Slightly Less Badass

~Chapter Thirty~

"There's literally no reason to be writing this down," Rina says, exasperated. We've both told Hannah this several times. She refused to listen.
"Well I want to make sure I remember it all. You people have been busy and we haven't seen you in years," she replies. Liz looks over Hannah's shoulder as she continues to scribble down notes.
"You forgot to write down that they now have tattoos," she comments.
"Oh right." Hannah writes that down on her piece of paper. I roll my eyes. Rina and I attempt to wait patiently as they both examine their list of information about us.
After a long moment, Hannah finally nods.
"M'kay. I think we've got everything. I think I'm caught up on your lives. You got it all Liz?"
"Mmm... I think so."
"So any questions about our lives?" Hannah asks. She leans forward excitedly. I make eye contact with Rina.
"No I think we got it all," she answers.
"You sure? I mean there's a lot-"
Rina cuts Hannah off, "Hannah, you worked in the fashion industry. Making clothes or something and moved away to somewhere to work for some big business designing clothes. You didn't like it or something, quit, and moved back home."
Hannah tries to interrupt to tell us the exact details but we didn't care. I cut her off by summing up Liz's past few years.
"You're a photographer. You do freelance stuff, anything you're offered. When you weren't making the money you expected, you had a brilliant idea and called Hannah."
Rina continues, "You started some business by collaborating with another business. Now Hannah designs clothes and Liz takes pictures of them. You both live in New York and are single."
"Did we cover everything?" I ask. They stare at us with their mouths slightly open. Then Hannah squints her eyes and pouts.
"You make it seem so uninteresting. Ya, you got the gist of it," she says.
"The only question I have," Liz says, "is why don't y'all just buy a big house and live together?"
"Why would we do that?" Rina asks.
"Well it seems like you practically live together anyway. Why not just make it easier and buy a house together?"
"That is a very good question," Hannah comments.
"Well..."
Rina and I share a look.
"We tried that when we went on vacation. Let's just say it didn't end well," I tell them.
"It couldn't have been that bad," Hannah says with a roll of her eyes .
"Well by the end of the week we started another prank war so..."
Their expressions transform into those of an evil scientist. Hannah giggles and Liz bounces slightly in excitement.
"This will be fun. Already I have tons of ideas," says Liz.
"No need." I interject. "Rina already has a whole list of things we can still use."
"Um, actually," says Rina sheepishly,"I kinda sorta don't. David found it and poured a cup of water on it. I tried to save it but it was beyond fixing."
"Nice going. Years of hard work ruined by the enemy."
"That's alright. Create a list of all the pranks you've done that you can remember. I don't want to suggest anything you already did," says Hannah. Rina and I get to work.
-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-
It takes us only a few hours to plan and figure out the details. Liz and Hannah were unnecessarily excited. They literally bounced up and down in excitement.
"Would you chill out? Geez," Rina says, annoyed.
"Never. So when are we actually doing this?" Hannah asks.
"Not tonight. Tonight Jacob promised a yummy dinner. We'll do it tomorrow night."
"Yummy dinner? What yummy dinner?" Liz glances around the room.
"I don't know. We decided to all have dinner together once a week. Tonight's the first time we're doing it. Jacob offered to make the dinner. He refuses to tell us what it is," says Rina with an eye roll.
"We do know it's on the grill, though. He asked if he could use ours."
"Mmm. Anything grilled is yummy. We are invited to this, right?" Hannah questions.
"I guess? Now shush and let's go watch some tv."
They both obediently sit down on the couch. Rina turns on the tv and plays some random movie. I grab my dog and snuggle on the couch.
Before long, I feel my eyes starting to close.
----
When I open my eyes again, the tv is off and everyone is gone. Even Magnus has disappeared. I groan and sit up.
"Guys stop doing this to me," I sigh. I walk into the kitchen to discover Jay and Rina standing there discussing things intently. Things never turn out well when they whisper by themselves. Hmm...
I attempt to sneak closer to listen in but unfortunately I'm not a very good sneaker. Rina spots me before I take more than two steps.
"About time! Jacob is nearly done making dinner'" Jay says.
"For a moment we thought we were gonna have to wake you up. Jay and I were just arguing over who was going to go do it. Neither of us wanted to wake a sleeping bear," say Rina. I stick out my tongue st both of them.
"Meanies. What did Jacob make for us?"
"Still won't tell us. He won't let anyone near the grill. Not even Eliza knows. It involves macaroni though." She gestures towards a pot of mac&cheese sitting on the counter. It was steaming and made my stomach growl.
"Well that rude of him. I'm gonna go find out." I start walking towards the door with the intent of snooping. Rina stops me before I reach the door.
"No, you can't. He threatened to take it home if we kept being nosy," she warns.
"But what if he's grilling something gross?"
They both shrug. Jay says, "Guess we'll find out. Looks like he's done."
We all three look out the window. Jacob was closing the grill and starting to walk towards us. In single file, we walk outside. David, Eliza, Hannah, and Liz are already sitting down at the table. David look highly uncomfortable as the the three girls laugh loudly at something. I feel slightly bad for him.
"I'm hungry," Eliza moans.
"Same," I reply as I sit down in between her and Jacob.
"Jacob feed us," she says then opens her mouth really wide. Jacob just rolls his eyes and walks past her. This causes her to pout. She gets up from the table and follows him into the house. She looks like a puppy begging for food. I get up and follow her. Soon, everyone's following Jacob inside.
I walk through the door just as Jacob sets down a giant plate of steaks. My stomach growls again. Eliza grabs a paper pate and starts to reach out to grab a steak.
"I call getting the first plate!" I yell. I shove past everyone and cut in front of Eliza. She pouts again but doesn't argue. Smart girl. It's good to know she's learned to not argue with me about food.
I grab the largest and yummiest looking steak and put it on my plate. Then I walk over to the macaroni and put to giant scoops on my plate. I notice there's weird looking pieces of something in the macaroni. I look over at Jacob accusingly. He catches my look and shrugs.
"Don't ask me. Eliza made the mac&cheese," he says.
"Eliza what did you put in this?" I question.
"Bacon," she replies. Her eyes are wide with happiness. I grin and nod in approval. I'm starting to really like this girl.

I decide that we need something that's slightly healthy. I open the fridge and pull out a big bowl full of strawberries. I balance my plate in one hand and the bowl in the other. I was so concentrated on this task that I didn't hear Hannah asking me a question.
"Mira? Helooooo?"
I look up. She had her eyebrow arched and her hand on her hip.
"Sassy," I mutter. "What?"
"Are those strawberries? Since when do you eat anything healthy?"
"God, no. They're strawberries dipped in chocolate. Now will someone please open the door before I drop all of this?"
Jay obliges and opens the door for me. I step outside and hurry over to the table we had set up. I can feel the plate starting to wobble. Luckily, I manage to set both things down before I drop it. I sit down and start piling strawberries in the little room that I have left on the plate. I sigh in content as I watch everyone else start to exit the house.
Jacob nudges Eliza, trying to make her spill her drink. He laughs loudly as she glares daggers at him. Hannah and Liz giggle as they watch Jacob and Eliza argue. David carries two plate while Rina carries two drinks and the whisper happily to each other. Jay is the last one to exit, with Magnus and Tessa trailing after him. He grins widely when he notices me staring. I smile back and gesture to the seat next to me. He starts walking faster so no one would steal his spot. He hands me a glass of lemonade.
"Thanks," I say and take a sip.
"No problem."
I could most definitely get used to this.