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Chapter Ten

"So you're telling me you got that walking into the bathroom door?" Brian said, waving his hand at the stint on my nose.

I have to admit that it was a shitty excuse. Both my eyes were black in the center and my nose itself was in a little cast that the doctor said would probably keep it from looking like Owen Wilson's by the time it healed ('cos yes, that's what I asked him when he put it on there). Not wanting to admit that I'd gotten the piss knocked out of me by a girl, I'd spent the ride back from the ER with Eddie dreaming up excuses for my current situation.

The bathroom door had seemed sufficient enough.

"Yeah," I answered Brian.

We were, once again, having breakfast, but this time it was just me and him. The other two guys had gone in an IHOP, but I didn't want anyone seeing me looking like the defeated Rocky. The last thing I needed was a fan asking what happened with Charley hovering a couple feet away.

Brian studied me as he spooned cereal into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. "You sure that's what happened, buddy?" he asked.

I hesitated. The way he was asking made me think maybe he already knew. I stared at him. Me and Brian used to do this thing when we were younger - and closer friends than we really are now - where we could tele-communicate with our eyes. Nothing even had to be said, we could literally hold entire conversations just looking at each other. It was freaky, but also kinda cool. Well, now, I attempted doing that again.

Brian bit his lips and nodded slowly. "I won't tell the fellas," he said.

"Thanks," I answered, glad I didn't have to admit outloud what had really happened.

He shoveled more cereal into his mouth. Then, after a pause, "So... how'd she do it?"

"I snuck out the window and she thought I was an intruder, so she went to town," I answered. I decided this was close enough to the truth that he didn't need to know I'd brought this on myself by nettling her.

"And are you quite satisfied now that she's capable of protecting you?" Brian asked, staring into his bowl. I could tell he was amused but had the courtesy to hide it.

However thinly the veil might be.

"I wasn't trying to fight back," I pointed out.

"But she took ya down," he pointed out.

"With one blow, yes."

Brian looked up from the cereal. "So where'd she learn these moves from anyways? What's her story?"

"Well, it all started when her father - you know him better as Satan..."

"No seriously," Brian interrupted my joke.

I shrugged, "I don't know. She was a fat kid in school, that's all I know."

Brian pushed his cereal around in the milk with the spoon. "It just makes me wonder, when a girl is tough like that, why," he said with a shrug.

"I really don't care why," I answered.

Brian stood up and put his cereal bowl in the sink. "So when AJ and Howie ask what happened to you, I don't suggest going with the door thing, just so you know, because - yeah, no door would do that to you." He waved his hand at my face.

"So what do I tell them then?" I asked.

Brian studied me for a moment. "I really have no idea. The truth is the only plausible explanation."

"You know AJ will have way too much fun making fun of me for eons if I tell the truth," I whined, "I don't wanna get made fun of."

Brian grinned, "If he makes fun of you, you could always sick Charley on him."