Saviors 101

Chapter 18

Chapter 18

“It was awesome!” Dana told Theresa. “Okay, the pastrami on rye with extra mustard and sauerkraut was a little weird for breakfast. Like he was channeling for my mom.”

She lay on the braided carpet on her bedroom floor idly spinning the empty pizza box with one hand. Her feet encased in electric pink socks were propped up on her bed. And the phone brought the laugh of her best friend to her ear. The world was a good place.

“So you ate pastrami for breakfast. I remember my first—“

“And only,” Dana interjected. The story was well worn between them over the years.

“And only,” Theresa granted, “attempt to sleep over at your house. We had oatmeal with a fried egg on top for dinner and music all night.”

“Yeah, but Mom…”

“…makes a heck of a chicken and snow peas stir fry for breakfast.” They finished the story in unison, as they had since they were six. And both felt better for the laugh they shared. Theresa had thought it was kinda cool, but she’d told her mom. Her mom hadn’t let Theresa visit again for months.

“So, was he a good kisser?”

“Tee, come on.” Dana shifted the phone to her other ear. “It was seven maybe eight a.m. That’s in the morning! Me. I wasn’t conscious yet. Besides, we were out in a public park.”

“So did you make your ten o’clock class this morning or not?”

“You been hanging out with too many race car types. You’ve got a one-track mind.”

“Oh yeah,” her smile was clear even over the phone. “But it’s a good, good track. Now give!”

“I made it to class.” And every single student had turned to look at her when she’d burst through the door ten minutes late and moving like a comet. And then they all turned back to the test she’d forgotten to study for last night.

“I made it.” Okay, her voice was a little whiny. “Barely.” Being the first to finish the test hadn’t won her a whole lot of points either. She had done one of two things: screwed up royally, really royally, because she was so distracted by the lingering fire of his pastrami and mustard kisses, or she’d aced it because she was total liquid inside and really did know how supernova fusion was unique from white dwarf fission at the molecular level. She’d had to derive a couple of equations she hadn’t remembered seeing before, but the results were an interesting statement on the nature of black hole-white hole conduction that she’d have to consider in her thesis, so she’d left it in for giggles.

“The kiss was that good?”

“Huh?”

“Huh, she says. ‘Huh?’ You got it bad, girl. Trust me, I know.”

Dana caught the shift. That was a new sound in Tee’s voice. She sat up and hugged her knees to her chest.

“Who? Come on. Who is it? To quote a late, great interrogator, ‘Give!’”

“No way. You’d just make fun of me.”

“Would I do that?” Dana plugged in all the innocence she could muster.

“Only every single goddamn time I hooked up with someone new. You all tall and beautiful and willowy and all that s**t, and never risking a damn thing fun with it. Me, I have to work for the boys.”

“C’mon. This is me. Ever since you born you were looking for a cute boy to play doctor with you.”

“Well, maybe not quite at birth…”

“At birth. You probably flirted with every newborn boy in the maternity ward that day.” She could practically see Theresa’s grin over the line. Pint-sized, sassy, curly red hair, bright red rather than dark red like Dana’s, but it had been an early bond between them. Tee had grown into all the serious curves, that Dana hadn’t, and her easy smile, which never stopped, made boys flock to her. Maybe it was a bit voyeuristic living through your best friend’s conquests, but Tee made it fun.

“Okay,” Theresa started laughing. “At birth.”

“So, give. Who’s this one? I’ll let you win next round of Doom.”

“Nope.”

“I let you win in that new on-line labyrinth game.”

“Played it yet?”

“No.”

Her friend crowed so loud over the line that she had to hold the phone out a bit until Tee returned to earth.

“You have just met the wizard of Chraze and she is going to, at long last, take your butt down and make you whimper.”

“One condition.”

“What? No weaseling, Ms. High and Mighty video-game Goddess Dana ain’t-I-too-f*****g-cute-for-words Murphy.”

“Give!”

Tee grumbled. “I’ve got a race on Saturday, but Sunday is an easy day. Sunday night I’ll meet you on-line and I’ll take you down.”

“Give!” This had to be good. Theresa loved to tell race-car stories and the high-speed macho types who went with them. Especially the ones who lost to her, much to their chagrin. It wasn’t like her to avoid a good story. Dana might beat her at games, but Tee had a special knack with men, the same way she did with cars.

“Well…”

“I’m waiting. Who’s the guy?” She leaned in. Her friend’s breathing slowed for a long moment. Her voice was a whisper of awe when it finally crawled down the phone line.

“Well, he has this car you wouldn’t believe. You see…”