Late in L.A. • Casey & Izzie Story [ENG]

Chapter 12

Everything had started to go wrong.

Izzie twirls her fork in her plate, silent. She sits next to Casey, but Evan is on the other side of the table. Smiling and chatty, still wearing his visor cap and one of his usual band t-shirts, Evan brags to Elsa about how he's learned to cook an excellent pizza after replacing one of Don's sous-chefs all summer.

"And you know how good Don's pizza is, the best around, practically," he concludes.

"I confirm," Casey retorts, "way better than that cafeteria junk at Clayton's."

Evan bursts into laughter, then turns to Izzie: "What do you think, Izzie? You're quiet..."

Izzie raises an eyebrow and shoots him a fiery glare. "Shouldn't you take off your cap at the table?" she says dryly.

"Hey, I just said that the pizza at your school isn't as good as Don's, what's wrong with that?"

"Which is true, Izzie, you know..." Casey adds, trying to defuse the tension.

"Of our school..." Izzie adds.

At that moment, Elsa gets up and starts clearing the plates, asking cheerfully, "Guys, who wants a slice of cake?"

"I definitely do!" Evan responds immediately.

"Me too!" Casey raises her hand.

"Casey, if Crowley finds out..." Izzie reproaches her.

"Leave her be, come on, she just won two medals... for once..." Evan interjects.

"I have an idea, Izzie," Casey proposes, "how about we split one slice between you and me?"

"No way," says Izzie, "I won't be able to train for quite a while anyway, so Crowley won't hassle me about my weight. I'll gladly take a whole slice," and with that, she gets up and goes to help Elsa clear the table and serve dessert.

Casey gets up, approaching her near the kitchen counter. She turns on the water tap to cover their whispers with background noise. "Why are you making everything so difficult for me?" she whispers.

"I didn't expect him to be here. You're acting like nothing's wrong."

"I can't talk to him in front of you and my mom. Give me some time..."

At that moment, their whispers are interrupted by Elsa inviting them back to the table. "Everything alright, girls?"

"Of course, we're coming!" Izzie responds sweetly, pretending nothing is amiss and returning to the table with two dessert plates. She almost slams one down in front of Evan.

"Hey! Once, I placed a dessert like this in front of a customer at Don's, and the owner chewed me out! But it was an accident."

"Well, thank goodness I don't plan on applying for a job at Don's in the next few days, months, or years!" Izzie replies with a fake smile. Then, taking a bite of cake, she turns to Elsa, "The cake is delicious, thank you!"

"Don't mention it, dear."

Shortly after, while Evan enthusiastically tells Casey how he completed the video game they had started playing together, Izzie sits down on the couch, stretches her legs, and reapplies ointment to her knee. She reflects on what had gone wrong that day from the moment they landed; they had been back for only a few hours, and everything had started to go wrong.

As soon as they spotted Evan among the people waiting at the airport, Casey had approached him and allowed him to kiss her on the mouth, which had immediately sparked a mix of anger and fear in Izzie. Blinded by instant jealousy, she had barely greeted Evan, dragged her suitcase behind her, and rolled her eyes as he explained that Doug couldn't make it because he had to urgently deal with a housing assignment issue at Denton that Sam couldn't handle on his own. Seeing Evan arrive and quickly realizing that he would be joining them for lunch instead of the more reassuring company of Doug and Sam had caught them off guard, disrupting their plans.