Mako's Message: I feel like there should be more to this chapter but I can't figure out what or how to put it in and my patience has reached it's limit so here we are.

I suppose I'll also dedicate this chapter to 2wingo since there's something in here he's been begging me for to write in for the last two years.


The thing I hate the most about Riley is that I can't seem to hate her.

It sounds stupid, but it's true. I'm jealous of her for sure, but I don't hate her. And I really should. She's way prettier than Katie, and she's so much nicer, but not in a "look at me and how pretty and perfect I am" kind of way. It's weird. Riley isn't actually nicer to me than Katie was. Well, at first at least. She teases me sometimes, and makes jokes about me. But for some reason I never...okay, at first I thought she was a total slut who would take Dave in the back and blow him or drop her panties for him as soon as look at him. But since then, even after they started dating, I've started to actually like her.

If I had to guess, I'd say it's that Riley feels real, and Katie always felt fake. Like plastic. A Barbie doll.

I can't even hate that she knows about me and Dave. I don't like it. Too many people know already. But everybody that's found out is a close friend anyway. People who would have reasons to figure it out.

And I trust Riley. More than I thought I did at least.

I wanted to work on plans for the new training center with Dave today, but their new guy totally flaked on training so he had to work almost a double shift. But I figured, hey, why not go and work on it with him anyway? It's not like the place is busy ALL the time or that I had anything better to do today after all.

So, I went over there with a pad of paper and some pencils and when he didn't have anything to do I'd show him my ideas and he'd make suggestions, and we'd just talk about the stuff we could do with the place.

Riley didn't even mind. She didn't try to pull him away or even yell at him for not working and I'm pretty sure she's still technically his supervisor. I mean, from everything Dave tells me she's practically a manager.

She did come over and ask to see what were were working on at one point though. I yanked the paper away and said, "Top Secret."

And she raised an eyebrow at me and said, "So, it's not so secret that you can work on it in a public place, but too secret for me to see?"

So I said, "Yes."

So she just shrugged and said, "Fine, then I'm gonna go place the weekly order. Have fun!" and kissed Dave on the cheek.

Dave actually looked embarrassed. It was kind of surprising, but then this is the first time any girl has shown him that level of affection in front of me since he and Katie broke up, and now how I feel about him is all out in the open, so... I dunno.

Anyway, after awhile of looking through all my designs and ideas Dave said, "Ya know, when you're older you should be an architect or an interior designer or something."

And I just gave him this look and said, "Why would I want to do that? I'm a godamned super hero."

And he said, "Right, of course. Silly me." And then we went back to brainstorming for the new training center.

We filled up half the damn pad with ideas by the time Riley came back. Most of them probably aren't going to fly, and some were either redundant or pointless. The idea of expanding it into three floors and installing a ramp to drive cars up to the second floor was really fucking cool, and we could probably make it work, but it would take way to much time and money. Plus we really don't need it, and that much work on a building would draw way too much attention and everybody would want to know what was going into it. Plus, we'd have to sacrifice the parking in the back to make that work, which would make renting the first floor so much harder that we might as well just make over the whole damn building and put the garage on the first floor anyway.

But like I said, time, money, need. This place is already going to be way bigger than anything we've had before. And being able to have some steady income from renters would be nice after all I'm gonna be sinking into this place.

Anyway, when Riley came back there was no one else in the store, so she started talking, not to me or Dave, just talking. She started saying stuff like, "I think that group Justice Forever should incorporate. Then they'd actually have some legal protection, ya know, in case someone pulls an Incredibles and sues? At least individually. And then they could apply as a non-profit organization for tax exemption. I'm sure it'd help with their supplies. They'd also be able to accept donations. And, if they were to, say, buy some property to, I dunno, have stuff shipped to instead of their actual base? One of the members could own it as an individual, instead of it belonging to the group, so they wouldn't even have that as an asset, and then rent the property through a property management company. If they wanted to be really sneaky they might even be able to set up a shell company."

She started to talk about something else, but then someone came in and she didn't bring it up again. I kinda wanna know what she was gonna say, but I don't want to ask her about it.