Jordy rolled his eyes as I cracked open another beer.
"Dude, slow down. We have all night." I glanced at him. Mmm. We had all night but we were heading to the pub very shortly. And at the pub, hopefully already halfway to trashed were Rico, and Mikey, and Mo and last, but so far from least-
Elijah.
And it had been... only a week? Jesus. A week since I'd seen Elijah. And I really, really, didn't think I could face him sober.
"Ah, you guys are lightweights. Gotta get ahead." I teased. Jordy rolled his eyes.
"For someone who can't go to the grocery store without me to reach the shelves you sure can put away the booze." He conceded. I hit him playfully.
"Managed it by myself yesterday." I crowed in faux pride.
"Is that why we have off-brand everything?" He grunted. Which actually. Yes. That is why we had off brand everything. There was a shortage of disarmingly handsome tall men at Pak n Save yesterday. I told him as much and downed my beer. Ah, fuck it. I had to rip the band aid off at some point.
"Alright." I stood up and pulled on a jacket. "Let's go." Jordy laughed as he looked at my face.
"We're meeting up with the guys." He said. "Not going into battle."
"Potion master..." I ignored him and started riffing. "I'm going into battle, I need your strongest potion..." Lucky Jordy is a huge dork and that completely distracted him.
"You can't handle my strongest potion!" And we continued that all the way to the pub.
ββ
Elijah and I only barely caught each other's eyes as we 'sup' nodded each other. Wooo boy. This was gonna be so damn awkward. We avoided being too near each other, tuning into a different conversation if someone invited us in. The beer was helping though. After a couple he even sat next to me and I didn't feel the need to jump away immediately. He nudged my knee.
"You good?" He asked. I smiled at him.
"Yeah man. You?"
"Yeah." He cleared his throat and glanced around the bar.
"So do we talk about it?" He murmured. I burst out laughing. He's such an idiot.
"No!" I said. "God no! And here?!" I nodded towards our friends and he grinned goofily.
"Aight." He said. "So, you hired a new barista yet?"
"Na, no ones looking." I sighed. "We're paying an insane rate as well. $27 an hour, that's unheard of but still- no one biting."
"I'll keep my ears peeled." He said.
"You don't want to come back?"
"And work for you?"
"Guess so?"
"Na, I can't take you seriously." He laughed. "Don't know how anyone does, actually."
"Ah, my staff haven't seen me on a Friday night." I laughed. "That pretty much destroys all credibility."
"As soon as Dua Lipa comes on you turn into the world's most flaming homo."
"Hey!" I thumped him. "You can't say that!"
"Can, do, and will." He raised his eyebrows and sat up straight with his arms folded, as though that would intimidate me. I rolled my eyes at him.
"We both know I can take you in a fight." I said. Elijah looked at me and opened his mouth. I felt myself starting to blush as his eyes slowly drifted down my body and back up to my face.
"Well." He said eventually. "You got me there."
Luckily Mo interrupted by looking for a tie breaker in would you rather, and we all got distracted by the merits of carrying a goat around for the rest of your life or sleeping with one in your bed for the rest of your life. Elijah kept his eyes to himself and we barely spoke for the next two hours.
And then he caught me tumbling out of the bathroom.
"Woah, shrimp." He caught me. "You've had too much." I rolled my eyes and straightened up.
"I'm good." Elijah didn't let me go. He held onto my shoulders and raised his eyebrows. He cleared his throat.
"You don't think you've overdone it?" He said slowly. His grip sort of tightened and loosened again as he stared at me. "Because... maybe I should take you home?" I looked into his eyes, to make sure he meant what I thought he meant and I swallowed.
"Um."
"Or was that a one off?" He said quietly. I shook my head.
"Game if you are." I said. My voice sounded a lot steadier than it had any right to. Elijah grinned.
"Then let's get you home, you little inebriate." I laughed and pinched my cheeks, to make them go red and the whole thing more convincing. He pretended to help me back to the others as I put on quite a convincing stagger. "Right." He said. "I'm taking Gideon home. Fucker needs to learn to pace himself."
"Told you so." Jordy said.
"Fuck off." I mumbled.