Growing stronger.

There was no time to stop and explain things to Noelle and Diana. The two kept walking, so I had **** but to follow. Fortunately, when the employee saw us approaching Sarah, she said something along the lines of, “Well, I just thought I’d tell you. Bye,” and left before we got there.

“Do you know her?” Noelle asked Sarah, tilting her head.

“No idea who she is,” Sarah answered, then turned to look at me. “Who did you kiss?”

“Ah?”

“That girl came to me to tell me she saw you ‘kissing another girl’ right after I kissed you on the cheek earlier. It was Alice, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, of course. What the hell?” I frowned and tried to find this girl, but she was nowhere to be seen.

“Maybe she thought Oliver was cheating and thought to warn you? You know, out of sympathy?” Diana offered.

“No, believe me, I know the tone she used. That girl wanted drama.” Sarah crossed her arms and scowled. “But why?”

I sighed. “She came up to flirt with me before,” I told them. “It felt pretty weird and she gave me a bad feeling, so I basically walked away. Now I understand what that bad feeling was about.”

“Are you sure? Do people… do that?” Noelle asked.

“Some,” Sarah told her. “Create drama, watch relationships fall apart, collect the scraps. More common than you’d think. A shame, too. She was cute. Missed her chance at heaven thanks to being a bitch.”

“So, this ‘bad feeling’ you mentioned…?” Diana asked.

I nodded. “Yeah. Not something vague, but something that clearly told me we were incompatible. First time I felt that. It was the exact opposite of when I met you.”

That made Diana blush. I hadn’t even meant it that way, but still. If it made her happy…

“So where’s Alice?” Noelle asked.

“Went to look for Grace and Mila. And speak of the devil…”

“Devil? I’m an angel, Sarah,” Grace said as she came up to us with Mila and Alice beside her.

“Lucifer was originally an angel, too,” I told her.

“Wha…? Oliver!”

Alice laughed and raised her hand for a high-five. “Wow! I was gonna tell her the same!”

We high-fived and laughed as Grace pouted with arms crossed.

“You reap what you sow, Grace,” Noelle told her, chuckling.

“Hey, are we done here?” Mila asked with a short sigh. “We were looking for swimsuits, but all they have here are competition one-pieces.”

I narrowed my eyes and looked Mila up and down. Then, nodding to myself, I asked, “And the problem is…?”

Mila chuckled and blushed. “That we’d all be wearing the same. Man, you’ve gotten so damn smooth. You took our lessons to heart, didn’t you?”

“Lessons?” Alice asked.

“All the times he’s swept you all off your feet?” Grace said. “You have us to thank for that. We taught him how to treat women well.”

“To be fair, he did ask first,” Sarah said.

Diana chuckled. “I can picture it, somehow.”

We went to pay for our stuff, and while we walked around the mall in search for more shoes, more swimsuits and more clothes (with a stop by a candy shop because Noelle and I got cravings), Sarah told those who weren’t there to see about that girl who tried to start shit.

“Wait, back up,” Alice said. “She told you he kissed another girl?”

“Yeah.”

“Those exact words?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I mean, I don’t know how much of a difference it makes, but I was the one who kissed him. And it was a kiss on the cheek, too.”

Mila scowled and groaned. “Ugh, I fucking hate women like that. Lying bitches who can’t maintain a relationship to save their own lives…”

I flinched. “Ouch. I smell vitriol in there…”

“Vitriol is odorless, love…” Grace corrected me with a wry smile. “It’s an old term to refer to sulfuric acid.”

I blinked, then nodded.

“Any particular reason for all that hate, Mila?” Diana asked.

“I’ve had friends whose relationships were ruined because of people like that. Makes me so angry.” Mila turned to me and held my hand firmly. “Oliver, if you really can detect people like that, make sure they stay as far away from us as possible, okay?”

That was easy to agree to. “Will do.”

“I’m a little more interested in what you said after that, though,” Alice said, “that it was your first time feeling that. No few girls have approached you before, yet you’ve never had a bad feeling about any of them?”

“...” I pursed my lips and gave it some thought. “Maybe it’s because I’ve gotten more used to these powers? Or more like… these powers are growing stronger.”

I had awakened to powers of my own. Maybe those were amplifying Frey’s magic and allowing us to do things we couldn’t do before. She had said something along those lines.

“Powers...Oh!”

We all got startled when Sarah exclaimed loudly out of the blue. A huge, nasty grin grew on her face and she rubbed her hands together like some kind of villain.

“Grace, she’s stealing your thing…” Mila told the brunette.

“What kind of nasty idea did you come up with?” Grace asked her friend.

“One VERY nasty,” Sarah answered.

“Alright. I’m in. Where are we going?”

“Come with me. We’re buying something. You guys go on ahead,” Sarah told us, dragging Grace by the wrist. “Wait for us in the van! We won’t be long!”

“Should we be worried?” Noelle asked, chuckling nervously.

“I’m more curious than worried, to be honest,” Diana said.

“I’m going with both worried and curious,” I told them.

“Yeah, that seems prudent,” Alice agreed.

“Why do they need to keep it a secret?” Mila asked.

“Because Oliver would tell them to stop buying things they’ll only use once,” Diana said.

“...Maybe I should follow them,” I said.

“I say let them be. They’re having fun,” Alice said before smiling wryly. “Better squeeze every moment of summer vacation for what it’s worth.”

I suppose she had a point.

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