“We’re not fuck buddies,” I said weakly. You can’t be fuck buddies with someone whose death you’re plotting in your head. Well, not in good conscience, anyway.

“Could have fooled me,” he said, sitting back in his chair and crossing his arms over his chest. He watched me, and I knew he was turning on the whole “cop stare” again.

“That was….” What was that? What Corey did?

“That was?”

“Corey,” I finished lamely. “He’s… odd.”

“Seems like a nice guy.”

“Oh, he is.”

“Great.”

“Yeah, great.”

Excruciatingly long, evil silence. We just stared.

“So,” I said for lack of anything better to say.

“So,” he said.

“I guess I’m no longer a teenager, huh?”

“Guess not. Twenty years old.”

“Yeah.”

“Not quite legal, yet.”

“For all the things that count,” I said without thinking.

“Oh?” he asked maddeningly. “What things would those be?”

“War.” FUCKING! “Smoking.” FUCKING!

Dominic frowned. “You going to join the army?”

“No.”

“You going to start smoking?”

“No.”

“And if I catch you with alcohol,” he growled, “you’re in for a world of hurt.”

Yes, officer. “I won’t!” I squeaked, as if puberty and I had just become casual acquaintances.

“Good to know.”

He paid for lunch while I prayed to Jesus or Buddha or Krishna (I’ve found when in a high stage of panic, you really don’t care, just as long as someone listens) or any deity at all to send a meteor the size of North Carolina to smite me from this earth to save me from myself. Unfortunately, Jesus and Buddha and Krishna all seemed to be away on some kind of God Retreat at Camp Screw You, Tyson Thompson, and no meteor fell from the sky and ended my life, so I couldn’t make my current situation any worse.

Just my luck.

The car ride back wasn’t any better.

In front of the Green Monstrosity, he parked his car. We sat there for a moment, and I wanted to say something, anything, but my throat constricted and all I could do was focus on breathing.

“Tyson,” he said, and I looked over, sure he was about to say something that would change everything.

“Yeah?”

“We should probably go inside,” he said.

Get a grip, man! “Yeah.”

And that’s what we did.

People shouted surprise! when the door opened.

I smiled and pretended to be just that.

Streamers fell. Balloons flew. People laughed and clapped.

And now, an hour later, I’m glaring at Corey, who’s laughing way too fucking loudly at something Dominic says and reaching up, trailing his fingers along Dom’s biceps, and I imagine that Corey wouldn’t have the same smile on his face if someone smashed his fingers (and kneecaps) with a ball-peen hammer (and for a moment, I’m distracted on how it is exactly that I know what a ball-peen hammer is—I’m so full of useless crap).

“Your bones will poke through the skin,” I promise him darkly, unaware that anyone can hear me.

Which, of course, someone does.