11. A Dastard Inquisition
A Dastard Inquisition
Olli
Christenson took pity on me and held our post practice decompress at TJ’s, a restaurant and pub in Destin proper that overlooked the harbor.
It was a nice place, a little on the touristy side downstairs, but the top floor, where the bar and live music was, felt like a local haunt.
Mostly because there weren’t as many ads for boat tours up here.
The hostess sat us all at a couple of high-tops in the corner, on the opposite side of the band. I pulled out a chair and Brooker slid right in, bumping my arm with his fist.
“Thanks, man, very gentlemanly of you,” he said, throwing me a wink. I rolled my eyes and moved to the next seat. Before I even slid the chair all the way out, Gallagher’s gangly ass slid in.
“Seriously,” I grumbled, stepping back to look for another free seat. And of course the only one left was at the head of the table. “Y’all are fucking assholes.”
“Nah, these are the consequences of your actions,” Sosa said before turning to Alvarez to say something in Spanish. He’d spoken too quickly for me to catch it all, but I did hear him call me the equivalent of a dick face.
“I don’t approve of the language,” Christenson said, eyeing the other two before looking at me. “But they’re kind of right. You were running away from her like she had cooties.”
“And your footwork was shit,” Ricci shouted from the far end of the table. Taylor bopped him on the head with his menu.
“Seriously, man, what the fuck is up with you?” Brooker asked, leaning closer, elbows on the table.
I turned to Christenson on my right and asked, “Do I really need to explain it in front of him?”
“Well.” Christenson paused, looking up to the ceiling as he thought. “You don’t have to. But he might flirt with Kodi harder or more often because he doesn’t know what’s going on.”
“That’s true. She’s cute and …” Brooker paused to pull out his phone, he tapped at it a few times before a mischievous smile spread across his face. “And she’s following me on Insta.”
“Oh shit,” Gallagher murmured, leaning in to Brooker to see. “Is her profile public?”
“Yup,” Brooker said after another tap of his phone. Then he held it up to me, wiggling it back and forth. “You wanna see?”
Without thinking, I reached out for his phone. But of course, Brooker pulled away before I could grab it.
“Nuh-uh. You gotta tell us where you know Kodi from.”
“And why you’ve been acting so …” Christenson started to say before Fuller cut in.
“Dick-ish.”
“Unprofessional,” Christenson finished, rolling his eyes at Fuller. On the other side of the kid, Jimenez gave him a nudge for me.
“Don’t be a dick to your elders.”
“Ah, don’t go calling us elders,” Gallagher, who was the same age as me, argued.
“Stop losing focus,” Brooker said, waving an arm at the others while not breaking eye contact with me.
“Fine. I knew her when we were kids. Now let me see,” I grumbled and leaned forward to get the phone, but Brooker went back, leaning on Gallagher.
“You told us that already. Kids like child or kids like teenager? Are you just some jaded ex? What’s the context of this whole thing?” He turned away from me, waving his phone at Sosa. “Pass it down.”
“Seriously?”
“That is taking things a little far,” Christenson said as Sosa took the phone and passed it on to Alvarez, who passed it to Ricci, and so on.
“If you’re gonna be dicks, then —”
“Um, is now a bad time to get your drink order?” a waitress interrupted.
“Sorry,” I mumbled to her and we all took a break from our childish antics to place our orders. But as soon as she was gone, Brooker slapped at my arm.
“Spill.”
“Can everyone stop hitting each other,” Christenson said with a sigh and was immediately smacked in the arms by myself and Fuller.
“We were kid-kids. We were in, like, third grade.”
“How old is that?” Sosa asked Brooker.
“Imma be honest, I have no clue. It’s your third year in school, like …” Brooker paused to reach for his pocket. “Shit. Taylor, look up how old you are in third grade.”
Taylor raised an eyebrow, holding up Brooker’s phone. He set it down and pushed it towards him. “Do it yourself. I don’t wanna be in the middle of this.”
“Fucker,” Brooker mumbled, reaching over to grab his phone and search for the age, which everyone was apparently on the edge of their seats to find out. “Eight or nine,” Brooker finally said, repeating the answer in Spanish for the others.
“Dude, we know the fucking numbers,” Alvarez said, kicking at Brooker under the table.
“Well, it’s also some of the few words I know. So I was trying to be helpful.”
“You should watch a show or something. That’s how I practiced my English,” Jimenez said.
“Give me some recommendations then.” Brooker balled up a napkin and tossed it at Jimenez before turning to me.
“So what? You were like kid-kids, so why’re you pissed off now?
Honestly, it’s wild y’all remember each other at all.
I couldn’t pick any of my classmates out of a lineup beyond my best friend and his twin sister. ”
“She doesn’t remember me,” I said under my breath.
“What was that?” Christenson asked, leaning closer.
“She doesn’t remember me,” I repeated, still not able to say it above a whisper. But this time Christenson heard me, eyes widening at the news. Stupid, pathetic news.
“Speak up!” Ricci shouted.
“She fucking forgot about me, all right? And it sucked,” I shouted, slamming my fists down on the table.
This, of course, happened to be right when our waitress showed up with our drinks, and she startled back and fumbled into the pole behind her, the tray and drinks crashing to the floor.
“Goddamn it, Kean. Stopping causing problems for every woman you interact with,” Brooker shouted, smacking me on the arm.
“I’m sorry,” I said to the waitress, before getting up to help her clean.
“Oh no, that’s not necessary. I —”
“Let us help,” Christenson said, getting up to help me stack the fallen glasses.
“But if you get hurt, I could get in trouble,” she said in a small voice.
“Oh, right. Sorry.” We both stood up and returned to our seats.
“Can’t even help somebody out right, jeez,” Brooker said, whistling. “What else have you been fucking up?”
“Will you give it a rest?” I hissed, keeping my voice low, very conscious of the woman picking up glass behind us. “I told you what was up. That should be the end of it.”
“You think that’s enough?” Brooker gawked.
“Yeah, that doesn’t explain why you acted like a kid at practice,” Fuller said.
“I don’t wanna hear that from you.”
“Then you’ll hear it from me,” Christenson said. “You were acting like a kid today. And based on how Hansen called her out, I’m guessing you got Kodi in trouble, too. You feel good about that?”
I winced.
“Obviously not. I —” I paused, debating whether or not to tell them how I found Kodi crying by the laundry room.
God, that’d been gut-wrenching. Seeing her curled up like that, the hiccups in between sniffles. All because I couldn’t handle being around her and got her in trouble.
“I’m gonna fix it.”
“Oh really? How?” Brooker asked.
“She … wants to do some social shit. That’s what we were arguing about. So I’m gonna let her do it, give her a half hour before practice to take pictures or whatever she needs.”
“I’ll be right back with your drinks,” the waitress said, popping back up behind me with a tight smile, clearly feeling awkward from having to listen to my bullshit.
“Thank you!” we all called after her.
“Okay, so you’re gonna let her do your socials. So what? That’s not gonna get the stick out your ass.”
“I don’t —”
“Dude, you are the grumpiest guy I’ve ever met,” Fuller cut in and the rest of the guys nodded along.
“Maybe that’s why she didn’t recognize him,” Alvarez said, nudging Jimenez. “Think he smiled more as a kid?”
“When I picture Kean as a kid, I picture that internet cat. What was he called?” Ricci asked.
“Grumpy Cat,” Fuller answered.
“Yes!” Ricci snapped and pointed to me. “That was Kean as a baby.”
“I’m not that grumpy,” I grumbled, leaning back in my seat and crossing my arms.
“Uh-huh,” Brooker mumbled, tapping on his phone before holding it up next to my face. “Yeah, you don’t look at him at all.”
I slapped his phone away.
“But seriously, Kean, how’re you going to improve your actual interactions with her? Letting her do the socials is all well and good, the owners’ll be happy. But that doesn’t solve the issue of how you act around her.”
“Drinks!” the waitress chimed, announcing her presence to probably prevent another spill. We paused the conversation to help pass around drinks. But as soon as we were all settled, all eyes were back on me.
“I don’t know what y’all want me to say. I’ll just … get over it. Eventually.”
“Uh-huh. And how long do you think that’ll take?”
“Given how cute she is, I’d say —” Fuller started to say, stopping when I threw a straw at his head.
“So the stick up your ass is two pronged,” Gallagher joked. “She doesn’t remember him and he fancies her.”
“Did you like her as a kid, too?” Brooker asked and I shrugged, even as heat crept into my cheeks.
“Oh, he definitely did,” Sosa hollered.
“She just kissed my cheek. It was nothing.”
“Fuck, he did!”
“It was nothing,” I repeated.
“Damn, must sting to have your first kiss forget about you,” Alvarez mused.
“It was just on the cheek. That doesn’t count as my first kiss.”
“But I bet it did to you,” Brooker said.
“Two-pronged ass stick,” Gallagher murmured before taking a sip of his beer and smacking his lips with a wrinkled brow. If I was lucky, he’d change the topic to how much he hated Guinness.
I was not that lucky.
“So you’ve got … some type of feelings —”
“He’s got a crush.”
“He’s a bitter bitch.”
“— on your new PA, essentially your employee,” Christenson continued despite the others’ interruptions. “Based on today’s interaction, it’s probably safe to say she doesn’t feel the same.”
I wouldn’t exactly say that. She might not remember me, but she was definitely attracted to me. Or at least she was before I acted like a child.
But it didn’t matter. Like Christenson said, she was kinda my employee.
Plus anything that would happen between us would be reliant on Kodi remembering me. And that didn’t seem likely at this point.
“Like I said, I’ll get over it.”
There was a chorus of unbelieving grumbles.
“Right. So how long is that gonna take? Like, when can I ask her out?”
I kicked at Brooker’s shin under the table and hissed dramatically.
“Kean, leave Brooker alone. Brooker, stop agitating Kean. And that goes for everyone,” Christenson said, turning to look around the table. “He’s going through some awkward shit, he doesn’t need any of us making it worse.”
Again, the team grumbled in response and then we finally moved on to more important topics of conversation.
Or at least that’s what I thought.
“So what’s your handle gonna be?”