Same as the odds of you being a fucking psychopath.
We’re a match made in Hell.
Summer
Heaven’s overrated.
How is it that our every interaction embeds her deeper into my mind? I don’t want that, but she doesn’t seem to care what I want.
Making my way back home, I let my delusional mind do thedamage control. Summer could’ve simply left, but instead, she tried to set a theater on firefor me.
She ran, sure. But the details matter. She put in an effort and found a way not to break her word. Denying she wants me is the single deception she tries to sell, but I’m not buying it.
I’m still smiling like a fool when I walk inside the house. Link’s putting on his jacket, heading out, while Dean follows inside after me. How distracted was I by the storyline my looney tunes brain was assembling that I didn’t hear his bike pull up?
“What are you so giddy about?” Link asks.
“Nothing.”
I’m not giving them ammunition. My friends would only see the “she ran away from me by setting the theater on fire” part. I choose to focus on other things.
“Sure! Whatever you say.”
Right before Link is about to open the door, he pauses.
“Dean, what are we doing for your birthday?”
Friday. I’d forgotten. Can anyone blame me after the night my Succubus put me through?
“Beer and pizza at home,” Dean says.
He’s an only child, and his parents have never once called on that day. But we’re his family. He knows we make it count.
“Bullshit! We’re throwing you a party.” I raise my voice. No way in hell I’m letting Dean sweep his birthday under the rug.
“I hate parties.”
“Especially the ones for your birthdays,” Link teases.
“How about a deal?” Dean turns to me with those words. “Make the girl who knocked you unconscious come and introduce her to us. Then I’m in.”
“Oh, I like that idea,” Link says from behind me.
Their smug faces tell me they won’t be letting go of what happened to me any time soon.
“Fine.” I grumble. “I’ll tell her to come.”
“You should tryasking. I’d hate to see you knocked unconscious again,” Dean snickers.
Link coughs, masking the way he chokes on his laughter, and there’s that desire to fast-forward some time, enough for all of them to have forgotten about this topic.
“Shut the fuck up, both of you! You worry about your owntroubles. I’ll worry about mine.”
“My ‘trouble’ will come when I ask her. Yours, on the other hand, seems more likely to kill you than to listen to any demands you have for her,” Link says, closing the door behind him, probably in a hurry totake careof Raven. That chick has him wrapped around her finger, both because of her looks and the fact that, for the first time, he found someone to challenge his hacking skills.
Dean grabs a folder Carter had prepared of an artist we can approach for our cause and follows right after Link.
I make my way upstairs, typing in my invitation for Summer.
