The Art Of Us

7 • Our Little Secret

FP stood at the counter in Pop's and smiled politely when the waiter came back with his order. He took the paper bag into his hand while the other fished his wallet out of his back pocket.

"That will be seventeen dollars."

"Here you go." He handed him his credit card, figuring that it would be done in a brief second. However, the loud protest that made its presence known told him that something was off.

"This one is declined, do you have another one?" The waiter asked politely, thinking it was just a case of handing him the wrong card.

"That is impossible, can you try again?" FP urged on, growing confused on why his card wasn't working.

He was loaded, why didn't it work? Ever since his big success he didn't have to worry about money and he wasn't going to start now.

As asked, the waiter tried it again but the exact same sound of rejection was quickly heard by the two men.

"Sorry, it doesn't work." He gave FP and apologetic smile.

"Shit, I don't have any cash on me." FP sighed deeply, afraid that he had to give his order back.

He had a gut feeling what caused this problem, or better said, who caused this problem. He should've known better.

"Don't worry, I've got it covered." A voice called behind him, before standing next to FP at the counter.

It was Charles. He took some bills out of his wallet and was about to hand it over, before FP held him back.

"Woah, kid. Please keep your money. You work very hard for that." He said instantly, feeling guilty that a teenage boy had to pay for his meal just because he was having some trouble.

"Besides, I don't want for your mother to have another reason to be mad at me." FP chuckled slightly.

"I insist." Charles said, now handing it over to the waiter so FP could take his meal.

"Well, is there something I could do for you in return?" He asked, wanting to reward him in any way he could.

"Maybe you have some collectors items from Southside Comics?" Charles said, his eyes twinkling.

"My Mom gave me the one that you handed her, but a few more wouldn't hurt."

FP smiled. He was glad that Alice decided to hand it over to him, because he figured that she had decided against it. Maybe things were starting to change. She was keeping her side of the promise to have a truce.

"I can arrange that. I'll drop 'em off at the Wyrm, okay?" He placed his hand on Charles' shoulder, asking him to confirm.

"Deal."

**

It was late in the afternoon when FP walked into the Wyrm, after having spend most of his day in his hotel room, calling his wife over and over again and ignoring the calls from his editor. It was exhausting, but fortunately he felt welcome enough to go the bar and have a drink, to relief some of the tension in his body. For now, that was all he wanted.

"Hey... what are you doing here?" Alice was restocking the bar as she saw him enter, when she technically was still closed.

"Promised Charles to drop these off. He did something nice for me this morning." He placed the rare Southside Comics on the counter, for her to give to him as soon as he'd come back from school.

"Oh, and here are the seventeen dollars that I owed him." He took a few bills out of his pocket, which he had found in one of his jeans that he had taken with him. It wasn't much, but he could stay around just a little longer with the back-up he had.