When he didn’t say anything else, Foster glared at him. “That’s it? That’s your ‘talk’?” She air quoted.
“No, but it’s the basis of my talk. I am sorry, Foster. I should have told you about me calling G-pa. At first I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d just disagree with me and be a pain in the ass.” When she started to puff up, he hurried on. “But then I actually got to know you, and I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to lose your trust.”
“So you just kept lying.”
“Foster, I didn’t technically lie to you.”
“Tate, an omission of the truth, when you actually know the truth, is a lie.”
“Yeah, that was G-pa’s point, too.” Tate ran a hand through his hair. “I was going to tell you when I came up to find you before our date. But, uh, then you were so pretty and sweet and you asked me to go out with you, and I was selfish. I didn’t want to mess it up. My mom would be real pissed with me about that. So, I apologize. You were right. I was wrong. I shouldn’t have called G-pa, and since I did, I shouldn’t have kept that from you.”
She breathed a long sigh before speaking, and when she did, Foster sounded utterly defeated. “No. I wasn’t right. You said your grandpa’s home, landline, car title, basically everything about him is buried under a trust that’s almost impossible to lead to him, right?”
“Well, yeah, that’s what G-pa said, but it can’t be true because the fucking Fucktastic Four found him.”
“Sure, but what are the chances that they found him by tracing a landline to a pay phone on Sauvie Island?”
“I—I don’t know.”
“Well, I do. The chances are almost nonexistent, which means the Fucktastic Four didn’t find him by tracing a phone call. They dug up something about where he lives or another of a hundred different things they could’ve figured out, which also means if you hadn’t been calling him we wouldn’t know that they grabbed him. They’d just have your grandpa, who wouldn’t know anything about us at all. And then what would they have done with him?” Foster shook her head. “No, this isn’t only your fault, Tate. It’s mine, too. If I’d really thought this through—really been smart—I would have had you call your grandpa and tell him to get the hell out of there and come to us, where they wouldn’t have found him, and he would’ve been safe.” Foster folded her arms across her chest. “So, because of that I’m going to allow you the opportunity to earn my trust back. You know what that means?”
He reached over and pried one of her hands free, holding it gently in his. “That you like me and you’re extremely forgiving?”
“No. It means if you mess up and lie to me again I’ll never allow you another opportunity. This is a onetime thing. Got it?”
“Got it.”
She blew out a long breath and seemed to relax—and even though she’d pulled her hand from his, Foster’s voice was soft and more than a little sad. “And I’m sorry, too. I was being a bitch—telling you what to do and what not to do, and not listening or even thinking. I was just reacting. I—I really didn’t know what else to do after Cora died.” She looked down at her lap and curled in on herself like a wilted flower petal.
“Don’t do that.” Tate gently touched her chin, turning her face to him. “None of this would be happening if the Fucktastic Four weren’t after us. That isn’t our fault. We didn’t ask to be bonded to the elements. We didn’t ask to be orphaned.”
“But it happened anyway, and I feel like I’m pretty shitty at keeping us safe.”
“Are you kidding? You’re great at keeping us safe! You figured out how to use music to calm our element. You figured out how to stop me from fading away, and you figured out how to float us down from, like, twenty feet or more in the air. Foster, I would’ve smacked into the ground or faded away into nothingness without you. You told me once that you thought I was a superhero. You were wrong, Foster. You’re the superhero. I’m just your handsome sidekick.”
She almost smiled at that. “I thought the sidekicks were super weird or extremely dorky, not handsome. I mean, think about it—Rocket, a raccoon, is Peter Quill’s sidekick. Super weird. Robin is Batman’s sidekick, and he wears his underwear on the outside of his pants. Major dork. And—”
“We’re a new kind of superhero, so I’m making up new rules,” he interrupted. “But you’re talking to me again, which makes everything okay. So if you want to call me your dorky, weird sidekick, I’m cool with it.”
Foster’s almost smile went away. “But everything isn’t okay. I keep hearing him yelling your name. He sounded so upset—so scared. I’m sorry they have your grandpa.”
“I know. Me too. But we’re superheroes. We’re going to rescue him.”
“How?” she said miserably.
“By sticking to your brilliant plan,” he said.
“By my brilliant plan you mean the one Sabine mostly thought of?”
“Yep, that one.”
“I don’t like it. I don’t want you to go in there by yourself.”
“I won’t be. You’ll be there, too. Close by. Waiting for an opening,” Tate said. “Plus, Sabine and Finn and you all agreed that it’s perfect to say you and I have been living on the streets in Portland.”
“There are a lot of homeless people in Portland,” Foster agreed reluctantly. “It’d be real hard for the Fucktastic Four to prove that we were, or weren’t, there.”
“Exactly. I give myself up to them in exchange for letting G-pa go free. I’m going to tell them that you took off—saying something about heading down the coast and crossing over into Mexico with the stash of cash Cora left you.”
“Be sure you tell them that you and I are supposed to meet up in Mexico after you get G-pa free,” Foster said.
“Yeah, so they’ll be searching everywhere but the Portland area,” Foster said.
“Which is exactly where G-pa is going to head once he’s free,” Tate said.
“And you. You’re going with him, Tate. Promise me,” Foster said urgently.