Chapter Six #2
Serena chooses the perfect time to stroll over to the booth. I knew I loved her for a reason.
“It was all her fault.” I point to her.
Sloan slides in to make space for Serena. Waving me off, she changes her tune. “It happens, Nick. You guys work so hard.”
I smile while Bree and Elliot look at Sloan like she’s grown another head. Maybe I should consider carrying Serena everywhere if she can distract Sloan, the shit stirrer, so easily.
“Yeah, we do, Sloan. We so do,” I play along.
Elliot elbows me from the side. “I don’t know what’s happening there, but you’re going to pay for those twenty-three minutes and thirty-eight seconds.” He keeps his voice down adorably, like that’d do anything.
I smirk at him. “Promises, promises.”
The waiter appears at our table to take our orders.
“I ordered the Bacon cheeseburger with fries and an IPA for you already,” Elliot grumbles, as if it’s hard for him to admit he did something nice.
He leaves after taking Serena’s order.
“You were telling me how angry you are,” I prompt Elliot.
“I’m serious. You know, Sloan literally made me talk about our meet-cute, like she wasn’t right there when we met. And she literally used the phrase ‘meet-cute’. Who does that? Then she talked for hours about her family dogs. As if I haven’t been hearing that all day.” Elliot shivers.
“Poor baby. She was right, then. You were spooked.” I casually wrap my arm around his shoulder and pull him to my chest, dropping a kiss on his head. His sweet smell washes over me, dragging all the tension out of me.
He wrestles out of my hold, and I let him. “I’m making you talk to Sam for two hours for this. He just finished a manga he’s been reading for seven years. Bet he has some thoughts on it.”
Cruel. My boyfriend is cruel.
“Go out without Cami for once, Bree. They’re your friends. You won’t feel like a third wheel at all,” Bree singsongs to her glass of wine from her slumped position in the corner.
Sloan, who had turned to face Serena at some point, goes dangerously red. She straightens up. “So, Bree, you were telling us about the weird call you got today before Late McGee over here showed up.”
I check my phone for the time. So, my secret weapon, Serena, only buys me ten minutes of Sloan distraction.
I think back to all the ideas that started in Sloan's head and somehow led us to nearly getting arrested or finding bodies in the forest. Yeah, it’s still totally worth hauling Serena everywhere.
“Oh, hey guys,” Bree says exaggeratedly.
Elliot rolls his eyes. I decide I like having a witness to the craziness that my friends are. No one would believe me otherwise. And it raises his baseline of crazy, which makes me seem almost normal. Although now that I’ve met Sam, maybe I was always normal to him.
Serena smiles at Bree. “I love stories about weird 911 calls. What was weird about this one?”
Bree frowns suspiciously and looks at all of us.
“I’m so excited for this story,” I add.
“I’d be okay without it,” Elliot says.
“He can’t wait to hear it,” I translate Elliot for them.
Bree smiles, satisfied with our very insincere act. “So we got a call from a hysterical man from a gym downtown. He said everyone in the gym was unconscious. He thought there was an active shooter or something, but he didn’t see a drop of blood.”
“So, a bunch of people just magically passed out?” Elliot gasped. See, he was excited. The man is a gossip hound.
“It might actually have been magic. I dispatched every unit there. Police, fire, paramedics, the works. And there was not a single conscious person on the premises other than the guy who made the call. He’d run to the coffee shop across the street.”
“Did they find out what happened?” Serena gets impatient.
Bree smiles at her. “There was nothing to find out. That’s the thing.
They swept the entire place and found nothing.
No injuries on the victims except for minor bruises on a few because of the fall.
No gas leak, no nothing. So, they took them to the hospital.
Cami told me they’ve already been discharged and are perfectly healthy.
They only remember hearing a loud grating noise, then it’s all blank. ”
We all stare at her, waiting for her to continue.
“What? That’s it?” Elliot breaks the silence.
Bree shrugs. “We don’t get updates once the emergency is handled.”
“This is going to keep me up at night,” Serena grumbles.
“People hate open loops, Bree. That’s just storytelling 101,” Elliot complains.
Bree pouts, throwing herself back against the booth and folding her arms across her chest. “You all can go back to your flirting. I prefer being the fifth wheel over criticisms of my storytelling abilities.”
“I liked it. Good story, Bree,” I assure her.
She narrows her eyes suspiciously. “Whatever.”
The food arrives at the perfect time, just as Serena starts telling everyone about the time I got stuck in a fence chasing a perp.
“The food is great. Isn’t it so great?” I start.
“So he was hanging upside down because he thought he could jump over a twelve-foot fence,” Serena continues as if there was no interruption. Everyone, including Elliot, is ignoring the food, leaning over the table towards Serena.
“You’re all being rude to the chef, just so you know.”
Elliot shushes me as Serena continues. “We had to call a fire truck to rescue him. Wasn’t it Matt who carried you down?”
“He didn’t carry me down,” I grumble. “He just cut my pants because they were stuck in that stupid broken fence. I climbed down myself. And just so you know, I’ve scaled walls way higher than that stupid fence. It was the fence’s fault!”
Elliot mockingly pats my arm. I let him because it feels nice despite the condescension.
“Wait, Matt rescued you? How does he not have a framed picture of the moment on his living room mantle?” Sloan asks.
“Because unlike some people, he knows what stories are sacred and shouldn’t be shared with everyone.” I shoot Serena a glare, in case the statement was too subtle.
Sloan pulls her plate closer. “Nah, doesn’t sound like Matt at all. What did you bribe him with?”
I sigh, then take a big bite of my burger.
I don’t have to answer anything. I definitely don't need to tell them that I now have to bring dessert to our parents' every time we go over for dinner while Matt gets all the credit. That’ll just open the can of worms that holds the power to change this dynamic forever.
“Hey, did Elliot tell you guys about this man who brought a wild leopard to the clinic?” I throw Elliot to the leopards. Turns out I don’t enjoy condescending pats all that much.
Elliot’s eyes go wide around his spoonful of spaghetti. Everyone looks at him.
“No,” Sloan says.
Elliot swallows the food in his mouth. “Yup.” He takes another bite.
Food forgotten, Bree, Sloan, and Serena blink at him, waiting him out. They deserve it for bringing up and encouraging my embarrassing stories around Elliot.
Elliot continues to eat.
“Then what happened?” Serena prompts loudly.
I laugh, and she glares at me.
“Oh, I called animal control. They took it.” Elliot goes back to eating.
“This guy. This guy was telling me the essentials of a story fifteen minutes ago?” Bree points at him in frustration.
“I didn’t promise a weird story, now did I?” Elliot counters.
Bree sputters.
“But it is an interesting story that deserves the basics of storytelling,” Sloan argues.
Bree points at Sloan. “That.”
Elliot swirls some more spaghetti onto his fork. “And how would you know that?”
I eat my burger, enjoying the show, my embarrassing moment forgotten. I think I’d rather haul Elliot everywhere with me if only I weren’t constantly putting myself in front of dangerous werewolves.