The Stark Trap

~12~

~The Same Day~

After getting off the phone with Andi, Melissa and Peter walked to the local coffee shop. They got their coffee and sat down in Peter and Andi’s usual booth. Melissa tapped her fingers against the side of her coffee cup anxiously. 

“You okay Liss?”

Melissa snapped out of her thoughts and looked up at him. “Yeah… Just anxious about the whole John thing”

“I’m sure it’ll be fine” He put his hand reassuringly on her arm. “Why don’t we call Christine Everhart?”

Nodding, Melissa pulled the business card out of her pocket and typed the number into her phone. She had taken the card from Andi’s room before they left since they planned to call Christine from the coffee shop so that Tony or Harley didn’t hear them. She took a deep breath and clicked the call button, putting it on speaker so Peter could hear. 

Melissa messed with her straw nervously as the phone rang. 

“Hello?” A woman's voice answered. 

“Hi, is this Christine Everhart?” Melissa asked.

“Yes, who am I speaking with?”

Melissa bit her lip. “This is Andrea Stark, I-”

She heard Christine gasp. “Andrea, yes, thank you so much for calling! I assume you’re calling about the interview?”

“Yes, I decided that I finally wanted to talk…”

“That’s great! I’m free today if that’s fine with you?”

Melissa’s eyes widened and she looked at Peter, who looked equally as surprised. Peter nodded, signifying for her to accept it. “Uh yes, that’s fine”

“Great! How about at four?”

“That sounds good.”

Christine gave her the address of where to meet her and she and Melissa hung up and once they did, Melissa looked at Peter with wide eyes. “Why did you have me accept it?! I’m so not ready for this!”

“The quicker we get answers from Christine, the quicker we can get your dad to California and get your parents back together.” He said. “We’re on a deadline, we need to hurry this up”

Melissa nodded. He was right, they needed to do this as quickly as possible, otherwise their plan might not work. “You’re right… We should start planning what I’m supposed to ask her…”

“We should, but we also should start planning our halloween costumes” 

Melissa looked at him confused. “Halloween costumes? Shouldn’t we be focusing more on getting my parents back together?”

“Yes, and we are, but Andi and I always do matching Halloween costumes, and they’re always cool looking. We have never missed a year, Halloween is in six days and if Andi isn’t back then you and I will have to dress up. If we don’t, Mr. Stark, Harley and the other Avengers will think it’s suspicious” 

Melissa raised an eyebrow at him. “They’ll think us not dressing up for Halloween is suspicious?”

Peter nodded. “Yes. Andi has been passionate about Halloween since we were little. If she suddenly doesn’t dress up, they’ll think somethings wrong”

Sighing, Melissa nodded. “Alright then, so we’ll talk about my interview with Christine while we shop for costumes. Is it really six days until Halloween?” Peter nodded and Melissa sighed again. “I’m going to be seventeen in six days…” Melissa sat back in her seat. She had been so preoccupied about their plan that she had forgotten about her birthday… But Melissa couldn’t think about that now, she needed to prepare for her interview with Christine. “So what do you and Andi do for Halloween?”