stupid little loophole. "No, we have rules. If you want to talk about Saylor, wait until Saylor gets here. Friends don't talk behind each other's backs."

I crossed my arms and cocked my head to the side, daring her to say another word. It wasn't the first time she had dropped hints about Saylor, but two gay guys could know each other and be friends without being interested. And Saylor was definitely not interested. He could do much better than Mad-Eye Rudy and I wanted him to. I was content with being his lame friend and even if there was something, where would've that left Faith? I didn't want to think about it and I didn't have to.

Faith, knowing she was beaten, fluttered her lips and looked out of my window. It overlooked the garage and had full view of the driveway. She waved me over, but I stayed where I was at. My ears were attuned to the sound of the old sputtering engine of Saylor's pickup truck. I'd heard him as soon as he'd turned off the highway. I figured he would've stopped at home to change first.

If he had feelings like Faith had claimed, shouldn't he have been worried about being a greasy bum in front of me? I nearly said as much, but stopped myself. One of us still had to respect the rules.

"What were you gonna say?" Faith asked, poking my bare shoulder, "Spit it out. You can say it. I grant you immunity!"

I was surprised she did that. She must've been really bored. Immunity wouldn't have allowed me to talk about Saylor, but I had something else I wanted to say. "Would you have cared if I let Blake get struck by lightning?"

It was sort of a low blow, but I considered it payback for not humoring me with Juice like a true friend should've. Let's both be happy or let's both be sad, chica.

Faith tightened her lips, which I took to mean Blake was losing his hold. There had been a time when I couldn't mention names that started with B without invoking her twitchy left eyebrow. "We're talking again. I invited him and he said he'd probably swing t—."

"Which means he's definitely coming!" I shouted, feigning excitement.

I didn't know how to feel about them talking again, but it was more important to let her know she had my support regardless.

Faith shook her fists by force of habit, then looked at me like she wasn't sure I'd heard her correctly. "You're not mad?" I shook my head. "You don't think I'm stupid?" I shook my head again. "You think everything's going to work out?"

I squealed and kept my head still, which was the perfect response. We both burst out laughing and she lunged at me from across my bed, swinging her arms around my neck.

"But you're not allowed to be alone with him for two months," I said, pushing her away, "Saylor and I'll swap out as designated third wheel."

She already knew this or at least she should've. It was her rule. All relationship ones were hers since she was the only one who'd been in enough bad ones to need them. I could've left out 'bad ones', but I wasn't above taking my bestie down a notch to sound less pathetic. She had notches to spare. I didn't.

"You mean cock blocks?" Faith pinched my ribs as I nodded happily.

It didn't hurt, but I slapped her hand anyway.

"Who knew she'd go back on that one?" Saylor asked dryly. He'd entered the room out of nowhere. He plopped down on the bed, shaking his finger at her. "Didn't I tell you?" I nodded.

"How'd you get up those rickety steps without either one of us hearing you?" Faith asked, not to subtly changing the subject.

"I want to call you out on that" —I turned to Saylor and gave him side eye— "but I'm not, not interested."

Saylor pulled his left leg up on the bed. There wasn't enough room for it, but he didn't care. He made room. His leg landed across my lap and his foot touched Faith's shoulder until she scooted away. Faith and I looked at his big toe at the same time and sucked in our lips.

Friends had to at least pretend not to be disgusted when approached for support. That was Saylor's rule, but we all agreed that puking shouldn't count since it's an involuntary reaction: Faith's amendment.

Saylor winced in pain. "It took so long to get up here, but we gotta talk about your power." His big toe was heavily bruised and swollen. I didn't need to ask to know something had fallen on it. Either that or it was ran over.

"Doesn't it kind of look like papa smurf from behind?"

Faith pretended to retch. Saylor started laughing. He was a lot tougher than I would've been. I dramatized pain. I didn't believe in toughing things out.

"Shouldn't you have that looked at?" I asked.

"What can they really do? Cut it off?" Saylor shrugged. "I'll take my chances with ice."

On cue, Faith ran out of the room and I heard her descending the stairs, presumably to get something frozen.

Since I was alone with Saylor, I decided to flex my amazing friend muscles. I leaned down and kissed his grotesque toe. "Now, we're in this together. So, if you come down with gangrene and they cut it off, I'll lose these moneymakers."

I rubbed my lips with two fingers and gave him a wink. I knew he'd appreciate that. And he did.

When Saylor stopped laughing, he took to massaging my shoulder. "I'm pretty sure gangrene doesn't work like that, but I get you."

We shared prolonged eye contact until it got weird, which was highly unusual. Any other time, staring into his boring brown eyes was like staring in a mirror. This time, I thought I might've seen something in them. Maybe Faith had gotten into my head a little.

"Are you sure you're going to be okay?" I asked. He nodded. "Pain meds?"

"Mom's picking them up. It's only a toe, Rudy."Saylor shoved me because I was giving him these 'here lies my best friend eyes'. "The sandwich press fell on it. Good news, I get worker's comp until it's healed. So, no rush to get the swelling down."

I faked a laugh and blinked hard to stay strong. Even though I knew he'd be fine, it physically hurt to see him in pain. "Want me to massage it?" I pretended to reach for his foot.

Faith returned with a bag of freezer burnt peas and taped them onto his left foot. Mom always had huge rolls of moving tape, just in case, but I was surprised Faith knew where to find them. I never understood why she spent so much time at my house. She had an amazing house mostly to herself. She was the rich one of the group. Once Saylor stopped howling because of how cold the ice was, we left the bed to him and powwowed on the floor beside it.

"So, you busted your ass to get up here and talk about my stupid power. What of it?" I asked.

Anyone else would've missed Faith's fleeting glance of skepticism, but I knew her too well. I decided to ignore it. I knew how unbelievable my power was and I also knew she wanted to believe me. I wished she'd been there at the park with us. Saylor pointed to the notebook on top of my three-high mahogany bookshelf and Faith handed it over to him. I grabbed him a pen from the matching nightstand because, obviously.

"I had my doubts. I can admit that now because they're gone. Dead!" Saylor mimed a plane crash with his hand. "So, let's figure this crap out. Everything we know about, what are we calling it?"

I hesitated. My dumb superpower didn't deserve a name, but I couldn't be a downer. If Saylor could smile while his toe looked like Violet Beauregarde, then the least I could do was humor him. "Randomly appearing dark event spaces?" That was the best I could do. I wasn't going to oversell it.

"Too literal? And I remember you saying they weren't always bad," Saylor said. I smiled when I saw him jot it down anyway.

"One time, a woman walked through one before I could stop her and repeatedly tripped over her own feet," I said, "It was like she couldn't get up. Then, a drunk driver crashed right through the bus stop she'd been heading for."

An impossibly wide grin appeared across Faith's face, but she chose not to say anything. Once again, I understood her skepticism. There were dozens of other things that could've stopped that old lady from sitting down at the bus stop. Avoiding the spire might've delayed her long enough, but I had a theory.

"What if the car was destined to hit her, but stepping into the spire released her from that fate?"

Like everything else, I had absolutely no proof of this. It was one more facet of my power's absurdity. Faith was beyond convincing, so I kept my eyes fixed on Saylor. I couldn't deal with her negativity. Neither could his toe. Fun fact: bad vibes slow the healing process.

"While we're talking about fate, aren't you worried some Final Destination demon is going to take out Jerome?" Saylor asked. He flinched when he said his name, which was sort of cute.

"No, not anymore," I said.

In truth, I wasn't entirely sure, but since Martha and my cousin were still alive I had to believe he'd be fine. I was still going to keep tabs on him anyway—especially at the paint party, but for other reasons. I got caught up thinking about what underwear he'd show up in until Faith pulled my hair.

"I think you shouldn't put all your stock in Juice, Rudes," she said, ostensibly coming from a place of concern.

I didn't see it that way and she gave me the perfect opportunity to make a complete fool of myself. It wasn't my style to waste it.

"Oh yeah? Saylor, do you have anything you want to say to me?" I flashed an exaggerated grin and veered my head toward his. "She thinks you're in love with my trick eye." I shoved my eyelid down, Japanese anime style.

"Stop! I didn't s—."

I shushed her. "Let him speak. You broke the rules. You said there's sailboats in the sea waiting for me. So, let's hear it." Recalling conversations verbatim was probably my worst quality.

Saylor jumped out of my bed, his toe merely an afterthought and ripped the bag of peas off his foot. He grabbed his shoe, but headed for the door without putting it on. I wasn't sure he could've anyway.

"I want you to be happy and I'm praying things go well for you and Juice at the party. You and I?" He shook his head. "We're like... brothers."

The word left his mouth like tar. He stood in the doorway for awhile, but it seemed like he was gone in an instant. And Faith with him. The way he'd said brother felt all wrong, but I wasn't sure what to make of it. Was he disgusted by the thought of being with me or by the thought being brothers? I dove into bed and chose not to think about it. It could ruin everything. Besides, my thoughts had done enough damage for one night.