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“So,” Ezekiel pushed Jake over so he could slip into the booth next to him. It meant both of them were facing Cassandra which was how Ezekiel liked it. Or not, well, not both of them but he liked to look at Cassandra but he also liked to give her space. Jake didn’t need as much space, he wasn’t skittish. “What were the two of you like with the apple?”
It was a question that had been bugging him all day. Or not, you know, not all day because he hadn’t known about the apple all day, primarily he had been thinking about pizza all day and now, finally, he was going to get some. Sure, he’d be sharing it, but at least eating pizza in a pizza parlor meant that no magical jerks were going to steal it.
Stealing his pizza, Dulaque, what a jerk.
“Uh,” Jake shifted further into the corner, across the table Cassandra flushed, “I tried to steal a painting.”
“Badly.” Cassandra volunteered while Ezekiel grinned. “He didn’t really try to steal it so much as tear it off a wall and tell everyone that they were wrong.”
“They were!” In the way of things, Jake started to shout and then quickly stifled himself. Ezekiel had to wonder how he thought he had hidden his intelligence from anyone, surely as a teenager he was the kind of guy to stand up in class and denounce abusive historical figures that had been canonized by the American educational system. “They were wrong, alright? Those two pictures had no right to be next to each other and I cannot believe those curators.”
“In Rome too,” they all smiles on the waitress when she dropped off Ezekiels (and he supposed Jake and Cassandra’s too) extra large, double cheese, double pepperoni pizza in front of them, “I’m kind of sad we didn’t get to really see Rome.” Cassandra frowned into her cheesy slice.
“Eh,” Ezekiel spoke around his mouthful of cheese, “Rome gets a lot of hype, so does Paris, but the big cities aren’t where the real fun is at.” They wer, however, where the real security was at. “And Cassie, you haven’t told me what you were like with the apple.”
He knew something was up from the way the other two silently chewed and swallowed their pizza. “Uh, I was…” Cassandra twisted in her seat, “bad.”
Ezekiel glanced between the two of them, something was up. “Well, yeah, that’s the point of the apple, right? It makes you the worst you there could be.” Which said something about Ezekiel’s life choices, he was okay with being the worst, though, someone had to be. After all, sometimes it helped save the day.
“No, I mean,” Cassandra waved a hand in the air, as if that would help her description any, “bad.”
“She tried to blow up Europe.” Jake stated gruffly.
Ezekiel had been getting the feeling that Jake was the kind of guy who ripped bandages off really fast for a while now. “Okay, so you tried to blow up Europe, I mean, pfft, Europe…” The other two were looking at him like he was unbalanced which, hey, he hadn’t tried to blow up Europe! “Just because you tried to blow up a continent doesn’t make you a bad person.”
“The whole point of the apple was to make you…” Jake bit off the rest of his sentence as well as half of his pizza. “Whatever, let’s just…”
“I was like, super-bad though.” Cassandra didn’t let it drop. “What does that say about me? I mean, Ezekiel was still Ezekiel and he’d never try to blow up Europe.” She looked at him with big doe eyes for confirmation and all he could do was smile and nod, he didn’t think he’d blow up Europe. “You, you just got mad about art, you do that anyway, but me… does that mean I’m a really bad person?”
“Or maybe it means you’re a really good person!” Ezekiel was quick to jump in. “See, me and Jones here operate on a limited scale of good and bad, my best isn’t really all that good, his worst isn’t all that bad either, but you’re,” perfect, beautiful, amazing, a lot of things Ezekiel didn’t want to say out loud because they would be admitting to feelings he was still in denial about, “you’re really good.” He continued lamely after a really, horrendously obvious pause. “So your bad has to be really bad to balance it out.”
Cassandra slowly nodded which, good, good, Ezekiel was glad his b.s. was believable. “I wonder if that’s why I had to take my dress off.”
He choked on his pizza which, okay, if you have never choked on a bite of cheesy, meat-y deliciousness, he did not recommend it. Once he had gotten it to go down the right way he blinked watery eyes up at her. “You… you were naked?”
“Not naked.” Jake was quick to cut in. “She had on like, leggings and booty shorts and… a sports bra?”
“That’s kind of naked, mate.” Ezekiel paused. “It’s half-naked, at least.”
Cassie was, of course, turning as red as her hair. “They weren’t booty shorts.” She protested.
Jake turned a small smile at him and said, in a mock-whisper, “They were leopard print.”
“Oh my god.” Cassandra hid her face in her hands while Ezekiel laughed.
“To be fair, Jake’s probably got way worse underwear.”
There’s another embarrassed pause. “They were a gift.”
It even gets Cassandra to laugh, albeit shyly. “Now I have to know, what are they? Smiley faces? Oh wait, is it like, the Mona Lisa on your ass?” Ezekiel is kind of amazed at how much Cassandra and Jake can blush. Cassandra, who blushes all the time, can go quite hot and red or she can do the classic ‘pink cheeks’ thing. Jake’s blush starts at his ears and slowly spreads down his neck and across his face. It’s like… like watching someone fill up a cherry big gulp. “They are, aren’t they.”
Cassandra hides her giggle behind her hand.
She gets a drop of tomato sauce on her nose.
“I’m not telling you.” Jake grits out, he fishes a paper napkin out of the dispenser and hands it over to Cassandra.
“What about showing us?” Ezekiel questions slyly, so slyly that it takes a few seconds before the other two stop and turn to stare at him. He grins. “I mean, you saw Cassie in her underwear, so it’s only fair that you show her yours. And I’ll join in too! Because then it’s a group thing and not weird.”
He is very firm on this not being weird. He’s not entirely sure they buy it.
“Do you have embarrassing underwear?” Cass asks because she is brilliant. From the shy sneaky peeks she is taking at Jake she totally wants to see his underwear too.
Too?
Whatever, Ezekiel only wants to see it to find out how ridiculous they are.
(Mostly. The guy is pretty fit.)
“Of course I do! Doesn’t everyone?” His weren’t a gift, well, not a traditional gift. They might have been a gift if he hadn’t stolen them. He liked them, alright, they had kitties on them and the person he stole them from never wore them anyway. “So, underwear party, Jake’s place, Saturday?” That would give them some time to prepare, wash the embarrassing underwear, Jake could clean up (and he’d probably attempt to hide his valuables, did he even have valuables?) and they could all silently spend a day panicking.
Neither of the other two complained so Ezekiel grinned and stood up. There was still half a pizza left and he signaled to the waitress that he’d like a box, the check, and maybe a prize for being the smartest guy on the planet. “Perfect!”
Maybe not the smartest. Sneakiest though, yeah, definitely sneakiest.