Name Blame, the Bonding Game

Fear in the Avenue

Oliver-

"What was he thinking when he got out?" I yell at the empty apartment, my fist was swollen and my friends were coming over. "The idiot. Why didn't he just finish his sentence?" I continue to yell at the empty room.

"Dude, open up before you murder something!" One of the boys yells through my front door.

"It's unlocked." I yell back as I continue to pace pulling at my hair, "He wants to kill her, why does he want to kill her?" I hear someone walk into the apartment. "Why does Drag want to kill a Boulevard?" I demand I turn and Joe is standing right in front of me.

"Wanna get something off your chest before the rest of us arrive?" He asks Leif and Lynda sit on the couch both giving me worried looks.

"What's going on? What did you do to your hand?" Leif asks.

"You can talk to us Oliver." Lynda's soft voice deeply contrasts that of the boys.

"I got frustrated when I got home yesterday. Nothing serious." I shrug. Punching a concrete counter is nothing serious.

"You punched a wall, after working out!" Leif yells at me.

"I was mad okay?" I ask him.

"You need to get your hand checked out, it might be broken." Lynda says, "We brought the car, I'll drive." She says holding up the car keys. I follow her out of my apartment and out to the car.

"What's going on Stone?" She asks sitting in the driver's seat.

"Was thinking about what you told me yesterday. Last night." I tell her. "I couldn't get out of my own head. I punched the counter." I tell her as the rain beats down on the car. "What you said last night about having a crush on me, how could I be so blind about it?"

"You said it yourself you don't date, so why would you be paying attention to girls interested in dating you?" Lynda asks not taking her eyes off the road. "You can't tell anyone what I told you last night, sister code. I can't do that to Rosalyn. She's liked you forever. This conversation between us doesn't leave the car, and last night at the gym, forget it even happened."

That stung, she doesn't want what happened last night to have happened? Wait, why do I even care? I don't date, I don't do feelings, I cannot start liking a girl. Not Rosalyn. Not Lynda. Not a uptown Boulevard.

"Leif told me about Drag's target." Lynda says as she pulls up to the hospital. "She was the reason we were at the mall that day."

"Did he give a name?" I ask her already knowing the answer.

"Drag's not an idiot." Lynda says giving me a look as she shuts off the car and throws her keys in her handbag. She reaches into the back of the car her shirt riding up showing her toned stomach. She sits back up and has an umbrella. "Hold on I'll come around for you."

"Shouldn't these rolls be reversed?" I ask her.

"If your hand wasn't busted up and this was a date they would be." She says with a grin as she gets out of the car.

"Point taken." I admit. She holds the umbrella over both of us as we walk into the hospital, she checks me in and we wait in the waiting room.

"Do you want something from the cafe?" She asks pointing to the small cafe in the waiting area.

"Food would be nice, anything edible." I tell her. She nods and heads off to get food. She stands in the cafe for a few minutes before reaching for the top shelf on her tiptoes, I never noticed she had such long legs, and stretched her arm as high as she could reach to get something from the top shelf her shirt riding up again. She still couldn't reach. Finally she succumbed to asking someone for help. He helped her with no problem he handed her the bag and she grabbed two soft pretzels and two cups of something. The boy that had helped her turned out to be an employee. A flirty one at that. He checked her out, not just the merchandise. She paid before coming back.