That mollifies him, so he turns back to me. “Now answer her.” He points at Sloan.
“I—”
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 worksohard.”
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. Wesodo,” 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. Youwerespooked.” 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 forseven years. Bet he has some thoughts on it.”
Cruel. My boyfriend iscruel.
“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 Serenaeverywhere.
“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 wasalwaysnormal 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.”
