Page 17 of Friends to WHAT?!

And I could have fun doing it.

Chapter Eight

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A project! The girlies love a project!

Wolfe

Leora is frighteningly attractive when she’s terrifying me.

“Do you have another whiteboard?” she asks. “Maybe one of those rolling ones with two sides that you can flip around?”

“I do not,” I answer from my spot on the ground by my couch, where I’ve sat in mild horror and fascination since she clambered over me and across the room thirty minutes ago. One moment, she was telling me to shut up and staring at me intently. The next, she was climbing over my lap to race to the far wall, where my five-foot whiteboard lives. “I could get one, though, if you really need it. My mom has a couple. Her book club uses them to chart…” I grimace, then choke out, “Dalliances.In the book series they read.”

Leora’s nose wrinkles, and I blink in surprise. I know thatIhave a problem thinking of my mom reading about 1800s couples doing things I’d rather pretend she has no clue about, but I don’t know why Leora would. The stuff she reads in her book club with Almond is about on par forplease don’t tell me my mother knows what bondage islevels of yikes.

“I don’t think they’d fit in your minivan without taking them apart,” Leora mutters. “And I drive a Honda Fit, so it’s for sure not fitting in there.”

Aha. I see. It’s not the contents being mapped on the whiteboards that she has an issue with; it’s the fact that theywon’t fit in my junker minivan or her pastel yellow hatchback. Obviously.

I puff. “Dad could bring them over in his truck,” I suggest, though I’m not sure I actually want her to have them. She’s already taken over my whiteboard, pausing only long enough for me to take a photo of the schedules, quotes, and other random bits of information that had been scribbled on it before she tackled the white plastic with an eraser from the basket drilled into the wall beside it. At the top, in bold dark purple block letters, she wroteWOLFE’S GROWTH ARC: A MOUTON PROJECT.

You tell a girl you’re sorry—confess your deepest regrets and your biggest fears—and she starts plotting a plan to help you stop sucking as a person. I’d be insulted, but I kind of agree with her that I could use the help. Plus, the first thing she wrote under her heading was a list of things I am already doing well. The list so far consists ofAmia ♥♥♥andGood at letter writing, but still. I appreciate that she started with my strengths before moving on to my weaknesses, a list that is much,muchlonger, even when we ignore things likeIs a boyandDo boys even have brains anyway?

“If your dad wouldn’t mind bringing the whiteboards here, that would be wonderful,” Leora says, surprising me. I didn’t think she’d be open to an interaction with my parents this early in ourkidnappingrelationship. Then, she writesAsk Gilbert if Wolfe previously possessed brainon her growing to-do list, and things start to make more sense. She’s not meeting the parents. She’s doing recon.

My skin flushes, and I gulp.

Is it because she is, essentially, taking care of me? Or promising to, at the very least? Is that what’s so attractive about her as she adds to my list of flaws? Or is it her take-chargeattitude? The manic light that flashed in her eyes before she jumped over me to get started on her new project?

The way her skirt sways with her hips as she writes?

Whatever the culprit, my body aches all the same.Stand, it says.Stand, and grab her, and kiss her, and claim her.

I didn’t think I would be nostalgic for my passivity, especially not so soon after throwing it off, but here I am, begging for my flesh to find the balance between rationality and insanity. Surely I can take more initiative without going in a direction that will scare off my closest friend and greatest love. It’s a miracle she’s still here at all, and I need to not push her mercies.

Which means that my body can yearn all it wants, it’s not getting athinganytime soon. Or possibly ever, depending on where her mercies end.

My stomach reacts violently to that thought, so I push it aside. I can consider the ramifications of unrequited love in the middle of the night like a proper man. Right now, I need to text my father so he can bring said love more whiteboards for her plans.

And I’ll just hope that these plans don’t tear mecompletelyto shreds before they put me back together. I mean, how bad could it possibly be? To put myself in Leora’s hands and let her do as she wishes?

It sounds like heaven to me.

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This is hell. I am in hell. Fire, brimstone, the whole lot.

Leora, Poem, Almond, and my parents are having tea around one of my several-thousand dollar tattoo chairs as they discuss what, exactly, is wrong with me and when, exactly, the wrongness began. My parents got here, discoveredwhyLeora needed their possessions, and called in reinforcementswith haste. And my one hope at backup? My ride or die from beginning to end? The Fox to my Wolfe?Has to work.

It’s just me, most of my family, andgreat lakes of fire.

Not only are crumbs and tea droplets getting all over myseveral thousand dollarchair while I’m being ripped to shreds, but the shreds are being documented—in detail—on thefivewhiteboards my parents showed up with.

“It took ages to convince him to kidnap you,” Almond says. “Write that up there underNeeds Work.”

“He used to kick all his laundry under the bed when he was a teenager,” Dad supplies. “All the way up until he moved out, so no telling if he still does it or not.”