Chapter 21: Baby Steps and Jesus
1:43 A.M.
“I don’t want you to sleep on the sofa tonight,” Bernie tells me, begging me to join him in his bed for the night. “I promise not to touch you. There will be no kissing, no holding, and no…man-things together.”
“Man-things?” I question, and share a light laugh. “What the hell are you talking about?” I stand by the sofa with my pillow and blanket next to my chest, ready to pass out. Gillian is still outside, asleep by the fire pit. Saul is passed out upstairs. Tom and Brett, who seem to be hitting it off as new friends or something more serious, are sitting on the pier, dragging their feet through the lake’s summertime water.
“You know,” he says, and holds up both index fingers and begins to fight them like tiny sabers.
“Do you mean sword figh
