Kidnapped, Unfortunately

Chapter Twenty Four

Ding dong.

Our ears all perked up at the sound of the doorbell. That was fast!

Carson hastily ran over to throw open the door.

A teenager in a red shirt and hat stood in the doorway holding some pizza. He was leaning against the doorframe casually, chewing some gum, and when the door opened his nodded his head. "Yo."

Carson immediately didn't like him. His face screwed up and his mouth turn downwards. "Hi."

The guy smacked his gum and said, "So, I got 'cho pizza."

"I see that," Carson clipped.

Pizza Guy let out a loud laugh and pushed past Carson and into the house. "Bro, I am so tired."

Carson stood where he was, still facing outside. "Please, come on in."

Pizza Guy turned and grinned."Hey thanks!" He then made his way into the kitchen and set the boxes down on the counter. Then he opened up the box on top and grabbed a slice.

We all stood there, staring at him, and he ate a slice, apparently oblivious.

Then, as he went to go around the counter, he noticed me for the first time, and immediately a lazy smirk overtook his face.

"Hey," He said, oozing flirtation. "I'm Ryan."

I frowned.

He winked, then scooted around me and began opening up the cabinets. "Hey, do y'all have any snacks or somethin'?"

"That's it," Carson said. He grabbed Pizza Guy by the back of the shirt and physically hauled him out.

"Hey man, lets be chill!" Pizza guy complained, but Carson ignored him.

After giving him a hard shove out the door, he slammed it shut.

"Was he some kind of punk-kid?" Aileen asked.

"You would know, wouldn't you?" Jacob shot.

"Can you two get along for five minutes?" Camille complained.

"It's not my fault!" They both claimed, then glared at each other.

Camille sighed loudly and put her head down on the table.

Carson, sensing the tension, announces, "So, who wants pizza!"

Aileen groaned. "That guy took a bite out of it."

"Only one though!" Carson added.

"It's cold," Jacob pointed out, poking a slice with his pointer finger.

"We can just heat it up!"

"He got the order wrong," Camille said, noticing that there was a weird brown sauce on the slices.

"Well, look on the bright side-"

"Could you stop being so damn cheery?" Aileen demanded.

Carson's lips pinched together in annoyance and his eyes glared. "Fine then! Fix your own problems!"

"Why can't there be a shop that dedicates its self to making justice happen when people ruin your dinner?" Aileen complained, picking at it."

"You know, there's a place called a courthouse," Jacob told her.

"You know, there's a place called Shut Up!" Aileen countered.

"FIVE MINUTES!" Camille shouted.

We all fell silent.

I shared an uncomfortable look with Carson, and we both began to set the table, grabbing the paper plates from the cabinet and setting them down on the table.

People begrudgingly sat down and began taking slices and slapping them down on their plates.

After grabbing a slice for myself and biting into it, I discovered that despite the wrong order, it was actually pretty good!

Crispy crust, stringy cheese, and the brown sauce was surprisingly tasty. It was a bit sweet, which went well with the salty crust.

"You know what," I said, chewing another bite of pizza, "This is actually pretty good!"

"Maybe this day doesn't have to suck," Aileen added.

"You know, I have just the thing to turn this night around," Camille said.

Jacob put down his pizza and frowned. "But it just turned good. Now you want to turn it back around to bad?"

"No, I will turn the night around and then turn it around again," Camille corrected, slightly annoyed.

"Wouldn't it be simpler to just say that you had good news?" Carson piped up.

Camille's eyes narrowed, and I got the feeling that she was just about done with our shenanigans.

"Fine," She gritted her teeth. "I have good news. Since Christmas is coming up, and it's time for the annual secret Santa draw, I have put everyone's name in a hat and we can all take one now. Happy?"

"Yep," Carson said cheerfully. "Where's this bag?"

She got up from the table and went up the stairs. A couple minutes later she reappeared with a baseball cap that had several slips of lined paper in it.

"Who wants to go first?" Camille asked.

Carson stretched his arms over his head and said casually, "Well, I might as well go first, since everyone knows that I'm the best gift-giver."

Camille held out the hat for him, and he plucked a pice of paper off the top.

Then he unfolded it, his expression never changing. "Umhmm."

"I'll go next," Jacob chirped.

He dug his hand into the hat and dug around for a couple seconds, until Aileen snapped, "Just pick one!"

Jacob scowled and pulled out a pice of paper.

Unlike Carson though, he had no poker face, and immediately he squealed, "Oooohhhh!"

"My turn," Aileen said, taking a slip from the very bottom. When she pulled her hand back out and read the paper, she immediately said, "I want to pick again."

"No take-backs!" Camille said.

"But-"

"No!"

Aileen sighed heavily. She leaned back in her chair, defeated. But then a second later, her face slowly morphed into a satisfied one. "Actually, you're right. No take backs."

Hmm...

"I guess I'll go now," I spoke up with a small smile.

I leaned forward and fished around a bit before closing my fingers around a piece of paper.

As I brought it back out and unfolded it, a name written in black jumped out at me.

Camille.

Oh, shoot.

Of course I'd get the girl I literally know nothing about. Heck- all I knew was that her building burned down.

Maybe I could get her a fire extinguisher? No, that's stupid. But is it? Yes. No?