Page 51 of Under the Weatherman
Chelsea scooted in beside Elizabeth, and I channeled my college spirit into an authentic smile. Bas called, “Say Velveeta!” and Chelsea groaned.
Then we were rewarded as Bas unloaded the ridiculous amount of food he’d brought. While he’d packed it earlier, I hadn’t paid attention or I would have wondered how he expected the two of us to polish off a tray of mini quiches, four muffins, and thermoses of both coffee and cider. If the goal had been to impress a certain woman, mission accomplished. Chelsea looked ready to eat everything and then lick the chef.
Elizabeth poured herself a cup of coffee immediately. “How do you guys know each other, anyway?” she asked, with a cheery curiosity, like she actually gave a shit.
“We were roommates in college,” Bas answered. “Here, actually.”
Elizabeth’s eyes widened. “We were roommates here, too. Now we’re neighbors and heterosexual life partners.”
I’d just taken a sip of cider and sputtered at her comment. “You’re what?”
“She means we’re best friends,” Chelsea said, picking over the quiches before taking two. “We spend way too much time together.”
That sounded nice. Bas and I had remained friends, but we weren’t long-lost brothers or anything like that. We were so different. Case in point, his interest in a woman who’d straight up admitted she only wanted a physical relationship with him.
Still, if Elizabeth was right and Bas had a chance to be the exception to the rule, maybe I ought to help him out. “So what do you do, Chelsea?”
She shrugged. “Little of this, little of that. Like Elizabeth, I cobble together jobs to make rent, but my passion is graphic arts.”
I hadn’t realized Elizabeth was working multiple jobs. The assistant production job had to be taxing as hell. She’d seemed frazzled the few times I’d seen her, but right now, she was animated, relaxed. And so unfairly pretty.
Bas said, “When I first saw you, I thought you might be a physicist.”
Chelsea sniffed a laugh. “That’s kind of random. Why did you think that?”
By the way he grinned, I knew he was about to pull out one of his corny jokes, but before I could intervene, he said, “Because of your gravitational pull.”
Chelsea punched him. “Groan. That’s so bad.”
He was really his own worst enemy. I shook my head. “You didnotjust say that, bro.”
Maybe Elizabeth was right, and these two needed some help. As if she was reading from my same playbook, she turned to Bas. “What did you study, Basil?”
If I was going to play wingman, I’d need to spin his many stops and starts in a more positive light. “Bas was a bit of a universal scholar.”
That did the trick. Chelsea leaned in. “What does that mean?”
Bas spoke about studying art, moving to Paris, becoming a chef, and I winked at Elizabeth, as if to say,That’s how it’s done.
When he’d exhausted his educational background, Chelsea gaped. “I’m a little bit jealous of your life choices, Bas.”
Bas exhaled. “Please pass that on to my parents.”
Chelsea’s expression melted. “I’ve never been to Paris.”
This was going perfectly. I threw out another fact that Bas would never admit on his own. “Bas was also a world-class fencer.” I picked at a pumpkin muffin—God, it was good. “That’s how we first met, actually. In the fencing club.”
Elizabeth coughed. “Fencing?”
I realized I’d inserted my own self in the narrative, but the way Elizabeth’s eyes goggled, I didn’t think she believed me, likeIwas the one lying about my past here. “I know. Everyone expected me to play lacrosse, but I was ready to try something new. I never won any big tournaments, but Bas could have gone Olympic.”
She scoffed. “You must think I’m the most gullible person on the planet.”
As Chelsea pressed Bas for more details, I focused on Elizabeth. “Why do you assume I’m lying? Projection?”
Her brows shot up. “Just for the record, I’m not a chronic liar. Other than whatever I said at the bar that night, I’ve been totally straight with you.”
“But it was too late by then.” Could she not extrapolate? “Once you set that fiction in motion, it warped everything that followed. Perception is reality.”
