“But that goes against pretty much every time travel movie in the history of cinema.”
Hailey was beyond tipsy and having a debate with Avery. Unlike debates with Gage, Avery was doing this crazy thing called “listening” and trying to understand her stance.
“Okay, it’s like this,” Hailey said as she grabbed a salt and pepper shaker, a bottle of ketchup and hot sauce and assigned them each a name. “Okay, so let’s say I’m the ketchup and we’re all sitting in the year 2000.”
She took a few napkins and spread them in a lineacross the table from the pieces and then started slowly pushing all four toward the napkins.
“The napkins represent 2050. Now, these three people, let’s say you, Abby and Cole are continuing on toward 2050. Hailey—” she says while holding up the ketchup, “decides to hop in a time machine with Doc Brown and travel to 2050. This removes her from the three of you. There is no body double that goes on in real time with you guys, she just skips fifty years and it’s like she disappeared for those fifty years.”
“Okay, okay. But you could visit someone else in the future, right?” Avery prodded.
“You could, but they’ll wonder where the hell you’ve been the last fifty years.”
“Alright, I’ll give you this one, if you admit that Legolas is better than Aragorn.”
Hailey’s jaw dropped as she held her hand against her chest in mock horror. How dare he rank “Lord of the Rings” characters!
“The nerve! It all depends. If we were playing fuck, marry, kill, absolutely Aragorn is better for marriage and Legolas would just be good for a night. Can’t get attached to someone who lives as long as him while us mere mortals die so quickly.”
No one around them had any idea what they were talking about, but they did not notice. Avery started cracking up at Hailey’s explanation before saying, “Once again, Hailey, I just can’t argue with your logic. Perhaps I am a mere mortal compared to you.”
“Bow down before me! And also let’s order some fries.”
“I’ll get you the fries now, but theworshipingwill have to come later.”
Next to Hailey, Abby coughed on the beer she was drinking so Hailey’s attention jumped to her while Avery was flagging down their server to grab more fries for the table. Abby poked her side and gave Hailey a knowing look, raising one eyebrow at her. Hailey just answered with a big smile and a promise to get fries for her, too. Abby simply shook her head at Hailey’s obliviousness, saying she’d talk to her about it later.
Cole was busy with Riley, Josh and their gym friends talking about crossfit, yet again, and Hailey wasn’t interested in hearing about their cult, gym, whatever they wanted to call it, so she turned back to the burger sitting in front of her. She knew she had to eat more to absorb the alcohol she drank way too fast. That’s when she felt a buzzing in her pocket and took out her phone.
ABBY:Did you just miss the part where Avery said he’s interested in worshiping you later? He’s totally flirting!
Hailey gave Abby a questioning look before answering.
HAILEY:Worshiping? How’s that flirting?
ABBY:I’ll tell you when you’re older.
Hailey responded with a thumbs up and then went back to see her other messages. Gage had barely texted her all weekend because of Rick’s bachelor party. Rick had invited him months ago so he couldn’t really take it back, despite Bridget hoping he’d be gone by now. They were away for the weekend for a golf trip. Hailey sent him a few messages just to check in and she let him know they won the championship. Crickets.
She let out a big sigh and then brought her attention back to her food.
“Hey, you okay?” Avery noticed her sigh. Because, of course he did.
That’s when their extra order of fries came with Old Bay seasoning and she and Avery started digging in, but Avery was still giving her a wary look.
“It’s nothing. I just haven’t heard much from Gage this weekend.”
Avery gave her a look of understanding with a mix of something she just couldn’t place. That’s when Cole picked up on their conversation. Hailey guessed he was finally done talking about how much weight he could deadlift.
“Okay, everyone. This is really important. When one of us is hurting, we all are. So, Hailey, it’s time for anintervention.”
“Uh, intervention for what?”
Cole looked around the table for support and found some of his teammates nodding, giving him permission to continue. All ten people still at the table were now focused on him and Hailey was suddenly on edge.
“Hailey, we all love you very much,” he said as he put a hand over his heart. “But, we all think your boyfriend sucks and you need to get rid of him.”
Hailey opened her mouth to speak but was too shocked to respond so she just closed it back up.
