by Ali House
“Do you have any requests?”
“I’m not picky. I’ll drink and eat whatever you come back with.”
Naydir nodded and moved over to Vaughn’s room.
Since the pizza was going to be a while, Kit unpacked a few more boxes before going downstairs. She didn’t have much stuff, thanks to her months of living frugally. In fact, her room looked quite sparse. She made a mental note to purchase some more furniture to help fill up the space.
When she walked downstairs, Zenyth, Cale, and Bryanna were already sitting in the middle of the living room. Kit wondered why nobody had decided to sit on the furniture but said nothing as she joined them.
“Have a drink,” Cale said as she sat down, handing her a cold bottle from the box near him.
Kit took it, and used her shirtsleeve to twist off the top. “I thought Naydir was getting the beer.”
“I came prepared,” Cale replied, taking a drink. “All moving days have to finish with beer – it’s an unwritten rule. I didn’t bring enough for everyone, though.”
“I guess we should wait for Naydir to come back before we start getting to know each other,” Kit said carefully. She had a feeling that Zenyth would be thinking along that line.
As expected, Zenyth nodded. “We can talk about boring stuff until he gets back.”
“Like why Zenyth’s the only person who can have her furniture out?” Bryanna asked, gesturing around the room. “And why my stuff has to be relegated to storage?”
“I got here first, and I like how it’s set up.”
“If I’d known that was the rule, then I’d have moved in the day after Triton asked. It’s not like I brought a whole living room set, just an armchair and a small table.”
“Well you can put your chair in your room if you want to be near it so badly,” Zenyth remarked. Bryanna gave her a dirty look in reply.
“Aren’t we supposed to be working together?” Cale asked innocently.
“Working together involves compromise and understanding,” Bryanna informed him while staring at Zenyth.
“And focusing on things that are more important than furniture,” Zenyth shot back.
“I see we’re becoming fast friends,” Vaughn remarked as he walked into the living room.
“We’re trying to avoid the big stuff until Naydir comes back,” Kit said. “That only leaves the little, angry things.”
Cale handed him a beer and Vaughn sat down next to Kit. Kit tried not to smile at his proximity. They all had important things to do, none of which included developing a crush on another team member.
“That makes sense, I guess,” Vaughn said. “Although we can’t keep waiting until everyone’s here before we talk about anything.”
“This is the big one,” Zenyth explained. “This is the one where we get to know all the interesting things about each other. After this I don’t care.”
“Probably because you’re going to hate us all,” Bryanna said pointedly.
Zenyth didn’t respond, but Kit wasn’t sure whether it was because she hadn’t heard or because she actually was planning on hating them all.
“I wonder if they’ll let us stay here after the job’s done,” Vaughn said. “This is a nice place.”
“We’ll probably be sick of each other by then…” Zenyth muttered.
Bryanna almost snorted with laughter. “You’re such an optimist.”
“I’m a realist.”
“That’s just another word for pessimist.”
Zenyth frowned. “Just because reality is depressing, it doesn’t make me a pessimist. I can be positive about a lot of things.”
“Name one.”
“I’m positive that beer and pizza will make this night better.”
“I agree with her,” Cale said, taking a long drink. “See, beer makes everything better.”
“Of course you’d think that,” Bryanna remarked.
“So what kind of pizza is Naydir getting?” Vaughn asked.
“Mushroom, Greenie, Cheese, Mediterranean, Garden, Hawaiian, and garlic fingers,” Bryanna said, counting off on her fingers. “He said there’d be something for everyone.”
“That should be enough for us for a week.”
“Speak for yourself,” Cale scoffed, opening another beer. “I’m starving.”
“I hope Naydir gets back soon,” Bryanna said. “Cale’s going to finish off all the beer.”
“It’s my beer and I’m generously sharing it.”
“You’re drinking it twice as fast as any of us!”
“That’s my normal drinking pace.”
Zenyth smirked. “I believe him.”
Suddenly they heard the sound of a car horn.
“That’s Naydir,” Zenyth said, putting down her drink and standing up. “He’ll need some help carrying everything.”
Vaughn agreed to help and the two of them went outside. They returned with Naydir, a pile of pizza boxes, and two large cases of beer.
“The beer’s cold, so we can start right away,” Naydir said, putting one of the cases on the floor. Vaughn carried the other one into the kitchen to put in the fridge. Bryanna followed him, saying that they needed plates and napkins, while Kit helped Zenyth spread the pizza boxes on the floor.
When Vaughn and Bryanna returned, everyone dug in, and for a while it was quiet. Kit hadn’t realized how hungry she was until Zenyth opened the first box and the scent of fresh pizza filled the room. She quickly finished off her first slice and reached for a second.
“Are we allowed to get to know each other yet?” Bryanna asked, reaching for her second piece.
“Can’t talk, eating,” Cale mumbled around a mouth full of Hawaiian pizza.
“We’re all here, so I give my permission. Let the learning begin,” Zenyth proclaimed.
Silence followed. They all exchanged glances, hoping that someone else would start things off. Kit had no idea where to begin – she only knew what she didn’t want to talk about.
“This is a great start,” Zenyth muttered. “Okay, well, Naydir and I are originally from Cambria and we moved here two years ago to join the Stanton Police Force. So if any of you do anything illegal, I will haul your law-breaking asses in.”
“I’ll probably give you a warning first,” Naydir added.
“I’m from Cambria, too,” Vaughn said.
“Really? I don’t remember seeing you around.”
“My father’s a Major, so I grew up on base. I moved here a year ago to work on my photography.”
“Were you in the army?”
“Yes, but I’m not anymore.” Vaughn didn’t elaborate.
“I moved here to work at an architect firm,” Kit said, taking the focus away from Vaughn. “I’m formerly from Briton and I really don’t want to talk about it.”
Zenyth frowned. “Of course you don’t walk to talk about Briton. Being an Elemental and having to live in Briton? Just shoot me now.”
“Well, I’m from Drakkar, but I moved here six years ago,” Bryanna said. “I work at Tattooed, the bar down on South Street.”
Cale took a swig of beer before talking. “I’m from Stanton and I haven’t been anywhere else. My current place of employment is Jake’s Garage, so I’m okay to help any of you out with your cars, as long as you don’t get annoying about it.”
“Well, that’s the boring stuff out of the way,” Zenyth said.
“Should we move onto the interesting stuff?” Bryanna asked.
“Like what?”
“I vote that we play a game!”
“A game?” Zenyth said warily. “What kind of a game?”
“A get to know each other game – a fun one!” Bryanna was practically jumping out of her skin she was so excited. “Someone names a moment, like most embarrassing or best kiss or worst day, and then we all have to tell each other about that moment. It’s a great way to learn about people.”
Zenyth looked around the room. “Anyone disagree?”
Nobody did.
&nbs
p; “Okay, let’s play that game. Do you want to go first, Bryanna?”
Bryanna smiled. “Okay, everyone tell me about your first kiss starting with… Vaughn!”
Vaughn was silent for a few seconds. “Well, if you must know, I’m not sure who my first kiss was with. I was in grade 7 and I snuck off the base with some friends to go to a late movie. We met some other kids at the movie and started pairing off. I was paired with this girl that I’d never met before, but everyone was always talking about kissing, and so we tried it.”
“What the heck…” Zenyth said, her eyes growing wide. “That was you?”
“What?”
“My first kiss was with some random guy at a movie!”
Vaughn’s mouth dropped open. “Really?”
She burst out laughing. “No, I’m just messing with you. My first kiss was Rik Aster, when I was sixteen. He begged me to kiss him because he’d never kissed anyone and the other kids were teasing him. We were friends, so I agreed. I also said I’d punch him if he told anyone that it was bad.”
Naydir smiled. “My first kiss was Rik’s older brother, Viktor. I was fifteen, he was seventeen, and he was a lot cuter than Rik.”
“Yeah, he was,” Zenyth said. “It figures that you’d get the cute one.”
“My first kiss was when I was sixteen, to this girl Allison Belmir,” Cale said. “It was another first too, if you get what I mean.”
“All too well,” Bryanna said, wrinkling her nose. “What about you, Kit?”
“Well, since most of the people in Briton were Humanists, I didn’t kiss anyone until first year university. There was this random girl at a party, and I just thought ‘why not?’ I don’t think I was any good, though.”
“I never took you for a random-person kisser.”
Kit shrugged. “It was college.”
Bryanna laughed. “Hey, I’m not judging. In fact, you should do that kind of thing more often.”
It might have been the alcohol or her current proximity to a certain red-head, but Kit could feel herself starting to blush at Bryanna’s words. She turned her head to the side and took a long drink.
“Well, my first kiss was Anika Fillips. I was thirteen and she was fourteen, and she was really cute,” Bryanna said cheerfully. “Now, who wants to choose the next question?”
Naydir cleared his throat. “I’ll choose the next one and I’ll make it less embarrassing. What’s the worst job you’ve ever had?”
“Planting trees,” Cale said. “Years ago I joined up with some buddies to plant trees on Drakkar and it was sooo boring. I quit after three days and hitchhiked home.”
“I worked for the Church of Humanity for a summer.” The look on everyone’s face made Kit laugh. “My step-father signed me up and I couldn’t quit. Worst summer of my life.”
Zenyth shook her head. “What a jerk. My mother had me work at a clothing store one summer. She thought it might make me less hostile and more patient.” She took a drink. “It only made me more hostile.”
“Well, I’ve never had a really horrible job,” Bryanna said. “There are parts of my jobs that I dislike, like when the customers at the bar get too grabby. There’s a time and a place, people.”
They turned to Vaughn.
“It wasn’t really a job, but scrubbing a floor with a toothbrush is really annoying,” he said.
“They actually made you do that?” Kit asked.
He nodded. “I still have an innate hatred of toothbrushes.”
The two of them laughed and Kit couldn’t help smiling. Her self-enforced solitary had made her forget how much fun it was to hang out with friends.
“I bet I know what your worst job is.” Zenyth smiled at her brother.
“It’s this restaurant I once worked at in Cambria,” he said. “It was an okay place, but the owner’s wife like to hire a lot of men and she was... well, very comfortable around them.”
His sister laughed. “One time she pinched his butt so hard that he had a bruise for a week.”
“She caught me off guard.”
“She sounds like some of the people at the bar,” Bryanna said. “What’s the next question?”
They tossed around a few more subjects such as favorite book, worst vacation, and the person who annoys you the most. By the time they reached favorite school subject, it was almost eleven o’clock. They had eaten two-thirds of the pizza and were halfway through the last case of beer. The mood in the house was definitely more relaxed.
“My favorite subject was detention,” Cale said proudly, his words slurring slightly.
“Figures,” Bryanna smirked. “You probably spent more time there than any other class.”
“I cut all my other classes, which is why they kept giving me detention.”
Kit had noticed that during the course of the evening Bryanna’s feigned annoyance with Cale had turned into flirting.
“My favorite subject was dance,” Bryanna said proudly, gracefully moving her arm out and curving it up over her head. “My teacher said I was a natural.”
“That’s the same thing my fight instructor said to me during training,” Zenyth sighed, smiling at the memory.
“I’m going to put the rest of the pizza in the fridge,” Naydir remarked. “It’s going to go bad if it’s left out all night.”
“Pizza never goes bad,” Cale informed him.
“I’ll help,” Vaughn said. He helped Naydir gather the boxes and carry them into the kitchen.
When they’d left the room Zenyth turned to Bryanna. “So, do we know each other well enough yet?”
Bryanna shook her head. “No. Nobody’s picked the most embarrassing moment yet.”
Cale winked at her. “I was going to ask about a different first, if you know what I mean.”
“Josep Vue, seventeen,” she said to him before turning back to Zenyth. “I want to hear about everyone’s most embarrassing story.”
“Who cares if we don’t talk about being embarrassed?” Zenyth said. “We’ve talked about a lot today.”
“I care. Your most embarrassing moment can define you as a person. It lets you know your own limitations.”
Zenyth gave her an unimpressed look.
Bryanna giggled. “I just like hearing about people being embarrassed. It’s fun.”
The idea of discussing embarrassment didn’t appeal to Kit, but she was glad that the conversation had moved away from Cale’s question. As relaxed as she was, she really didn’t want to answer that question around this group of people.
When Vaughn and Naydir came back, Zenyth informed them that they were moving onto most embarrassing moment, as per Bryanna’s request. Then she told Bryanna that since it was her idea she had to start.
Bryanna laughed. “Well, I don’t get embarrassed easily, but when I was a kid my mother told me something that embarrassed me at the time. See, my father and mother were both light skinned, so when I was born with darker skin, he accused her of cheating on him. She just said ‘independent genes’ and left it at that. He couldn’t argue, because of independent genes and all that stuff, so he accepted it. Then, when I was ten years old, she let it slip to me that he wasn’t actually my father. It was really embarrassing to call him ‘dad’ after that.”
“Did he ever find out?” Kit asked.
“Well, he left a few months later, so I’m going to assume he did. Cale, your turn.”
“Most embarrassing… That’d be the time I was stripped down to my boxers and taped to the flagpole during high school. It was a hazing ritual that the grads did every year. Thing was, I’d pissed off a lot of teachers, so nobody cut me down until lunch.”
“Good for them,” Zenyth muttered.
“And yours is...?” he said, looking at her.
“My most embarrassing moment was when I got caught shoplifting. I’d just joined the force and some idiot-”
“Iain,” Naydir interjected.
“-dared me to shoplift from a store. I got caught, but only because that bastard
told on me. Luckily, I was able to talk my way out of it by saying that I was a police trainee and was testing the store’s security. ”
“You were pretty lucky.”
“And I got Iain back good.”
Naydir smiled. “My most embarrassing moment was when I worked at that restaurant I told you about. I was on my break and Viktor had come to say hi. We were out back, and, well...”
Bryanna’s mouth dropped open. “Seriously?”
“Not that. We were just kissing. Anyway, the owner’s wife saw us and she must have told her husband, because one day later the two of them were pinching me. I quit soon after.”
“Quite a couple,” Kit remarked.
“Yeah,” Zenyth scoffed. “They made quite a team.”
“Your turn, Kit,” Bryanna said.
She paused and looked at the floor. “Umm...” She’d been trying to think of a proper embarrassing moment, but only one moment came to mind. “Well, I didn’t get my vision until really late on my birthday. I was in the school library when it hit and I ended up passing out. When I woke up there were a bunch of people around me. Turns out I’d screamed so loud that they’d thought someone was being murdered. Not good for a library close to midnight.”
She gave a nervous laugh, but nobody else joined in. Instead everyone was staring at her, confused.
“You screamed and passed out?” Zenyth asked with her usual bluntness.
“I...” Kit suddenly felt like an idiot. “It caught me by surprise.”
“But you screamed. And passed out.”
“I’ve never heard of that happening before,” Bryanna said, “and I know a bunch of Electricity Elementals.”
“That is strange,” Naydir added.
“We haven’t heard mine yet,” Vaughn said.
Kit was relieved to have the attention away from her, but she still felt like an idiot. She could barely listen to Vaughn. Why had she said anything? They’d been having such a good time and she’d let her guard down, and said the wrong thing. Now they all probably thought that she would faint at the first sign of danger. The look on Zenyth’s face confirmed that.
Everyone went on telling stories, but Kit couldn’t join in like before. She tried to smile and laugh, but inside she was still embarrassed. She’d forgotten herself and said something that shouldn’t have been said. She couldn’t let that happen again.
