Blood Lines

30. Pizza

And so Clae had invited them all to pizza at their favorite joint the next evening. She planned it purposefully late to accommodate Victor and Lena's situations. Clae arrived with Jordan and Samantha, while Jess and Victor arrived together a little later. Lena, who had been thoroughly amused by Clae's panicky insistence that she needed to let her friends know what was going on or they would drive her all insane, had agreed to meet them there. But so far, typical Lena, she was late. Clae ground her teeth as they ordered drinks and went ahead with ordering food when Clae insisted they shouldn't wait for her date to arrive. She downed her first beer so fast that Victor raised his eyebrows at her.

"You need to chill or you're going to get plastered," he suggested to her as she started in hard on her second.

The bell above the door tinkled and they all turned to see Lena walk in. And of course she was looking drop dead gorgeous as usual, dressed casually but sexily in the perfect outfit of a denim skirt and button up v neck blouse that unhelpfully started up Clae's internal blood chorus immediately. Jess, apparently not putting two and two together, moved her attention back to the table. "Are you sure your date's even showing up Clae?" she asked playfully.

Clae tried to speak as Lena walked over but before she could get a word out, Lena completely unnecessarily bent to kiss her full on the lips. "Sorry I'm late," she said smugly as they broke apart, gazing at Clae's horrified face.

Clae took a shallow breath as her blood attempted to leap out of her body in its excitement to see Lena. Then she turned quickly back to the others and managed to mumble weakly, "you guys know Lena right?"

She scanned the faces to see Jess looking completely aghast with her mouth agape as though she had just seen a car accident out the window. Jordan was frozen with her mug of beer suspended in midair. Samantha actually had her hand over her mouth. Meanwhile Victor clearly struggling not burst out laughing.

"I'll grab you a beer," he said to Lena, excusing himself. Clae heard him heaving with laughter from the bar.

"So, did you guys order already?" Lena asked in an innocently curious voice, taking the seat next to Clae. "I hope you got something with lots of meat. I'm famished."

Jess audibly gulped. Clae shot a look at Lena who was nibbling on Clae's bread stick appetizer.

"What?" Lena asked, smirking.

It took a little while, but their food mercifully arrived and they all tucked in. The table had been extremely quiet since Lena's arrival. Victor, who barely seemed able to contain his mirth, cleared his throat. "So Clae, thanks for getting us all together. It's so nice to all meet up outside of class for a change."

The other three girls all looked at him suspiciously. "Did you already know about this or something?" Jess asked accusingly. "You seem very cool about all this." She waved her pizza slice at Lena and Clae.

Victor shrugged. "Just a man's intuition I suppose."

Clae glared daggers at him.

"Well shit girl, I didn't see this coming. You are one smooth operator," Jordan said, raising her glass.

"Yeah, so how exactly did this happen?" Jess asked, clearly peeved at Victor's foreknowledge.

Clae glanced at Lena, who seemed to deliberate on the question. "Actually it was all Jasper's doing," she said finally. "He sort of, got us together."

Clae face palmed. Jess looked more confused than ever. Before Lena could add any more helpful insight, she said quickly, "we hooked up after the equinox party and things snowballed from there. That's what Lena meant."