Part of your world

Feel Enchanted

Carlos had to admit, despite feeling bad for leaving Seb with Nini and EJ, the shopping trip with Kourtney and Gina had been some much needed relaxation after the crazy two days he had just dealt with.

Kourt had been too invested in the shopping to be texting Steph the whole time and with Nini preoccupied with Seb, both girls had been focused on the task at hand and Carlos hadn't had to be reminded of his perpetually single status.

Unfortunately, with no girlfriends to distract them, Kourtney and Gina seemed to only want to talk about Seb, no matter how many times Carlos told them what had happened, they continued to drill him with questions he didn't have the answers to like where did the blonde come from and where was his family. Luckily by the halfway point of the trip, they seemed to finally believe that Carlos knew about as much about Seb as they did and dropped the subject as Nini texted them saying they were doing a "fancy dinner" (as it was a Salt Lake Slices tradition) to get the vacation properly started and Kourtney had insisted on finding new outfits for the three of them.

By the end of the trip, Carlos was carrying far too many bags, could barely feel his feet and was probably the most relaxed he had been on this entire vacation.

He hadn't seen Seb since getting back to the house, he and Nini and EJ were still all shut away in one of the upstairs bedrooms, Carlos presumed getting ready for dinner. He needed to find the blonde at some point, but given the current circumstances, he doubted that would be an issue.

Setting one of the shopping bags to the side of the vanity in his room, he turned to the mountain of bags on the bed to begin choosing an outfit for dinner.

He had bought plenty of new clothes that day, some of the shops in the small beachside town were surprisingly nice, but he needed to pick something amazing. The whole point of the group's "fancy dinner" tradition was to dress up like they were going to a 5 star restaurant, only to go for a meal at Salt Lake Slices after hours that they often made themselves.

Of course the Fancy Dinner in the beach house would be different on account of them not being able to go to Slices, and Red and Ashlyn had insisted on making the food just the two of them in an effort to not destroy the kitchen too much so early into the trip, but one tradition of Fancy Dinner, the Fancy part, would be remaining just the same as it always was.

Every member of the group took the dinners far too seriously, and while Carlos was grateful that he was well prepared for any award shows in his future, there was a certain level of pressure to look red carpet ready, because if you didn't, you'd stick out like a sore thumb in the overly invested group. Plus, with Seb, whom Carlos had no doubt EJ and Nini would have looking incredible, as a new face in the mix, Carlos felt a strange desire to look even better than he usually did. He wanted to impress the blonde.

Carlos wasn't sure that would be too difficult a task, Seb seemed impressed by most things from what Carlos had seen, but in a way that was far more endearing than it had any right to be. On the walk from the beach back to the house Seb had been staring at everything from the birds to the clouds to the plant beds like he had never seen them before. It should have been strange or irritating, but it was all Carlos could do to smile at it.

He was aware that it was probably just the novelty of having a new face around, Carlos had had the exact same friendship group for years now. He also knew that at some point they would have to figure out getting Seb home, but for now, he found himself wanting to spend time with the blonde, there was still something strangely familiar about them that Carlos just couldn't figure out, but it was a familiarity that made him feel somehow safe.

The sound of smashing glass all of a sudden emanated from the other end of the hallway, startling Carlos from his internal monologue and notifying him that EJ must've left the room with Nini and Seb to get ready with Ricky, meaning most people would have already started getting ready for dinner and Carlos should probably follow suit.