When Soda and Joanne arrived, I was surprised to see her with an overnight bag.

"Are we having a sleepover?" I smiled.

"Nah. I got the impression from Soda that you maybe left home in a hurry, I brought you some stuff."

We went into the bedroom as I thanked her.

"It's just a few things I thought you might not have picked up." She held up a ladies' razor. "I got brothers. They don't like if you do your legs with their razor." I hadn't got around to thinking about that, but I probably would have pinched Steve's, so I guess she saved me from pissing him off about that. "Um, I brought you some...supplies. I don't know if it's that time..." There was a box of tampons in among the toiletries. She shrugged, embarrassed. "Seeing as it's a 'men only' house, y'know."

I swallowed hard. It wasn't quite that time of the month, but I was grateful to her.

Jo looked around the room. "Why do they do that?" She pointed at the hubcaps on Steve's wall. "Just like Soda. Is that supposed to be ornamental or something?"

"Souvenirs of a good night out?" I guessed. "More to the point, why do they –" I shut up. I'd been about to laughingly comment on the centerfold, but I suddenly realized she was gone. I looked around stupidly, in case it had come loose and fallen down, but there was no sign of her.

"No Raquel Welch?" Jo asked, her mind had obviously been travelling a similar route.

I shook my head. "I don't think he likes her as much as Soda does." Joanne snorted. "Oh?" I asked, "Did you object to Raquel, make him take her down?"

"No, why would I do that?"

"I get a lot of grief from Steve because of that big picture of 'Hud' on my wall. He says it puts him off. I wondered if you and Soda made a pact to take down your posters."

She wrinkled her nose. "Soda ain't been in my room to see who I got, my aunt would have a heart attack. Not Newman anyways, too pretty."

That made me laugh. I sat on the bed, chuckling. Joanne didn't see anything funny in telling me she didn't like 'pretty' actors when she was dating the best looking boy in town. Well, the generally acknowledged best looking boy in town. I was more than happy with the view on my own dates.

"Anyway, nothing to be 'put off' from," she said shyly.

"Still? I thought – "

"Oh, no, it's all good. We talked. We're just..waiting now. For the right time."

I thought back to the conversation I'd had with her, when she'd been so upset, taking Soda's refusal to sleep with her as meaning he didn't see a future with her. She wasn't upset any more, but they were still waiting? I wondered what exactly they had talked about. Especially in the last week, since Sandy had reappeared.

"Evie? Are you okay?" She was peering at me and I realized we hadn't really covered the fact that I was attacked. Her face was creased up in a frown now, as she surveyed me.

I nodded. "I'm okay. My lip hurts if I drink my coffee too hot, but it's all getting better." I wasn't going into detail about my cuts. Or anything else. I just wanted the bruises on my face to disappear and stop reminding people that it had happened.

"Soda told me, this was an old boyfriend of yours. He must be a first class asshole."

I nodded again. "Steve got in a fight with him last year. This was pay back." It seemed a simple enough explanation.

Joanne bit her lip thoughtfully and I realized Soda had probably filled her in on the whole 'getting Ricky fingered to go inside' story. "Talking of fights, Steve hit Soda, y'know," she said, her tone aggrieved.

"I don't think he meant to," I tried to excuse it.

"He was pretty wild."

"Soda blacked Steve's eye!"

"In self defense. Steve would have really hurt him. They're supposed to be friends."

"Hey, you got brothers. Don't tell me they never fall out?"

She pulled a face. "They do. But I never saw anyone as mad as Steve was. He nearly beat Darry, you know. It took Darry and Soda both to calm him down. I thought Ponyboy was going to have to sit on him too!"

I knew that Steve and Soda were all made up again. But the way she spoke made me slightly nervous about the other two Curtis boys. And there was one more issue I wanted details on. I asked Joanne about Two-Bit. She shrugged.

"I was in the kitchen, putting ice on Soda's head, when he came back. I heard them shouting some, but I didn't go find out what exactly they said." She didn't sound like she was spinning a line, so I guessed I'd have to wait a little longer to get to the bottom of what exactly went down between Steve and Two-Bit.

But the evening progressed without the subject coming up. Soda and Jo left pretty early, thanks to Steve's heavy hints that I needed my rest. Leaving me to sneak over to the phone, while Steve was in the bathroom. Thankfully Two-Bit picked up right away, so we were done talking by the time Steve reappeared, although he caught the end of the conversation.

"What the hell did you just do?" Steve asked sharply, coming into the kitchen.

"You ain't missing work – missing pay – when there's someone else I can hang with." I was so reasonable, I deserved a medal. "I agreed with ya that I wouldn't be on my own tomorrow, didn't I? Everyone else is at work." Technically, Ponyboy was coaching a kids' athletics camp over to the middle school this week, but he still wasn't around to babysit me on Monday morning.

"I told you I'd call Mathews later."

"An' now you don't need to." It was an obvious bluff call; he'd had no intention of following through, I knew it, he knew it.

Steve switched tack. "I don't want him here. He'll be hung over an' fall asleep on the couch - you'll end up looking after him."

I had a suspicion that might actually be the case, but I was getting mad too, by that point. "Are you telling me who I can and can't hang out with, now? Are you telling me who I can be friends with?" And for some reason my voice broke a little. Guess I was more on edge than I'd realized.

That shocked him some and he backed down. But he wasn't happy.

I was trying to time my meds so that the pain killers kicked in as I went to bed, but they wore off and I woke up in the early hours of the morning again. I felt kind of uneasy, but I didn't think I'd been dreaming about Ricky.

Steve was gone again. I knew he didn't sleep well when he had something on his mind. More than once before I'd found him staring at the ceiling in the middle of the night, so as not to wake me. Seemed as though recent events had pushed him even further.

There were no lights on as I padded out of the bedroom, but I smelled smoke and turned towards the kitchen.

The back door was open and Steve was sitting on the doorstep with a lit weed burning away in his hand, tapping his foot like he was running instead of just staring out at the darkness of the back yard.

xxXxx

If I had hoped that being face to face would bring things to a head between Steve and Two-Bit, I was out of luck. Because the weirdest thing happened, Monday morning. Steve got dressed for work. Steve left for work – once he was sure I wasn't going to be on my own, because the Plymouth had pulled up out front. But they didn't speak to each other. Two-Bit didn't even get out of his car until Steve was in the Chevy. And they sure as hell didn't wave, or even acknowledge each other.

"Morning, Tink." Two-Bit looked remarkably awake, for so early on a Monday morning. Clean shaven, bright eyed. Like he'd already had coffee, even.

"What the hell is going on with you two?" I demanded, as I closed the front door behind him and he strode past me.

"Who two?"

So he was going to be as irritating as Steve about this. I scowled – or at least I did my best to scowl, without splitting open my lip. Not having a full range of expressions available was beginning to piss me off, for sure.

"Is there breakfast?" Two-Bit beamed at me. "Eggs, maybe? Bacon, even?"

I followed him into the kitchen, where he immediately started rooting through the ice box.

"Two-Bit.." I put as much warning as I could into my tone.

"What? Don't tell me you ate already?" He looked around at the cabinets. "Ol' Eddie still runs a real uptight ship, huh? French toast?"

I folded my arms. "I ain't cooking you French toast."

He laughed. "Hell, you don't know how I like it. I will be cooking the French toast." He found the skillet and started setting up. "Breakfast food is my specialty. You want more'n cereal in my house, you cook it yourself. What with my ma working late nights, she ain't what you'd call a morning person. "

"And you are?" I pointed out the obvious issue with his statement.

"I like to eat, if I never went to bed in the first place. No one said you hadda sleep first, to eat breakfast."

I opened my mouth to tell him it was implicit in the word 'break- fast', but then I realized he'd done a perfect job of diverting me from my original question about him and Steve. I went out on the back porch, my cigarettes in my hand, although I didn't light one. I was finding that happening a lot, thinking I knew what I was going to do, then changing my mind.

I tried to ignore the noises from the kitchen, so as not to imagine the mess that was being made.

"You eating out there?" He stuck his head out the door.

I tried to tell him I wasn't hungry, but he ignored me and shoved a plate into my hands. There was a weird arrangement of triangles leaning on each other, standing up on the plate, like some demented pyramid.

He came out with a plate for himself and a pack of sugar in his hand, waited for me to say something.

"Thank you." Seemed the required response.

"Snow?" he inquired solemnly, holding up the powdered sugar. I shook my head and he doused his own plate liberally instead. "It snows a lot in Paris." When I didn't say anything he rolled his eyes like I was stupid. "It's the Eiffel Tower, dummy. 'S'French toast." He crammed one of the walls of his tower in his mouth, still smiling.

Actually, it tasted okay.

"You done?" I only had to nod for him to inhale what I'd left – with extra sugar. "You eat less than the squirt," he commented, with his mouth full. I had met his kid sister once, when he'd been taking her out for burgers and we'd run into each other. She was only a squirt in Mathews-land. She was about Ponyboy's age, but already tall. Way taller than me. She had Two-Bit's coloring too, I figured his hair would be the same red as her ponytail, if he didn't keep his darkened with pomade all the time.

Two-Bit dug in his pocket for a lighter and lit up a weed, lounging on the back porch steps. He seemed in no hurry to clean up and I wasn't looking forward to whatever state he'd left the kitchen in.

"How you doing?" he asked. "You look like the eye's moving along." That was true, the bruising was shifting to blue-ish around the edges already.

"I'm okay," I told him, neglecting to mention yesterday's dizzy spell.

"So, what shall we play today?" he asked lazily. "I could show you where Randle hides his skin mags."

"Ew! No, thanks." I pulled a face. "You're disgusting."

"Yeah, that's what my ma said this morning."

I frowned. "Wait. I thought you said she wasn't around in the mornings?"

He looked a little shifty. "Well, she was this morning."

And then it hit me like a freight train, full on. "Shit. Two-Bit, it's your birthday!" I felt awful. I felt like the worst friend in the world. With everything the last few days had thrown at me I'd completely forgotten.

Two-Bit crinkled up his eyes, sheepishly. "Yup."

"Oh my God. I can't believe I forgot. I'm so sorry. Happy Birthday!" I went to hug him, but he waved me away.

'S'okay. Ain't like it's an important one. Ain't nothing I can do today that I couldn't do yesterday. Nineteen ain't nothin', it's all downhill from here."

"Did you have plans with Kathy? Man. I can't believe you didn't say when I asked you to come over today." I felt like an idiot and an inconsiderate one, at that.

He leaned back on the porch rail. "Nah, she's busy. Haven't seen her in a couple of days." He looked casual, but something in the way he said it sounded off. Kathy didn't work, apart from the odd babysitting gig. She got her money in pretty much the way Sylvia used to, before the bar job, before Buzz went inside; her brother passed her his spare dough when he had it, which was often enough. Kathy never went into details about how and where it came from and I never asked.

"She working today?" I was hoping that minding the neighbors' kids was the reason she wasn't with her boyfriend on his birthday.

Two-Bit shrugged. "Nah, unless you count Marshall as a baby. She's doing something with him."

"That sucks. On your birthday."

He hesitated. "Well, I guess I coulda gone too, but I kind of burnt that bridge." I waited. I thought that he got on with Kathy's brother. I definitely remembered Kathy telling me that Marshall dug him. Two-Bit tried for a real nonchalant tone as he told me what he meant. "Had me an invitation, coupla weeks back. Turned 'em down. Said I already had a lousy outfit to bounce around with."

I blinked, absorbing this news. Two-Bit was asked to join the River Kings? Holy shit.

"Course, that was before your main squeeze decided to piss me off. Royally. Maybe I'll change my mind."

"You ain't serious? What happened between you two?" I was confident of an answer this time, since he brought the subject back up.

"We had a frank exchange of views."

"I figured that much. Who hit who?"

Two-Bit looked a little surprised. "Neither of us, actually. The dynamic duo had already made their points. I hate to hit a man when he's already down."

"So you just argued? Told each other off? What?"

He shrugged. "We had words. It'll shake out eventually."

"You ain't serious, about the Kings, because of Steve?" I needed to check. He shook his head, smiling at me, like I was a complete idiot. He finished his weed, tossed the butt towards – but not quite into – the old coffee can that served as an ashtray on the porch.

"You know how long I been following Darry Curtis around? Since I could walk. Our moms hung out when I was a baby. Mrs. C was just about the only person helped Ma out back then. I was always tryin' to catch up to Darry. An' then there was Soda and we was a gang, right from then. I wouldn't go over to the freaking Kings, what'd ya take me for?" He wasn't really annoyed, it was an amused question.

It did make me think though, about how awkward it might be for him, hanging out at Kathy's house, with Marshall, not to mention Adam Murphy, maybe the rest of their boys, around the place. It would be like one of the Curtis boys dating Tim's sister. That made me smile. It was kind of like how all the kings and princes in medieval Europe used to sort out their beefs, marrying off their daughters to get a bigger turf. Maybe I should point out that I knew that, to Mr. 'I passed History, got my High school diploma' when he got home.

That brought me back to those two. I couldn't believe they hadn't spoken this morning. It was my fault, no matter which way I tried to think about it. Steve getting so mad was because I'd lied about Ricky attacking me; Ricky attacking me was because I'd interfered last year. Steve had ended up fighting with his best friends because of me. It was all down to me.

"Tink? Hey. Jeez. Evie?" Eventually I heard Two-Bit's concern and realized I was crying. I'd ended up hunched over, hugging my knees, head down, without even realizing. He shifted across the porch, a little nearer to me. "I ain't going over to the Kings, I was only kidding about Steve pissing me off," he said urgently, which threw me for a second, because that wasn't exactly what I'd been thinking about. He looked real worried, his hands twitching like he didn't know what to do, until he settled for rubbing his chin.

I wiped my face inelegantly with the back of my hand, told him it wasn't his fault, that he should ignore me.

"You got decent painkillers?" He was obviously still trying to work out what had set me off. I said yes. He nodded. "Good deal. No point in playing around with aspirin, if you need somethin' stronger. It fucking hurts to get worked over, don't let anyone try and tell you otherwise."

I raised a fairly convincing smile. "Christ, you guys act like it's nothing."

"Yeah, well, we're all liars!" He grinned at me. Then he stood up. "Wanna watch TV?" I waited for him to hold his hand out, to help me up, but he didn't.

I stood up slowly, just in case. I hadn't felt dizzy again, but there was no point pushing my luck.

"Hey, it's time for my favorite show." Two-Bit checked the clock over the fireplace in the front room. "Oh, nah, twenty minutes yet." I looked at the time. I knew what would be on at eleven; thanks to Ma, I pretty much had all the schedules by heart. For years, TV was the only thing she ever talked about, almost like the people were real friends of hers. I thought about the main choices, dismissed the morning soap as not being Two-Bit's bag.

"Andy Griffith?" I guessed, but he shook his head. That left...I stared. "Supermarket Sweep is your favorite show?"

"Sure. It's like research. You know how many blind spots those places got? I like to work out how much I could lift before the time's up." He looked deadly serious, but I couldn't be sure.

I left room for him on the couch, but he chose to lounge on the floor, leaning back on the armchair until it was time to change the channel. He crawled over to the set, then resumed his position and instructed me on the finer points of stealing from supermarkets, pointing out spots on that day's store that were easily accessible. I guess it really was research.

I was thinking about what happened outside and realizing what had been nagging at me since Two-Bit arrived. Since I'd got to know him, since right back when Steve and I started seeing each other, Two-Bit had been friendly to me. That had only increased. I hadn't been making it up, when I challenged Steve on whether he was stopping me being friends; Two-Bit was my friend. And he was the kind of guy who hugged. He'd thrown an arm around my shoulders on countless occasions – when he was amused by something, when he was pleased about something and for sure if he ever thought I was upset. But not today. Today he had actively not touched me.

I put my head down on the arm of the couch, curling up. Thinking. Trying to come up with one single thing in my life that wasn't trashed by what had happened with Ricky.