Faster We Burn

thanks.”
    “So I think we should toast,” Simon said, standing up. Brady tried to get him to sit down since the entire place was staring at us, but he wouldn’t.
    “I think we need to toast to friends and good people and love and…anyone?”
    “New beginnings,” Will said as he stared at Audrey.
    “To Rumi and escapes and Pop Tarts,” Lottie said, winking at Zan.
    “Okay, sure. Anyone else?” Simon said, looking around.
    “To drugs and sex and rock and roll,” Stryker said, raising his beer mug.
    “I second that,” Trish said, raising her glass. Stryker put his other hand on my leg and squeezed.
    “To assholes getting put back in prison where they belong,” I said. Everyone cheered at that and we drank.
    I was pretty sure the restaurant was regretting letting us sit down because we were the loudest group in the place. Volume control wasn’t one of our strong suits as a group.
    I hated to admit it, but Lottie had the right idea. It was impossible not to smile and laugh when Simon started doing impressions of Will and then Lottie and when Stryker kept making silly little comments that only I could hear.
    “Will is going to touch Audrey’s hair in three, two, one. See?” He was right. Audrey blushed as Will made sure her hair didn’t fall into her pizza.
    “And Simon is going to kiss Brady in three, two, one.” There was a collective ‘aw,’ when they did kiss. Even Trish had a wistful look on her face.
    “How are you doing?” It was a different question than asking if I was okay.
    “I can truthfully say that I’m enjoying myself,” I said.
    “I can tell.”
    “Don’t.” He’d been walking his hands up and down my leg. Not in a sexual way, but in a way that told me he was aware that I was sitting next to him and he wanted me to be aware of it, too. I’d told him to not be an asshole, but that didn’t mean I wanted him to treat me like…like we were dating.
    “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said, marching his fingers as if they were feet.
    “Stryker, stop it.” I made sure I wasn’t looking at him when I said it so no one would get any ideas.
    “Fine.” He removed his hand and started drumming it on the table with the rhythm of the song that played over the speakers hidden behind tacky plastic plants that were supposed to look like olive vines. “Then I’ll tell you that it’s not just the sex.”
    “What?” Everyone else was distracted by Will and Lottie team-telling a story about how they were when they were growing up and she knew he’d fallen out of a tree. That twindar really freaked me out.
    I looked up to meet his eyes. He’d been waiting for that.
    “It might not just about the sex, although that is nice.” I stared at him and then my eyes moved down to his lips. The memory of kissing him that first time and feeling his lip ring press into my mouth was fresh and delicious.
    I’d been afraid of that. The moment this crossed into boyfriend/girlfriend territory, I was going to bail.
    “It has to be this way, Stryker,” I said, touching his lip ring and remembering how nice it felt to talk to him and listen to him sing.
    “But we can talk. And I can sing to you. And paint your nails, right?” he said.
    I nodded. I’d miss those things too much.
    “Good.”

 
     
    Chapter Six
     
     
    Stryker
     
    After the group thing Katie relaxed her rules a little bit. I didn’t mind her constant rule changes because they never stuck for that long. She got mad when I asked her to write them down one afternoon while I was working on Zan’s present for Lottie, a 1970 red Datsun we’d bought for next to nothing.
    “I just think we need to set some rules when it comes to sex. What is so crazy about that?” I lifted my head from the engine I was cajoling into both running and passing a state inspection. Katie’d been sitting in the driver’s seat with the door open, wrapped up in a blanket. November was turning out to be especially harsh in Maine this year.
    “Because it’s just weird. It makes it into something that it’s not,” she said.
    “Then what is it? To you?”
    I took my gloves off and blew on my hands.
    She shook her head, as if she’d changed her mind. “I don’t know. I was just saying.”
    “No, I knew what you were doing. I find it interesting, Katie, that you can have casual sex, but you can’t really talk about it.”
    “Whatever. Forget about it.”
    “Like, for example what would you say if I wanted to go down on