Pony's head was spinning as he walked from his bus stop to work. He and Darry stayed up until almost three o'clock in the morning talking about Leslie. Darry gave him good advice, and he knew he would use it, but he was still nervous. Winning her over without making Charlie mad wouldn't be easy. And even though he was preoccupied with Leslie, his thoughts kept drifting to Steve. He hadn't come by last night. Pony wasn't sure if he saw that people were up and decided to sleep somewhere else, or if something had happened to him. He didn't want to admit it to himself, but he was worried about him.

Leslie was sitting on the bench outside the bookstore when Pony got there. She looked up and smiled slightly at him, and he sat down next to her.

"What's goin' on?" he asked. "Why aren't you inside?"

She sighed. "Charlie has been flirting with me since I got here, and it's driving me nuts. I just needed some air before I'm stuck in there with him for seven hours."

Pony nodded, and she took a sip of her coffee. "I feel terrible about it," she said. "I know he really likes me and everything, but he's just a friend. There's nothing there, you know?"

Pony nodded. "Yeah. I do."

She smiled a little, "you always know."

Pony could feel himself starting to blush. "Huh?"

She shrugged. "It's like we're the same person sometimes."

"Well, what can I say? I am the man, I suffered, I was there," he said.

"God, I love Walt Whitman," she said.

"I've always been a Frost kind of guy."

"I can dig that," she said.

She looked at him. She was wearing sunglasses, but somehow he could tell that she was studying him. It was almost like she was trying to look into his soul.

The door opened, and both of them jumped. Tom was standing in the doorway.

"You missed a rousing game of Rolling Chair Roller Derby," he said.

Leslie stood up and brushed past Tom on her way into the store. "Somehow, I doubt it."

Tom made a face at Pony. "She's nuts."

"Charlie doesn't seem to think so," Pony said.

"Yeah, I know it. And I'll never understand why."

He and Tom sat down at the cash registers. Leslie and Charlie were already somewhere in the aisles of books. He could faintly hear their conversation from his place at the register. He could tell from Leslie's tone that she was less than enthusiastic.

"Word in the break room is that she likes you," Tom said.

Pony nodded, "that's what Charlie told me, anyway."

"You like her?"

Pony shrugged. "She's nice."

"She sure as hell was," Tom said. He sighed. "But you and Charlie are both better off staying away from her."

"What'd she do to you?"

"Nothing, really," he said. "Her brother went to Canada, and she just got weird. First she was really clingy, and then she went on this self-discovery thing and started pushing me away. Then her dad started saying stuff about Alfred that really upset her, and she got clingy again. I just couldn't take it."

"She seems fine to me," Pony said.

"She's better than she was. But she's still not like she used to be," Tom said. "I don't know if she'll ever be right again. Stuff just gets to her more than most people."

He nodded, "I can see that."

Charlie was still talking, but he couldn't hear Leslie's replies any more. He wondered if she was ignoring him. He wished that he could be shelving books with Leslie instead of sitting at the registers with Tom. He sighed, and Tom looked up at him.

"Hate this job sometimes," Tom said.

"Working the registers is dull," Pony said.

Charlie was still talking, and Leslie started responding again. She still sounded frustrated with him.

"You're blowing it, Charles," Tom said softly.

Then Leslie said loudly, "I'm going to see what's going on up front."

She came racing out from an aisle on the far left end of the store and ducked behind the counter.

"Someone save me," she said.

Tom looked at Leslie and then at Pony. He gave Pony a look that he couldn't quite read and said, "I'll go."

"God bless you, Tom," Leslie said.

Tom wordlessly walked away, and Leslie settled into her chair.

"Frost, huh?" Leslie asked.

It took Pony a minute to remember their conversation from earlier. "Whitman, huh?" he teased.

She smiled, "nothing can top Leaves of Grass, and you know it."

"Nothing but Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, you mean."

"Ugh, it's such a mouthful."

She smiled at him, and he smiled back. Tom had turned on the radio, and the station was playing a Jefferson Airplane song. Pony had always thought they were too loud and harsh, but his opinion of that song changed that day.

Don't you want somebody to love?

Don't you need somebody to love?

Something clicked between them. They both knew. They couldn't have stopped staring at each other if their lives depended on it.

XXX

He lay awake in bed that night. His mind was still on Leslie, but it wasn't as terrifying as before. It almost felt good. This was the kind of love poets wrote about. The kind of thing he'd always wanted.

He dozed off, and when he woke up again it was four A.M. He rolled out of bed and shuffled into the living room to check on Steve.

He wasn't there, and the couch didn't look like it had been slept on. Pony felt the color drain out of his face. The euphoria he had felt all day was gone. He knew he had to find Steve and make sure that he was OK. He just hoped it wasn't already too late.

Disclaimer: Several poems, poets, songs, and bands are mentioned and quoted in this chapter. I don't own them, and I am in no way affiliated with them. Bummer.

This is turning out to be a bit more of a love story than I meant for it to, but the characters take on a life of their own sometimes. Let me know if it just isn't working.

Reviews are always lovely :)