Chapter Fourteen #3
“Uh.” I look around the hallway, hoping someone may have written a good excuse in Sharpie on their door. “Not really. Might get a hot dog, watch the fireworks.”
“All right. Well, I’ll let you go, then. Just be careful, okay? Be smart in the city.”
I roll my eyes. New York City is already a lawless place on a daily basis—I can’t imagine patriotism is going to suddenly skyrocket the crime rate.
“I will,” I reply with as little sarcasm as possible, because I know in Clive’s imagination I may as well be parkouring through the sewers to fight crime with four turtles. “Happy Fourth.”
“You too, kid.”
As soon as we end the call, my body sags against the wall behind me, what feels like a thousand pounds worth of panic melting off me as I close my eyes and work on slowing down my racing heart.
Somehow, Kavi has Trieu in a headlock by the time I’m back in the lounge. Ivan is rooting through the lounge’s kitchen fridge like a truffle pig, and Cass has taken up the mantle of an abandoned laptop and started a GLR match on the sly.
Leave clowns unattended, come back to a circus. Hey, I like that. It’s going in the scratch pad.
“What are you doing?” Ivan asks over the chaos.
I want to say “none of your business,” but the reflex to be snarky is weak. Halfway between “it’s nothing” and “just notes” I end up saying simply:
“No.”
“Are we in the clear?” Kavi asks through gritted teeth. She lets go of Trieu as soon as I nod, and he makes a show of collapsing onto the floor and gasping for breath.
“Perfect!” Kavi claps her hands together and puts on a smile so wide you’d never think she was just trapping someone in a headlock seconds earlier. “Then we can move on to phase two.”
“Phase two?” Ivan and I ask at the exact same time. He lets the fridge swing closed and stands up straight. Maybe Kavi’s plan is working better than we thought.
“I said it was a multi-phased plan,” she responds with an eyeroll. I squint in thought as I rewind back to our earlier conversation, my shoulders slumping when I realize that she’s right. We were sufficiently warned.
Ivan and I exchange wary looks as Kavi physically collects first me, then Ivan from the kitchen area and loops back to escort us out of the student lounge.
“Now that you’ve learned how to work as a team, we can address the next glaring issue,” she says as if it’s common sense, but based on the look on Ivan’s face we’re both lost.
“Which is?” I ask as Kavi comes to a stop at the elevator bank.
She does the honors of pressing the Down button before standing back in front of us. “Coexisting without a video game.”
“We don’t—”
The chime of the elevator arriving cuts me off before I can explain that while maybe Ivan and I aren’t best friends, it’s not like we’re actively trying to hadouken each other whenever we’re left alone together.
Except we’re never left alone together, so there’s no way Kavi could know that.
Before I can pick up where I left off, Kavi places a hand on each of our chests and gently nudges us back until we’re inside the elevator.
“Your next mission is to spend one, o-n-e, night in the city together. Alone. No party involvement.”
“What’re we supposed to do?” Ivan asks as he scratches the back of his head. A fair question. New York is full of activity, the options are limitless—we could use some guidelines.
“Explore. Go get dinner, or see a movie, or ride in one of those horse-drawn carriage things.”
“But those exploit horses!” Ivan interjects.
“Ivan.” Kavi’s patience is wearing thin. “It’s the Fourth of July in New York City. If you can’t figure out something to do with your fake girlfriend that doesn’t exploit horses, then what is the point of you?”
“Wow,” I mutter. “She questioned the point of your life.”
“But—”
Kavi cuts off Ivan again, hopping out of the elevator as soon as she presses the Lobby button.
“Have fun! And don’t come back until I’ve given you explicit permission via text. Ivan.”
The doors close before either of us can argue with Kavi’s logic. Forcing us to work together as a team was, admittedly, not a bad idea. But what does making us wander around aimlessly through New York City do to advance the party forward?
“So … ,” Ivan begins with a shrug as I slump forward, my head resting against the cool metal of the closed elevator door. The rumble as we travel down the ten flights between us and the lobby is oddly calming. “What do you want to do?”
“We don’t actually have to do this,” I say as I pick my head up. The urge to press the button for our floor and just crawl under my bedsheets and call it a night is extremely strong. “It’s not like they’re watching us.”
“This is Kavi,” he responds. “She has eyes everywhere.” He has a point. She’s probably checking under my bed right now.
I sigh dramatically as the doors ding open on the first floor.
There’s a surprising amount of bustle in the lobby area leading out into the city.
People coming and going like they’re running late for a meeting, the security guard at the front desk hardly able to keep up with the number of people tapping their IDs against the scanner as they enter the building.
There’s a distinct smell of summer in the air.
Sunscreen lotion and aloe vera, and beyond the doors the usual New York smell of honey roasted nuts and barbecue grills.
“Well, what do you want to do?” I ask as we step off the elevator.
Ivan shrugs and shoves his hands in his pockets. “Whatever you want to do.”
I scoff. Gee, thanks, Ivan. How very helpful. “Stop trying to appease me and make a decision.”
“I would never try to appease you. I’m just saying, I asked you first.”
Ugh, he’s right. I bite down on my tongue to hold in a groan loud enough to pierce the ozone layer. Before I can come up with a suggestion, my stomach lets out a growl that I swear makes the ground tremble beneath me.
Yeesh. I know I’ve been serving up some very cute animated dinners on screen for the last couple hours, but my body didn’t have to act like I’ve been depriving it of sustenance for a week.
Ivan at least has the grace to not belly laugh in my face at my body’s inability to control itself. He’s holding his laughter in just like he was earlier as he nods once, then starts walking toward the exit. “We have an answer, then,” he calls out over his shoulder.
I look around in confusion, as if he left the explanation of his plan behind with me. I jog to catch up to him just as he steps outside, the humidity hitting me like a water balloon to the face. “Where are we going?”
He gestures to the city with a wide, inviting arm like he’s Willy Wonka beckoning me into his chocolate factory. “I’m taking you to my favorite hidden gem in the city.”