Page 44 of Fractured Fear

CHAPTER 17

SPENCER

We’re only a few minutes from my apartment and I can’t handle it anymore. Working up the courage to bring up thesleepoveris proving to be an epic failure. Plus, every time I was ready to speak up, Rio and Zane would start arguing over the music. Rio is a big Latin pop and rap fan, but Zane is a rock groupie.

The argument was a bit hard to follow because half of what Rio said was in Spanish and I’m pretty sure most of it was just insults.Tus gustos musicales son una mierdadefinitely doesn’t mean “You’re my best friend.” My conclusion was that Rio and Zane bicker like an old married couple.

Abuela didn’t speak Spanish in front of me often, but she was fluent. Mom is too, but she never taught me. Now I wish she had.

When I was discharged, Rio and Zane already had a new set of clothes for me to wear. I don’t even want to acknowledge that they rummaged through my drawers…especially my underwear drawer.

I don’t need or want anyone else in my space. Rio and Zane sleeping in my apartment freaks me out. Not because they’re creepy. Quite the opposite. I feel comfortable with them, toocomfortable, and that’s what is making me freak out. My lack of panic has me panicking. It makes perfect sense.

About as much sense as a ten thousand piece jigsaw puzzle.

If I could bitch slap Inner Spencer into next week, I would.

“So, guys, thanks for driving me home?—”

“What do you want for dinner?” Rio interrupts.

“What?”

“Dinner, babe? We’re getting hungry,” Zane explains as if I don’t know what the last meal of the day is called.

“Do I have to cook it?”

“What? No. Of course not. We’d never expect that. Besides, you have a concussion. The doctor said you need rest.” Rio’s bewildered face peeks at me via the rear view mirror.

“Then I don’t care what I eat. If I don’t have to make it, I’ll eat it.”

“Noted,” Zane replies.

“After we order dinner, what are we doing first? Pillow fight, gossip, braid each other’s hair?”

I can’t tell if Rio is joking or not.

“Braiding hair? Do you even know how to do that?”

“I do,” Zane answers. Another bomb in my lap. “My foster sister Sarah loved her hair in two pigtail braids and my foster mom couldn’t be bothered. So I learned how and would do her hair every day.”

Wow. So much to unpack there. “Umm y’all aren’t spending the night.”

“Of course we are,” Rio’s indignation causes a seed of guilt to take root. “We told the doc we would. I’m not a liar and please don’t make us sleep in Zane’s fun-sized car. That would make getting into your apartment very difficult if anything happens.”

He has a point.

“I have my gym bag in the back so it’s perfect. I was going to workout later but clearly the universe was preparing me for an impromptu sleepover,” Rio adds.

Is this what delusion looks like?

“Well the universe and I haven’t gotten along lately, so I don’t think that ‘sign’ means what you think it means.”

“Nonsense. Everything happens for a reason. The reason for today, a sleepover.” They’re acting as if this is normal. This is anything but normal.

“Do this a lot, do you? Sleep at a random woman’s house?”

“Can’t say I’ve done this before. You’d be my first,” Rio quips.

---