Page 104 of Clinically Awkward

“POLICE!” someone shouted.

Everyone froze.

The door burst open.

Two officers walked in, hands on their belts, and surveyed the wreckage. One of them sighed, shook her head and glared at Fitz. “Seriously, Lovejoy?”

“Officer Miller, it’s so wonderful to see you!”

“What did you do now, Lovejoy?”

“It was an accident, Margaret,” Fitz tried, straightening his shirt. “A complete misunderstanding. We were simply having a spirited discussion about the merits of American sports culture, and things got a bit... physical.”

“All right. Outside. All of you. Now,” the other officer ordered firmly.

Twenty minutes later, we were all in handcuffs.

All five of us. Sitting in the back of two police cruisers, looking like the world’s saddest boy band.

Gabriel was in the car ahead of us, his head in his hands. Nathan was muttering something about Ester and who was going to feed her, and Hayden looked like he’d aged ten years in the last hour.

I had a split lip, a black eye, and the sinking realization that I’d just gotten arrested for defending my girlfriend’s honor to her boyfriend.

Ex-boyfriend. Hopefully. And Fitz, drunk and completely unbothered, grinned from the seat next to me.

“Well,” he slurred, “that was fun.”

“Fun?” I repeated. “We just got arrested.”

“Details.”

“We’re going to jail, Fitz.”

“Temporarily. It’s quite nice. Americans are very good at infrastructure. The station has excellent Wi-Fi. Doesn’t it, Margaret?”

Officer Margaret simply nodded.

“Vivian is going to kill me.”

“Probably.”

“Julien is going to kill me.”

“Also probably. Though I’d wager Vivian gets first dibs. She seems the type to call dibs.”

I dropped my head back against the seat. “This is a disaster.”

“Could be worse,” Fitz said cheerfully.

“How?”

“Could be raining. Could be a Tuesday. Could be both. At least it’s Friday and we’ve got a proper story for the lads at the next pub. Well, a different pub than the one I’m thinking of because I’ve been banned from that one.”

“It’s not funny.”

“It’s a little funny.”

“We assaulted people, Fitz.”