If Mac had to explain the main difference between her family's usual pizza place Papa Marios and Giuseppe's it would probably be the eye watering price list for food that tasted like expensive cardboard. It was a pigs ear masquerading as an overpriced silk purse. She was just glad that Dick had insisted on buying a slice platter of several kinds for their table. The entire restaurant had black and white marble fittings, and each "booth" was larger than the bedroom she shared with Parker. None of the family style serve-yourself buffet with artistic space saving tables built on two tiers against the wall with seats like stairs around the place, just panoramic views of the Neptune boardwalk underneath a black ceiling with pin lights designed to look like a blanket of stars. Everything about this place and the clientele was as phony as a three dollar bill.
Why hadn't she just taken the offer and gone home with Piz? Maybe she should swing by and see if Bronson was free?
Wallace had seen his roommate packed into the golf buggy before he double checked Dick was planning on getting her some food and getting her back home before he'd went off to meet some girl. Mac would have protested but she'd been distracted by the feel of Dick's hands around her shoulders steering her towards the cab and the feel of his warmth around the contours of her body when he'd guided her to climb inside when she should have bolted like a frightened rabbit.
Or perhaps it was wanting to avoid calling Logan to collect his overly-intoxicated friend and the need to make sure he got home without puking all over the place?
Those brief moments of... realness with Dick earlier had stirred a reluctant protectiveness of the manspreading jerk.
She shifted in her seat as Dick reached over for a piece of his own, his big body looming possessively beside hers. His shoulder brushing against her, and his hip.
In fact, there was barely a breath of space between them, the man was wrapped around her like a vine around a fence post. Did he even realise his bodyguard routine was attracting attention?
ad turned from midnight blue to almost black when she'd happy groaned her pizzagasm. The closeness of his hard muscled body. Mac kept her gaze focused on Brendon who was studying her like she was a specimen of a new species.
"So you don't eat like meat-ever?" Brendon asked Mac as she snapped her attention from Dick back to him, sipping on her $11 glass of soda.
"No, she just prefers low-hanging fruit." Dick frowned, trying not to fixate on the way her pink mouth tentatively wrapped around the straw, making him painfully aware of his own bone-dry lips. A muscle knotted in his jaw, he'd been seething ever since Piz had mentioned that Mac was dating someone. He didn't even understand the cause, it's not like she was his brother's widow or anything.
Of course she'd eventually date other people.
"I'd still rather puke inside a dead guys stomach." Anders lamented tossing the pineapple aside.
"We've never found a cave painting of a Salad." Brendon agreed.
"Yeah so that's how my girlfriend ended up moonlighting as a Sugar baby and became my new stepmom." Wade said and stuffed another slice of pepperoni pizza in his mouth.
Mac's eyebrows shot towards her hairline as she almost choked on her soda. What was with these people? She certainly wasn't waiting around for them to say anything brilliant that was for sure. They had the same intelligence level as any Michael Bay flick.
"You still ain't dating my sister." Anders burped. "Even if there's a collective decision of all womankind to avoid you like genital herpes."
Wade feigned shock, clamping a hand over his heart. "Andy, I'm wounded man. Sometimes things have to fall apart to fall back together."
Mac swallowed a bite of double pineapple pizza and frowned at a girl in the corner wearing Bug sunglasses, preening her hair artfully around the "Stop Being Poor" slogan on her t-shirt. She'd overheard a girl in the McKinley dorms complaining about the latest trend 09ers were pulling which caused plumbing issues by tossing their airpods and smartwatches down the toilets for TikTok videos.
He swept his gaze over her then, the sensible shoes, the shapeless checked shirt she wore over a pale grey slogan t-shirt with St Patrick's day style Lucky printed on the front, her black form fitting jeans and the small necklace she wore which he was almost certain was a USB drive. Cindy Mackenzie was nothing like the pampered, pristine and well packaged women he usually dated, she was Laney Boggs before the makeover only glasses would probably make her even more Nerd hot.
The evening was rapidly turning into a disaster, twice now he'd brought up their history and each time, he heard that small intake of breath when he accidentally touched her, knew she was as painfully, agonizingly aware of him seated beside her.
"Someone's tell those chicks to stay away from the heater, plastic melts." Dick quipped. Mac blinked and looked up at him.
Weren't these his people? It was so much easier to exit a terrible date when you could plan the exit strategy beforehand.
Perhaps she could fake an IT emergency?
"Isn't your perfect woman inflatable from an adult-only toy store?" Mac retorted shuffling the remainder of the side salad on her plate. She couldn't wait to get back to McKinley so she could hurry to her door and lock it.
"The only way to really live with getting coochie poached by my dad, is to either bang my new mom, or just live and embrace the fact that nothing matters. I mean, we have no choice but to live so the best bet is just to skip the whole angry phase and go get a Mai Tai." Wade explained sagely, bumping beer bottles with Anders.
This is definitely the moment I should be plotting my escape from the Humanzees. Maybe Bronson has a connection someplace and we can get them released into some kind of nature reserve?
"Anw Bruh! I say lay some pipe!" Anders jeered, the insinuating grin as his gaze moved between her and Dick was wicked.
"For guys dedicated to trying to live their lives with as little effort as possible, you seriously missed all those White Castle jokes?" Mac asked.
Brendon frowned. "You're pretty funny for a feminist."
"Come on! The burrito truck just opened." Anders said tossing half his pizza aside and kicked back his stool.
"Alright, I'll bow to social pressure." Wade shrugged and slipped off his stool tossing a hip flask in Dick's direction.
"You had me at Gelato!" Brendon concurred and dropped his half eaten slice onto the plate and gave his friend an encouraging wink then slid out of the booth.
"What wonderful enabling friends I have." Dick chirped quietly reaching for the cap but Mac shot off her chair and wrapped her fingers around his, staying his hand. Dick shot her a sideways look and let out a rueful sigh.
"If I wanted judgey mcjudgerson I'd have invited Veronica." he muttered, and rolled his eyes.
Mac shifted on her feet, removing her hands from his. She hadn't intended to do that. His mouth thinned as he rose slowly and slid the hipflask into the back pocket of his chinos. This had been an upsetting day, she needed sleep.
"I-I just think its time for home." she said smoothing her hands down her shirt and reaching for her bag. It wasn't like one of those ridiculously expensive dainty too-small for a credit card big named brands he was used to seeing girls in his social circle carrying around. The patch covered denim backpack was similar to the leather studded monstrosity that Veronica usually carried.
Was it common for less wealthy Neptunium's to carry Mary Poppin's bottomless pits of their possessions?
Home.
His own personal tower of horror.
The busker on the street corner filled the air with a slowed down throaty cover of This is the Life by Mickey and shifting seamlessly into a Mumford and Sons acoustic version of Bruce Springsteen's I'm On Fire.
"Okay, take me home." he said with a grin starting to tilt his mouth. Mac knew exactly what he meant.
"Oh for Heaven's sake!" She looked ready to stamp her foot as she stormed off and he followed her outside.
"Heaven's got nothing to do with this." his reply was faint, like a whisper borne on the breeze but enough to halt her steps. "You know, I almost tried to call him yesterday. I got an email about tickets to this surf festival in Playas Los Buenos, I must've listened to his voicemail twice before I remembered why he wasn't picking up."
Her throat constricted at the little sob in his voice and she turned around to look at the pained expression on his handsome face.
If she'd ever thought Dick Casablanca's had all the inherent arrogance of a Roman statue, this was the cracks in the marble.
"He was supposed to be in safe hands."
Some earthquakes you couldn't outrun, and sometimes the ground shook because we were really too stubborn to head to safety when everyone warned us it was beyond time to go.