Nebulous || Evan Buckley [1]

chapter twenty six

foul play

"Buck, you're lopsided."

Hen yelled out to the blond hanging the banner with Eddie for Chimney's welcome back party. After weeks of recovering, the doctor had cleared the man to rejoin the firehouse again. Josephine finished tying another colorful balloon after using the helium tank borrowed from a Party City store. Everyone in the firehouse were assigned a task from setting up decorations to the food by Hen, urging everything to be perfect.

"Should we even be doing this?"

Both Josephine and Hen shared a look before turning to the blond on the ladder. "Yes." They said in unison.

"Chimney said he didn't want us to make a big deal about his first day back." He reasoned, recalling the man opposed any sort of party upon his return over the phone.

"He didn't mean it." Hen argued.

The brunette blowing another balloon from the helium tank, nodded in agreement. "When people say they don't want it, they actually do. Especially, this is Chimney we're talking about. That's way too low." Her brows frowned at Buck's poor alignment.

Buck refrained from rolling his eyes at the two women. "Just saying, maybe we should respect the guy's wishes."

"Okay, you know what we're not doing respecting wishes. We're hanging a banner, having cake, and we show how much we love him." Frustrated with the blond's damper party mood, Hen exclaimed causing Josephine and Eddie to snort. "Lower." She demanded; Buck complied then finished pinning his side of the banner.

"Ah, this is festive. Need a hand?" Marty, the mechanic voiced. He strolled up to the two women blowing up the balloons.

Josephine perked up, "I would ask to you to blow up balloons. I know you got the wind but tying it would be a thing, huh?" She noted the man's medical condition.

"Oh, because of the arthritis?" He quirked at the brunette and raised his hands wiggling his fingers with a smirk on his face. "Not going to be a problem. I finally took my crazy sister's advice. I went to see her acupuncture guy." He shared to the firefighters.

Eddie interjected in a sarcastic tone, "You and alternative medicine? Marty, I'm in shock."

"Oh, don't be that didn't work either. But then he recommended me to a kind of witch doctor. You won't believe what he put me on."

Incoming footsteps belonging to Athena gravitated their attention. "Hey, y'all. I'm not too late, am I?" She rushed inside the firehouse with Chimney's cake in her possession.

"You are right on time." Bobby happily informed his fiancé, greeting her with a kiss on her temple while his arm slung around her.

Both Hen and Josephine raced up to the cake in the woman's arms. "Let's see." When Hen opened the box, inside was a plain white cake with nothing written or such.