Chapter Four
“I dunno, Chad,” Jared was saying as he bounced the tennis ball he was holding against the wall. “Maybe Mickey and Minnie are side effects from Chernobyl and that’s why they have four-fingered gloves for hands. How do you think this shit up anyway?”
“Man, you wouldn’t believe the shit rambling around in my brain,” Chad balanced a broom on his outstretched palm.
“You’re probably right.” Jared kicked out at the leg Chad had nearest him.
The broom fell with a loud clatter, making Jared jump. “What do you think of Sophia?”
“Sophia?”
Chad bent to pick up the broom. “Maybe you know her as ‘Cinderella’?”
“Oh, her. Yeah, she’s nice. Cute too.”
“Yeah she is.” Jared could hear the leer in his room mate’s voice.
“Oh no. No you don’t.”
“What?”
“You’re not going to scam on that princess like you tried to scam on Genevieve.”
“I never tried to scam on Gen,” Chad lied, quite obviously.
“Oh, but you did.”
“No, I don’t think I did. I would remember something like that.”
“Chad.” Jared resisted the urge to bounce the tennis ball off his roommate’s head. “You followed her around Fantasyland for, like, two days.”
“Two days of four hour shifts is only eight hours. That’s not very long in the scheme of things,” Chad defended himself. “Eight hours. Really no time at all. It’s like, what? Four movies. A third of a season of a sitcom. If I watched four movies in a row. No one would say I was ‘scamming Netflix’, would they?”
Jared blinked so hard it was almost audible. “You are really something else, Murray.”
“Thanks!” If it hadn’t been an insult, Jared would have smiled back, Chad’s actual smile being so contagious.
“Oh, I don’t know if that’s a positive thing or not.”
“I am going to count that as a win in my book and you can’t take that away from me.”
“Fine, whatever,” Jared stood and poked his head in the refrigerator door. “There’s nothing to eat.”
“Yes there is, you big dumb Sasquatch.” Chad joined his friend, but found the refrigerator as empty as Jared had. “Shit man, I got nothing. Unless you want a mustard, soy sauce and questionable apple slice sandwich on very brown lettuce instead of bread.”
“I don’t understand it. I just went shopping last…” Jared stood up to his full height. “And I can’t actually remember the last time I went shopping, actually.”
“We could order pizza.”
“Nah, we just had pizza last night.”
“You can never have too much pizza.”
“Yeah, I really think you can.”
“But you can get so many different combos. I think we should really just order pizza.”
“Chad, don’t be lazy.”
“Jared, you aren’t my real mom. You can’t tell me what to do, I’m a grown ass woman.”
“You done?”
“Yeah.”
“So now what?”
“I’m going to the store. I want real food.”
“Suit yourself. I’m ordering pizza.”
“Troglodyte.”
“Thank you yet again. You are full of compliments today, man.”
Jared shook his head as he slipped on his flip flops and patted down his pockets for his keys and wallet.
**--**--**
Jared was walking past the coffee bar he usually got breakfast at when he tripped over the sign board out front.
“What the -“ Jared stood back to read the name written on it in chalk out loud. “Tofu Commission? Okay then.” He continued on to the local grocery store, running into Danneel inside near the frozen pizzas.
“Hey, Dan!” Jared called to the woman with her head in the freezer. “Fancy meeting you here.”
“Hey, Jared,” Danneel smiled back from behind the glass. “You out of groceries too?”
“There just aren’t enough hours in the day to bring joy to thousands of children and have a healthy, balanced diet,” He motioned to his empty hand backset with a flourish worthy of a super model spokesperson.
“Tell me about it.” Picking a seemingly random box form the freezer, she shut the door. “So are you ready for the new guy they got to replace Ian?”
“They got a guy to replace the legend?”
“Sure did. Met him tonight. Nice guy. Too bad they’re going to make him get rid of the stubble.”
“To tell you the truth, I’m looking forward to meeting someone I might be able to talk to who isn’t Chad.”
“Yeah, I don’t know how you do it, honestly.” Danneel chuckled. “My condolences on having him as a friend, if I haven’t said it yet this week.”
“Eh - you learn to live with it, he kinda grows on you.”
“Ew.”
“Okay, so maybe that’s not the best choice of words. Forget I said that.”
“Already forgotten.”
“So,” Jared shoved his free hand in his pocket. “Pizza for one?”
“Yeah, the glam life of an actual mermaid. They don’t tell you this kind of stuff when you accept your fins, you know.” She struck a mock cheesecake calendar pose with a smile.
“Sounds thrilling.”
“Yeah, not so much.”
“Well, not to be forward, and I don’t want it to seem like I’m hitting on you or anything, but, you maybe want to go get some sit down food somewhere?”
“You know, that sounds really good. Yeah, let’s go do that. This can wait until later.”
“Awesome!” Jared took the pizza she had been holding form her and put it back into the freezer before offering her his arm.
“Such a gentleman.”
“I do try, ma’am,” Jared laughed as he tipped an imaginary Stetson.
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