Standing By

Decoding and Creating

I read his torn expression like a book. He felt bad for Rob and wanted to help, but didn't want to give all his nachos away either. I was kind of in the same boat. "Wanna do five-way splitsies? I'll give you a few of my nachos, Austin'll give you a few of his, Chance'll give you a a few, and so will Scott and Adam?"

"Yes, good idea, Tim," Austin told me, immediately pushing a portion of chips to the side, the others agreeing and doing the same.

"Thank you, guys, you're the best!" Rob told us appreciatively as we created a little pile of donated chips in an empty paper taco dish.

"And I," Adam began, knocking a couple of chips to the side and placing the unopened cup of cheese he'd rescued earlier in front of Rob, "saved your cheese."

"Awesome, Adam, thank you!" Rob picked it up and leaned back against the wall, happy as a little clam with his newly created serving of nachos.

"OK, sho, shongsh, wha we wanna do?" Scott said around a big bite of taco.

"First we swallow the food in our mouths!" Mitch admonished, looking disgusted.

"Scott had been trying to say something earlier," Adam tried to jostle a memory loose.

"Um..." Scott swallowed. "Wonder what it was."

"Your face looks better, by the way," I complimented, studying it from a distance. Still a bit pink, but at least he didn't look like a tomato with two eyes, a mouth, and a nose.

"I love hydrocortisone cream," he professed, patting at a cheek.

Kevin wagged a finger at him. "Benadryl. We need to pick some up. That'll fix the problem."

Adam scrunched his face up in thought. "Was it Cheese or Cheater or something like that maybe?"

"Later, Kevin, later," Scott deferred.

"Cheerleader," Mitch identified from Adam's hints.

"Oh yeah," Scott mumbled.

"Cheerleader's fine with me," Avi said.

"Yeah, I'm cool with it," Kirstie agreed, turning her back on Mitch and Scott, still snipping at each other for talking with mouths full. Apparently, that was a pet peeve of Mitch's and Scott was prone to it.

"Cheerleader's fine with me." Kevin poked at Scott and Mitch. "Hey. Could use your input here."

"It's fine," Mitch said stiffly, choosing to focus his eyes on something over Austin's shoulder. Scott just nodded. With his mouth closed.

"OK." Kirstie wrote it down. "Royals. Sing, On My Way Home, Misbehavin', Can't Hold Us, Starships. Happy, Let's Get It On, Cheerleader. Na—"

The door opened and Linzi came in, glancing at all of us. The seven of us that had been gawking at her earlier waved at her, but she just looked confused. Kevin moved off the bed so she could do whatever she needed to do. Nobody seemed to know what she needed to do though, herself included.

"Um, can I help you?" she asked Avi somewhat nervously.

He just shrugged. "I don't know?"

Linzi blinked. "What do you need?"

"You to butt out," Kirstie remarked quietly, Scott and Mitch reaching out to her to get her to calm down. But Linzi heard her and looked at her, wounded.

"Excuse me?"

"Uncalled for, Kirstie," Rob said softly, dipping a chip in his cheese slowly.

"Well, I felt sorry for both of them at first but now I don't," she shot back, hand on her hip.