Living in the Fray

Chapter Seventeen

To say Team Osiris was made of quite athletically able people during the beach volleyball match; that athleticism apparently wasn't present at all and their team was subsequently, for a lack of better words... rinsed. Michael was about the only one who had managed to stay upright most of the time, Faye was actually really good at beach volleyball but was having a hard time playing in the ever increasing heat. Krieger and Ronson however were completely out of kilter and this was nothing new. Krieger had been hit in the face a few times with the ball and her rage was accelerating with each hit which was also causing her the stumble a lot, while Ronson was just flat out falling over from not being able to deal with sand. And having a few too many beers in him too, that didn't help. Both Ronson and Krieger were impressed by how on form Frank and Erik were who seemed to take everything in their stride.

Frank's team had won the match, as per usual. And Krieger had to foot the bill for booze and ice cream for the rest of the day which she didn't grumble too much at, especially as a double ninety-nine cone with chopped nuts and raspberry sauce was keeping her from grumbling. She had a face on though, but that was due to the fact that her team had lost and she hated loosing. Plus she had just been properly told by her team's resident moron Zach, who had spent most of his time going up and down the beach being a letch; that the Galaxy Police had requested a word with her for some reason and dealing with the Galaxy Police especially with her track record, was not something she enjoyed.

'Hey, so do you wanna go out with me later tonight?' Erik asked Krieger as he sat down next to her on the sun lounger she had claimed. Krieger looked up at him, her face relaxing slightly as it was Lovely Erik and she actually liked him. Erik in Krieger's eyes was gorgeous and radiant and handsome and gentlemanly and gorgeous. "God only knows what he sees in her" people would probably say. He smiled down at Krieger who was quite frankly looking ridiculous, with her chalky powdery looking sun-screened skin, sand stuck all up her arms and mouth lined with melted ice cream and raspberry sauce because apparently she ate like a toddler.

'Who, me?' Krieger genuinely asked as she looked around as if Erik was talking to somebody else.

'Yes, you.' Erik snorted. Smooth as anything, he grazed his thumb slightly across the side of her cheek where she had managed to somehow get even more ice cream. He casually licked the ice cream from his thumb as if it was nothing. If Krieger had body parts that spoke to her, they'd be screaming for Erik to be on her.

'I'd love to. Where we going?'

'I was thinking Frontier Land, I found out they do adults only nights after eight with no kids and they set up bars all over the place. We could grab some dinner beforehand then go there, go on all the rides and I dunno... you could win me a giant stuffed toy.' Erik grinned. Krieger's face had lit up.

'Erik that sounds so cool! I love theme parks!' Her face had gone from disgruntled to showing pure joy in an instant.

'Great! I'll come get you about quarter to seven? We can get some dinner then head up.'

'Sweet.' Krieger sat beaming away as she started to shove the ice cream back in to her face. ' Aw I'm well made up, I have a date.'

Ice cream was had by all and many more beers were drunk. Thankfully Justin had been grilling away for quite a while now and food was starting to circulate. Ronson had wandered over to Krieger who was now sat with the kids who were tucking in to juicy burgers, sausages and Justin's infamous coleslaw.

'Here, got you some food.' Ronson handed a small plastic plate over to his friend and took a seat down beside her.

'Uncle Chris, Auntie Cas is going on a date tonight with that tall man over there.' Antonia announced as she pointed over to Erik.

'Oh is she now?' Ronson raised his eyebrow at his friend. 'Where's he taking you?'

'Dinner, then Adults Only night at Frontier Land.'

Ronson was glad to hear that Erik had taken his advice and was taking his best friend to somewhere she would actually enjoy. In fact he was glad Erik had the sense to ask him about Cas to begin with. Any other date she had been on with some bloke brave enough to even ask her in the first place had always ended badly, Cas always said they were trying to hard to impress her. And she was not the kind of woman that was easily impressed or wanted to be impressed. Taking Krieger out on a date and surviving with pride intact and without being severely embarrassed or injured even, was apparently some kind of blokey conquest, that earned them bragging rights or something. Krieger knew this but she was fair. She made it blatantly obvious when these men were being complete shits. Her partner in crime Ronson however, had no such game as he was in Krieger's words; "a massive tart."

Ronson remembered one date of hers that she told him about in great detail,  was with an off world Banker who very bravely asked her out to dinner when he was doing business on New Edo. He took her to the most expensive restaurant in the nicest part of New Edo and "treated" her to a seven course haute cuisine dining experience. The fact he even told her he was "treating" her to this wound her up from the get go as in actuality; she had at least four times as much in her own bank account than what this chump did. And he was treating her, she thought it was hilarious until he started treating the restaurant staff like absolute shit. Sure Krieger being as awful as she was most of the time, she wasn't that much of a dick to set about workers on minimum wage. The pencil pushers and controllers at the ATC Corp however got verbal bollockings ninety nine percent of the time.

'I wish I could go to the theme park at night, that would be so cool.' Andre announced.

'Do you know what's even cooler?' Krieger asked the kids as she reached over to where she had stored her bag. Unzipping it, she brought out three small envelopes and waved them for the kids to see before handing them over. All three kids instantly dove for her in a mass of arms and legs in some kind of bear hug.

'Okay okay!' Krieger shrieked. 'Don't spend it all at once, okay?'

The kids were hugging her and squealing their thank yous as, like every year after the Chase; she had given them a pre paid currency card loaded with two hundred and fifty credits each. Krieger didn't particularly like kids, nor did she want any of her own besides being unable to have any; but she made sure her crew mates children got a bonus too as she actually didn't mind these ones. Thankfully she was never asked to babysit them or anything their parents knew better than that. Ronson didn't mind these tiny humans either but he was also on the babysitter blacklist. They were both big kids themselves and were pretty irresponsible unless it involved work or guns or drinking.

The kids eventually went running over to their parents who stowed the envelopes away for safe keeping and mouthed "thank you" to Krieger. Ronson dragged her up and back over to to Justin who had just grilled a fresh batch of meat; spicy chicken skewers and more burgers and sausages. Krieger inhaled a few more sausages then drifted past the table Justin had set up for plates, cutlery and condiments.

'Hey Justin, you got any more of that coleslaw?' Michael asked as he was squeezing some ketchup on his burger.

'Why is it all finished?' Justin asked, wondering how the hell everyone managed to get through the huge bowl he had made of the stuff in such a short time.

'No man it's not here.'

'KRIEGER!' Justin was shouting now. Everybody looked over at Justin then instantly started scanning for Krieger. Sure enough she was hunched over in a corner, delving a disposable fork in to a massive metal bowl filled with the glorious coleslaw Justin had made. Tony who was the closest to her began advancing as he would have liked some coleslaw himself. Krieger recoiled and hissed at him.

'Cas I am not fighting you again for the fucking slaw, so hand it over.'

Tony stood for a moment, arms folded and glaring down at her waiting to be given the bowl. Krieger shovelled more of the coleslaw in to her mouth then scowled as she reluctantly handed the bowl to Tony. In hindsight, she should've ran away with it.