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In all honesty, the dining halls at Nico’s small college were nothing special. They had the same bland-tasting and questionably-healthy food as every other dining hall in the state. The real entertainment of the dining hall, in Nico’s opinion, was when Leo decided to challenge his extensive knowledge of horror movies, which led to an argument, which led to Nico calling ChaCha to confirm what Leo should have already known, that Nico was completely and irrefutably correct.
“There are two endings to Paranormal Activity,” Leo said, as Jason and Hazel exchanged eye rolls in the background.
“No, there’s three,” Nico insisted.
“Jason and I just watched the movie last night, there’s two endings.” Leo motioned to Jason, who quickly stood up and mumbled something about going to grab a brownie.
Not that Nico blamed him for that. Today’s argument had been caused by Nico making a passing reference about how Clue (1985) and Paranormal Activity had the same amount of endings. Which Leo had refuted. Even though Leo was wrong, like always.
“The official DVD version of the movie has the two endings, but there was supposed to be a different ending when it was first shot. It got scrapped after only being shown in public once.”
Leo rolled his eyes and huffed. “It doesn’t count if it was only shown once.”
“Oh, really?” Nico pulled out his phone, flipping the lid of his phone and typing in the familiar phone number in. “Want to prove it?”
Jason looked relieved as he sat down again, taking a bite of his brownie. “Oh thank god, the argument’s almost over.”
Hazel sighed. “Next thing you know, they’ll be fighting over how much the ChaCha employee can be considered an authority figure.”
Nico frowned. “The ChaCha guy is an authority. He’s literally hired to know answers to things. Haven’t you seen any of the ads?”
“You’re only saying that because he agreed with you saying that Taylor Swift’s debut album should be represented by the color green and not teal.”
Hazel sighed, mumbling an apology to Jason for ever bringing it up in the first place. Nico felt bad sometimes for subjecting his friends to his and Leo’s dumb yet overly competitive arguments, but to be fair, Jason signed up for this by demanding that Nico eat with Jason instead of by himself.
Nico rolled his eyes, listening to the robotic voice rattle off the voicemail message. “That’s because we’re both right.” The voicemail ended, and Nico cleared his throat. “How many endings are there to the movie Paranormal Activity ?”
Nico hung up, already feeling triumphant as he leaned back in his chair, awaiting the response.
“At least I’m not the one who fell for the ‘new Taylor Swift single’ link those Kayne fans sent out,” Leo muttered. He reached for a piece of Jason’s brownie, but Jason pushed his hand away, as if silently scolding him for trying to bring up past arguments.
“At least I’m not the one who thought there was a ninth Taylor Swift album,” Nico shot back. His phone lit up with the message alert, and he eagerly checked it. “See? I told you, ChaCha agrees with me. There are three endings to Paranormal Activity, and–” Nico froze, re-reading the text message from ChaCha.
There are three endings to Paranormal Activity (2007), including an original ending that was scrapped after the movie was picked up by Paramount Pictures. Also, have you seen Final Destination 4 yet?
Why was ChaCha asking him about Final Destination 4? He was pretty sure he hadn’t asked anything about it.
No, why?
ChaCha’s reply was quick, as always, but it lacked any sort of professionalism. Like Nico was actually talking to a real person (which he supposed had always been the point, but it had never felt like that).
Oh, sorry, that probably sounded so weird. I’m the guy who answered your question about the Final Destination 3 movie.
Oh, right. That was last week (Nico was pretty sure, anyway), when Leo insisted that Kevin and Julie totally could’ve made it off the train at the end, and they couldn’t be assumed dead when the only death scene was really just a premonition. Nico, of course, had argued that the first two movies proved that no one escaped death, and “how could all the characters have possibly gotten off the subway in time, anyway?” ChaCha, of course, had agreed with him, like always.
I hope you haven’t been answering all my questions. Any chance you were the guy from last week who backed me up on the whole pufferfish conspiracy thing?
I think I missed that one. I was definitely here for the question you asked about the Taylor Swift album. It’s definitely green.
Aw, a guy after my own heart.
It wasn’t until he sent the message that Nico realized how flirty he sounded. He hoped he didn’t accidentally creep ChaCha guy out; he’d never be able to win another argument with Leo again.
“Who are you texting now?” Leo asked. He leaned to peer over Nico’s shoulder, but Nico quickly shut his phone closed.
“No one,” Nico muttered. “Just asking the ChaCha guy something else, that’s all.”
Seemingly satisfied, Leo turned away, and Nico peaked at his phone again, feeling a tiny rush of relief that ChaCha guy had responded, obviously not creeped out at all. Nico had no idea if ChaCha guy was supposed to be chatting with him like this, but he didn’t really mind. After all the arguments he’d let Nico win, a little bit of conversation was a small price to pay.
Yeah, well, you tend to give me a nice break from all the weird sex questions.
Do you get a lot of questions like that?
Nico would rather die than ask another person for sex advice, though he assumed it was easy to feel like ChaCha was just a robot or something. Well, it was easy before, but now Nico couldn’t stop himself from wondering about the guy on the other end of the line. What kind of person did you have to be to work for a search engine company?
Yeah, mostly by insecure guys with girlfriends much prettier than them. You don’t seem like the type to have that problem, though.
Oh. Oh. Nico shut his eyes, hoping none of his friends saw the blush appearing on his cheeks. Luckily for him, they were all distracted by Leo trying to finagle a piece of Jason’s brownie. ChaCha guy was flirting back. That’s totally what was happening, right?
Nico could do much, much worse than a guy who knew as much about horror movies as Nico did. And this might finally convince Jason to leave him alone and stop bothering him about getting a boyfriend.
You’d be right about that. I happen to be gay and single; no girlfriend in sight.
Shifting his phone so it was under the table and pretending to be listening to whatever Leo was saying, Nico counted down the seconds until ChaCha guy replied, hoping he wasn’t about to get rejected.
Single, huh? I’d hope that all these arguments I’ve been helping you with aren’t the reason you’re single.
I’m smart enough to only date people who know that everyone in the subway dies at the end of Final Destination 3, thank you very much. Nico paused, then added. For the sake of stranger danger, you aren’t some forty-year-old man, are you?
I’m not a stranger. I’m Will, from ChaCha. You can totally trust me.
That’s very reassuring. Nico bit back his smile, trying to work up the courage to take the risk. Will from ChaCha sounded…cute, and exactly Nico’s type, and if things didn’t work, Nico could just totally ghost him, right? Alright, Will from ChaCha, got any plans for Friday? I hear there’s a new Final Destination movie I should see.
Seeing Will from ChaCha’s reply was more satisfying than any argument he’d ever won against Leo: it’s a date.
When Nico shut his phone, grinning, and looked up, it was to the eyes of his friends staring back at him.
“What?” he asked sheepishly, sliding his phone back into his pocket.
“Who were you talking to?” Hazel asked. She was barely hiding a smile; Nico was pretty sure he’d get tackled in a hug by her if he admitted he’d just gotten a date with a boy.
“No one,” Nico replied, forcing away the smile. “Just the ChaCha guy.”