Page 38 of Face Off With Fate

Please, I can handle that. I can say Graciella Xochitl just fine

Me:

God, you text so slow your responses are like five minutes behind

Bang. Bang. Bang.

Something jolted me from another night of restless sleep, my brain too foggy to make sense of what the hell it was. Piles of papers scribbled with notes were scattered near my face, pens littering the edge of the laminated surface.

My desk. I’d spent the entire weekend with my ass glued to the makeshift desk chair. A cracked plastic stool, or maybe it was a table, that I’d pilfered from the front porch. I groaned, peeling my face off my notebook. A pool of drool warped the pale blue lines.

Hot.

Another reason not to spend the night with a guy. Apparently, I drooled.

I rubbed the sleep from my eyes, trying to read the late-night—well, early morning—strategy planning I’d been working on since talking to Itzel on Friday, seeing if it was still legible or had succumbed to its waterlogged injuries. The letters were a bit wobbly, but I wasn’t entirely sure that was because of the drool.

Get him ready for Cup dinner

Stage a date to see if he’s shit.

He’s hot. Take photos.

Butt stuff.

I stared at that last one, an unladylike snort slipping out.

What the hell was that supposed to mean? With the weird way the bottom line of the f trailed down to the end of the page, this was one of my mid-sleep notes to self.

Usually, they were strokes of genius, but this one…no clue where I was going with it.

The lack of quality sleep, coupled with the fact that I could use some caffeine injected directly into my veins, meant I forgot something had woken me until the metal banging sounds started back up.

“What the fuck?”

My stomach dropped, and I crouched by my desk chair, shifting forward to peer at the front door from around the armrest of the velvet loveseat. The deep purple door was solid wood, except for the gold mail slot in the middle, so staring at it didn’t do a damn thing to clue me in on what was happening on my strip of a front porch.

I crawled across the room to where Monica leaned against the wall, the uneven planks biting into my hands and knees.

The familiar weight of the hockey stick steadied my nerves. I pressed my ear to the door, seeing if I could figure out what was happening out on my porch.

Come on, Monica. This time we’re stopping a crime. I flung the old door open, sending it crashing into the dresser that the television sat on.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I yelled, holding my weapon like a bat, freezing at the sight of Monroe crouched at my feet on the sun-bleached porch boards.

“Is that my hockey stick? I knew you were the one who stole it from my truck. Why is it green? And rhinestoned!” Monroe stood, wiping a greased hand against light-washed jeans. “Wait, were you going to attack someone with that? Why wouldn’t you call 911?”

As if to prove his point, a siren wailed in the background. I barely noticed—they were so common downtown that the sound was basically white noise at this point.

I blinked. Once. Twice.

Was I still asleep? Because why was Monroe on my front porch with a bunch of tools? I locked onto the screwdriver tucked in his pocket.

“Are you…fixing my security door?”

A shiny brass deadbolt replaced the newspaper I’d previously stuffed into the hole.

He grunted, going back down to one knee and continuing with whatever it was he was doing before I busted out there. Biceps flexing as he tightened down a screw. “What good is it if you’re missin’ the deadbolt?”