Chapter 4
Mordecai pulled the cart up to the font of the house to find Muscle Man and High Fives there, each carrying an armload of wood.
"It's about time, grandma." Muscle Man roared, throwing down the pile of lumber. "Give me that cart before I break your face. Me and Fives have already had to make three trips on foot!"
"Calm down, dude! You can have the cart! I didn't even know you needed it!" Mordecai exclaimed, quickly throwing him the keys.
"Well you would know if you had bothered to come to work this morning, wouldn't you?"
"Sorry, dude. I overslept." Mordecai responded.
"You are in so much trouble, bro. Benson was fuming this morning when you didn't show up." Muscle Man warned, dropping the cart issue.
"I know. Rigby already told me. I guess I need to go in there and try to smooth things over." Mordecai began climbing the steps toward front door. Before he got there, the door flew open to reveal an angry looking Benson in the doorway.
"Uh…Hey Benson! How's it going?" Mordecai tried to play it cool like nothing was wrong.
"My office. Now." Benson said irritably.
"Sure thing!" Mordecai followed him into the house as they made their way to Benson's office.
"How nice of you to show up for work today, Mordecai." Benson said, closing the office door. That could only mean bad things were about to happen.
"I'm sorry, Benson. I accidently overslept. It won't happen again!" Mordecai said nervously.
"Rigby said you didn't come home last night."
"Yeah, uh, I met this girl and – "
"You don't have to tell me what you did, Mordecai. It's none of my business. Look, I'm not mad. I just want to make sure everything is okay with you. Skips told me the whole story about what happened with Margaret and you seem pretty broken up about it."
"I'm fine…Wait, you mean you're not going to yell at me?" Benson's sudden change in demeanor took Mordecai off guard.
"No, not this time. Let's just say I know exactly how you feel right now. Me yelling at you isn't going to help anything. I understand that you left because you needed to blow off some steam. "
"Uh, yeah, thanks Benson."
"Have you talked to Rigby yet? I've never seen you two so mad at each other before. "
"I saw him on the way in. I think we're cool now. He just doesn't understand what it feels like, that's all."
"Rigby can be very immature sometimes. I think he means well though. I'm glad you two have worked things out. That doesn't give you an excuse to go slack off and screw something up together though! "
"Right. Don't worry, Benson."
"I've heard that one before. Just go get to work. Rigby is supposed to be raking leaves on the playground."
"Okay, I'll meet him there." Mordecai turned to leave the office.
"Mordecai?" Benson called before he shut the door "Just let me know if you need someone to talk to about anything, okay?"
"Sure Benson. Thanks. "
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"So what did Benson say?" Rigby asked as Mordecai walked towards the playground.
"Nothing. He didn't even yell at me. He just told me to get to work. Weird." Mordecai grabbed a rake and started a small pile of leaves next to the swings.
"Yeah, Benson's pretty weird sometimes. You never know what kind of mood he's going to be in. Sometimes he's really cool and nice to us, then five seconds later he's screaming at us and threatening to fire us. He must be bipolar or something." Rigby pointed out.
"I know, dude. I think in my case though he kind of gets how I feel about losing Margaret so maybe not yelling at me for leaving is just his way of showing he understands. I get the feeling that there was someone he really cared about in his past—even though he never talks about it." Mordecai said.
"Hmmmph, Hmmmph…Dude, I bet you're right! Maybe that's why he's so weird now. He was probably really cool just like us then one day some girl probably ditched him and it turned him into this bipolar lunatic that yells all the time!" Rigby exclaimed as if he had just figured out something very important.
"Yeah, probably something like that." Mordecai shrugged.
"So what do you want to do tonight? " Rigby changed the subject. .
"Sorry, dude, I have plans." Mordecai said, not bothering to go into further detail.
"What do you mean you have plans? Margaret is gone."
"I know, Rigby! You don't have to remind me!" Mordecai retorted "I told you, I met some new people."
"Sorry, sore subject. Don't get crazy on me again." Rigby said. "I really thought you were just saying that stuff about new friends to make me feel bad earlier. .
"No, dude, I was serious….Sorry I snapped at you. It's like I try to forget about her and every time I turned around something or someone reminds me of her. Still can't believe she just left like that. I wish I had never kissed her. This would be so much easier if we were still just friends."
"Yeah…." Rigby said awkwardly. This wasn't exactly his area of expertise and he didn't know what to say to make Mordecai feel better so he avoided it altogether. "Can I come hang out with your new friends too?"
"I don't really think they're your type of people, dude. I promise we'll hang out tomorrow night."
"Sure we will." Rigby said disappointedly.
"I said I promise."
"What does that even mean – they're not your type of people?" Rigby finally asked. "What type of people are my type of people?"
"Well, you know, dude. They aren't really into videogames and pranks and stuff like that." Mordecai carefully tried to dodge the word 'immature' to avoid another argument and hurting Rigby's feelings.
"So what makes them your type of people, then?" Rigby demanded.
"I guess I'm starting to outgrow that kind of stuff." Mordecai said.
"What are you talking about, man? Are you feeling okay? Two days ago you were all about videogames and pranks. What the hell happened to you last night?"
"Nothing…I guess. They just seem to get me." Mordecai responded, not wanting to discuss his new pastime with Rigby.
"Who could possibly know you better than me?" Rigby questioned.
"Look dude, I already made plans tonight. Sorry." Mordecai was becoming slightly annoyed with Rigby's prying questions. "I promise we'll hang out tomorrow. Give me a break, okay?"
"Okay, okay. It's cool. You don't have to hang out with your best bro if you don't want to." Rigby teased. "Man, you sure have been acting weird since Margaret left."
"Ugh!" Mordecai groaned. He threw his rake down in frustration and took a seat on one of the nearby swings. He wanted nothing more than to change the subject. Rigby had no clue how to be tactful. If he wasn't bringing up Margaret again he was asking too many questions.
"Geez, sorry." Rigby finally noticed that the blue jay was becoming irritated by the direction the conversation was going. "I won't say anything else about it." He pretended to focus on halfheartedly gathering pinecones into a small pile while he waited for Mordecai to stand up and start raking again. "What do you say we blow this place and go to Cheezers now?" he asked after a few minutes of awkward silence.
"Yeeh-yah! That sounds like an awesome idea!" Mordecai agreed, glad Rigby wasn't going to push the issue any further.
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A/N:Thanks for reading. More soon!