Patty sat cross legged in the recliner that was tucked in the corner of Sylvester and Paige's office. A door separated this one from Happy and Toby's. Patty had found it weird, at first, that the married couple had their own office, but Sylvester had explained. "Paige wanted it to be very clear that Centipede Partners has never, not even from day one, had an issue with relationships between members." So Happy and Toby got their own office. But there was no actual door in the threshold, because, also according to Sylvester, "that doesn't mean it's going to get too weird."
"Just a normal amount of weird," Toby had said, patting Happy on the rear as he'd walked by.
"I wish we had someone to figure out how the mixer went from Florence's perspective," she heard Ralph say.
Patty shifted the phone to her other ear. "Same. Any chance you could talk to Cabe? He stayed at Scorpion, but he's easily the most neutral in all this. He didn't know any of it was going on until it went down."
"I guess. But he is big on the whole 'respect your elders' thing and I might just get a lecture about meddling."
"It's not being disrespectful to try and help adults with their heads in their asses get their heads out of their asses."
"An ass is a terrible place to have your head stuck."
"Agreed." Patty nodded even though he couldn't hear her. "I think I hear Sylvester coming up the stairs – you want me to leave you on the line so you can listen?"
"Sure. My mom just left, so I'm alone."
"Cool. Setting you down now." She propped the phone up against where her calves crossed, making sure to smile when the door opened and Sylvester entered the front room. "Hey."
"Morning, Patty," he said. "I wasn't expecting you this early."
"Well, school's out for the year, but that doesn't mean I'm done learning and striving to improve," she said. It was a very her thing to say, but Patty suddenly wondered if she sounded forced, like it was obvious that she was here to snoop. "How was the thing last night? Anything particularly interesting happen?"
She had been expecting Sylvester to be vague, but her eyebrows still shot up in surprise when his response was condensed into a single word. "Nope."
"What's wrong?" Patty asked.
"Nothing," he said quickly. Too quickly.
"No, no, something is the matter," she said. "You're acting weird."
"I always act weird."
She rolled her eyes. "Fine. You're acting weird for you." She cocked her head. "Tell me."
"Uh. No."
"Ah, so something is up," she said, pleased he had fallen into such an easy trap.
"Maybe it's something I can't talk to you about," Sylvester said. "You're a kid."
"Yeah, because something totally happened at that mixer that a seventeen – year – old can't know about. You science types don't get that wild at some rich professor's house."
"Fine." He ran a hand through his hair. "Florence was there. We talked. And we took things too far. Satisfied? I mean, happy?"
"Yeah?" The mechanic stuck her head around the doorframe.
Sylvester blinked in surprise. "When did you get here?"
"I work here, you dope."
"Right." Sylvester cleared his throat. "Go back to what you were doing, please?"
"Uh, no, if there's a secret, I want to know it."
"There is a secret, and it's going to stay a secret because no one is getting told," Sylvester said firmly.
Happy rolled her eyes. "Super lame, Dodd. You're lucky it's tricky keeping my balance while leaning this far back in this seat, because I'm gonna return to my blue printing now." She vanished from view, and Sylvester breathed a visible sigh of relief.
"Sylvester," Patty said, ignoring a text from Ralph that said SCARE him into it! and deciding to take a gentler approach, "did something bad happen?"
"No," he said again. "I just, uh, I ran into Florence."
"Oh? She was there after all, huh?"
"Well, yeah, but I literally ran into her. Then we talked. It was confusing. Then we, well, uh…"
A new text from Ralph. Patty glanced down.
Oh my god, the fucked.
Patty swore she heard Paige yelling "language" even though the woman wasn't here, nor would she have any idea what the text said.
Another text came through from Ralph.
*they.
She looked back at Sylvester, who still seemed rattled. Unsure. "You guys…"
Yep, wasn't just Sylvester. She didn't know how to say it either.
"Okay, you know what? You're old enough. We slept together. That's all I'm going to say." He held his hands up, then walked around to his desk, easing into the chair and scooting it in.
"So…" Patty ignored the buzz from her phone. It was probably just Ralph saying what did I just say? or something else to that same smug effect. "You guys are together?"
"No."
She cocked her head. "I'm confused."
"Me too, a little bit."
He'd been right. This was not something she could help with. This was not something she could give advice on. Patty glanced down to view the earlier text from Ralph.
Damn.
He could say that again.
"She likes Walter," Sylvester said, his face taking on a small sneer when he said his brother's name. "And yet last night…she really seemed to like me. So I don't know what the hell is going on."
"I'm sorry, Sly."
"Nah, don't be. It's confusing and weird but I'm glad it happened."
"You're glad? Wait, why?"
"It's complicated," Sylvester said. "I'm not going to explain it."
"Okay, whatever." Patty shrugged. "Ralph says Paige left a few minutes ago so she should be getting here soon. I'm gonna go hunt around the food court in the next building. You want anything?"
"I'm good. Thanks, though."
Patty grabbed her phone, jumped up, and headed for the stairs.
She met Paige on the landing. "Morning, Ms. Dineen," she said, again doubting herself, hoping she didn't sound too formal.
"Morning, Patty," Paige said. "How you doing?"
"Oh, fine. Just had a few things to discuss with Sylvester. I'm going to get food, you want anything?"
Paige smiled. "No, thank you. Say, do you know if Toby is here yet?"
"I didn't see him or hear him, but Happy's here, so probably?"
"Thanks. Hope your quest to find food is successful."
"Yeah, thanks." Patty wasn't going to find food. She was going to find that bench outside of the insurance office on the first floor. Or rather, she was going to sit on the bench. It was connected to the floor and never moved, so it's not like she had to find it.
Damn, she'd been spending a lot of time with left brained individuals lately.
"Okay, so you heard all of that," she said, putting the phone back to her ear as she sat down.
"Yeah," Ralph said. "Florence and Sylvester slept together. And he's weirdly glad about it even though it doesn't seem like they talked about it or even improved their standing with each other at all."
"Adults are weird," Patty said.
"Preach it." She heard Ralph shifting his weight. "How did we get into a situation where Sylvester Dodd losing his virginity on a one – night stand to a woman he's in love with who has feelings for his former boss at a college professor's house that two kids sent him to become just the tip of the yikesburg?"
"Former boss, former friend," Patty said. "This is the one angle we really haven't worked from, yet."
"Yeah. Honestly I have no idea what to do, there. Especially since my mom and Walter still haven't talked, the picnic is still two days away, and we really have no idea if what we planned to get Sylvester and Florence to talk actually worked, if the mixer was the first domino in a chain to get it to work, or if it's irreparably screwed up now."
"Well, we can only do so much," Patty said. "We're trying to help them all. If they don't want to be helped, we're up a creek without a paddle."
"They want to be helped," Ralph said. "My mom was crying again last night. Florence feels horrible for her part in all this. None of them have a clue how to make this right, or they're too scared to try. That's where we come in."
"I like your positivity, Ralph. I sure hope you're right." Patty tapped her foot. "But how on Earth are we going to fix things between Sly and Walt? Do we have to just hope our plans for Walt and your mom and for Sly and Flo work out and then they'll mend on their own? I don't trust any of them to get this figured out without help or tragedy, and I really would rather avoid tragedy."
"Agreed." There was a silence. "How about you actually do go to that food court? I can be there in ten minutes. We may need another notebook planning session."
"Sounds good to me."