"Oh gosh" I sighed walking over to Aki and Max, we had gone back to the hospital to check on Kiki and Audrey but it seemed like Audrey needed more help than Kiki did
"Excuse me, Nurse" Audrey said "do you know the temperature in my mother's room right now? it is 67 degrees that might be the proper temperature for bedrooms according to the National Sleep Foundation but for the hospital room of a woman with a weakened immune system, ut's downright deplorable. How are you gonna fix it? go, turn it up"
"That's the third nurse of the night" Max smirked as the woman hurried away looking frightened of Audrey
"Oh and you" Another nurse looked at Audrey reproachfully as she started to go off on her
"Do you think it's a good idea to have dinner tonight?" I asked Aki, the Menzies plus Audrey, The Bergmans, and my dad and I were all supposed to have dinner tonight
"Maybe we should cancel" Aki suggested, suddenly Max's phone started chiming like crazy, Aki and I peered over his shoulder to see a bunch of angry girls had texted him
"Woah, I appear to be out of the loop on something" Max frowned I pulled out my phone to see that Gossip Girl had posted again
Spotted: A lone Wolfe dropping by a hospital to pick up more than Hope's spirits, take a seat PSATs the test students should be most worried about is one you can't study for HMO PPO EMO if you've cozied up to Max Wolf lately I hope you have all your docs on speed dial. No word on how Cat Baizen is taking this news but we'll know soon enough.
"Is those for real?" Aki asked and I burst out laughing, I knew it wasn't true
"Is Rafa right?" I asked "Rafa had to be the one to send that tip in, he just can't stay away from Max"
"I expected more" Max said with a half-amused and half pained look on his face
"You can expect a lot less until you clear this up," Aki told him
"Hooking up is the last thing on my mind right now" Max snapped "But I'd better handle it before I have to present my medical records to half of Kings County which means..." he turned to look at Audrey
"This is red dye number five!" Audrey exclaimed holding up a jello
"I have to leave her here alone or miss dinner" Aki sighed
"Maybe we should just grab her and run," I told Aki and he gave me a very unamused look
"Did you two say you're taking Miss. Hope to dinner?" A random doctor came over and asked
"Um yeah, I would but I don't think I'm gonna get her to leave"
"You have to," The doctor said desperately "we're getting complaints and not just the staff, patients too, she can come back tomorrow during visiting hours"
"And you want her to be assailed by the sight of Lillies?!?" Audrey was saying
"Yeah, we'll take her"
👑
Audrey, Aki, and I walked into dinner together only to see that somehow Zoya had gotten an invite to this occasion "What the hell" I looked at 9 chairs set at the table, one was missing, Zoya had taken Audrey's chair
"What's going on?" Audrey asked "I thought you said they knew I was coming, the table is set for nine and there's ten of us"
"It must have been Zoya," I said making sure that Zoya heard me
"Babe it's fine" Aki assured Audrey "I didn't know Zoya was coming"
"Yeah, I didn't know till half an hour ago," Zoya told us, I took a seat next to Audrey and My dad who was already seated along with the rest of the parents
"Hmm," Audrey inspected Zoya's very fancy outfit "did you go to the opera first?" I laughed a little
"In Europe, we dress for dinner" Obie's mom defended "it's a shame that never caught on here"
"Kiki is still in the hospital mama" Obie reminded her "Audrey's come from there"
"I was sorry to hear what happened, I had no idea your mother was struggling so," Aki's dad said, that would have been really nice if he hadn't exposed her mom in an article not even a year ago
"Even though your papers reported in great detail about the failure of her company almost daily" Audrey retorted
"I may own the papers but I don't believe in preventing journalists from doing their jobs. However, I'm personally sorry that it all went so public"
"Most people would make exceptions for friends" I sniffed picking up my water glass "friends should expose friends let alone bring them down" I took a sip of my water
"Well," Aki's dad turned to Zoya "you needn't have worried Ms.Lott, I know you're new here but you'll soon see that we're all very close I mean Helena and I have known each other since before our sons were born, Jody and I were married for a decade, and Carter and I met just after college so none of us have got any secrets here"
"The settlement made sure of that" Jody added
"Plus, all the wiretapping?" Zoya asked I sighed and rested my head on my hand
"Cat, I haven't seen you in a very long time and Aki tells me you are dating Max Wolfe," Aki's dad said, I gulped, Audrey rubbed my arm soothingly
"Yeah uh, we broke up," I told him awkwardly "it just wasn't meant to be" the table was silent, no one had any idea what to say
"Zoya" Obie's mom said brightly "tell me about your family" this was going to be a very long story. Twenty minutes later they were still talking about Zoya and Julien's dads and the fact that JC and Zoya had just met "you haven't met until recently?"
"Oh no, our dads don't speak or didn't," Zoya told her
"And you were raised?"
"She's from Buffalo" Obie spoke up
"Hmm, I've never been" Obie's mom confessed, "what's it like?"
"Yes, please regale us with the history of its chief export and chicken wings," Audrey said sarcastically
"Actually it's pretty interesting historically" I rolled my eyes, this was going to be a very long dinner
👑
"Ten texts from Julien asking how I am but nothing from the hospital," Audrey said, dinner was finally over and it would probably go on the list with Kiki's dinner for worst dinners in the history of the world. Zoya had completely attacked Obie's mom and Aki's dad the whole time, she just wouldn't stop and it was making everyone uncomfortable
"I'm sure Kiki is fine" I assured her "I promise they would have called you if something went wrong"
"Oh god" Aki's dad growled
"What's wrong?" Aki asked
"Nothing, just a lawsuit that won't go away"
"It'll settle"
"Ahh, not sure about this one" he sighed "the press is all over it"
"What is it?" Zoya nosed in
"It's none of our business" Obie snapped, he was annoyed with her rude behavior at dinner, and to be honest I think everyone was
"It's an in-house dispute," Aki's dad told her "a few years ago one of my CCO's asked an employee to stop discussing his marital problems in the office"
"That's a lawsuit?" Zoya asked in disbelief
"Well it is when the spouse is a man" he spat "he gets divorced and we get accused of showing preferential treatment to heterosexual staffers" Aki shifted uncomfortably and I nudged him softly
"Are you alright?" I asked, he nodded but I knew that was a lie, Audrey took his hand trying to make him feel better
"In a lawsuit that has the temerity to suggest that NetCorp cultivates a pervasive anti-gay workplace environment"
"Well do you?" Zoya asked
"Zoya, stop" Obie growled, Audrey and I gave each other concerned looks while Aki couldn't stand still
"We made a company-wide request that any conversation regarding personal relationships should stay outside the office, look, I'm not homophobic, neither is my company, we're one of the first to give partners health care to grant paternity leave, we treat them equally"
"Not if you use the term them" Zoya snapped
"Well what am I supposed to call them now," he asked annoyed
"I'll meet you two outside," Aki said walking away
"Oh, what did I say now?" his dad asked
"You know, you can be a little more sensitive ok? you never know how someone at the table identifies" Audrey told him angrily, what she didn't realize was that she had just outed her boyfriends to three different families.