Chapter 14 SRIYWTP
"Okay wait." Charlie gasps out, her lungs almost bursting from the exertion of laughing so hard. "You're telling me that your perfectly weird combination of food would be mayonnaise and broccoli?! Out of all the weird foods you could pick - you pick broccoli and mayonnaise? How senile have you become in your old age?"
Bass glowers at her and crosses his arms in some peverse pissy power move that only makes her laugh harder as aroma of pizza wafts her way and her head moves on instinct to follow the delectable smell.
Bass's eyes folllow hers and she looks at him with hope in her eyes.
"Do you think that's ours?"
"It's better be, I'm fucking starving." He grumbles, his arms still crossed making him look like a pissy senile angel.
The waitress veers their way and drops the pizza in her hand off onto their table with half hearted promise to come back to refill their drinks and shes barely halfway across the diner before they're both cutting into the pizza, the ooze of cheese spilling out from their cut pieces.
"See this is pizza." Bass mumbles around mouthfuls of dough. "None of that thin crust goat cheese balsamic shit, what does it take to make a good pizza? Dough, check. Sauce, check. Cheese, check. Hell I could make the pizza"
Charlie almost chokes on the sauce in her mouth from the sudden laughter before wiping her mouth.
"Where have you been eating pizza?"
"Definitely not Chicago."
"Well if you decide to have pizza, I don't know if you can beat Chicagos pizza. Our sports teams sure, occasionally our crime rate, but fuck no to our pizza."
He laughs around the straw in his mouth and continues to stare at her as she drizzles ranch and hot sauce over her crust.
"We've been happy lately haven't we?"
She stills and looks up at him but not in the defensive way he figured she would, instead its peculiarly curious before her mouth half lifts into a somewhat smile, the dimple on her left cheek almost peeking through.
"You mean opposed to me hating you being here and you feeling deplorable?" Her eyebrow arches at him as she says this and he barks out a laugh at her candor.
" Yeah basically." He says before reaching for the piece of pizza with the most pepperoni.
"I mean it helps that you stitched straight."
He rolls his eyes but points at where her stitched up wound is.
"Oh I did good, and let me remind you it wouldn't have had to be stitched if someone had been more careful."
Now its Charlie's turn to roll her eyes but halfheartedly and in humor as she grabs another slice.
"You feel ready for this week?" Bass asks her, taking careful note of her facial cues as she continues to eat.
She shrugs and finishes her bite of food.
"Ready is a relative term but I don't think there's any choice. This week is the week he'll hit and no matter how hard we've tried to get ahead of him, we can't seem to succeed, but we do know that everytime he strikes we learn more and more. This time will be no different. The banks have prepared in every way we can think of, the only thing to do now is to wait.
He nods and finishes his coke, motioning to the waitress who nods in acknowledgement or to the beat of the radio.
His cell phone rings right before he brings up what he really wants to say and it takes one glance at it to make him groan before he answers unhappily.
"Hey Steve, whats happening?"
Charlie looks up curiously but is more involved in her pizza and Bass gives her a smile to reassure her.
She can't hear whats being said but the longer the conversation goes on, it becomes clear that it's no little issue as his tone goes for casual to serious as stops talking multiple times to check his phone screen. She taps his arm and mouths for him to put her on speaker.
He stares at her uncomprehending for a moment before she takes the easier route of sliding into his side of the booth before taking the cell phone from him and putting it between both of their ears to hear Steve better.
"Steve, its Charlie."
"Hey Greyson, Bass can fill you in on what I just told him but make sure to pack for at least a week and don't be alarmed okay, this could be him or it could be another copy cat but since you've been on this from the start they want you and I have to agree. Bass just you and I now."
Charlie feels like a child left out of the grownup conversation and thankfully, its blissfully short after and she's impatient as she looks at him for answers when he hangs up.
"There's been another robbery." Bass says as he takes a drink of his basically empty coke.
"What? But I wasn't paged."
"It didn't happen in Chicago."
That makes her pause and and then it dawns on her. "This is what Steve meant by pack for a week."
He nods, his face thoughtfully solemn. "We're going to New York."
Hello! Wow wow wow has it been a minute. So today I stumbled upon a message from LemonSupreme about an update on this and new I just had to do it (As i wrote in under 45min) So please be kind!
Reviews are loved!