Page 49 of The Warrior
“Do you?”
Boulder shrugged.
“Do you?” I repeated.
“I think Pearl is a good influence on Khan.”
“You can’t mean that.”
Boulder shifted his balance from one foot to the other. “I know you hate the Motlander women, but we have a lot to learn from them.”
I snorted. “Like what?”
Boulder looked around. “It’s hard to explain, but Christina asks me questions that no one else does. She connects me to a part of me that I hardly knew myself.”
My eyebrows drew close. “What part?”
“How I feel about things and what’s going on inside of me. It’s like I’ve been sailing my whole life on this amazing ocean where the coolest things were happening under the surface. She’s encouraging me to jump in the water with her and go explore.”
My head hurt, I was thirsty and hungry, and the last thing I needed was to lose another friend to the enemy.
“You’re as bad as Khan. Who the hell talks about their emotions and feelings?”
Boulder and I had reached the kitchen inside the school and I went straight for the coffee. “You’re even talking in metaphors like the Momsies now.” I shook my head and mumbled under my breath. “Fucking ocean talk.”
“You understood what I meant.”
“Yeah. I understood, but it’s fucking depressing to hear my last friend left here talk like a sissy.”
“I’m not a sissy, and I’m not your last friend here.”
I threw up my hands. “Finn left, remember?”
Boulder bumped my shoulder with his own to get to the coffee. “I think Archer would be offended to hear that, since he helped drag your ass back here last night.”
“Archer did?”
“Uh-huh.” Boulder sipped on his coffee. “It’s funny with you, Magni. I’ve known you for more than ten years and all those years I’ve seen men circle you, trying to become your friend. Great men look up to you and admire you, but you never let any of them in.”
I shrugged. “Trust doesn’t come easy to me, that’s all.”
Boulder scoffed. “That’s an understatement.”
“Besides, I have Finn and you.”
“Yeah, but you don’t talk to us about things.”
I put down my coffee cup and found some leftover breakfast to eat. “Of course I talk to you. We’re talking right now, aren’t we?”
“Sure, we talk about politics, sports, and how annoying Khan is, but we don’t talk about all the stuff that’s under the surface.”
Rolling my eyes, I stuffed a piece of apple in my mouth. “I’m not jumping into the fucking ocean with you.”
“Why not, are you scared of what you might find?”
I scoffed. “I’m just smart enough to stay in the boat. You might have seahorses and mermaids under your surface, but I guarantee that my ocean is full of sharks and rip currents that will drag me down.”
“And here I thought you were fearless,” Boulder challenged.
