Mary and Halley (sequel to When Mary Met Halley)

seven

Caleb sighed loudly as he joined Barbie. He was wearing his dress shoes and slacks. "Courtney, meet Mary and Halley," he said with a look of long-suffering. He could still barely look at the two of us together.

"Pleasure," Halley lied with a fake smile. I gave a little wave. 

"Isn't it," she said, and didn't that nose look a little too perfect. Like the boobs, now that I thought about it. "I saw that Lifetime special based on your accident," she said to me with a smirk. "Too bad the budget was so low, it could have been a decent movie."

Caleb looked uncomfortable but before he or I could respond, Halley set her coffee cup down so hard some sloshed out. She stood up, and her walk was casual as she closed the distance between them, all eyes on her. 

Courtney actually stepped back because of the stranger suddenly in her personal space. 

"Hal," Caleb started, but she put a hand up to him and he was smart enough to be quiet.

"Courtney," Halley asked in a dangerously low voice. "Do you really think you know Mary well enough to speak about the tragedies that have befallen her?" The tips of her ears were red from anger. 

"I--no," Courtney wisely said, and nothing else. They were the same height and Halley was nothing less than intimidating.

"No," my heated girlfriend repeated, pointing a finger in her face now. "No, that's right. Unless you were just mocking her. But you probably weren't mocking her, right?"

"No, I wasn't," the other girl replied, somewhat shaken by the presence that was the love of my life. I watched happily as she looked to her boyfriend for help.

"C'mon, Hal," Caleb said in a can't-we-all-just-get-along tone. "Don't."

She turned on him. "Minding your own business is free, Caleb. You should try it. You always did like to save money." She met Courtney's eyes again and held them before turning her back deliberately and returning to me. "You guys are probably busy, so we won't keep you," she said dismissively, waving them away as if she were the queen.

"I fucking love you," I said just so she could hear, and leaned in to kiss her. I tried not to rub it in too much around Caleb but fuck him. 

Sure enough, when I pulled back, the look on his face over her shoulder was bitter. He just shook his head a little and put a hand on the small of her fancy bitch back to lead her toward the house. 

"What're you shaking your head for?" I asked, feeling like if he wanted to start shit, I was down for it. 

"I'm not," he said offhandedly, undoubtedly happy to have gotten a rise out of me. 

"Good, don't," I said belligerently. "This doesn't involve you. You don't want anyone to think you're jealous or something."

He flipped me off and took her inside the house, limping as he probably always would. His recovery from the accident had been slow.

"Nice shoes," I called after them right before the door shut. 

Halley bit her lip until the door shut and then let her laughter escape. "Oh my God, what a bitch." 

Amusement tugged the corners of my mouth up. "Me or her?"

She graced me with that smile, the one containing all the sunshine in the world, and pulled a mini Kit-Kat from her hoodie. The wrapper went back into her pocket and she broke it in half, handing me a stick. She dipped hers into her coffee cup and leaned her head on my shoulder as she bit into it. 

 "You know it's real love when they share their favorite candy with you," I mused, eating some. A brief memory of the Kit-Kat wrapper I'd seen in the plane wreckage flashed through my mind but was gone before I could even feel triggered by it. She didn't know that particular detail; I wasn't going to ruin the candy for her.