Nevermind anything else, the point is that it's Friday. And that's a blessing without a disguise today.

We've got Switchfoot/Relient K tickets!!

*SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE*

I can't believe I'm going to see Deathbed performed live. Never thought THAT would happen.

***

I had a lovely nap in Sam's room, uninterrupted and just the perfect temperature, since Lochlan has a habit at night of flinging all of his covers off and onto me. I don't need them. I broil.

Then I helped with dinner, went over schedules and homework with the kids and then got five different lectures from seven different people on being cheeky. I say five from seven because it got repetitive, and because I know all the words already to these songs. I know right from wrong. I was taught by the master illusionist and so all of this depends on the day, the light, the means and whether or not it justifies the ends. So I totally get it and I don't understand at all but at the end of the day I made a sick joke with perfect timing and I wish I hadn't said it. Been thinking it for years. Never going to do it again. I wonder when it'll happen next.

We clear as mud? Okay good.

***

Caleb sent another request for my Christmas list.

I don't have one. I can't give something I don't have. 

Then please jot down a list of things you would like and I can finish my shopping. Make them count. 

(Caleb doesn't shop, for the record. I used to shop for him, otherwise he gives cash and gift cards. So he needn't buy a damn thing, technically.)

I don't need anything. 

Bridget-

What? 

If you could have anything right now what would you do?

I answered this yesterday and got in trouble! 

I cover my face laughing. He rubs a hand over his face wearily. I can see why Lochlan calls you impossible. I don't know where he gets the energy to keep up with your games. 

Excuse me? I don't play games. 

Your verbal games, Neamhchiontach. 

He taught them to me! And then he gets all out of sorts when I invoke them. 

Please make me a list. Nothing ordinary please. The others can get those things. Keep it dreamy. 

Diabhal-

Just try. I don't get to spoil you often, anymore.

It's not your job to spoil me at all. 

Right. Because I don't consider it a job, I consider it a welcome obligation, a penance that will someday be my absolution. 

Oh, if you're ticking off the years in hopes of breaking even, stop it right now. That isn't what Christmas is about. 

And what is it about?

Spirit. Family. 

He sets his mouth in an angry line. Right. Make the list. Stay away from Sam. I'll check in with you tomorrow.

BRIDGET! 

What?!

Prodigal daughter.

I am squinty and achey today with a whopping hell of a hangover. PJ made me another goddamned drink for breakfast saying it would help but I just teetered away from the table wondering what it would feel like to be sober again someday, if it ever happens again. At this rate it will be sometime in the new year.

2017, I'm coming for you.

At least, I think I am.

I walked right into Sam, and in spite of the fresh booze infusion he put his arms around me and I pointed out we were ten days into the tenth year without Jake and this is a milestone of a different sort. This one really screams MOVE ALONG NOW or stop being paralyzed by his memories, stop playing house (or at least bed) with his best friend and pull your bootstraps up already, Pigalet.

Fuck that. Imma wallow instead. In the mud. Like a piglet. Jake would be so proud. I've done so much with my life. I conquered a whole house full, a whole army full of men who all wondered if they would be the one at some point or another and in the end I made sure a lot of them knew precisely how much trouble I would be. I remained mired in a disaster from a long time ago and I'm still the cause of every bit of strife in my world. I'm still attempting to take on fully half of a bottle of alcohol to save Lochlan/prevent a worser disaster only to end up a disaster in my own right and I still couldn't fight off the Devil with a wooden spoon.

I just need to get rid of this headache. Sam tells me to go crash in his room where it's quiet and since he's going to be back in less than a couple hours he'll bring us some fancy coffee and that, coupled with the nap, will help.

But I am drunk and inappropriate and totally fucking shameless so I crack a joke about something else helping more, since I'll be already drunk and in his bed and he blushes like he's never blushed before and gives me a quick kiss on the forehead before he's gone.

He didn't say no, though, so there's that.

Never going to dry out. Never going to change.

I got it. Lochlan gets to his feet unsteadily from where he sat in the dark thinking, in the garage. A bottle of Glenfiddich keeping him warm in the damp. Rain beats steadily against the windows high up in the door and both ghosts watch him silently from their corners.

Got what? Caleb says from the door, light spilling into the room suddenly from the lamps in the driveway.

A trade for you. I have a trade for you. I'll keep the money if you give me something in return. 

Interesting logic. 

You know what I mean! He's wasted on indecision and pressure. I'm just wasted because I'm small and I've been sitting on the cold floor for three hours sharing the bottle with him while he sorted this out.

What do you want, Lochlan? 

Lochlan staggers forward and stands up very straight. Bridget's soul, he says with a deep bow that almost sends him face-first into the cement. He corrects himself and I am stunned into paralysis.

So you will keep the money if I give you her soul. What do I get out of this arrangement? Caleb is still smiling but I'm too plastered to feel the dread that I should with a look like that.

Whatever the fuck you want, Lochlan says and tilts the bottle vertically into his mouth. It's empty and he lets it slam into the floor, shattering into a million sharp tiny stars.

Caleb smiles generously. If we shake on it, it's a done deal. He holds out his hand but Lochlan walks right past him, out the door, weaving in a slalom course, uninterested in making anything permanent today. It's an idea, one he will most likely regret and thus they aren't technically allowed to agree to anything unless sober. Consent and all that. New rules I wish we had had in the eighties when everything went wrong.

Trying to trick him isn't nice, I scowl at Caleb, trying to be tough because now we're alone and I can't fend for myself like this.

Better run along and put your boy to bed. The point's a dangerous place when you're halfwitted. I'll see you to the door.

Nice, Diabhal.

Indeed, Neamhchiontach. 

Solid scold.

Lochlan got right down in my face, one hand wrapped around my upper arm, the other cupping my chin as he rubbed his thumb across my bottom lip, trying to wipe away the kiss he saw. Caleb doesn't care who sees him touch me.

My knees caved in from the gesture and he held me up.

Too close, Peanut.

(He said the same thing after I stepped into the circle he had drawn in the sand while practicing and a torch knicked my ponytail, singeing the end black. He cut my hair with his pocket knife so no one would ever be the wiser and told me, Too close, Peanut. That's why I draw the line.)

I know. That's why you draw the line.

You're not the one who crossed it. He was. His fingers flex against my skin, tightening without conscious effort and it feels bruisy and tight. He loosens his hold when he sees my face.

Lochlan is newly minted today. The freshest millionaire on the point, because the Devil put his money where his mouth is. And I'm not sure where the money keeps coming from when he said he gave me everything but it just kept coming after he admitted he didn't but he let me play with one tiny fraction of what he actually has and more just keeps rolling in.

We didn't agree to a thing and he went and did it anyway.

But you're not supposed to talk about that and so let's just say conflict is at the forefront today because money makes you feel different, once it's yours. Especially when you never had any before (like we didn't) and then suddenly you do (like we do now). It makes you dream up a list of things you suddenly need. It reminds you of things you want. There's a weird kind of pressure to make it work all the while you expect the weight to lift and it doesn't. It singes the ends of your hair with its expectations and it always feels too close. Too close and you need to leave the line, because you won't trust anyone anymore, least of all yourself.

Right here.

My heartbeat pounds in my skull as he steps closer. He holds my face up to his, cupped in his hands.

Neamhchiontach. Forgive me but this is taking longer than I thought. I want to start to rebuild your trust in me but Lochlan is guarding your heart so closely these days I can't even think about you and he's on my back. So I'm working on his trust first and once I have that under control I can work on you. 

He started off so well before slipping back into devilspeak that I almost believed him. But then he throws in words like control and working on me rather than with me or with us, even and that's how I know he is lying.

This is confirmed within seconds by his smile as he gazes at me. I'm the only one who's even instantly gratified anymore. I swing back against his hold and smile in return and he kisses me.

This is why I never miss Cole, truth be told.

When the only way out is through.

They are talking. That's all. Everything is being put on the table this time, with no lies, no embellishments and no deceit. They're going to work through what they both want from each other and then what they want from me. There's shouting sometimes but no violence. No weapons. No Bridget either. I will be privy to conversations later, whereas right now I am out in the cold.

Well, not exactly in the cold. I'm nice and cozy-warm watching movies with the others all weekend, tucked under PJ's arm. Lochlan checks in every little while or so and appeared briefly today to take me to lunch, but otherwise maybe they're getting somewhere.

Or not.

Don't get your hopes up, he told me anyway.

They're not. 

We got the grifter right but the mark and the shill were mixed up.

Watch them carefully. 

Batman tells me what I already know as I pick glass out of the rain today on the beach. It's harder to see. It's my very own I Spy book. It's a puzzle I will never finish.

I think Lochlan and Caleb have come to some kind of agreement, I think Lochlan is ready to forgive Caleb or at least let him make more concrete amends, I think he's ready to hear the confession and mete out the punishment as he has always wanted to but no one would let him. I think they're getting old. I think Lochlan sees what he didn't really want to see before, which is a genuine and heartfelt attempt on Caleb's behalf to fix this. To fix everything he broke, only Lochlan is hard-headed and stubborn to a fault, and wouldn't listen until Caleb forced him to listen, at the point of a gun. I think we're getting somewhere finally. I think things might be okay.

Of course, it's a good day, so maybe it's all just sleight of hand and maybe it's an illusion and maybe I'm still on drugs and maybe devils don't change their spots and grifters don't give up their games.

This makes me the mark.

“A ship is safe in harbor, but that's not what ships are for.” ~ William G.T. Shedd

(I know you best.)

When I woke up this morning, Ben was lying beside me, turned to face me, smoothing my hair out of my eyes. Smiling that quiet little content smile that he has.

Our boy hit the ground running today, he says. We might have to tie him up to get him through the rest of the day. 

I sit up and Ben explains that Lochlan got up early and went to see Caleb to probably tell him to fuck off. That vague threats parlayed through Bridget weren't going to be acceptable under any circumstances. Enough already.

You went with him? 

No, he whispered all this at me before he even left. 

Did anyone go with him?

Not to my knowledge. 

Ben! Did he come back? Has anyone checked on Caleb? Jesus! You know better! I jump out of bed.

He's an adult and so is Caleb. If they were going to kill each other they could have done it ten times over. Let them sort out their issues with each other by going to the ground a few times. Maybe they can get it out of their systems. 

Someone gets really hurt every time they do this. 

Yeah, but who are you running to save? 

Caleb's bigger-

Yes, and he's the one who somehow holds back and takes the hit. He hasn't hurt Lochlan yet. So I don't worry anymore.

What if he does? You assume a lot but maybe he's waiting for the perfect time. You weren't there when he had his gun out-

Bridget, he's not going to do anything. 

He has a GUN-

Okay, let's go. Because running into a volatile situation when you know things are tenuous is the best plan you and I have ever had. 

No, that was getting married. I'm pulling on yesterday's clothes as fast as I can while I try to be sweet to Benjamin on the fly but he's decided he waited too long. That or opening my eyes just incites fear all by itself these days.

We run to the Boathouse, falling up the stairs to find-

Wait for it-

Caleb and Lochlan enjoying a whiskey out front, leaning against the railing, side by side, watching the sea while they have a quiet conversation. 

The look on both their faces right before the surprise registers at our rush to get to them is victory. Yes, both their faces. Which I see right away and Ben doesn't see at all. 

It's Remembrance Day weekend and I'm going to see the Trews but otherwise I'm going to sit on the front porch in the rain, drinking hot chocolate and eating lentil sprouts and garlic-stuffed olives.

The fun part about the sprouts are that I can stuff my face with a whole package without blinking. August was like 'spread a thin layer on your sandwich like this' and I grabbed a volleyball-sized chunk instead and it was so delicious I closed my eyes as I ate my sandwich. Usually my eyes are wide open so I can appreciate my sandwich. I love sandwiches. You don't know how much I love sandwiches. They're like cake but so much more complex, and also salty and really filling so who has room left for cake anyway?

So if the sprouts are bad for me please do not tell me today. You can tell me tomorrow but not today.