Page 55 of The Air He Breathes (Elements 1)

“What’s what?”

“That weird goofy grin you’re giving me—holy face full of sex! You slept with him!”

“What? No, I—”

“Don’t try to outsmart the sexoholic, Liz. You totally boned him!”

Like a little girl who’d just gotten her first kiss, I squirmed. “I totally boned him!”

“Sweet Jesus! Yes!” She stood up on the front porch and started chanting. “YES! YES! YES!!! The drought is over!”

Tristan turned our way and raised an eyebrow. “Everything okay, ladies?”

I pulled Faye back down to sit and giggled. “Everything’s fine.”

“Including that sweet ass of his,” Faye muttered with a smirk. “So, how was it?”

“Well, let’s just say I gave his thing a nickname.”

Tears formed in her eyes and her hands flew over her heart. “My little girl is growing up. Okay, what’s the name?”

“The Incredible Hulk.”

She cringed. “I’m sorry, what?”

“The Incr—”

“No, no. I heard you the first time. You mean that green monster thing? Liz, are you fucking a guy with a green penis? Because if you are, you need a tetanus shot.” She eyed me up and down, cringing. “And higher standards.”

I laughed. “Can I tell you the truth about Tristan and me without you giving me a scolding?”

“Absolutely.”

“We used sex with each other to remember Steven and Jamie. It’s kind of like…we used each other to have the feeling we used to get with them.”

“You mean you like, envision Steven while Tristan’s screwing you?”

“Yeah. I mean, well, at first I did. We don’t do it anymore, though. I got way too emotional and couldn’t handle it.”

“But now you like him.”

“Yeah. Which is bad, because he was just seeing Jamie when he was with me.”

Faye’s eyes glanced over at Tristan. “Bullshit.”

“What?”

“He sees you, Liz.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Listen, coming from a girl who has slept with a ton of different guys and has envisioned Channing Tatum for most of those guys, I can tell the difference between when a person is thinking about you and when they are thinking about someone else. Look at the way he’s staring at you.”

I glanced over at Tristan to find his stare, once again, on me. Did he really think about me when we were together?

And if it were true that he did, why did the idea of that make me so happy? I shook my head back and forth, not wanting to really face the fact of what was happening between Tristan and me. “So what’s the deal with you and Matty? How’s that going?”

“Terrible.” She sighed, slamming her hand against her face. “I need to break things off with him.”