authors note: And I'm back! Sorry it's been a while, things have been crazy busy and I just haven't had the muse. As you can probably tell from this chapter, I haven't quite got it back yet, and this is barely 500 words (of crap, no less). However, I've started planning the next few chapters which I assure you will be longer, more regular and a lot more exciting. Sorry this is so short, I just wanted to get something up ASAP, and I thought it was better to just have a build up! Thanks for all the follows/reviews/favourites!
They'd barely interacted with each other for days.
It was taking its toll on the group, but each and every one of them could understand it - even Pierce, to some extent. No one had said anything for the first few days, but now it was getting too much.
Someone was going to have to intervene sooner or later, and naturally that was going to be Shirley.
The rest of the group made crappy excuses to get away from the study session early - follow up surgery for a blind cat, preparing for a new episode of Mad Men, expecting a pre-booked hooker any second now and trying to find somewhere to hide out for the night to avoid Pierce's interactions with said hooker.
'Awkward' wasn't really the first word that sprung to mind; Jeff and Annie simply nodded distractedly and continued staring at the books in front of them (The group weren't sure if they were actually studying at all recently, but if they weren't they'd both perfected the art of passive aggressively staring blankly at books).
It was quiet for about a minute; the trio continued 'studying', and Jeff and Annie continued to obnoxiously avoid one another despite being only several feet away from the other at all times.
But Shirley was soon going to fix that.
"So, you two-"
They'd both expected it.
Annie had been nervously anticipating the 'intervention' for several days already, and Jeff had been preparing several dry and witty comments for when the time came (Most of which would probably melt out of his brain the moment he looked at Annie and the guilt set in).
"Well, you haven't really been talking to each other and the group's noticed..."
Even Shirley was aware that this wasn't the time to start preaching about Jesus; that wasn't what this was for. She just needed to try and give Jeff and Annie a shove in the right direction and make sure everything went the way it was supposed to go.
But which way was it supposed to go? Jeff didn't know, Annie didn't know, and if they were all being honest with themselves neither did anyone else in the group.
Annie had every right to be annoyed at Jeff, but the atmosphere during study sessions was growing ridiculous.
Even Jeff knew that he'd really put his foot in and this was all his fault, but apologising didn't come easy to him - try as he might to find the right words to say to Annie, they just didn't come.
And it was then that it clicked.
He might not have been able to say what he wanted to say, but he could certainly do something to fix all of this.
It was in that exact moment that all of the planning started, and there was no way in Hell that Annie could stay mad at him after all he had planned...he hoped.
