Page 71 of Rules to Love By

“Your stupid boyfriend is what’s up.”

“What? Why? What did he do?”

“I thought he was all buff and silent.”

“He is.” Tris grinned. “Most of the time.”

“Other times he’s all full of stupid advice.”

“Stupid?”

“Well. No.” Marcus leaned his elbows on the counter. “Not stupid.”

“Just awkward, because it makes you think.”

“It’s like you know.”

Tris shrugged and went back to what he was doing, hauling a carton of eggs closer. “He can’t help himself, really. He’s wired that way.”

“He does it to you too?”

“Not anymore. But when I first got here, yeah. All the time.”

“It’s annoying.” And he proceeded to relate the conversation he’d had with Ozzy while he watched Tris work.

“You could have told him to butt out at any point, you know,” Tris said as he carefully separated egg whites from their yolks. “The fact you didn’t must mean you wanted to hear what he had to say.”

“I did not.”

“Didn’t you, though?”

“What? No!”

“But you sat there and listened.”

“I was being polite. He’s your boyfriend, and you’ve never really had one of those before. Not like this. So that’s one hundred percent different from your regular freakshow friends.”

“And there it is.”

“There what is?”

“There is you, being you. Putting your opinions out there, like telling me my friends are freaks is not going to piss me off.”

Marcus scraped a spot on the counter with his thumbnail, where something had dried and formed a streak of white. “You used to hang out with some sketchy people.”

“Dude, the people I hung out with were exactly like me. You were the freak in my world back then.”

“No, see… you—”

“Marc.” Tris wiped his fingers on his apron, then put his hand over Marcus’s. “You were—and are—my best friend for a reason. I know you were better for me than all of them put together. I would never have landed here if it wasn’t for you.”

“Shoving you out the door.” Marcus drew his hand back and pushed it between his knees under the counter.

“You can characterize it like that,” Tris said while he went to wash his hands. “Same way I can say I abandoned you there, instead of staying by your side while Iris was sick. Defending you from your asshole uncle.”

“I wasn’t the one who needed defending.”

Tris smiled, but it was a sad expression. “The fact you think that is why you did.”

---