Page 81 of Need Him Like Oxygen

We sat on the couch for the next few hours, watching the grainy first season of the show about slayers and vampires and witty sidekicks.

“So… Spike…” I said when by the fifth episode, he still hadn’t appeared.

“You have to be patient. The look isn’t until like season five or six.”

“Five or six?” I snorted.

“Don’t try to act like you don’t like it.”

“I don’t… dislike it,” I started. I mean, badass girls who kick ass, what’s not to love? “But that’s a big commitment just to prove a point.”

“But you have to see the whole evolution. We can watch it whenever you have free time,” he added, and there was a needy edge to his words that pulled at something inside of me. It was that same thing that had me befriending Lore, even though we’d been polar opposites. I might like to project myself as cold and unfeeling, but some people could get to me.

Lore.

Joel.

Dav.

“Alright,” I agreed. “But I reserve the right to make fun of you mercilessly when we get to season five or six and we both find out you’re wrong about Dav.”

“I’m not,” he said, all teenage cockiness. “It’s gonna be nice to watch it on a big screen,” he admitted.

“What have you been watching it on?” I asked.

He reached into his pocket, producing a phone with a spiderweb crack toward the top corner, likely obscuring part of whatever he was trying to watch on it.

I’d never had just a strong urge to buy someone something as I did now. A big fucking tablet or something. I wondered if he would even accept it. Maybe I could lie about him needing it to work for me. That it was related in some way.

“Alright. Cue up the next episode.”

“Fair warning, this is one of the worst episodes,” Joel said. “Eclipsed only by the fucking swim team episode,” he said, grimacing.

“Look at you with the potty mouth,” I teased.

“You must be rubbing off on me,” he shot back.

We watched the show until, eventually, the last twenty-four-plus hours caught up to me, and I crashed on the edge of the couch, waking up covered in a blanket and confused by the daylight streaming in through the windows.

Stretching, I looked around.

“Joel?” I called, but got no answer.

I got up, making my way toward the scent of fresh coffee, finding a pot waiting for me with a note beside it.

School. Coffee new @ eight.

Huh.

There was a perk to having someone else around, it seemed, as I made coffee and finally went in search of my phone, reading through the texts from Renzo, talking about a meeting in two days about the whole butcher shop situation.

I’d almost forgotten all about that with everything else going on.

I was about to check in with my crew when there was a knock at the door, making my heart shoot up into my throat, and start pounding frantically, making it hard to breathe.

What was wrong with me?

I reached for my knife, the one that already had one body on it, and made my way to the door, only to have it shake as someone knocked again.

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