"Trixie! Where have you been?" Eli exclaimed as soon as she got in the door. "We were so worried about you!"
"I was out," she shrugged, trying to be as vague as possible.
"All day?" Kord asked, surprised. "With whom?"
"I have friends other than you guys," She retorted, "It's been a while since I've had a chance to catch up with them. What, am I not allowed to have a social life?"
"Geez, you don't have to be so touchy, sorry we asked." Kord held up his hands in defense.
Trixie's face fell, she didn't mean to go off on her friends like that. She just didn't want them to know. Lying to them like this was hard enough. She couldn't stand to think what would happen if they found out.
"Billy! What the heck were you doing out all day!" Shorty screamed at him, throwing an empty slug cartridge as he tried to quietly sneak off to his bed.
"I was out." He sneered, throwing the glass tube back at her. Shorty caught it expertly, rolling her eyes at her comrade's predictability.
"Well unless you found some sort of food or money, I don't care!" Shorty continued to yell at him. "Because if you haven't noticed, we're out of both!"
Glasses nodded in agreement, throwing his thumb at the empty kitchen. Suddenly Billy felt very guilty about the apple Trixie had given him earlier that day.
"We'll get jobs or something." Billy shrugged, trying to mask his emotions.
"Considering you won't let us bust the Shane Gang anymore, how do you plan to get a job?" Shorty fumed.
"We'll get normal people jobs."
"Yeah, because those pay."
"They pay enough! And with three of us it'll be plenty!"
"God look at you, suddenly you want to be a law abiding citizen, getting a normal job, backing out of huge opportunities! Whatever happened to you wanting to make a name for yourself?"
"I've reorganized my priorities. Now you're either with me, and you're going to find jobs with me tomorrow, or I will blast you out of this cavern right now!"
Glasses leaned over to Shorty, whispering in her ear; "He's still got his old temper, so maybe this is just a phase. For now, let's just go with it."
Shorty sighed, still angry with Billy. "Fine. Bright and early tomorrow, we're getting jobs." She stomped off to her bed with Billy glaring at her back. Glasses sat quietly tinkering with some scrap metal as the blonde continued to fume. Billy had no idea why his friends suddenly hated him dating Trixie. Wasn't it Shorty who had dressed him up nicely for his first date? When had she changed her mind? And most importantly why was she being so mean about it?
