She should have known better than to even entertain them as they shuffled in the door.
Bulma's lips thinned and she wiped away a bead of sweat that slid down her temple before shutting off the engine of the Beetle she'd been working on. She absently slicked back the wayward curls that stuck to her damp forehead with the backs of her hands. She'd taken care to brush her hair this morning and put it back in a neat bun, and she straightened with a new assurance that the men noticed silently.
Clearly, Nappa and Raditz didn't even know where to begin.
"Ummm. We brought beer," Raditz informed her enthusiastically, and Nappa raised his bulky pack without any strain at all.
"Mmhmm." She wiped her greasy hands on the hips of her coveralls. "Well, boys. Bring it over here and tell me what on earth I can do for you. Neither of you ride air-cooled, so I'm guessing it's safe to say you're not here for an oil change."
The men shuffled in, looking a little out of place in their black slacks and slim ties under wool coats. Nappa, to her amusement, had to duck under a hanging fluorescent bulb before sitting his pack of beer beside her cash register with a crash.
"So you really work here?" Raditz took in the garage scenery with interest.
Bulma stared at him with evident disbelief. "Yes. I do, indeed, work here."
"I didn't mean it like that. Jeez, go on a witch hunt why don't you." He tossed his hair over his shoulder. "It's just...It's hard to imagine you, you know...doing this all day."
"What, turning wrenches?" She smiled smugly. "Doing men's work?"
Raditz shook his head forcefully. "No," he said defensively. "I mean, I don't know how to do this stuff. Do you?" He asked Nappa. Nappa shook his head. "I mean, I couldn't tell you the difference between a, a Ford and a Honda. What the fuck's a Honda, anyway."
Bulma tried to restrain a smile.
"Vegeta's really into this stuff, but he's a private kinda guy."
"I don't think he wants us to help him, honestly. He'd probably just flip his lid the first time we handed him a, a hammer instead of a nail or something, and kick us out of his house." Nappa nodded down at the floor in agreement.
Bulma's face stretched with contained laughter, which she tried her best to control.
"Yeah, remember that one time our tire blew out?" Nappa asked Raditz, who rolled his eyes.
"Yeah. How could I forget." He turned to Bulma with a huff. "One time we were on the highway, right? And our tire blew out. We call Vegeta, right? We don't know how the fuck to get this tire back on. We don't know that we pay for a fucking tow truck with our car insurance. So we call Vegeta. The only guy we know who knows the difference between a tire and a wheel. And that fucker…." Raditz started shaking his head with frustration. "Vegeta tells me…." He glances at Nappa, and then back at Bulma before lowering his voice. "Pardon my French, but he tells me to 'stick my dick in it.'"
Bulma's eyes bugged out a little.
"And me, I...oh god, I'm such an idiot...I trust Vegeta. So what do I do?"
"You stuck your dick in it," Bulma asked flatly.
"How was I to know that wasn't going to do anything?" He roared, looking at Nappa for confirmation.
"So, anyway." He shrugged. "It ain't about it being man's territory. It's just hard to see you as a business lady type, you know."
"This conversation can't possibly go on any longer without a beer," she uttered.
"I agree," Nappa agreed.
And that's how, Bulma reasoned to herself, they wound up falling out of the front door of the Irish Ale House in West City Square, Nappa turning and nearly knocking them all over to scream back at a bar patron, who was threatening them with a lawsuit.
"How in the hell," Bulma slurred, straightening, "can two attorneys cause so much hell?"
"We're just two lucky sons a bitches," Raditz explained, throwing his arm over her and Nappa's shoulders before patting them on the back, pushing them towards the heart of the bar district.
"To Bazookas!" Nappa bellowed, stopping a few pedestrians in their tracks and causing a few others to scurry away.
"Not to Bazookas," Bulma opposed. "God, you two really are as sleazy and vile as I could have imagined."
"There's a good pizza place up ahead." Raditz pointed erratically in front of them. "Go that way."
"Ugh, not pizza," Nappa whined. "I don't wanna sober up yet."
As they neared the small pizza joint, the booming bass of live music began its unsettling cohabitation in their chests, and Bulma grabbed the men's wrists and pulled them towards it.
"Music. Pizza. More beer." She reassured them.
The three of them dove through the growing crowd and pushed toward the front, where a handful of men on a small stage belted out hard rock with shameless joy.
"What is this stuff this is loud and all I hear is yelling," Raditz yelled in her ear uncertainly.
"It's rock and roll." She laughed.
"I don't like it," he declared.
"I think Nappa does." She pointed above their heads, where Nappa's hulking form was trying, unsuccessfully, to crowd surf.
"This is for the birds. I prefer R&B. Let's go get more drunk," he insisted, before pulling her through the crowd and toward the closest bar.
"Raditz," she quipped, lingering a little too long on the 'z' and tugging at his coat hem. "Why did you come over. Why did you invite me out. We don't even get along."
"Yeah, well." He shrugged, talking over his shoulder. "I just, I got to thinking, you know, who is this chump that Vegeta gave up representing the Freeman case for? She must be a real prick. Nappa and I just wanted to share our condolences. For fielding Vegeta's interests. That must be tough. If Vegeta's interested in a woman," he hiccuped, before crashing in through the bar door, "he's firing her for not filing his papers right."
"I don't know what to say," Bulma finished lamely, following him, emotion swirling in her gut. The bar hoppers parted easily for his tall, beefy form.
"Say your prayers," Raditz informed her before slamming his fist down on the bar and screaming for a pitcher of their cheapest stuff.
"Ohhhhh my god." Raditz head hung low, his nose brushing the table. "Oh god." The phone was ringing, but he'd forgotten that he'd dialed out. Sleep was pressing upon him, and the only thing that startled him from passing out with the weight of it was the rough voice on the other end.
"Hello?" Raditz asked uncertainly.
"Yeah, I said that, several times now. What do you want."
"I need...I need a favor." Raditz listed sideways, bumping into Bulma, who snored lightly in protest.
"I'm not doing it."
"Whaaaaat. Why. This...this isn't even like the time our tire blew out."
"What?" Vegeta seemed to have honestly not understood a word that had fallen out of his co-worker's mouth.
"Why won't you," he re-asked, this time slowly.
"I'm already in bed, watching the damned weather forecast."
"You old man," Raditz accused him resentfully. "Get off your lazy ass and come get us."
Raditz was pretty sure he could hear Vegeta chewing calmly, but he was in a pizza place, the last time he remembered, so it could have just been someone nearby chewing their pizza. Or a nearby squirrel, nomming on an acorn...or something.
"Come...on. Come get us. We need you," he implored him. His eyes drifted out the window, leading his head to bang hollowly against the store front glass. There, on the sidewalk, lay Nappa, his lower half hanging out into the gutter. Bar crawlers walked over him nonchalantly.
"What's new."
"Raditz," murmured Bulma, who was slouching further and further down in her seat. "Where's my pizza."
"Idunno," he slurred. "I thought you ate it."
Vegeta's voice became sharp. "Who was that?"
"It's"—he hiccuped—"It's B-Bulma, who else would it be, you fuck." Raditz had listed sideways in the booth, slowly pushing Bulma, unaware, out of her seat.
"Where are you?"
"Stupid pizza place."
"Where the fuck are you, Raditz?"
"I don't know, why do you always yell at me," he cried out. "Stupid...West City Square, or something."
"I'll be there in a few."
The line went dead, but Raditz managed to hurl a few more insults in Vegeta's direction before passing back out against the window.
She was being lifted from sleep, and all she could do was moan in protest. Everything was dark, like she couldn't open her eyes, but she could hear the press of shoes in grass, feel herself jostled lightly, rhythmically, and feel a dull stabbing in her abdomen.
She was being carried.
The swish of shoes in long grass ended, the crackle of shoes drug on asphalt began, and a warm breeze suddenly wrapped itself around her face, waking her up fractionally.
"Spring," she sighed, against the cool, rough texture of denim butt in her face, "when the world is mud, luscious the little lame balloonman whistles far and wee."
"What in the fuck are you talking about, Briefs," she heard a familiar voice question her waspishly, and she tried to look up and find the origins of the voice when she was spilled out onto a couch, heels dragging on carpet.
"I do believe she is reciting poetry," came a voice that fell deep into her gut and stayed there, heavy and anxious.
"No one asked you, you weenie," she tried scolding the voice, and Raditz burst into giggles somewhere beside her.
"Wholly to be a fool while Spring is in the world," she accosted him with her foot.
"Whatever you nerd," Raditz mumbled into the carpet.
"Is someone going to tell me how in the hell you three got like this?"
"Ouch. Your boots hurt," Raditz complained. She continued kicking him half heartedly and blind.
"Somebody better damn well tell me how you got in this condition before I have to pry it out of you!" Vegeta roared with impatience.
"If I cared, I'd tell him how cute he is when he gets mad," Bulma confided to Raditz, and they snickered into the carpet.
"Nappa is out there in my car, where he's going to stay. I'm not lugging him in. I'm going to bed. Do either of you need anything? A wastebasket? A bucket?"
"Relax. No one's going to puke on your carpet. We're not lightweights, here," Raditz chided him, and Bulma chortled.
A deep sigh rolled through the room.
"Alright. I'm going to bed." There was a pause, which Bulma, crashing into sleep again as she was, could only momentarily feel was pregnant with uncertainty.
"Goodnight," the voice said.
"Goodnight," she answered back.
When Bulma awoke and glanced around a home she hadn't seen in months, logically she understood that it could only be a dream. Tactilely, however...the too smooth slip of microfiber under her face...the smell of cotton, and spice, and dark roasted coffee...the way she kept resurfacing from sleep like the unstoppable ascent to the surface of a pool after diving in...
She was at Vegeta's.
She sat up quickly, but just as quickly regretted it when the world started spinning.
"I'm going to hurl," she said to no one, and then realized as she glanced around that there was no one around to hear her.
Bulma made her way delicately, oh so slow and laboriously, towards the kitchen, where the smell of coffee got stronger.
In a river of shit, it seemed that she was at least to get a paddle.
She fumbled around the cabinets until she found the coffee mugs. Absently, she realized that she didn't know where they were because she'd never gotten the chance to wake up here. Bulma grabbed a thermos unapologetically with the firm intent to pilfer it.
Filling it up to the brim, she capped it and made her way carefully through the condo, hoping that if anyone was there, she'd be able to avoid them with her skillful, ninja-like silence.
The front door was unlocked, and she opened it, cringing at the noise as it sucked, protesting, against the door jamb before opening. She shut it behind her with relief.
Feeling queasy, she made her way gingerly down the stairs until she came to the last one, and, looking up and out at the empty parking lot, realized how much of a mistake she had made.
How was she going to get home?
She heard footsteps knocking on the solid wood behind her, and an irritated voice that she had an embarrassing hard time identifying snap, "Really, did you not even notice the coffee pot was still on?"
She turned slowly in order to keep the contents of her stomach down, and met Bardock's unforgiving gaze.
"I can walk," she contested weakly.
"I'll drive," he growled, grabbing keys out of his pocket with a jingle, and stalked past her.
A car beeped as it was signaled to unlock, and she followed him into Vegeta's carport, where a powder blue Stingray awaited them.
"Niiice." Bulma raked her gaze over the car with a small smile. "72?"
"What do you care," he grumbled. "Don't you only drive Reich mobiles?"
Bulma plopped down in the convertible and buckled up, disregarding her roiling stomach stubbornly. "Ah," she murmured with dripping sarcasm, smiling at Bardock's glum face. "I see you are an American muscle kind of man."
"Hmph." He pulled out of the carport in one swift movement, the long front end of the Corvette swinging the opposite direction with the sudden force of it, and Bulma's stomach threatened to make an appearance.
"You know," she mused, gagging down acid, "so far, I like your sons a lot better than I like you."
Bardock only stomped his foot on the gas.
"No, Mom," Bulma said once more into the phone at her shop, it's old school coiled wall cord getting on her nerves as she paced around the register, phone pinned between her crooked head and shoulder.
"Because I told you, you're welcome to come by for tea," her mother tittered.
"Thank you again, Mom, but no. I'm too busy today. I've got some things left to finish up at the shop, and then I will be there for dinner. I'm shooting for 7." Bulma took a look at her watch.
"Okay, well, honey, don't forget to eat lunch. I made you peanut butter and banana sandwiches. They're in your cooler. Have a wonderful day, dear!"
"Talk to you soon," Bulma rushed, and hung up the phone in record time.
The shop door swung open, and her tow truck guy's grizzled face peeked in. "I've got another Caddy waiting for you on the truck."
"Well, darn," Bulma murmured before making her way around the counter to follow Tom out the door. "That's the second one this week." She shielded her eyes from the summer sun with her hand and looked over the truck that hung limply from the tow chain. "Poor thing. Alright, lets get her off."
Tom was already unbelting the tires from the ramp and moving to lower it to the ground, when Bulma's foot scuffed something other than gravel, its papery protest causing her to glance down at the ground in dull curiosity.
Thoughtlessly, compelled by something other than logic, she bent down to pick it up.
Vegeta's card.
It was sun bleached, and weathered, the ink worn to a sorry looking gray. It had been dyed brown with spring rain and dirt, and tattered from who knew how many times she or someone had stepped on it or driven over it.
Bulma flipped the card over.
I'm sorry.
Distantly, she heard her tow truck guy yelling at her about where to put the old truck, and she directed him to the east side of her small lot, where a few other cars awaited her tender love and care.
She looked back down at the card before waving goodbye distractedly at Tom, who was already taking off to another client, and who she'd surely see again this week.
Bulma crumpled the card into her hand, letting the softened paper stroke her palm, before, on a whim, tucking the card into her pocket for safekeeping.
There were two people she could call, and Bulma was having a difficult time deciding who to shake down first. She had tried eeny meeny miny moe, but afterward hadn't felt like it was truly settled. She'd rolled dice and made a pros and cons list for it twice. When her mother bustled in with an armful of laundry, she'd jumped up and opened the laundry room door for her and asked, "Mom, one or two. You can only pick one. Alright go!" Her mother had bent over the pile, separating lights from darks, with a look of deep thought. "Well, I don't know. Two? No, no, what about one?"
Bulma sighed. "Nevermind, Mom." There was no easy answer, and either had its fair share of risk and possibility.
In the end, she felt she made the best informed decision she could possibly make. She held her cell phone in hand, elbow resting on the kitchen table, and stared at the name on the screen. Her thumb hovered over the name, and she made a face before hitting dial.
"I'm sitting here watching porn and who do I get a call from but none other than Bulma Briefs. If this isn't a proposition for a roll in the hay, I don't want to hear it."
Bulma sighed.
"Raditz, we need to talk."
"If you're pregnant, it's not mine. I'm just going to say that right now."
"Raditz, damnet, meet me at Romeo's. For Kami's sake, I'll buy you a beer," she yelled at him in frustration.
"Just one beer?"
"If you're asking me to bribe you...Well, fine. I accept. I'll buy you as much beer as your pretty gut can handle...on one condition. You tell me what I want to know."
"Uh oh."
"Yep. This is real talk."
He emitted something between a sigh and a hiss of frustration. "Okay. Fine. I'll be there in an hour. I've gotta finish this movie."
"The sad part is I know you're not even joking. Wash your damn hands before you leave!" She yelled in the receiver before hanging up.
"Oh my, Bulma, who are you meeting that doesn't practice good hygiene?"
She looked up at her mother, who was opening the fridge to pour herself a small glass of iced tea before bed and regarding her with worry.
"Oh, Mom. Just a friend." She sighed before pocketing the phone.
"A manly friend?" Bunny's eyebrows jumped suggestively.
"No. Nooooooooooo. Not at all. I need to take a shower, just with the vileness of your suggestion. I'm...actually going to ask him about a guy I might like." She nearly choked on the words.
"OooOooh." Her mother's eyes widened as she sipped her tea. "Is he handsome?"
"Too handsome," Bulma griped darkly. "Don't get too excited, Mom. I can't imagine how this is possibly going to end well." She stood.
"Well, good luck, hun!"
"Thanks, Mom. I'm going to need it even contemplating what I'm about to do."
Bulma's eyes drifted over the shots lined in front of her before shaking her head fearfully.
"No way. I said beer. Not...a repeat of last month."
Raditz snorted before downing the contents of one glass.
"My father's still pissed at you for puking in his car."
Bulma bristled. "He knew better than to drive like he was qualifying. That's on him."
"Yeah, well. What do you want to talk about. I'm getting properly liquored up to answer your questions and I don't know how much longer I'll be coherent enough to answer them."
"I need to know everything you know about what Vegeta was up to when we were...seeing each other."
Raditz spit out the contents of his third shot.
"That's what you wanted to talk about?" He choked out.
"What on Kami's green earth did you think I wanted to talk to you about?"
"What do you want me to say," he griped.
"I want to know...I want to know…." She took a deep breath and looked at the ceiling. Something came together inside her, pieces previously lost, and it bolstered her enough to say what she'd come to say. "I want to know if he has feelings for me."
"Why don't you just ask him yourself." Raditz pouted, before sending the bartender a flirtatious wink.
"Because he won't tell me the truth," she argued. "Because I don't want to even talk to him unless I know what he was all about!" Bulma's frustration was quickly condensing into a stormy rage. "I can't ask Goku because then I'll feel bad for not having talked to Chi Chi in three months. I can't ask Nappa because he has the IQ of a rock. I can't ask anybody because nobody really knew about us. Except you." Raditz's eyes grew wide as he drank from his fourth shot. "You obviously knew, because you and Nappa came over for a pity party the week after the hearing. You guys were there when he clobbered Yamcha. You had to have known."
"Hey, hey, let's not jump to conclusions." Raditz held up his hands defensively.
"Quit dissembling and start talking! I've already bribed you with tequila." She snapped.
"Okay. Jeez, you're as bad as Vegeta." Raditz crossed his legs and assumed a look of moody surrender that she accurately guessed he put on when he had to deal with clients. "I mean, it's not like the guy confided his feelings in me or anything. It's not like we had a heart to heart, talking about our crushes at a sleepover—"
"Shut up and tell me what you know."
"Look." Raditz placed his finger on the table commandingly and leaned forward. "This is all I know. Vegeta was representing the Freeman case. Vegeta likes these big cases because they stroke his ego, and my dad and his dad like to give them to him because he's a kiss ass. Not really." He waved his hands in the air dismissively. "He's just really good at being a dick, and he is perceptive of the small details and all that jazz, and the guy's a good lawyer, so he gets the good cases. Everyone and their moms know that Vegeta is being groomed to take over the business, but he's gotta prove himself cuz his dad is a bigger dick than he is. So, the Freeman case was his chance to get out from his father. You following me?"
Bulma nodded attentively.
"So he takes this case, and everyone's happy cuz everything that asshole touches turns to gold. But then there's this wrench in the whole plan. The case stalls. The prosecution suddenly has all this juicy stuff on Freeman and his involvement with the mayor, and investors, and sexy interns, and stuff. We're all wondering, where the fuck did this come from? How do we dismiss this shit as irrelevant to the case? Someone put a lid on it already. So Vejita Sr. told him to get out there and put a stop to it."
Bulma sipped her Pepsi tensely while Raditz ordered a beer to wash down the tequila, sipping it slowly once the waitress sat it down in front of him.
"Vegeta's real stressed, right? He's got this huge case that he thought he had in the bag and his dad is really riding him about it. In my opinion, his dad is a real dick. Not in the likable way that Vegeta kind of is, but like, the kind of hard ass that clearly has expectations for Vegeta that even he can't fulfill. So Vegeta goes out with us every now and then. We all grew up together, and he might not want to admit it, but he likes us." Raditz placed his hand over his heart and smiled sweetly. "He thinks I'm kind of cute, too." Bulma snorted. "So we're like, c'mon asshole, let's go get crunk, and he's like ugh fine, and so we go out for a drink. Goku's like," Raditz voice reached its highest registers, "'I'm going to bring my girlfriend,' and we're like fine whatever."
"Wait, why did you make Goku's voice girly?" Bulma said through her fingers, hiding her smile.
"Because he's my kid brother, I don't know. Regardless. Goku tells us, by the way, Chi Chi wants Vegeta to know, she's bringing this girl you might be into. Vegeta's like, nah son, and I'm like I'll take her, but when I found out it was you I was like fuck no so we ended up playing rock paper scissors for it."
"WHAT?"
Raditz looked around nervously. "Jeez, calm down. Vegeta lost, so I don't know what you're complaining about."
"Are you saying you played rock paper scissors to get out of a date with me?"
Bulma felt herself rise to choke him.
"Calm down, Briefs! Do you want to hear the story or not?"
"Just hurry up," she snarled.
"Alright, alright." Raditz put up his hands placatingly and resettled in his chair. "Anyway. We all know what happens when you get there. You and Vegeta start fighting, and then you guys get stuck on the fire escape—hilarious, by the way—and then I don't see Vegeta until the following Monday."
He stopped dramatically, sipping his beer theatrically and narrowing his eyes at her. "I think we all know what happened that weekend."
Bulma blushed scarlet.
"Continue," she encouraged weakly.
"Well, I can't say why he bumped uglies with you, Briefs. I don't understand the guy sometimes. But I know he doesn't sleep with just anyone. He's one of those super weird doesn't-like-people, so doesn't-have-the-patience-for-women kind of guys, and so, do I think he slept with you to get you to confess your ties to the prosecution? Maybe. I don't know. He was between a rock and a hard place. Vegeta likes above all to be the best, and if faced with something that goes against his values, well, he may just take it so he can laud it over our heads. I don't know."
Bulma felt a sinking feeling in her gut, and she looked down at her hands, clasped together on the table top.
"Hey, hey," Raditz said with surprising concern. "Don't look like that." He crossed his arms over his chest and gazed at her with something akin to empathy. "If someone had asked me if Vegeta would ever be interested in a woman beyond getting his rocks off—and even then, the man is unrealistically picky—I would have laughed in their face and told them Vegeta's best friend is always going to be his hand. But, now that I know you two had a thing….I guess I can see it." He took a big gulp of his beer and stared at her questioningly. "Is that what you wanted to know?"
"I also want to know why he didn't show up that day at the hearing," she said, clearing her throat to avoid her voice breaking with stamped down emotion.
"Well." Raditz gazed at the wall with his chin on his fist thoughtfully. "He's never come right out and said it, but we all know. Shortly after he met you, we all got that memo. Cull Bulma Briefs at all costs. Vegeta had a lot at stake. He might have been considering it. I don't know. Did you guys ever talk about the case?"
"No," she replied quietly. "Not really. He tried to talk to me about it the second night we went out together, but it didn't last very long." Her cheeks pinkened, and Raditz understood what had gotten in the way of the discussion.
"So he never pried you for information? Beyond prying apart your legs." He snickered.
"No," she attested, eyes wide. "And shut up."
"Well, then."
"But how do I know he didn't have a file on me or something? Sniffing out my, my weaknesses or connections, or something? He wouldn't have just asked me straight what my part was in the case."
"Vegeta is not a spy, Briefs. He's way too forward to be sneaky. Even if he were trying to be, he couldn't help but give himself away by bragging about how he was fooling you." He snorted over his glass. "He can't lie to save his own ass. It's against his moral code, or something. That's why I have a hard time believing he would have been trying to fuck you over, for as ridiculous as it is to think of him having feelings for a woman. Vegeta's not very easy to get along with, so, if you can get along with him, by all means, go for it."
"But none of this answers anything," she argued.
"What more do you want? You asked me for my opinion. I'm not a Vegeta expert, or something. Woah, I think I'm getting a little tipsy." He blinked his eyes.
She sighed.
"Why wouldn't he show up after all that work to win the case?" She asked herself softly, her brows knit with delicate worry.
"You know what I think?" Raditz leaned forward conspiratorially, sliding his hand towards the middle of the table. "I think he knew he'd lost you either way. I don't think he was trying to win you back by giving up the case and his promotion. I think," his voice dipped into a speedy whisper, "he knew he sucked at talking about what he felt, and he knew at that point you didn't want to hear about it. So he said sorry the only way he knew how. My man is real like that." Raditz's eyes got a bit crazy as he took another shot. "And I think he was trying to make a statement to his dad. Yeah, I'm on a roll here! I think that he was saying, 'Dad, fuck off. I like this woman. So fuck your greed.' It was like Vegeta finally stood up to him. Even though he knew it wasn't going to make a difference. I mean, he got the memo after he had slept with you. And he never went through with shaking you down or finalizing the case. If that's not liking a woman, I don't know what is. It's disgusting."
Bulma's eyes filled, and she looked the other way. "Yeah, you're a veritable Sherlock Holmes. I just don't understand how I can care so much about what he thinks about me. I barely know him. We rolled around underneath each other for a month, and that's it."
Raditz shrugged.
"Who the fuck knows. Love is stupid. It's not smart. Who really knows what's going on in those mixed up heads and hearts of yours. I don't care, honestly. Why don't you just go make up with him and get it over with." He downed his last shot. "Are we done here? I think I've had about enough of talking about feelings for this century."
Bulma called the bartender over and ordered a dozen shots. "Raditz, call Nappa and tell him to pick us up in an hour," she demanded. "I don't know if you've given me heartache or hope, but damnet, we're going to toast to it."
AN: This chapter should be titled "Bulma and Raditz Shenanigans." Well, if there was ever an opportunity to turn Raditz into a loveable sleazebag, I guess I've taken it. It's utterly ridiculous and a blemish on the hard won reputations of all serious novelists.
Thanks for reading and reviewing!
