Archive of Our Own

As far as dreams went, this one was pretty good. She was wandering through some wide, sprawling garden she’d never seen before, the air yellow with pollen and warm sunshine. The breeze was crisp, there were bees buzzing cheerfully in the distance, the flowers were so bright that they almost made her eyes water, there were bees buzzing around, the grass tickled at her ankles, there were bees buzzing—

Sam woke suddenly, smacking at an itch on her shin. It took her a moment to realize through her bleariness that was no bee, on her leg or otherwise. Frowning, she blinked once, twice, three times to try and clear the sleep from her brain. Out of simple instinct, she reached for the table at her side, only then discovering the source of the buzzing that had woken her up.

Her phone. Obviously.

She couldn’t help but laugh at herself, if only a little, rolling her eyes as she readjusted herself on the lawn chair. Ooh, ouch. Was there anything gnarlier than skin on sticky plastic? A tiny voice in the back of her head warned her that yes, yes there was, and it was the sunburn she’d no doubt be dealing with, come tomorrow. Shaking her head, Sam unlocked her phone, using her other hand to shield her eyes against the fading afternoon sun, quickly reading through what she’d missed.

Josh
hey so question
id say something like random question only guess what
surprise
not random
like at all
super purposeful question actually
on a scale of 1-10
how interested would u b in some nefariousness
im talking schemes sammy
serious fuckin schemes

Now here…here was a quandary. She’d just been napping, and he’d woken her up for this? This was what was so important that she had to be burst out of her nice little summer dream? It would serve him right if she just ignored it, turned over, and went back to sun-dozing. But then again…on the other hand…

How am I supposed to answer when you didnt explain the scale to me

Josh
aw fuck my b
ok so on a scale of 1-10
where 1 is so uninterested ud rather go trim grammas toenails
and 10 is ur literally drooling at the thought
how interested r u

Hmmm
I guess you could put me at about a 7

Josh
ill TAKE it

Uh huh
So what kind of scheming did you have in mind

Josh
oh no no no clearly u dont know rule numero uno of duplicity
never discuss shit in writing
we need to talk face to face

Sam rolled her eyes but slid down further into the lawn chair, folding her knees up as she typed out her response.

This is starting to sound awfully suspicious

Josh
good
that sense of doubt will serve u well in life

Whatever
Did you have a meeting time in mind
Should I reserve the party room at Panera or something

Josh
nah no worries
but if u could like open the front door thatd b neat

She paused just long enough to look over her shoulder in the direction of the house. She glanced to her texts, then back up again, sighing tiredly through her nose as it all came together in her head. Instead of replying, she slid her phone into the pocket of her shorts, peeled herself off of the lawn chair, and opened the porch’s sliding door. Stepping into the house was like walking into a completely different weather zone, and she let out an embarrassing little sound when the air conditioning hit her skin, turning her sweat into goosebumps. Before she’d even made it all the way to the front door, she could see a warped image in the frosted glass of the entryway. “You’re a freak,” she called out in a singsong, hoping it was loud enough to be heard through the door. She undid the locks, swung it open, and leaned against the jamb. “How long have you been standing out here?”

Lifting his right arm up, Josh checked his wrist for a watch that wasn’t there. “Uh…I guess that depends.” His eyes flit back to her, “What answer would make you laugh, and what answer would prompt you to file a restraining order?”

Sam clucked her tongue, pulling a face that she hoped read more disapproving than amused. “You could’ve used the doorbell.”

“Okay, don’t you lecture me, Missy Miss. For your information, I did ring the bell. You didn’t answer.”

“Uh huh. Then you could’ve called.”

That time, it was Josh’s turn to pull a face. “Sammy. Sam. Samantha. It’s the year of our Lord 2015. Who the fuck calls people anymore? I mean come on.”

She made a show of rolling her eyes before stepping back, giving him room to walk past her, “A valid point. Stupid, but valid.” As he stepped around her, Sam shut the front door again, flicking the deadbolt into place. “I know you didn’t ask, but I was sleeping.”

“Eh, you don’t need more beauty rest than you’re already getting.”

“Wow.”

He waggled his eyebrows lasciviously, “Good wow? Bad wow?”

Sam led him into the living room, perching herself comfortably on the arm of the couch. “You know me, flattery will get you nowhere.”

“Hey, who’s flattering here? I just come bearing facts, Sammy, nothing more, nothing less.” He plopped himself down on the couch, leaning his back against the other arm of it, stretching his legs out across the cushions.

“Uh huh, uh huh…” It never failed to amaze her how Josh could throw himself into just about any place or situation and still seem perfectly at home. “Please, don’t let me stop you from continuing to throw out bad lines—far be it from me to hamper your game—but uh…you gonna like…explain this scheme of yours? Or was it just a ploy to come leech off my dad’s a/c?”

Seesawing his hand in the air, Josh shrugged. “A little of column A, little of column B, honestly.” He snickered when she stuck her tongue out, “Okay, okay! I’m gonna bring it in. Gonna put on a serious face, because this is some serious business.”

“Oh God, here we go.”

Josh leaned in a little closer to the middle of the couch, grinning that worrying grin of his. “So here’s the thing. You know me. I like to consider myself a patient man—an understanding man. A man of kindness, sympathy, and yes, dare I say, even empathy. I can sit back and bear with a lot, Sammy, a lot. But I have taken all I am willing to take, and I refuse to sit by and let this madness continue to pile up and up and up until it crushes us under its weight.”

To her credit, she waited until he stopped talking. Hands on her knees, mouth slightly open, eyes narrowed, Sam looked at him in much the same way she looked at a particularly horrible algebra equation. “Hey Josh?” she asked.

“Yeah-huh?”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

He leaned in even further, mouth still grinning but eyes deathly grim, casting his face into a strange mask of menace. “If I have to deal with Chris and Ash doing their stupid ‘will-they-won’t-they’ bullshit for one more day, I’m going to murder them.”

There was a beat. And then she barked out an entirely uncharacteristic laugh, sounding more like a crow’s scream than anything else. She clapped her hands over her mouth, but the damage had already been done—Sam tumbled onto the couch, shoulders heaving with her laughter. For a moment, she couldn’t rein it in, just nodding and waving at him to move his legs so she had more room. The jag tapered off as quickly as it came on, though, and she fanned herself with a hand as she caught her breath. “Oh my God. Let me just…let me get this straight, okay?” She straightened up, pulling her legs onto the cushions to sit crisscross. “You…” Sam lifted a finger, “Wake me up from my nap,” a second finger, “Drive to my house,” a third, “Give me this…stupidly dramatic monologue…and all for what? To ask me to play Cupid with you?”

Josh shrugged. “I mean, pretty much. Are you in?”

“Am I in?” She threw her hands up into the air, rolling her eyes to the ceiling. “Of course I’m in, are you kidding me? Don’t get me wrong, they’re cute and all, but God, sometimes I just wanna shake ‘em by the shoulders.”

“Preaching to the choir! Now. I dunno about you, but I’ve got some ideas I could use your help with…”

***

Sammy
The eagle has landed

oh yea?
thats how were doin this huh?
ok uh the crow flies at midnite

Sammy
YOURE the one who insisted on calling this a SCHEME
Im just trying to stick to that

the moss grows to the south

Sammy
Okay you know what

never eat soggy waffles

Sammy
Were in the historical fiction section you putz
Where are you

historical fiction huh
is that what the kids r callin those sexy pirate romance novels now
plunder that booty matey

Sammy
Josh

rip those corsets
yea yea yea
were in electronics
fuckin surprise of the century
so head towards uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
the recipe books
tell her u idk need more vegan shit
uve run out of exciting hummus recipes

Sammy
Impossible
All hummus is exciting
But gotcha

“Dude. Who the fuck are you texting? Nah, wait, hang on—who’s texting you? Y’know, I’m pretty sure that I’m the only person who texts you that much and uh…I’m standing right here. Getting totally ignored. My feelings? Crushed right now.”

Josh rolled his eyes, sliding his phone into his back pocket. “This will surprise you, but there are other people I talk to, Cochise.”

With a loud scoff, Chris scrunched his face into an almost comically disbelieving look. “Sounds fake, but…okay.” He went back to his self-appointed task of rearranging the Supernatural DVDs until they were horribly out of sequence. “Do people even watch this show anymore? I never got it. ‘Oh man, we’re brothers and we cry a lot, oh look, it’s the chupacabra!’"

“I don’t think they ever fought a chupacabra.”

“There’s like five hundred episodes, dude. Fuck, one of the main characters could be a chupacabra, for all you know.”

“One of the main characters could be boning a chupacabra, for all I know.”

“Eugh, I…” He paused and looked up from the shelves, upper lip curled. “Ew. I just remembered chupacabras are also called ‘goat suckers.’”

“Uh huh, see? Prime material for a steamy, romantic subplot.” Josh glanced around the store, already knowing full well it would be a futile effort to try and spot Sam or Ashley’s short-ass selves from over the shelves. “Or at least some real weird fanfiction. You fuckin’ done or what?”

“Am I—wait, the fuck? We were here because you said you were looking for something! Not me!”

He feigned surprise, pressing a hand flat against his chest as though to intone ‘What? Little old me?’ before leaning an arm against the shelf. “Well, uh, yeah. I was looking for something. Hannibal box set. They don’t have it. You, however, kept looking, so…”

“Oh yeah, clearly I’ve been super interested in this.”

Josh looked down to Chris’s handiwork. “I mean. You touched all of them. So one could say that yeah, you were interested. C’mon, let’s get to stepping, princess.” With the utmost ease of a spider luring a fly into its web, he began the short journey out of the electronics nook into the store proper, eyes scanning their surroundings.

“So in your mind, touching something means you’re interested, huh?”

“I mean, pretty much.”

“You know who else thinks like that? Babies.”

“Uh huh, uh huh, uh huh…well hey now…” It would’ve been easy to hide his smirk from Chris as he spotted the girls, but he turned to face him full-on, raising his voice just enough to be overheard by uncomfortable passersby. “Speaking of showing interest by touching on stuff…” He spun back around, spreading his arms wide in greeting, “Ladies! What a crazy, random happenstance to stumble upon the two of you!” No time was wasted in weaseling himself between the two of them where they stood in front of the recipe books; he draped an arm around Sam’s shoulders, an arm around Ashley’s, tugging them jokingly close. “Thank Christ you were here—I was starting to get real uncomfortable listening to Cochise telling me about this Supernatural fanfiction he was planning.”

“That’s not—!”

Josh lowered his head just slightly, making his voice somewhat more confidential. “Look, I don’t wanna get too into it, but there was a chupacabra involved, and—”

“Hi Josh,” Sam laughed, rolling her eyes for good measure.

Ashley’s obvious shock wore off after only a moment—it would’ve been apparent even to the strangers trying to give their aisle a wide berth that she was more than just slightly accustomed to this sort of behavior. “Joke’s on you, I’ve read Chris’s English essays. Fanfic’s a little outside of his purview.”

“Hey! I’m right here!”

“Hi Chris,” she added, and neither Josh nor Sam missed the dopey, sugary smiles the two of them exchanged. It was hard to miss those looks, given their sheer frequency. Chris and Ashley had a tendency to look at each other in the same way normal people looked at tiny kittens batting at string or puppies wearing baby clothes.

Never one to let a bit die before its time, Josh gestured with his hands, arms still around the girls. “Okay, you got me. It’s my fanfiction. I figured, hey, some people call chupacabras ‘goat suckers,’ right? So why not have them suck on some—”

“So what’re you guys up to?” Chris butted in, raising his voice significantly to drown Josh out.

Ashley shrugged with the shoulder not weighted down by Josh before wriggling her way out of his grasp. “Just hanging out! Uh…Sam wanted to check out the cooking stuff, I guess.” Even as she said it, Josh could see the first flicker of doubt in her eyes; Ashley was a suspicious one.

“Yeah,” Sam sighed, turning her attention to Chris. “You know how it goes. I, uh—” a momentary pause, “I ran out of exciting hummus recipes.”

Ashley’s doubtful look zipped from Chris to Sam before zeroing in on Josh with pinpoint accuracy. That wasn’t ideal—she had a track record of ruining perfectly good schemes before they were brought to fruition.

Thankfully, Chris took that moment to respond. “Uh…yeah, I could see how…that would be…a problem…?” He seemed to be trying to figure something out in his head, most likely making an attempt to nail down whether he’d ever experienced a hummus that excited him in any sense of the word. “Good…luck? Do I wish you luck on this endeavor? Is that the appropriate response, Sam?”

And just like that, Ashley’s Sherlockian tendencies were wiped clean. In a turn he’d seen a thousand-million-trillion times before, Josh watched the pinched look about her face melt and soften as she tried (and failed) to suppress her laughter. Then, like clockwork, came the brightening of Chris’s expression, the sudden surge of pride. Knowing they were too involved in their own bubble to pay him much mind, Josh turned to Sam, who interestingly enough hadn’t yet shrugged her way out from under his arm, lolling his tongue out of his mouth and pretending to gag.

She patted his arm in a show of solidarity, widening her eyes and tightening her lips in the universal sign for ‘Yeah, tell me about it.’ Sam threw one last glance over her shoulder, pretending to be considering the books before sighing. “You know what? Forget this. I’m not gonna find anything here.”

“Oh no?” Ashley turned back to her, tone apologetic but expression relieved. “You sure?”

“I am definitely sure. Hey, if you two aren’t like, late for something, wanna stop by the café and get a snack or something?”

There was no way on God’s green Earth Josh was going to let either of the others throw a wrench into the plan, so he answered just a little too quickly and a little too loudly. “I could absolutely go for an overpriced pastry, now that you mention it.”

***

They had maybe been at the table for five minutes—seven at the absolute outside—when Sam sat up a little straighter in her seat. “Oh! Shoot, before I forget, Josh, did you remember to bring—”

He barely let her voice trail off before nodding, patting his pockets until the jangle of his car keys could be heard. “Shit, you’re right. Yup, I gotcha covered, girl. C’mon, you wanna just nab it and move it to your car real quick?”

“Yeah, I just don’t want to blank out and forget again—hey, sorry guys, we’ll be right back.”

If either caught sight of Ashley’s disbelieving look, they showed no sign, instead very hurriedly scuttling their way out of the store’s café, towards the main entrance. She turned in her seat, tracking them until they disappeared out the door into the parking lot.

“Uh…oookay.” Chris swirled the contents of his cup absently, leaning back a bit further in his chair. “Do we wanna try and unpack…whatever that was?”

Slowly, she turned back to him, eyes narrowed in thought. “She left something at Josh’s?” Something in her tone suggestively suggested the ‘something’ in question was something suggestive.

“I drove here with him, I didn’t see anything in his car.” Frowning, he took a gulp of his coffee, contorting this way and that to try and steal of a peek of them from out of the window. But it was no good—their parking spot was nowhere near that part of the store. “The fuck could that be?”

Ashley was quiet for a short while, picking at the edges of her cookie more so than actually eating it. “So…hey…is it just me, or like…was it kind of…weird, all of us running into each other like this?”

He shrugged, reaching over across the table to steal a chunk of chocolate from said cookie. “I dunno, was it? It’s a small world, Ash, just like the song says.” As though to prove his point, he hummed a few bars, expertly avoiding the playful smack she aimed at his thieving hand. “Although…” And shit, now that she’d said it, dots were starting to pop up for him. Connectable dots. Connectable dots that seemed to be in some loose, nebulous blob beginning to take a more solid shape as he thought on it. “Josh was pretty insistent on coming here.”

“Why?”

“Said he wanted to look for Hannibal shit. You know how he is about movies and shows where people eat other people and then make bad puns about it. It’s like catnip to him. I don’t get it.”

Ashley was leaning forward on her elbows, then, affixing him with a familiar look. The look that seemed to scream ‘The hunt is afoot!’ “Sam called me out of the blue and asked me to come here with her.”

Well now he was suspicious, too. “For real?”

“Oooh yeah. It was super random, and I couldn’t figure it out, but I thought hey why not go out and be social, right? Only now…” Ashley looked around the café to the two or three other tables with patrons, leaning in closer again, “Do you kinda get the feeling that they…I dunno…just came up with some crappy excuse to leave us alone here?”

“Well yeah, Ash, I’m not a moron. The question is why?” Drumming his fingers atop the table, Chris looked over to the spot where Sam had been sitting, the corners of his mouth turning down in a frown. “Her coffee’s gonna get cold.”

“It’s iced, Chris, it’s fine.”

“Then it’s gonna get warm.”

She rolled her eyes and stifled another laugh. “Shut up. So…okay. I have a theory. But…maybe it’s stupid.”

“I love stupid things. I pride myself on being a stupid thing.”

“Oh trust me, I know.” There was no stifling that laugh. Ashley glanced over her shoulder briefly, if only to assure herself that Sam and Josh weren’t standing right there. “Okay, so…do you think it’s like…a date-thing?”

Chris felt his own face grow plasticy and tight as he fought against his body’s natural reaction to that. “Wait. Wait. Wh—what do you mean ‘date-thing’? How’s it a date thing?” He paused, feeling the telltale burning starting at the tips of his ears, “You think they’re like…setting us up?”

The question seemed to take her off-guard completely. Ashley’s chair let out a little squeal as she jumped in surprise, “I—no, that…no, I meant…” She averted her eyes, staring down to her half-eaten cookie as though it held all the answers to life’s questions. A quick, practiced shake of her head, and she hoped the worse of her flushing would be hidden by her hair. “I, um, I meant for…for them. Like it’s a date-thing for them.” Then, hoping it would sound less panicked out loud than it did in her head, “Not for us, that’d be…that’d be like super dumb, right?”

“Yeah,” Chris answered much too quickly, “Really dumb. I mean. Come on, right? Yeah. Uh. So. For them, you said?”

“Yeah, yeah, for them, like. Like they wanted an excuse. To be...” She felt like her heart might leap out of her throat if she kept her mouth open for too long. “Alone. Together.”

He cleared his throat a few times in rapid succession, sounding almost as if he was choking on something. Managing to collect himself at least a bit, Chris looked back down into his coffee cup. “Uh…I mean…it’s possible? Sure, yeah, okay, except I don’t…I mean, do you think Sam’s even into Josh? She doesn’t—”

Nerves crackling as they were, the laugh Ashley let out sounded fairly harried. “Yeah, um, duh? She’s…she’s definitely into him.”

Chris couldn’t help but look back up at that. “Wait. Hang on. Nonono, you hang on a hot second, Ashley Brown. Do you know something I don’t know, here? Did she say something to you?!” He hunched over the table, voice dropping into a conspiratorial hiss. “If Sam told you something, you have to tell m—”

“Oh my God. Chill out, would you? She didn’t say anything, so slow your roll.” She shook her head, still hesitant to risk eye contact. “Trust me, all right? I’m just super good at picking up on that stuff, y’know? I always know when people like other people. Crushes are like, the most obvious thing on the—what?” Her gaze strayed a little too far from her cookie, and she looked up at him just in time to catch the brunt of his disbelief. “What?”

Earlier embarrassment long forgotten, Chris simply blinked tiredly. He said nothing, only watching Ashley with a flat, almost bemused stare from over the rim of his cup.

“What?” she asked again, feeling her face grow warm again, that time for distinctly different reasons. “I’m super good at picking up on those vibes!”

“Oh yeah?” he asked tonelessly.

“Yeah???”

“You uh…you feeling confident about that one, Ash?”

“Yeah! Wh—am I missing something here?”

Chris sighed before waving her on. “No. Nope. Nothin’. Forget it. So the two of them, huh?”

Her cheeks puffed with indignation. “No, wait, seriously! What was that look for? I’m really, really good at—”

“Yeah, you’re like a human Buzzfeed quiz, Ash, you can spot a crush from twenty paces. Fine, I’m sorry for doubting you. Can we get back to the issue at hand, please?”

She threw her hands into the air, but did in fact let the topic drop. “I just think maybe…I don’t know, Josh mentioned to Sam you guys would be here or something, and so she asked me to come, so we could run into you guys, and then—”

“They could run off and leave us here, waiting for them like a pair of sad, kicked puppies.”

“I mean…I don’t know if I’d put it that way, but…but yeah, okay, that actually seems pretty on-the-nose.”

He seemed to think this over, setting down his coffee and folding his arms across his chest while he thought. “If that’s what they did, it’s a real bad plan.”

“Obviously. Sam’s not really a planner, is she? She’s more of a go-with-the-flow kinda person.”

“Sure doesn’t feel like one of Josh’s stupid schemes, either…”

Ashley snorted derisively, “Yeah, no. If they don’t jump out from around the corner screaming in an attempt to get us to have simultaneous heart attacks, it doesn’t quite feel like a Josh-Wash production, to me.”

He frowned again, more out of concentration than anything else. “Sooo…here’s the part where I ask you just…probably the most ridiculous question you’ve ever been asked.”

Eyebrows drawn, Ashley mirrored his posture, crossing her arms and leaning back. “Chris, every question you ask is the most ridiculous question I’ve ever been asked.”

“Oh har-dee-har-har. Have you ever considered a career in comedy?” He held a hand up in front of himself in a show of defensiveness, “You shouldn’t. You absolutely should not. You are, in fact, very bad at jokes.” She smacked his hand away, resulting in him momentarily pulling an agonized face. “No but seriously, if that’s what this is, fuck them. Don’t drag us out here and then bail. What is that?” He huffed a breath, pretending that his feelings were gravely hurt. “Know what we should do?”

A corner of her mouth began to curl upwards in a sneaky smile. “Well…a pettier person might suggest we give them a taste of their own medicine.”

Chris gasped, widening his eyes in a scandalized mask of shock. “Dang…guess it’s good we’re not petty, then!”

“Really good,” Ashley agreed with a nod. “Like super, super good.”

There was a pause, tense with excitement, and then Chris leaned into the middle of the table again. “Do you have any ideas?”

“I have so many ideas, Chris.” Ashley giggled behind a hand, grinning widely. “Okay, okay, so stick with me on this one. We convince them to take a road trip, okay? And we find out what hotel they’re going to stay at, and we convince the staff to give them a room with only one bed—”

He set his chin atop his hand, looking at her over the frames of his glasses. “Ash. I don’t. I don’t think that one’s…gonna work.”

“Okay, fine. So what if…okay, we tell them we want to go spend a weekend at the lodge.”

Chris sighed, the sound of it something small and nervous.

“Only, we mess with the electricity, so it’s like, real cold and they have to huddle for warmth. That’d be good.”

“First of all, you’re really worrying me with these suggestions. Secondly, you realize if we went on that trip, that would mean we would need to huddle for warmth too, right?” A beat. “You know what? I’ve been thinking about it a little more. Go ahead and put that one in the ‘Maybe’ column.”

“Ha ha. You got anything better?”

“Do I have anything better than that? Yeah, Ash. Yeah I got a few ideas.”

***

Sam hadn’t been quite sure whether or not she was walking into a trap. There were a few red flags flip-flapping in the breeze, and yes, she’d chosen to ignore them for the most part, but every so often one would bob to the top of her mind like a fishing lure—bright, warning, but baited deliciously.

For one, the restaurant they were supposed to be meeting at was a little…pricier than what the gang usually did. They were usually fast food people, maybe Applebee’s people. The Italian place off of Main was not that. Call that Red Flag 1. She did, however, love garlic bread enough to overlook that.

Then there was the fact that Chris had been the one to suggest it in the group text. That, in and of itself, was an oddity. Chris wasn’t usually the ringleader on outings like this—that was usually Josh’s domain, or Ashley’s, if the mood struck her. However, again, there was garlic bread on the line, so it was easy enough to accept the idea that Chris was just taking some initiative and defying the group’s dynamics. Fine, cool.

There was another red flag, though…one that perhaps wasn’t as big as the other two, but somehow felt…badder. Like it was the granddaddy of all red flags; the red flag from whose cloth all other red flags were cut. And that, ladies and gents, was the memory of the looks Chris and Ashley had given her and Josh after their little bookstore rendezvous earlier in the week. They hadn’t been the shy, sheepish, embarrassed looks she and Josh had expected—oh no. No, they had been…what, knowing? Expectant? When Sam had seen them, it had read to her as the dorks’ approximation of what cool and calculating was supposed to look like. Sure, it had been days, but that memory weighed on her.

It was only once she actually stepped into the restaurant, weaved her way through the tables to find them, and saw the way Ashley was already watching her that she realized it was too late. Whatever this trap was, it had snapped.

She smiled anyway and sat in the seat left open for her. “Hello hello,” Sam said cheerfully enough, catching the quickest peek of Ashley texting something under the table. “How we all doing?”

Josh was in the midst of folding what appeared to be a horribly misshapen origami phallus from his straw’s wrapper. “Oh, you know, Sammy. Same shit, different day.”

“Yeah, not a whole lot,” Ashley sighed, turning her phone over when she felt the heat of Sam’s eyes. She rested an elbow up on the table, absently spinning one of her forks around on the while tablecloth. “Hey, remind me, you said you’re going camping with your dad next weekend, r—”

“Aw shit, hang on a sec guys, sorry.” Chris fumbled as he pulled his phone out of his pocket, swiping at the screen before holding it up to his ear. “Hey Ma, I—uh huh. Okay. Oh yeah? That s—really? No, it’s fine, it’s fine, we’ll be right there.” Without another word, he hung up, flashing the table an apologetic look.

Ashley, Sam noted, was already halfway out of her own seat.

“Real sorry guys, my mom and Ash’s mom are working on this thing for a charity dinner or something, I don’t even know—they need our help, so we gotta bail.”

“Oh shoot! Ah well, you guys have fun.” Ashley scrunched her face up in what was likely meant to be a disappointed smile, but missed the mark by a country mile.

“Should we just rain check?” Josh asked, quirking an eyebrow suspiciously as he watched the two of them scramble up. “We can do this another time, it’s no big.”

“Nah, you’re already here, the server’s already coming back to take the order, just…” Ashley waved them off, trying to covertly nudge Chris towards the door. “We’ll just see you later, okay? Bye!” And then the two of them were gone, quickly disappearing into the amorphous cluster of people waiting for tables.

Neither Sam nor Josh said anything for a good minute, both simply staring towards the direction of the door as the sounds of the restaurant carried on around them, quiet conversation and the muted clink of silverware against plates.

Josh took in a deep breath through his nose, released it in a quiet whistle, and without turning to her, asked Sam, “That wasn’t a real call.”

“Nope.”

“There was no one on the phone.”

She shook her head. “No there was not.”

Nodding pensively, Josh cocked his head to the side, staring at the exit sign over the door. He remained that way for a second or two as he came to terms with what it meant. “Those morons set us up on a date, huh?”

“Ayup.” She reached over to the glass of water Ashley had left behind, taking a sip from it.

“They think this is about us, don’t they?”

“Sure seems that way.”

He chewed that thought over for a long moment before reaching into the bread basket, pulling out a roll and splitting it with his hands. “Those fuckers are the stupidest smart people I know.”

“They sure are,” Sam sighed, grabbing a roll as well. “Cute, though.”

“Mhm, sure, if you’re into dad-bods and redheads, I guess.” He lifted his glass, holding it out towards her, smirking when she met it with her own with a tiny, crystalline ting! of a toast. “What absolute fucking idiots. You know we have to do something about this.”

“Well clearly.” She covered her mouth with a hand as she answered, already munching away.

***

The theater was already dark when they filed in, Ashley trying to manage a bucket of popcorn that likely weighed half as much as she did, Josh already more than two-thirds of the way through a bag of Sour Patch Kids, Chris and Sam locked in some sort of strange staring contest as they tried to understand each others’ motives.

The issue at hand was that all four of them knew that whatever this was, it was a capital-T ‘Thing.’ A Thing with a Purpose. They were like the world’s worst four spies, trying to stay one step ahead of each other, trying to predict the others’ next steps…and failing at every given opportunity.

Still, they might’ve been able to pretend that wasn’t the case, to overlook all of it, if Josh hadn’t promptly and firmly directed them to the back row of seats. He gestured to them, beckoning them to take their seats with a sweep of his arm, and all of them exchanged looks again.

Everyone knew the back row was the kissin’ row.

So suspicions were high.

Ashley headed in first, followed by Chris, then Sam, leaving Josh to plunk himself down into the aisle seat. Another round of questioning looks were sent up and down the row before Ashley made the first offer of popcorn, and they all dropped their guards to grab greedy handfuls.

The theater darkened fully a moment later, the trailers beginning to play, and for thirty, maybe forty minutes, they all forgot about the Thing looming between them.

It wasn’t until some time later (roughly at the point in the movie where the uptight lady assistant was being torn to shreds by pterodactyls) that the Thing reared its ugly head again.

Chris frowned when there was a tapping at his shoulder; he turned to his right, spotting Josh’s hand, then glancing over Sam’s head to see Josh, himself, staring pointedly at him. He raised his eyebrows in a bid at silent communication, but Josh just mimicked the movement, flicking his eyes somewhere over Chris’s shoulder. Not wanting to groan aloud, Chris rolled his eyes instead, clearly mouthing ‘What?’ to him.

Josh raised his right hand, closest to the aisle, waggling his fingers to try and pull Chris’s attention there. When he saw it had worked, he held up a finger to signify ‘Hang on a hot sec.’ He then craned his right arm over his head, pointing purposefully downwards to his left arm.

He stared, clearly not comprehending, and just shook his head. After another second or two of watching Josh point, Chris scowled, turning his own hands palm-up to show he didn’t get it. Right before his eyes, Josh’s expression went from sly and self-assured to exasperated, his smirk slackening into a frown. Had he been a little closer, Chris had a good feeling he would’ve heard Josh cluck his tongue like a disappointed parent.

Trying one more time, Josh pointed, this time waving his finger back and forth in a pendulum motion as well.

That time it clicked: He was drawing attention to the fact that his arm was around Sam’s shoulders. All right, that made more sense.

Chris shrugged again, putting on an exasperated smile of his own before flashing him a double thumbs-up.

And again, Josh rolled his eyes. He fixed Chris with a sharp glare, the likes of which he absolutely could not interpret.

‘WHAT?!’ he mouthed again, stretching his mouth to drive home his frustration.

The sounds of tourists screaming and dinosaurs running rampant really did serve as the perfect background track to the scene unfolding between them. Josh entertained the thought of leaning over Sam and grabbing Chris by the front of the shirt for a moment, but it was a fleeting thing. Instead, he dropped his left hand from Chris’s shoulder, jostling Sam to get her attention. When she turned to him, he silently sighed, nodding towards Chris.

Sam turned to Chris, reeled back slightly at the expression on his face, and then back to Josh. All it took was one look—one look they had both grown very used to giving one another, just of late—and she understood. Without saying a word, Sam nodded, turning back to Chris. She patted his hand soothingly, trying to figure out how she was going to mime the situation to him. After a few seconds of thought, her nodding grew firmer, and she held her index finger up to Chris. ‘Step one,’ she mouthed, nudging Josh with her elbow while simultaneously wiggling her shoulders. Thankfully he caught on, making exhausted, unblinking eye contact with Chris as he snaked his arm around Sam’s shoulders. She held a second finger up to Chris and mouthed ‘Step two’ before turning herself just slightly, still facing him, but nestling herself closer against Josh, going so far as to set her head against his shoulder. Then she lifted a third finger. ‘Step three,’ she mouthed before turning away from him and tilting her face up, unable to keep from smiling as Josh met her lips in a soft, sweet kiss that probably went on just a little longer than it needed to.

When they broke apart to look back to him, Chris was watching the both of them with the expression of a man who just witnessed an honest-to-God alien abduction.

With his left hand again, Josh poked Chris’s shoulder roughly, flicking his fingers over to gesture towards Ashley. He and Sam gave him eerily identical stares, pointedly looking from him to Ashley and back again, waving their hands expectantly.

Turning abruptly, Chris whapped Josh’s hand away, doing a little gesturing of his own. He pointed at the two of them with an accusatory finger before jabbing it towards his own face, mouthing over and over again, ‘YOU KISSED?! YOU KISSED?!’

They nodded, shrugging, still trying to divert his attention to Ashley instead of them.

It was at that moment that Ashley leaned over of her own volition, whispering curtly, “Hey, you guys are totally missing the movie.”

Chris whirled back to her, still madly gesturing.

“What?” she whispered, wincing when someone a few rows up turned around and glared at them.

He pointed fervently to Josh and Sam, mouthing something absolutely unintelligible.

She shook her head and shrugged as best she could with the popcorn on her lap, staring wide-eyed. “What?!” she hissed again.

By about that time, he had realized it was a losing battle, throwing his hands in the air and actually standing, making curt gestures to try and get the others to follow suit.

Ashley shot a wistful look at the screen before noticing that yeah, okay, the other three were leaving, and she dutifully followed along after them, resigning herself to not knowing how the movie ended.

The lobby of the theater was conspicuously empty at that time, meaning there was no one to give them strange looks as Chris’s low muttering became something significantly louder. “You kissed?!” he half asked, half-accused, looking from Josh to Sam in much the same way Ceasar likely looked at Brutus.

Nearly dropping the popcorn, Ashley gaped. “Wait—what?!”

“So this isn’t totally going to plan, huh?” Josh didn’t even turn to Sam as he said it—he just continued to watch as Chris and Ashley had their own self-contained personal crises at the revelation.

Sam shrugged. “I don’t know…this is pretty much how I imagined things would end up.”

It was Ashley’s turn to look at them, the perfect image of confusion. “Wait, you kissed?!”

“Yeah,” Sam sighed, “We do that sometimes.”

That comment clearly wasn’t being processed by either of them.

Trying to salvage the situation as best she could, Ashley shook her head. “Wait. Just. Hang on. No, see, the other day, you guys were sneaking off to ditch us and—”

“Give you some alone time,” Josh droned, causing Ashley and Chris to both look to him, eyes wide with something like dawning horror. “Mhm. And…?”

It was obvious at once to both Sam and Josh that it was taking every fiber of Chris and Ashley’s concentration to keep from looking to one another; they would steal quick, fleeting glances from the corners of their eyes, but they both seemed to be doing their damnedest to not acknowledge the other. There it was! There was the look they’d been expecting from Day 1. Christ, that had taken longer than expected.

“…no,” Ashley started again, slower and quieter, that time. “You were trying to be alone, so we—”

“Set us up, yeah,” Josh finished for her, raising an eyebrow. “And like…thanks, that was real nice, and all, but sort of…” he glanced to Sam, shrugging, “‘Unnecessary,’ I guess would be the word.”

If not for the electronic dinging of the arcade off in the corner, the drop of a pin could’ve been heard as they were left to grapple with that.

But if there was anything the lot of them knew, it was that Josh was not friends with quiet—no sir, no ma’am, not even a little bit. He set his hands on his hips, bobbling his head from side-to-side as he asked, “Isn’t this the part where one of you doofuses goes, ‘B-b-but why were you trying to set us up, then?’” He raised an eyebrow, looking Chris up and down once before doing the same to Ashley, gauging their reactions. “No? No one? Bueller? Bueller? Okay, great, cool, awesome, sweet. So we don’t have to go into the whole spiel about how you two’ve been in love since middle school? Nice! Think of all the time that saves. Well, now that we’ve lifted the curtain kiddies, let’s just fuckin’…be adults then…and just….” He stepped forward, none-too-gently grabbing one of Chris’s arms, then one of Ashley’s, sandwiching their hands together between his own. “Aaaand there we go! Perfect. Congrats, mazel tov, I’m feeling all choked up and teary. Can we get on with our lives now, please?”

Sam wanted to laugh—God she wanted to laugh. She’d never seen any human being get quite as red as Chris and Ashley were in that precise moment, and she had the sinking suspicion she’d never see it again. She kept herself from giggling, though, knowing full well from the looks on their faces that this was a…well, a fragile emotional moment. So she did her best to keep herself restrained to a smile, shrugging her shoulders airily. “Aw man, see how easy that was?” It was very hard to fight back the laughter when Josh joined her again, letting his arm wrap around her shoulders comfortably. “You guys hungry?” she asked, “I could go for some dinner.”

“Read my mind, Sammy. C’mon Ron, Hermione, let’s get some chow, yeah?”

“They gonna be okay?” Sam asked as they made their way out of the theater, “I’m not sure they’re following us.”

Josh scoffed, “Yeah, yeah. They’ll be fine. Just, I dunno, give ‘em a few minutes. They’ll figure it out.”

He wasn’t wrong. It did take a few minutes. It was like everything sort of snapped together all at once, the reality of the conversation synching up with everything else, hitting Chris and Ashley hard enough to cause some sort of whiplash. They managed to catch up to Sam and Josh, even though it meant hurrying before they made it to the parking lot.

And to their credit, when they caught up to the other two, their fingers were laced.