Chương 96: [You're All As Bad As Agnes]

Phil was half a street away from the flat when the idea came to him. He grinned. He'd seen the tail in Leo's lap, Leo's hand moving like it was the most natural thing in the world, neither of them saying anything about it. Then the rack conversation this morning. Phil knew what it meant and he also knew Leo well enough to know that left to his own devices the man would find seventeen reasons to do absolutely nothing about it. He opened the UI chat, created a group, and added Luka, Parmo, and Sam.

[Phil] I think we should try and give leo and shai some time alone tonight. hes been in a rut for fucking years and it looks like hes finally trying to move past it. [Parmo] yeah, fucking finally 😄 [Sam] good on him [Luka] 100%. hes not really been the same since all that shit with his ex. and thats like 10 years ago now. [Phil] exactly. so what i'm thinking is we figure out a way to get rika and torren out of the flat. leo will notice it the second we all leave but at that point whats he gonna do? chase us? nah.

I think if we just give him the space he might actually do something. no idea what and it might be fucking stupid but i think he deserves the chance. [Sam] he said it himself. if shai didn't like the tail thing she would have said something. she could be waiting to be left alone with him. [Parmo] so its probably good for both of them then [Phil] exactly. right so here's what i'm thinking. parmo you take rika to get her phone, she's been going on about it. luka you make up something about cooking, he'll go for that.

me and sam will say we're heading out to find a console. [Luka] the royal has a pool table. we can head there for a few hours [Phil] perfect. everyone good? [Parmo] 👍 [Sam] yeah [Luka] let's do it Phil closed the chat as they reached the front door. The next ten minutes went about as smoothly as he could have hoped. Parmo was up suggesting the phone before anyone had even settled properly. Rika was out of the door before he was. Phil watched Leo's frown start forming and kept his face completely neutral.

Luka did enough too. The cooking thing was a bit out of nowhere, but it had Torren up and ready before Leo could think too hard about it. The frown was deeper now.

"Wait, Phil? Are we not watching the film?"

"Ten minutes, Leo," Phil said, already moving toward the door with Sam. He kept his voice easy and didn't look back.

"Me and Sam are just going to go see if we can ask around for a console. If we want one with Elden Ring we'll need to find one with it already installed. Fucking companies and everything having to be downloaded. What's the point in discs anymore? Anyway, if we can grab it tonight we can play it tomorrow and don't need to hunt for it after training. Back in a bit." The door clicked shut. Phil and Sam stood on the pavement. Sam looked at him.

"Smooth," Sam said, sarcastically. Phil just laughed. Torren matched Luka's pace without any difficulty, his long easy stride covering the ground without apparent effort. They'd been walking for about thirty seconds before Luka decided there wasn't much point in pretending.

"Right," Luka said.

"So there isn't actually a cooking place." Torren looked at him. Then ahead. Then back at him.

"I suspected as much. You're a terrible liar."

"I know. Sorry." Luka shoved his hands in his pockets.

"So Phil had this idea to get everyone out of the flat and leave Leo and Shai on their own for a few hours. We all think he's been building up to something and he'll never actually do it if we're all sitting there. So." Torren considered this.

"And what does Phil think will happen?"

"Dunno, nothing huge though. I think it's probably something like giving them space without the rest of us in earshot so they can have a real conversation. Who knows, maybe that leads to something else, maybe it doesn't. We all agree though they deserve a chance. If Shai is interested then cool, if not then Leo will try and pretend it never happened and they'll find something to do. I think there's definitely something there though."

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. Torren made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sigh.

"Fair enough," he said.

"So, what now?"

"The Royal," Luka said.

"Another pub, but this one has a pool table and a dart board." They'd barely turned the corner when Phil and Sam caught them up, slightly out of breath. Phil looked at Torren.

"I knew he'd told you."

"Straight away," Torren said, with a chuckle.

"I didn't see the point in lying any longer. I could have tried to find somewhere with cool cooking stuff but other than ASDA and Morrisons, I can't think of anywhere, can you?" Luka said. Phil shook his head.

"Do you think anything will actually happen?" Phil asked, directing it mostly at Torren. Torren was quiet for a moment.

"It either will or it won't. That's not really our decision." He glanced at the three of them.

"But a tree surrounded too closely by others never quite grows the way it should. It loses the light." He kept walking.

"Giving them space was a good idea." The three of them looked at each other.

"Wise," Sam said.

"Very Wise," Phil agreed. Torren shook his head slightly at their antics. Rika clicked the side button again, watching the screen wake up against the neon-pink case she'd picked out. Parmo had helped her pick; she'd spent ten minutes holding different ones before settling on this one, which had a camera Parmo said was better than his own. She was already thinking about what she wanted to photograph first.

"This way," Parmo said, turning left at the bottom of the street. She followed without thinking, still looking at the screen. Then she noticed something was off and stopped walking.

"That's not the way back to the flat."

"No," Parmo agreed, still walking. She caught him up.

"Where are we going?"

"There's this game called pool," he said.

"You use a long stick to knock balls into pockets on a table. I think you'd like it. There's darts as well." Rika studied the side of his face. He wasn't quite meeting her eye.

"Are we not going back to watch the film?"

"Soon," he said.

"Just thought while we were out." She kept walking. The Royal was already warm with noise when they pushed through the door, the sound of conversation carrying throughout the pub. The place wasn't much different from the King John's: same ugly carpet, same bar and tables, just a different layout. Rika scanned the room out of habit and found them almost immediately: Phil and Sam at a table near the back, Luka and Torren with them. She stopped. Parmo walked three more paces before he realised she wasn't beside him.

"You're all terrible at this," Rika said.

"At what?" Parmo tried. She looked at him.

"Right," he said.

"Yeah. Sorry." She crossed the room, pulled out a chair, and set her new phone carefully on the table. She looked around at all of them.

"Brandon wouldn't take me to get a phone without either me bribing him or something being in it for him," she said, not taking her eyes off him.

"Which means this was planned."

"Oi," Parmo said.

"That's a bit harsh. I can be nice." She ignored him, looking around the table.

"So who's going to tell me what's actually going on?" Phil sighed and leaned forward, realizing the "smooth" act was dead.

"Look, Rika, we came up with it on the UI about thirty seconds before we got to the flat. It wasn't about keeping you out; it was about keeping Shai from hearing. If we'd mentioned it in the flat, she'd have picked it up instantly." Rika's expression softened slightly at the logic, her wings giving a small, thoughtful rustle.

"You wanted them alone."

"Exactly," Phil said.

"Leo had a bad relationship years ago, and it really fucked with his head. He's been stuck for years but he seems better here than back at home. We all know they've been dancing around each other. We just wanted to clear the room so they could actually have a conversation without an audience." Rika stayed quiet for a second, her mind clearly working through the possibilities. A slow, knowing smile started to form.

She'd been trying to find a way to get Shai to open up; the boys had just done the heavy lifting for her.

"Fine," she said, finally pulling out a chair and setting her phone down.

"I'll forgive the secrecy because it's actually a good idea. I've been waiting for one of them to move an inch." She pointed a finger at Phil.

"But I'm missing a movie for this. This pool game better be good."

"I wasn't lying about the pool," Parmo said, the relief evident in his voice. Torren looked at the group, a quiet, amused rumble in his chest.

"Honestly," he said, shaking his head.

"You're all as bad as Agnes."

"Speak for yourself Torren, I know how much you love gossip," said Rika. The lads showed the pair the pool table, then spent a few minutes explaining the rules, Parmo demonstrating the grip on the cue. Rika listened with her arms folded and her eyes on the angles he was describing. A while later, somewhere between the second and third round, Torren leaned toward Sam who had been talking about how to find a PlayStation.

"There's one of those black boxes in our house," he said.

"None of us touched it; we had no idea what it was."

"Worth a look," Phil said.

"I'll check it when we get back."

"What do you think we'll find when we get back?" asked Luka.

"Probably nothing. Maybe Leo explaining Magic the Gathering or something," said Phil, with a laugh.

"I think he might surprise us," said Sam.

"Well fingers crossed it went well. I risked Rika biting my head off over this," said Parmo, as he avoided a swing from the bird-kin. Phil unlocked the door and Rika followed Luka up the stairs.

"Is everyone decent?!"

"Fuck off, Phil." Luka walked in and she peeked in over his shoulder. Curtains drawn. Room dim. On the screen a massive figure was straining under some invisible weight while someone narrated urgently in the background. The two of them were on the sofa, sat much closer than she expected. Neither of them bothered to move; Shai didn't even turn around. Rika took a slow breath and let it out. She knew Shai. She knew the different versions of her and she knew when Shai was truly relaxed.

This looked a lot like that, which Rika hadn't really expected so soon. Yes, she'd suspected there was something growing between the two, but she didn't expect Shai to show this side of her so freely. The room had been just the two of them for hours, so something must have happened to make her this comfortable. Rika didn't know exactly what that meant yet, but she had a fairly good idea of where it was pointing. She'd ask her. Not tonight. Soon. She looked at the TV.

The massive figure on screen had started glowing. She crossed the room and sat down next to Sam.