Volume II - The Gabriel Saga

Chapter 14—Treacherous

Patrick

I shouldn't be this excited, I remember thinking to myself.

I was starting to feel like a lovestruck idiot, staring at him when I thought he wasn't looking or 'observing' the way his body moved in every simple little thing he did. Just while he breathed, his chest muscles seemed to flex, like they just never rested—even when the rest of his body was.

Well...most of his body.

I felt my heartbeat quicken. Was this normal? Was considering the fact that there was only the thin layer of underwear between our naked bodies creepy? Oh jeez. Maybe I shouldn't. Maybe I should just wait.

Yeah, that's right, good things come to those who wait.

So I laid there, still, waiting for him to wake up.

And then he groaned, stretching his massive arms into the headboard and his long legs out from under the covers. He rolled onto his side and his right arm collapsed on me, right over my chest, before he pulled me close to his warm fuzzy body.

And then, I didn't need to think about anything.

"What the…"

"Morning," he mumbled, and his voice was like thunder in my ear.

I decided I liked the way he sounded in the morning.

"Please tell me you sleep with a flashlight because you're afraid of the dark."

He chuckled, his rumbling chest echoing through my body. "Nope. That's all me."

The silence settled in for a few seconds and I turned my head to look at him, his face scrunched against the pillow, a fading grin on his mouth, and eyelids lazily draped over his eyes still like he was still sleeping.

"You've gotta be fucking kidding me."

His eyes struggled to open in the blinding sunlight, but his teeth snuck past his lips in a smile that was just as bright as the sun was on his all white sheets.

"What?" he asked through laughter. "I thought that'd be a good thing?"

"Uh, yeah, sure. Except for the fact that it's not fucking fair. You can't have everything."

He put on a pout, thumbing my bottom lip. "Awww, don't be a Pouty Patty."

"Did you just call me a Pouty Patty?"

His laugh was delirious and too happy for this early in the morning. But it was infectious and he looked so goddamn incredible that I couldn't keep myself from laughing with him.

"Are you really mad, though?" he asked, pulling away slightly.

I glared at him, eyes meeting and melting my attitude before it even had a chance to start. "No, obviously not. I'm just trying to fight off the sheer disbelief that you somehow cheated life."

He rolled his eyes. "You really know how to dish out the compliments, huh?"

"Yeah, yeah; don't get used to it," I groaned, moving closer to him and the field of heat that he was radiating like some sort of miniature sun.

"I'll enjoy it while I can, then" he mumbled, his mouth whispering secrets to the exposed part of my neck.

I hadn't really seen this side of him before - at least, not without some sort of initiation on my part. Either officially becoming his boyfriend was the confidence boost he needed, or he was just feeling mighty frisky this morning. It made it hard to ignore the fact that his pelvis was trying to jackhammer my hip into a cratered pulp like he was some dog that had just met me for the first time.

"You know, I kinda need that hip to walk."

He blushed and pulled back some. "Sorry, sorry…" he said distractedly, running a hand over his face in embarrassment. "I uh...I kinda wake up like this."

"You and every other guy on the planet."

"You mean this is normal?"

"Well," I started, thinking about it. "I mean, that thing is far from normal, but morning wood is as old as time."

He was still blushing, but I could see the pride in his face through the little smirk pulling at the corners of his lips. Those goddamn lips. It was like every time I noticed them, I wanted to kiss him. And each time was always better than the last—so I guess he was learning! I couldn't complain about that.

"Are you gonna kiss me, or are you gonna just stare at my mouth?"

And he was getting a hell of a lot snarkier the longer I was around him.

I looked at him like he was insane. "I haven't brushed my teeth."

He leaned in close, our faces just centimeters apart as his lips hovered right in front of mine. "So?"

"What if I have morning breath?" I found myself whispering, my mouth pointed away from his face as much as possible.

"Oh my God, dude, shut up."

And he forced me to by kissing me before I could open my mouth for anything else—more specifically, talking.

I let my body turn toward him, our chests meeting and his sculpted arms wrapping around me like I was nothing more than a pillow to him. It surprised me how strong he was—how he could just lift me from my position and place me right on top of him. Part of me hated how small he made me feel, and the other part of me loved that he was bigger and stronger than me. It was weird. Especially considering the last person I kissed was Amy. The last person I ever shared a bed with was a tiny 5-foot-2 brunette chick who weighed maybe a buck-ten. If that.

I guess I liked it, though, because there was no pulling me away from him. This was the first time I'd been in his room with him and able to see everything, the sunlight pouring through the room like headlights in the night. I could see all the details in his skin, the little spikes of stubble around his jaw, chin, and lips like little golden brown flecks of sand. And his eyes were so breathtaking, all illuminated by the light in the room and every color in his irises was magnified a hundredfold. It only made me want him more. Especially with the way that his hands seemed to talk to my skin in a language that used no words.

And then his door opened.

There was no escaping it. I couldn't move. I couldn't breathe.

Hunter, the King of Eltar, was staring at us with intense electric eyes that were terrifyingly similar to Aaron's—just colder. Harsher.

And surprised and angry, at the moment.

"Dyn!"Aaron shouted. "Dex barrym ryveov!"

What? What the hell did he just say?

Whatever it was, Hunter was out of the room just as quickly as he'd entered. My brain wasn't really processing correctly. It was too damn early for this and now we'd just been officially busted by the fucking King of Eltar.

Oh God.

I'd just met Aaron's dad for the first time. Or Dyn. Whatever the hell it was called.

I rolled off Aaron unceremoniously, my eyes glued to the ceiling as I stared at it, hoping for it to fall on me and kill me now. The silence in the room was deafening, and my heartbeat was racing for a completely different reason now.

I risked a glance at Aaron, who had both of his palms smashed into his eye sockets like he was trying to erase the memory from existence. I could tell it wasn't working.

"So…"

He groaned.

"What now?" I pushed.

He finally let his hands fall away from his face, dramatically pulling at his face like he was trying to tear it off.

"Uuuuuuuuuuugh, I don't knooooow…"

I rolled my eyes. "Well, the way I see it, we have two options. One, I could leave out your window and try to sneak away. Again." My tone became more pointed and I tried to hide it, but it was useless. "Or, we could go downstairs and meet your parents."

He turned his head, his eyes skeptical. "What?"

"You say that like it's weird."

"It is weird. No one's ever met my parents."

"Oh, come on. What do you mean 'ever?'"

He sat up and stared at me, the sheets falling off his body and reminding me why we got in trouble in the first place.

"Oh…" I said, noticing his face, "oh, you're serious?"

He nodded, suddenly not wanting to make eye contact at all.

"Dude...even Amy? Beth? Jay? None of them have ever met your parents?"

He slipped out from under the covers, his bare back facing me in the sun like we were suddenly transported to the beach.

I wish, I thought to myself.

"Aaron," I said, sitting up as well, "dude, listen."

But he wasn't. He was getting up now, walking toward his closet to find clothes.

"Aaron," I repeated, more firmly. "Would you please just talk to me?"

He turned to face me and I tried to refocus my gaze on his face. I almost lost my train of thought and wanted to kick myself for being so damn shallow and so focused on his body when he was clearly upset about what had just happened.

In his eyes, though, I could see how upset he really was about this. I wasn't quite sure why, be he looked like someone had just kicked him out of heaven and straight into hell. His eyebrows were furrowed, almost hopeless, and the corners of his mouth were tight and downturned. I hadn't seen him look like this since we'd buried the hatchet. But what killed me the most was the fact that there was a time when I lived for that look—it was my reward for cutting so deep and so unexpectedly that he couldn't say anything. But now, it made my stomach turn and clench up like I was about to hack up my insides.

It had to go.

"Listen, dude, I want to help," I said to him as I made my way to his closet. "I can't do that if you won't let me." But he still wasn't looking at me, or giving me anything that let me know he was actually hearing what I was saying. I placed both my hands on his shoulders, which was awkward considering I had to reach up to them. "Talk to me."

I felt the tension leave his body slowly as he sighed, his eyes still avoiding mine like the plague.

"I'm sorry," he said, finally. "I wasn't ignoring you. My Dyn was yelling at me."

I furrowed my eyebrows, confusion plain as day on my face. "Uh...I didn't...hear anything."

He grinned, but there was something off about it. It was too small, the corners of his mouth barely twitching and never quite reaching his cheeks or his eyes. It was a humorless grin, one that said everything and nothing at the same time.

"Not like that," he said, "it's complicated." And then he tapped his temple with an index finger and it dawned on me.

"You guys...you speak telepathically? How cliche is that?"

He rolled his eyes. "Everything on Eltar is telepathic. We don't speak often."

"That's not awkward at all."

"Yeah, if you're gonna meet my parents, you can't say things like that."

I noticed there was no joking in his voice at all. He was completely serious.

"Remember, they're the Eltarian monarchy. You're literally meeting the King of a planet. So...you know...no pressure or anything."

—14—

"Well, I think it's nice to finally meet one of your friends, Aaron."

I smiled, my most polite and proper and charming smile that I could possibly muster. Aaron's 'dad' was Dustin, a homely faced man with warm eyes and short curly hair that was similar to Aaron's color, but darker, maybe. He was easy to talk to, I noticed, and his voice sounded like it was full of happiness at all times—a contained, well-intentioned happiness.

"Thank you," I said back, "it's nice to meet you both. It's...it's such an honor."

Hunter was silent, his eyes still boring holes into me. I could feel them, and it was absolutely paralyzing. I felt cold and hot all at the same time, like he was intentionally fucking with the temperature in the room to see if I'd say anything.

"Why?"

When he spoke, it was like the air in the room lit up with lightning. I could feel the static, felt the hair on my neck stiffen and my stomach tighten up in apprehension. I saw Dustin's hand nudge his knee, but the King barely took notice. His eyes never left my face.

I inhaled deeply and looked up at him proudly, doing my very best to keep eye contact with him.

"Well," I started off, trying to find the right way to word this. "I'm...I'm honored to be the first of Aaron's...uh...friends to meet you both. And it's humbling to be in the presence of royalty."

I was trying to read his face for a reaction, but Hunter was like a stone wall.

"So you two are 'friends' then?"

Uh…

"I think you know that's not the case," Aaron piped up, finally. "He's my..." he glanced at me, then back at Hunter. "We're dating."

Dustin's face was a dead giveaway. I could see the excitement in his eyebrows, a lot like I could tell with Aaron with the way his whole face seemed to lift.

"Patrick, huh?" Hunter said, more than asked, his gaze finally moving to Aaron for a change. "And this wouldn't happen to be the same Patrick that's been trying to make your life hell for the past couple years, would it?"

I clenched my jaw. I had to keep my emotions in check.

"One in the same," I said quietly. "We've...been working on that."

"Uh huh," Hunter remarked. "And I'm assuming that since you know who I am, you know that Aaron isn't just some guy, right? You know that he's an Eltarian Prince?"

"Patrick knows everything, Dyn," Aaron covered for me again. "Why are you being like this?"

Dustin was looking at Hunter now too, sitting next to him with his head turned and a look of support and concern all mixed into one on his deceptively youthful face.

"He's worried, is all," Aaron's dad spoke up, looking at us. "You two are young. There's a lot that goes into a relationship like this, and Hunter just wants to make sure that you're both making the right decision."

"It's a lot more dangerous than either one of you realize."

Aaron scoffed at his Dyn. "Dangerous? In case you forgot, it was dangerous for me before Patrick ever came into the picture."

Now this was getting awkward, but something was telling me this conversation had been long overdue.

"No," Hunter insisted, "it was a calculated risk—this is reckless."

I couldn't stop my eyebrows from climbing up my forehead, my eyes going wide with the silent surprise of speechlessness.

"So what? You think he's some kind of spy or something, is that it? I'm just supposed to keep my head down and fake it til I make it, isn't that right, Dyn? Play along with the game we've been playing my whole life?"

"Aaron," Dustin said, trying to remind him to calm down.

"No," the White Ranger snapped, "not this time. I'm done 'sticking to the plan' and being this walking robot."

Hunter cleared his throat, and with no hesitation in his voice, he said, "Then what you're saying to me is that you want to go home."

It was a chillingly cold and unmistakable statement. It sounded like it was supposed to be a question, but there was no confusion.

And there was no confusion in my head either—I hated Hunter. He was a straight up dick.

"Can I say something?" I asked.

I was afraid there'd be too much attitude in my voice, but it came out even—if not somewhat exasperated—and almost timid.

All eyes fell on me and I felt my ears tingle with the blood rushing to the tips.

"I'm...I'm not spy. I don't intend to do anything to jeopardize Aaron's safety here or his ability to stay here. I know it's weird, you know? Us being together when just last month I would've given anything to see him leave." I tried to ignore the offended sound coming from Aaron. "But that's because when he's pretending to not be himself, he's kind of an asshole. The more he pretends to be a human and fight who or what he really is, the more obvious it becomes that he's hiding something."

Dustin was doing his best to mask the smile on his face, his arm positioned on the chair of the couch so that he could subtly drape his hand over his mouth. But I saw the smile in his eyes.

"I can't promise to 'look out for him' or anything, because, I mean...he's a Ranger and will probably spend most of his time looking after me—but I'll do my damndest to keep your secrets safe. That I can promise."

Hunter took in a slow, deep breath, his eyes never letting up on their intensity. But I started to see more emotions in them—I could see the actual worry that he felt. I could see that he was just trying to do the best he could, and it reminded me so much of my own mom that I wondered if this was just something all parents went through with their kids.

"Well, I personally think it's great," Dustin spoke up, slapping a hand down on Hunter's thigh. "And I think this will be good for both of you—so long as you don't keep sneaking in and out."

If my ears were tingling before, they were straight up on fire now.

"You two aren't as quiet as you might like to think," he added, laughing.

Hunter was nowhere near as jovial about it. "Nor as sneaky."

"Well, now we don't have a reason to sneak around," Aaron replied. "So...no need to worry about that."

"I'm not worried," Hunter said, "because from now on, you'll be asking for permission to have someone over like normal kids do."

—14—

Even the awkward start to the morning couldn't keep me from smiling all day like an ass. All day at work, I was giving the best customer service of my life—eagerly accepting orders and requests, offering to help other people with their tables, volunteering for extra side work—honestly, it was like my brain just stopped working. I couldn't really explain the way I was feeling. It was surreal, almost like that moment in a dream when you realize how great things are and you pray and hope and wish that you don't wake up in your bed in the next hour.

Only I wasn't waking up.

"Why the hell are you so happy? Did you get laid or something?"

It was one of the lifers (someone who basically lived) at Thirsty's, an old blond with eyes like craters and breath that smelled like two packs of cigarettes. I guess she was nice, but I never really talked to her except to ask her if she needed help—which was always a resounding "no."

I grinned, laughing politely. "No, Janice, nothing like that."

"You're full of shit."

Now I laughed in earnest. "Why do you say that?"

"The only time I've ever seen a man walk around with his teeth showing like his lips got smacked off was when he just had his world rocked by some grade-A ass. Now you're telling me that ain't the case?"

I tried to ignore the visual, because I could only picture her laying next to some trucker in a motel room while they both chain smoked and commented on how great their shut-eyed sex was.

"Pretty much," I replied, lining a fork up with a butter knife before placing a spoon in the divet of the fork and rolling all three pieces up in a napkin. "Sex isn't the only thing that counts in a relationship."

"Ooooooooooooooooooooooooh," she rasped, "so that's what it is! A little puppy love, huh?"

The grin was back in full force, and I just knew that my ears were about to start burning.

"I guess you could say that, yeah."

"Well, it won't be 'fore long you come to work with your face all lit up with that PSG."

"PSG?"

"Post-sex glow!"

"Oh, my God...Janice…"

It went on like that. All day, really. It was like it was just written on my forehead that I was crushing—hard. I just couldn't hide it, and part of me was wondering if I needed to anymore. I didn't, right? Aaron and I were official now, so...there was no need to keep secrets anymore! I could actually tell people I was dating someone.

Our hostess, LaRae, interrupted my thoughts as she swung around the corner into the kitchen. "Paaaaaatty," she sang, "I'm real sorry boo, but I just had to doubleseat you. They requested you by name."

I frowned in confusion. "For real? Who did?"

"I dunno, some fine-ass white boy and his girlfriend."

And with that, she was gone, spinning on her no-slip shoes and skipping from the kitchen.

Janice winked at me.

I ignored the anxiety in my stomach, trying to tell myself that even if Aaron was out in the dining room, there was nothing to be nervous about. Except that girlfriend that he'd brought with him. Was it Beth? Would he really bring her to Thirsty's while I was working?

I dropped off my first table's drinks, gave them a few minutes to review the menu, and then made my way over to my new booth.

It wasn't Aaron, and my stomach immediately sank.

It was Matt and Grace.

"Well look who still shows up to work on time!" Grace commented loudly. And I could tell she was referring to the fact that I was never around.

I gulped.

Literally.

"Hey, guys."

I tried to sound happier, but I was sweating bullets now. They were gonna be able to see it on my face just as clearly as everyone else. And to make matters worse, I had no idea how to tell them.

"I'm just as surprised as you are," Matt grumbled.

"Sorry, work's been super busy and these online classes are kicking my ass," I lied. "Are you guys eating or are you just here to call me a ghost?"

"Both, actually," Grace replied, smiling. She flipped her hair over her shoulder and glanced at the menu. "So tell me what's good, Patty Cakes. Or is that a secret, too?"

I narrowed my eyes. "What do you mean?"

Matt took the liberty of explaining for her. "She means everything else seems to be a secret nowadays. So...it's not all that weird to think that your favorite food from here would be just as much of a mystery as your shadiness lately."

I clenched and unclenched my jaw several times. I wasn't ready to tell them, not yet. I mean, what if Aaron wasn't okay with telling the team just yet? And Matt had been hanging out with Jay and Gabriel all the time, so I really didn't want word to get back to Jay before Aaron had the chance to tell him face-to-face. And Grace? Well...Grace was basically the local news. I damn sure wasn't telling her anything.

And just like that, it proved to me that Aaron and I weren't as official as I thought we were. This wasn't gonna be fixed with just slapping a title on a relationship.

"I really have no idea what you guys are talking about," I found myself saying, suddenly on the defensive. "Maybe you guys just haven't noticed this because you're too busy saving the world, but regular life goes on for the rest of us non-superheroes."

Matt immediately softened, his whole demeanor changing in less than two seconds as he slouched a little more and tried to make the whole atmosphere more casual just by avoiding eye contact, ruffling his hair with his hand, and clearing his throat.

Textbook Matt.

"I mean...yeah...you're right," he muttered nervously. "I figured that's what it was…"

"Oh you did not," Grace denied, unable to resist the smile on her face and the opportunity to make fun of her best friend. "You should've seen him, Patrick. He's been so whiny like 'why won't Patrick hang out with me? Why is he ditching me?' And, my personal favorite, 'I feel like Amy.'"

"Shut up," the Blue Ranger hissed, his legs reacting under the table like he couldn't control them as he chipped away at her shins with his thin flip-flops.

What they didn't realize was the devastating gravity that seemed to collide with my conscience. Slowly, I was starting to come to the conclusion that in diving head-over-feet into a relationship with Aaron, I had effectively broken up with my friends. I had isolated myself like I was part of some tween star-crossed lovers young-adult fiction novel.

Fuck.

I tried to laugh, I really did, because the sight before me was classic Matt and Grace hilarity. But the sobering thought of losing my friends to test out this relationship with Aaron was too heavy on my lungs. Suddenly, I had ballasts in my pulmonary cavity, and they weren't letting anything in or out.

Finally, a thin gasp of air made its way down my windpipe, and I noticed their eyes on me.

"Uh...are you okay?" Grace asked me. "You look like you're about to be sick."

I shook my head, smiling mockingly, like I was just pretending to relive my own reflexes and instincts to make them think I was the exact same Patrick I was two weeks ago.

"Yeah! No, yeah, I'm great," I lied too enthusiastically. "I just...I've missed you guys."

Grace nodded, her eyes narrowed and her thin-lipped smile a clear-cut sign of disbelief. "That's...kinda what I've been saying since we sat down."

I flashed a grin quickly. "I know, I know. It just...it takes a second for it to hit me sometimes. I just realized how long it's been since I've seen either one of you. It's crazy how much school can do for a social life, huh?"

Matt chuckled. "Yeah, tell me about it. Jay and I were just talking about that."

I tried to fight it, but my eyebrows were a dead giveaway.

"Yeah, that's the same face I make whenever he says stuff like that," Grace remarked from behind her menu, sparing us both glances. "It's like it leaves a bad taste in my ears or something."

"You can taste with your ears?" Matt wondered.

"Shut up."

"Dude, you can hang out in a room with Jay and not kill him?" I asked, just not as unbiased as it sounded in my head.

"Yeah, I know, right?" he said, shifting his weight in the booth so that he could lean against the inside wall. "Funny thing is, we're actually pretty similar."

"Yeah, if you replace all of your calmness with rage, sure."

He rolled his eyes at me. "See, that's why you and him don't get along."

"Because he's a raging asshole or because I'm being honest?"

He sighed. "Never mind."

I noticed the look on Grace's face—the one that said she'd already had this argument with him and realized how pointless it was. But there was something else in her eyes. Something she was trying to hide. And to me and my paranoid mind, she was screaming this wouldn't have happened if you were around more often, but now we're all sort of getting used to it and don't really mind as much anymore.

"It's probably just me," I tacked on to try to comfort Matt. "I can see how you guys would get along, though. It's kinda like a math equation—take me out of it and suddenly things work."

He stared at me. It wasn't really a glare, but he wasn't just looking at me. Something about it was like he was irritated with the way I'd phrased it, and even I had to admit I was sounding a little too self-depreciative for my own good.

"I think I'm gonna have the Chicken Finger Club," Grace said loudly, changing the subject to break the awkward tension that should never have been there in the first place.

"That's a good one," I commented, following her lead. "You'd probably like it, Matt. Though, if I were you, I'd get the California Chicken Club—avocado is the signature of Cali, right?"

There it was. That Matt grin that I was waiting on to verify that my best friend was still there. If I could hang on to that, I'd be okay. I just needed to dig at that and rebuild the bridge I'd neglected. After all, I was a waiter—multitasking was in my everyday. Hell, it was integral. Surely I could factor that into my actual life, right?

The fact that I was taking their menus and memorizing their orders while keeping up a conversation with them gave me all the confirmation I needed.

"What are you guys up to after this? I'm off at 8 if you wanna hang out. I just gotta head home and shower and change real quick."

"Well, I have a dinner party I have to be to," Grace answered, "but you two have fun catching up and doing whatever it is you two do without female supervision."

Matt looked like a kid on Christmas. "Dude, you should totally come over—I got the new Enlist: Soldiers of Glory game and it is siiiiiiiiiiick. The campaign mode is basically impossible, but I think we could co-op the shit out of it and dominate."

I couldn't find the words to express how excited I was over something so banal and minor, though I knew it was more because of the sense of familiarity and solidarity I felt with Matt in the moment.

I really had missed how simple things were with him.

—14—

So...whatcha doin?

I read over the message with all the restraint of a toddler before I felt my fingers flying over the screen of my phone in a blur.

Just finished my sidework! Now I'm about to head home and shower. What about you? How'd the rest of your day go with your parents? Am I banned from your house?

As soon as I put my phone away, I felt the dumbfounded smile on my face disappear mercifully.

"Who you texting, bruh? Got a new girlfriend?"

I forgot Matt was still here. And I forgot that typing any kind of message to Aaron somehow made my face stretch into this inhuman smiley mask.

"No!" I said back too quickly. "No, dude, it was my mom. She was telling me about Tia's housebreaking."

He bought the lie easily as I wiped down the table he and Grace had been sitting at, our tall blonde friend's place at the booth somehow cleaner than it was when she sat down. She had long since left us and I was still considering returning her overly generous tip by way of stealth. I was just trying to figure out how to sneak up on someone who could disappear and become shadows.

"She's getting big now, isn't she?" Matt asked, breaking my train of thought. "Tia, that is."

"Yeah, dude, her paws are massive. She's gonna be twice my size by the time it's all said and done."

My phone went off again and everything Matt was saying was immediately blocked out without intent.

Actually, it was awesome. I'll tell you about it later on when you get here, since you're most definitely not banned. I think my dad might be in love with you, hahaha.

I tried to stop it, but there was already a laugh in the back of my throat that somehow snuck out through my nose and a small gap in my mouth.

"Ha-ha-ha!"

I looked over at Matt, who was anything but amused. It wasn't like I needed his mock laughter to figure that out.

"Sorry, bruh, I'll turn it off when I get to your place," I lied. "Speaking of, I'm about to jet home. Meet you at your place in like, 30?"

He stretched. "Yeah, I guess that's cool. I'm gonna fly, so I'll see you then."

I didn't really process it as a literal statement until we both stepped outside into the breezy October night. When I looked around at the empty parking lot to find my car, Matt took it upon himself to show off for just a second.

The wind seemed to stop for a second, until I realized that it hadn't stopped, just merely redirected itself to wrap around the Blue Ranger like some sort of personal air elevator. Slowly but surely, he was lifted into the sky and his sandy hair flew wildly around him as he looked toward the setting sun.

"Dude...you can fly without being Morphed?!"

"See what you miss out on when you work too much," he taunted before he jettisoned himself into the clouds like a rocket. I watched as he leveled out and coasted through the navy twilight splashed across the sky, a thin blue vapor trailing off him like some kind of personalized contrail.

My phone buzzed again and made me lose my concentration, Matt fading from memory just as quickly as he'd taken to the skies.

Have you left yet?

I shook my head. Aaron was certainly anxious about something.

I'm getting in my car now, haha. You're certainly impatient today, am I missing something?

I started up my car arbitrarily before I pulled off in the direction of home. I wasn't even thinking about the direction I was going, like I was just on autopilot. My headlights cut through the settling darkness in swaths of orangish yellow beams as my voice automatically chimed in with whatever was playing over my car speakers. In my subconscious, the lyrics took the form of Aaron's name, and I could feel my face instinctively flexing into a foolish smile.

By the time I got home, I wasn't even paying attention to the parking lot outside my apartment complex. I noticed my mom wasn't home, but that wasn't too surprising. It was Saturday night, and she always worked late on the weekends for overtime. So after my quick sweep of the car inventory, I hopped out of my car and started making my way home.

I think I smelled it beforehand—cologne and pheromones all mixing into one undeniably familiar scent that my brain tried to decipher in the seconds before my body was snatched up into the air.

I panicked and my elbow cocked back instinctively, nailing my assailant right in the ribcage.

"Owww! Jeeeeez!"

I recognized the voice immediately, and my brain retrospectively identified the smell from earlier.

Aaron.

Thanks, brain. Thanks a lot.

"Holy shit, I am so sorry," I apologized, walking toward him with outstretched hands that instinctively made their way to his injured abdomen. "Are you okay?"

He grinned when my hands touched him, his own hands holding them there. "I'm fine. I was just making up an excuse for you to touch me."

I pulled my hand away and backhanded his chest. "You're a dick."

His face was still stuck in the same grin.

"What are you doing here? And how did you get here?"

He gestured largely to his right where a pearly white truck glistened in the starlight. "Look what I finally got!"

I gaped. "H-how the hell? Is it the same truck or…?"

"Not exactly the same," he said, and he sounded like he was about to explode with excitement. "It's newer, and it's got…"

I tried to pay attention, but as soon as he started talking cars, my brain shut down temporarily and went into observation mode. I watched him talk, studied how the sheer exhilaration spread throughout his face in various ways; how it carried over to his body language and his hand gestures. Everything about him was like a little song and dance that I was still trying to memorize the choreography to.

I tuned back in when he mentioned his parents. "I'm pretty sure the only reason he got it was so that he could track me at all times, though."

"Who, Hunter?"

"Who else?"

"Well, I mean, you did say your dad was in love with me. Maybe he just wanted me to save on gas."

I watched the laugh lines branch from his eyes, down to his cheeks and lips.

"Well, in that case, why don't I chauffeur you now, then?"

I was going to tell him I had plans, I really was. In fact, the words were already formed in my brain, and my throat was readying my vocal chords to speak them into existence. But they got stuck when Aaron's voice dropped toward the end of his sentence and his arms pulled at mine until my body met his. I smelled like french fries and 3-star-restaurant chicken, but he didn't seem to mind—either that, or it only made him want to kiss me all the more, because soon, I couldn't speak. My mouth was too busy with his and his inhumanly strong arms that lifted me into him as he leaned back against his sparkly new vehicle. And I tried, I really did, to remember what I was forgetting. I knew there was something I was supposed to be doing—something important but unimportant all at the same time.

It really shouldn't have been that difficult to focus. I could remember thinking there was like this dense fog that was crowding my mind, and the windy night couldn't clear it out no matter how hard it tried. I didn't even notice that the sky was skewered in slashes of pale blue striations and deep violet clouds that were lit up by the ominous moon overhead. And if I'd been listening, if I hadn't been so wrapped up in Aaron—literally—I would have heard the faint sound of thunder. I would have heard the quiet, distant growls of the sky; frustrated, shocked, and, overall—treacherous.