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Elijah was so pissed. Not only did he have to deal with cops because of a noise complaint, which led everyone but Marlene, Kate, and the lads to leave, but his moment with Marlene was ruined, and he was so sure he was getting somewhere. He supposed it was for the better; he shouldn't finally make a move on Marlene just because they were both drunk, plus it was better if no moves were made at all.
"Okay, I'm going to be the one to say it; this is lame. Kate said this from the couch she was sitting on with Marlene. They were both still at least tipsy, and Kate wanted to leave when everyone had left so she could escape the nuisance that was Robert Keating, but she stayed for Marlene and Elijah's sake.
"Who wants to play Uno?" Robert asked, laughing, but his smile fell when no one laughed along with him.
"Okay, what about getting ice cream?" Josh asked.
"It's 12 a.m."
"Call it a midnight snack." Marlene knew if she got up from the couch, she was definitely going to feel the effects of the alcohol rush back to her, but chocolate ice cream sounded really good to her semi-drunk brain.
"Okay, I vote yes!" Marlene said excitedly, which made Kate giggle, which led to a chain reaction where everyone giggled.
"Josh, what the actual fuck did you put on those drinks?" Elijah asked while looking at the drunk, giggling group in Ryan's living room.
"Um, there was Sprite.. and vodka. A lot of vodka."
Kate got up from the couch to grab her and Marlene's jackets, which led to Robert following and Kate muttering something about not needing an escort. Marlene tried to get up from the couch, but as soon as she stood up, she felt dizzy and wobbled, Elijah noticed and he snuck an arm around her waist to keep her from falling.
"Hey, you okay?" He asked in a hushed and soft voice, just trying to make her feel comfortable, to which she nodded and held eye contact with him for longer than necessary. There was something so nice and comforting about being held by Elijah Hewson.
"Let's go, lovebirds." Ryan said as he cleared his throat, which made Marlene and Elijah spring apart and both blush furiously.
They all walked down to the parking lot so they could drive to the nearest gas station.
"Wait, who's driving? Aren't we all pissed right now?"Kate asked because she was definitely not getting in a car with anyone who was on the drink.
"I'm not; I stayed sober just in case; I was just making the drinks." Josh said, and everyone nodded and followed Josh to Ryan's car.
"How are all of us?" Marlene said as she motioned with her finger to the group. "Fitting in there?" She pointed to the car. Ryan's car could at least fit five people, and that would be very tight.
"You and Kate can sit on someone's lap." Ryan suggested shrugging. He opened the door to the passenger seat as Josh got in the driver's, which left Elijah and Robert.
"You have got to be kidding me." Kate said in frustration, and Robert smirked.
"Come on, love. No funny business, I promise." Robert said while holding out a hand for her to take, which she pointedly ignored and walked past him and to the car door.
"Get in, Robert." She said, to which he complied.
Elijah decided to take that as a cue to get in too, so he sat down on the car seat and helped Marlene settle on his lap, which was kind of uncomfortable since there was just a lot of shuffling.
His hands hovered around Marlene's waist for a bit until ultimately deciding that resting his hands against her hips was the best option.
At least they were more comfortable than Kate and Robert. Kate was gripping the passenger seat's headrest, trying to get as much distance as possible from her and Rob. Rob had his hands to his sides and was looking out the window, trying to be as gentlemanly as possible.
The drive turned out to be very long since they couldn't find a gas station that was either open or had a frozen yogurt section.
"I'm getting tired." Marlene leaned back to whisper to Eli.
"Do you want me to ask Josh to drop you girls back home?" Elijah whispered back.
"No, it's okay; I'm just gonna..." Marlene said as she shuffled around in Elijah's lap, turning herself to the side and laying her head on Elijah's shoulder. The moving around led everyone in the car to give the duo a knowing look, which made Elijah blush.
"Can you stop moving?" Robert whisper-yelled to Kate, who kept shuffling around, and the amount of moving she was doing so close to his crotch was not good for him.
"I'm uncomfortable."
"You're only uncomfortable because you're sitting like that. Hold on-let me-there." Robert grabbed the girl's hips so that she would be sitting in a position that was not dangerous for either of them, and he sat up so she could rest her back against his chest. Being so close together, Rob could smell Kate's hair, which smelled like coconut and lavender.
"Are you smelling my hair?"
"No..."
His response made Kate giggle, which made Rob smile. He had decided then and there that his life mission was to make Kate Murphy giggle.
-
They had finally found a gas station that was both open and had a frozen yogurt section. Marlene and Kate had separated from the guys to go look at the crisps section, which was an excuse for Kate to bombard Marlene with questions.
"Dude, the sexual tension between you and Elijah was palpating." Kate said as she grabbed a bag of Tayto's.
"Palpating? Seriously? You have been reading too many fanfics, Kate."
Marlene wasn't clueless. She knew Elijah and her were toeing around the line of friendship and flirting. In her opinion, it was fun, but she cared about him too much to just have fun. She needed to figure out what she wanted to do as soon as possible.
"Is there something going on between you and Bobby?" Marlene asked just to get her attention, which Kate recognized, and she rolled her eyes because of it.
"No, there's nothing going on between me and Robert." Kate replied as she grabbed another snack from the shelf and moved away from Marlene to walk down another aisle.
"I think he likes you."
"He's just trying to flirt with someone, Marls."
"Yeah, with you."
"You're insufferable."
Marlene decided to stop nagging her best friend and go get a cup of frozen yogurt, since that was the whole reason they went on this endeavor. As she walked up to the frozen yogurt machines, she saw that Ryan was dispensing his ice cream into his cup.
"Hi, Ryan." She greeted him, which spooked Ryan a bit, and he flinched but then chuckled when he realized it was her.
"Oh, hey, Marls!"
"What flavor should I get?" She asked him as she grabbed a medium cup from the stack.
"I'm getting original tart, which is the best Fro-Yo flavor, by the way. But Elijah likes strawberry, so you should get that and share."
"Why would I-"
"Um, because you both literally have been eye-fucking each other the whole night." Ryan continues as he sticks his spoon with ice cream in his mouth, then walks away from the girl.
"Okay, then." She mutters to herself, then pulls on the lever to dispense the strawberry ice cream into her cup. She totally didn't get strawberries to share with Elijah.
As she starts to walk to the register, she's met with Elijah, who is holding a large bag of chips on one hand and a pack of powdered donuts in the other.
"Eli! Look, I got strawberry frozen yogurt just for you." She said this as she held the plastic spoon with the ice cream up to his face. He leans his face down to reach the spoon, then does the sluttiest thing a man can do; he opens his mouths, then proceeds to lick the ice cream off the spoon while maintaining eye contact with Marlene.
Jesus.
"Mm. It's good." He says this as he smirks down at her, and she blinks several times.
"Yeah." She replies breathlessly.
They both walked up to the register where they placed the snacks and ice cream, and after a long back and forth on who would pay, Elijah ended up paying because, according to him, he had nepo baby money, and Marlene couldn't argue with that.
They decided to take a walk outside while everyone was busy inside. They hadn't been alone this entire time, and the tension was getting suffocating.
At first, they walked in silence; the only sounds were the plastic bag that Elijah had his snacks in and Marlene's slurping from eating her ice cream.
"I think eating ice cream when it's freezing outside was a bad idea," Marlene says.
"You think?" Elijah replies, then takes the cold cup from Marlene's hand and throws the cup away in the nearest bin. He then grabs one of Marlene's hands since his other hand is busy and sticks it in his leather jacket's pocket.
"What are you doing?" She asks wide-eyed and shyly.
"Just warming you up." He replied cheekily, which makes her blush. Then looking straight ahead to avoid eye contact. He was trying to make these flirty moments seem like nothing but in reality they made him very nervous.
There's two ways their current situation can go. She either finally addresses their weird flirty situation or she just completely ignores it. One part of her wants to say fuck it and address it, just to finally get to kiss him and hold him like he's hers and only hers, but another part of her and the biggest thinks that it's better if they don't get into any complicated relationships since they just got each other back.
She goes with the second option.
They stay like that for a while until Kate calls Marlene, asking where they went.
And as they walk back to the car, they separate their hands just to not get any questions. She wonders if, maybe, if she'd said something, they could still be holding hands in this moment.
