Last Flight to L.A.

chapter fourteen: summer soiree

"Some infinities are simply bigger than other infinities."

~The Fault in Our Stars

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"You ready?" Ethan asked, peeking his head into the kitchen.

Kelsey unbuttoned her chef's coat and dusted off a little flour that had gotten on the black tank top underneath. She pulled on a light yellow cardigan and picked up her purse. "Yep."

Sandy was having a party, or "summer soiree", as she called it, with a group of fancy bloggers in the area that night.

Sandy had met Kelsey early that morning and told her the plans before she went to work.

She had explained every detail of the "soiree" elaborately, making it sound exciting, and making it clear that they didn't include Kelsey.

"And, I mean, it'd be okay if you had to stay here," Sandy said, clearly insinuating that it should be the absolute last resort.

"Oh," Kelsey had said. "No, um, I'll make plans elsewhere."

Sandy breathed a sigh of relief and squeezed Kelsey's arm. "You understand, right? It's not you. I just think you'd feel a little out of place with all these crazy bloggers parading around the house."

They'd both laughed about it, but Kelsey couldn't help but revisit her high school memories of not being cool enough to go to her classmate's parties.

She'd never wanted to go—just like she didn't want to join Sandy's get together—but still, she secretly wanted to be invited.

It had put her in quite a spot, however. What was she going to do? Wander the streets of L.A.? Sit in a café?

And Sandy kept dodging the question of when the party would be over.

"I'll text you when everyone leaves," she'd said, which didn't help Kelsey in the least.

She'd thought of a thousand things she could do, but came up short. For all she knew, the party could last anywhere from ten to four a.m. Unless she wanted to spend the night in a casino, there wasn't much she felt safe doing alone at night.

So, despite her better judgement, she'd called Ethan during her lunch break. She kept pretending that things were back to normal, that he was the same guy he'd always been. And, in a way, he still was.

"Thanks for this," Kelsey said, following him to his car outside.

"Not a problem," he replied cheerily, opening the door for her before going around to his side and starting the engine. "Too bad it took your roommate giving you the boot for you to be able to discover the best pizza in California."

Kelsey raised her eyebrows. "Is that where we're going?"

"Dude, I've been thinking about this pizza ever since my sister's graduation last weekend. They served some crap on top of flatbread, called it pizza, and I've been craving the real stuff ever since."

"Ew."

"Exactly. Now, Kelsey," he said, his voice growing serious, "are you a pineapple pizza weirdo?"

Kelsey smiled demurely. "Yes," she admitted. "Sue me."

"Noooo," Ethan groaned. "We can't even be friends anymore."