don't ever want to miss you | fillie

no one knows where to find us

Chapter 23

'Uh... Chris?'

'Yes.' Chris smiled at Kathy distractedly as he looked up from his phone.

'Where are they?' Kathy asked, looking around.

'Who?' Chris asked, still with a dreamy expression on his face, not taking his eyes off of her as if he didn't even hear the question.

And, oh, boy, she's had enough of him not cooperating with her.

'Who? Are you a fucking owl?!' she yelled. 'Millie and Finn are gone!'

'Gone?' he asked dumbly, his eyebrows knitted in confusion as he looked around to see that Finn and Millie's table was - indeed - not occupied. 'Oops.'

"Oops"? Are you serious right now?! What were you even doing?'

'Nothing.' he muttered with embarrassment.

'You were on the phone the whole time, weren't you? What was so urgent, huh?'

'Umm...' he hesitated, scratching his head awkwardly. 'Memes?'

'Okay, remind me why I haven't killed you yet.'

'Because I'm so handsome?' he asked with a grin, his eyes hopeful.

'I hate you.' Kathy groaned, pulling her phone out of her purse and dialing Millie's number. She took a few steps away from Chris as she started walking in circles while waiting for her to pick up.

There was no answer, obviously.

She looked over her shoulder and noticed Chris staring, his eyes focused a few inches above the hem of her dress.

'Stop looking at my butt.'

'Uh...' he cleared his throat, averting his eyes from her. 'Sorry.'

She rolled her eyes and walked back to him. Resting her elbows against the counter, she leaned her forehead on her forearms with a deep sigh.

'Okay...' Chris started hesitantly, careful not to make her mad even more than she already was. 'Stay here, I'll go and check, maybe they're outside somewhere.'

'Oh, now you want to go and check?' she looked up at him with an angry expression on her face. 'Great. Any other genius ideas?'

Honestly, Kathy couldn't remember the last time she was so irritated. How did she even end up like this, with Chris being an idiot like always, with Millie and Finn being God-knows-where, wandering around New York with the paparazzi on their tail? She simply hated losing control of the situation, always keeping everything in check, making countless "to-do-lists" and schedules, planning everything months ahead, being well-organized, ambitious and professional.

One day spent with Finn's dumb manager and all of it could go fuck itself.

'They couldn't have gone far, they were still here three minutes ago, I swear.' he said. 'I'll go and-'

'No. Let's... Let's leave them alone. I'm done helping them.' she sighed tiredly. 'Guess it's insane to do the same thing twice and expect different results... I don't know what I was thinking, following your dumb ideas.'

'Okay, things didn't go as planned-'

'You think?'

'-but you need to admit it wasn't entirely a dumb idea. I've been managing Finn's career for almost two years and, tell me, since I have such stupid ideas as you claim... Why weren't there ever any problems with his image? And I wish I could say the same thing about Millie, but, well...'