Chapter 7

Bev and I decided to get away for awhile so we headed up Highway 93. She pointed to a car in the right lane about a half mile in front of us. "Isn't that the car from the movie theater?"

I looked ahead. It looked like the one that I'd cut off part of because it had been straddling the line between a couple of spaces.

"It looks like it. I can't read the license plate."

I sped up until we were a couple of car lengths behind it. "Yep, that's it."

I eased up a bit and Bev said, "Oh, shit!"

"What?"

"Look." She pointed at the car for emphasis.

I looked at it. The windows were tinted plus I was at just the right angle to get some reflection of the sun. It looked like the people inside were all wearing black hoodies. I pulled up closer, so I could see through the passenger window. The driver turned and smiled at me. She was a nun. The person next to her was also a nun. The six people in the middle and rear seats, likewise, were nuns.

"Damn. You would definitely have gone to hell if I hadn't stopped you," Bev laughed.

"I would have felt bad about it, that's for sure."

The nuns were doing about 15 under the speed limit so it didn't take long for them to disappear from the rear view mirror. Bev was chuckling to herself for most of that time.

After she'd settled down for a while, I took her hand. "How does it feel to be just you and me, without Vicky?"

"It's alright. I like it with just you and me. But it's strange not to have her right next to me. I keep going to tell her something and she's not there. We've been best friends for about twelve years."

"I felt bad for Vicky. She was the proverbial third wheel for a while, until the Bells moved in."

"Val? Can I ask you something?"

"Why would you even wonder that? Of course you can."

"I don't know. This is just weird."

"I can take weird. Ask away, Bev."

"OK. You came out of the woods last spring and you were like instant Alpha man. I saw you there with Karen, kissing each other like there was no tomorrow. I'd been planning on making you mine for years and I not only wasn't jealous of her, I felt if you wanted her, that was fine, as long as there was a place for me. We went into the restaurant and Alice was all over you and I felt the same way about her. And Vicky was attracted to you much more than before you left and you were just her brother. I even felt more drawn to you.

"I chalked it all up to the fact that you'd been missing for three months and we all thought you were dead, so I was just so glad to see you that I accepted everything. But that's not it. There's just something about you. You attract women like flies and I feel OK about it."

"Well, that stuff all happened right after I got back."

"No, it hasn't stopped. I know you were attracted to Grace. You didn't take it any further, but I could see it. That's why I teased you about it. She's attracted to you. It's funny to look at her because I can tell she feels weird that you aren't that much older than her own son but she still has the hots for you. If you gave her some kind of sign, she'd be all over you."

"What do you mean, 'sign'?"

"Oh, it could be a smile or a hand on her shoulder, a pat on the butt, a kiss. Anything to show affection. Christina's drawn to you, too, but she's got a big crush on her brother. Poor, girl, she's so confused."

"OK, OK. I got it. Women fall all over themselves for me. What did you want to ask me?"

"Well, that's four of us you could have had, five counting Grace. If you went looking and started wishing, you could have a lot more than that."

"I'm still not hearing a question, Bev."

"OK, then. How come? How come you let three of them get away and you aren't going after any others? Don't guys want a different girl every night? Or did you wish them all away?"

"Well, first of all, my experience with women is pretty limited. I went out on a dates with a few girls. I'm not going to say it wasn't fun, but I didn't find anyone I wanted to spend more than a couple of dates with. We're kind of isolated out where we live and I have a lot of things to do, so making it work so I had a steady girl was more than I was willing to do.

"I was shocked when you said goodbye to me when we started the survival trek. Well, maybe the way you said goodbye to me. First, you'd always been Bev, Vicky's friend. Second, when I held you in my arms, you didn't feel like the little kid I'd always thought of you as."

"Thanks a lot."

"Hey, do you want me to answer your questions or do you want me to lie?"

"I don't want you to lie."

"That's what I thought. You say you've been gunning for me for years."

"I didn't say 'gunning, ' but yeah."

"Well, either you've been real subtle or I've been real dense. I know at least some of it was me being dense. When you jumped in my arms, you kind of broke some things loose inside my head and I looked at a few things while I was in the woods. I think I probably spent most of my time asleep dreaming about you. I remember that day you and Vicky came out of the barn and I tripped all over myself getting in the truck."

"Oh, Yeah." She smiled as she thought about it.

"So, when I found my way to the rest stop, my attention was on you. The one thing I asked Mom to bring when she came to pick me up was you. She seemed to think it was funny that I would even ask that. I know now that you'd staked your claim on me while I was gone and she knew she would be in deep shit if she didn't tell you I was alive and bring you along to see me."

"Once again, I don't know that I'd put it that way, but yeah, you've got the main idea."

"I thought so. So, let's see. The first one I ran into was Alice. She was great for what I needed right then. She gave me the money to call Mom and made sure I got fed and cleaned up. She may have been affected by that Alpha thing you were talking about, maybe she was hard up, I don't know. I do know she saw something romantic that wasn't there. By the time we were leaving and I'd had about five hours of her hanging on me, I wished she would find someone to give her what she wanted. It isn't that I don't like Alice. She's too clingy and I don't feel that way about her."

"Well, that wish worked. I don't think I told you. We got a wedding invitation from her yesterday."

"Good. I know she'll be happy because that was part of the package I put together for her."

"Boy, somebody's got a swelled head."

"No, I don't. Somebody or something gave me a very special gift. It's not a toy and it's not something to be taken lightly. When I'm not screwing around, I put a lot of thought into what I do with it. I'll tell you, if I just throw a quick wish out there, it will come true to fit what I thought, whether that's what I really wanted or not. It's like computer programming. If you tell it to do something, it does exactly that. You can't come back and say, 'Well, what I really meant was... '. I made sure Alice would have what was right for Alice. Her husband is going to be babied and he's going to be the kind of guy who will love every minute of it. And he's going to love her right back and make a big fuss over her and tell her he can't live without her because that's what she's desperate for. And they WILL live happily ever after."

"Well, I only saw her while we were eating, but it sounds like you have her figured out. What about Karen? Did you make a wish for her?"

"Not consciously. Karen is the best kisser I've ever kissed."

That got a glare from Bev. She also squeezed the thigh her hand was on.

"Look Bev, do you want the truth or not? You are not the best in the world at everything. You're brother is the biggest asshole, though I don't know this Houston character enough to know if he'd be competition. I'm sure there are people who ride better than you do or would be more proficient at getting sperm out of my cock. You don't charge thousands of dollars a night and haven't had hundreds of men to practice with. You don't have to be the best at everything. I suggest you take a look around some night and see where you're sleeping and who's next to you in bed."

"So, you're settling for me."

"Hell, no. I've chosen you. Five minutes ago you were telling me I could have lots of women and it wouldn't bother you. You yourself said I could wish for as many as I want. Don't you think I know that? If I didn't want you to be the one in my bed, the only in my bed, I could wish you away with no memory of our times together and have a different stacked model from Hustler or Penthouse every night.

"The point is, Karen was a great kisser but I didn't know her. And she lives two and a half hours from me. That's no way to start a relationship. I know you. I love you. You keep me in line and you help me out when I want to do the right thing but just can't figure out what it is. And I don't mind working with you on that kissing thing."

"Gee, thanks a lot."

"You're welcome." I turned my head and kissed her.

"So what did you mean about not consciously wishing about Karen. Did you do something unconsciously?" she said.

"Maybe. I know I thought it wasn't going to work out. It could be that thought by itself put things in motion. I don't know. I still don't know exactly how this thing works. I wasn't disappointed when she told us she found somebody and she wasn't interested in sharing me, anyway."

"So, that leaves Vicky. You must have done something to make her change her mind."

"Again, not consciously. I always felt a little weird with her. I love her to death but she's my sister. I know you don't have the kind of relationship with Jimmy that we've always had, so I don't know if you can really understand it. Did I think 'I don't want this to happen'? Many times. Did I ever sit down and wish her away? No. She seemed to want it so much and I was willing to go against my gut so she wouldn't get hurt. Thank God nobody did. I ignored my gut with Houston because I didn't want to be the overbearing older brother and look at what happened. How would she feel about herself if she'd actually gone through with it with me? We were raised in the same household and we've been together all our lives. Could her basic attitude about what is right and what is wrong be so different from mine? It seems not, because she broke it off before we took it too far."

"So then, she found Houston."

"Yeah, she did. I've wondered if I was responsible for that. I could have just as easily wished she'd find somebody new when she told me she felt uncomfortable taking things any further. So what am I supposed to do? Fix her life every time she stumbles or feels a little uncomfortable? God, I sound like a liberal, making everyone else responsible if she isn't perfectly happy. I chose to let her make it on her own. She hooked up with the wrong guy. It looks like the guy was a predator so I don't know how good her chances were, even if she was going with somebody at the time. I do know I didn't anticipate a creep like him coming along."