Spring Fever
Chapter 9: Preparing for a Party
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Notes: From Travis’s point of view.
Travis
hadn’t been to Florida so many times. Once, when they played with the Owls. And
now, when they were here on spring break. That was only two times. Why did this
whole situation seem so familiar, then?
Nish had
finally succeeded with tracking him down this morning. He was actually bursting
into flames, wanting every detail about the past three days. Travis had decided
to act like there was something wrong with the phone, so he could get Nish off
his back.
Was he the
only sane person on this team? Charlie was still having his ‘Cecilia
head-ache’, Fred was avoiding Cecilia as much as possible, Adam was not his
usual cheerfully self around Cecilia, Connie was upset about something, Luis
was definitely pissed, Guy had to hang out with Cecilia when Connie wasn’t
available and Cecilia was bouncing off the walls.
Everybody
was trying to get along, but it seemed a bit demanding to have them all in the
same room together.
“You’re
coming to the party, aren’t you?” Cecilia asked him. Right, there was a party
to think about too. Like there weren’t enough things on his mind already.
“I guess,
but...”
“Great!”
Cecilia didn’t wait to listen for his following sentence. “Everyone’s going.
Well, except for Luis, but I’ll try and convince him too.”
That was
probably the last thing Luis needed right now; Cecilia breathing down his neck.
Travis decided to cut through, so Luis wouldn’t kill her. She might come to use
when they played their next game.
“I’ll ask
him,” Travis offered. “Try to stay friends with the others, okay? I don’t wanna
scrape you up from the ice at our next practice. And please, try to stay on
good terms with Fred, for the love of God.”
“’key,”
Cecilia agreed.
There was
something wrong with Cecilia’s cheerfulness. She’d been all over the place
since they left L.A. The only time she’d lost her face was after the
car-accident. How she was able to recover from that so fast was a big question.
It shouldn’t even be possible to go from something like that, to be all perky
again. There was something wrong.
“Behave
now,” he ordered her. She grinned and bounced off into other direction. Travis
watched her while she was pulling Guy’s arm to get him to hang out with her.
She wasn’t usually this upbeat. Not without Adam has her supporter anyway.
Travis went
over to the kitchen. Maybe there was still something eatable left, after
Charlie went through the kitchen this morning.
“Do you see
any drinkable? Anything with alcohol would be just fine.” Travis smiled at
Charlie. He looked like hell run over twice.
“Nope,
since I’m the only sane person in this house, I’ve decided that no one consumes
alcohol here before eight o’ clock. In the evening.”
“Mean,”
Charlie growled.
By the way
this team kept on drinking, it was actually quite surprising that only one of
them had suffered from a serious drinking problem. Travis sighed. He couldn’t
really blame them either. He had gotten a perfectly valid explanation from Fred
a while ago, on why he’d started drinking in the first place.
Travis
himself hadn’t touched any alcohol at all. Maybe it was his up bringing or
something. He just didn’t have an urge for making a fool out of himself. He managed
to do that anyway, with or without alcohol.
“Yeah,
isn’t it? Well, someone have to look after you guys. I’m in charge right now.
Deal.”
Charlie
opened the fridge and went through it. “Where’s all the damn food? Cecilia!”
Cecilia looked
up over the sink. “Why are you yelling at me now? I haven’t done anything for a
long time now.”
“Have you
eaten the last food?”
Cecilia
pressed her lips together and acted like she was really thinking the question
through.
“You know,
I really don’t think so. As much as I love to be blamed for everything, it’s
not something I’ve done. Yell at someone else, ‘key?”
“Since I’m
the team-captain, I should decide who drinks what. I say that I drink that
bottle of tequila, is that alright, Trav?”
Travis
shook his head. “No way. I don’t care how drunk you all get tonight, but you’ll
stay sober up until that moment when the time change from eight, to eight o’
one. Understood?”
Both
Cecilia and Charlie nodded. Charlie closed the fridge with a loud thud and
tramped away through the kitchen and out the door. Cecilia followed him out.
Travis was
just about to get hold of someone that could tag along to the store, when Adam
burst in through the front door.
“I don’t
care what anyone say, I’m getting drunk, right now.”
Sigh, sigh,
sigh. Another therapy session, coming up.
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Travis
hadn’t really spent any time with Connie. They hung together with the others
and from time to time they spoke to each other, but besides from that, nothing.
Connie
needed to escape from Guy’s company and Luis’s evil stares, and frankly, Travis
was sick and tired of keeping the others away from the liquor cabinet.
Travis had
asked her to come with him to the store, and she seemed relieved to have an
excuse for getting out of the house.
Fred had
agreed to drive them there, so they didn’t have to walk. He was somewhere
purchasing aspirin for Charlie.
“Do you
have a list or something?” Connie asked, going through the shelves. “It might
be easier that way.”
“No, it
would’ve been a long list in that case. Just grab the most useful stuff.”
“Are
Snickers useful stuff?” Connie asked.
“I guess.”
Connie
shoved some more things into the trolley. Travis began to feel bad for Fred,
who had to pay for all of it.
“What did
Nish say?”
“When?”
“This
morning, when he called. Was he going on about how wonderful his spring break
with Sarah was?”
“Quite the
opposite. Sarah is wearing him down. I didn’t hear one smart comment from him
during the whole conversation. They are with Nish’s parents in Toronto. Nish
pretended that he was in hell, but he’s not, I can tell.”
“How’s
Sarah?”
“She’s
fine, I guess. According to Nish, she’s a handful. It’s nice that they’re still
such good friends.”
“Yeah,”
Connie laughed.
“How are
you doing, then?” It was his job as a co-captain to be concerned for his
players. Especially now when it was so obvious that something was wrong.
“Fine,”
Connie answered. This was the answer he usually got. Especially if he would ask
Cecilia, she was an expert of avoiding questions.
“You wanna
talk about it?”
He was
prepared for that usually ‘no’, followed by that expression of ‘hell no’ on
Connie’s face.
“I lost all
my money last Saturday.”
“All your
money?”
“Yeah, it was
nearly a thousand dollars.”
That, he
hadn’t been prepared for. And to think, he was actually waiting for a response
more like ‘I’m annoyed with Cecilia/Guy/Luis’.
“Have you
called the police?”
“What are
they supposed to do?” she said bitterly. “Someone stole it at the gas station.
It was all I had. Everything my parents have saved up for me.”
Travis
listened to Connie’s story. He could handle a smaller meltdown among the team
players without any help from Cecilia or Charlie, but this? This was more of a
thing that their coaches should take care of.
“Have you
told Charlie or Cecilia?”
“No, why
should I?” The funny thing was that she was actually telling him. Shouldn’t he
be the last person she’d turn to? He’d think so anyway.
“Maybe they
know what to do?”
“If Guy was
on my back about this, just imagine how Charlie would react. Or Cecilia too,
for that matter. I don’t want her to know.”
Something
in Connie’s voice, when she mentioned Cecilia, told him that this was probably
about more then some stupid pride. Why did Connie tell him all this? Was it the
dairy-products next to her that allured it out of her?
“Are you
mad with each other?”
“No, I just
don’t think I can manage to get that ‘poor Connie’ look from her. She already has
all the advantages she could possibly think of. I will not give her this too.”
Travis was
confused. What was she talking about, really?
Just when
he was about to ask her, Fred showed up and disturbed them. “I’m back,” he
puffed. “That pharmacy is not as close by as you might think.”
“Did you
run, or what?” Connie asked.
“Yeah,” he
responded. “Well, I’ve done my choirs. How ‘bout you? What’s this? Snickers?”
“Yeah,
we’re only buying the most important things,” Travis and Connie said at the
same time.
“Fine, I
see. I leave you two alone for two seconds, and you start to interpret our
nutritional requirement as ‘candy’?”
“Yep,”
Connie smiled. “Wanna help us load this trolley with lots of other carbohydrate
filled stuff?”
“Sure, do
you have ‘Coca-cola’ on that list too?” he said sarcastically.
When they
got back to the house, it looked like a hurricane had went through it. Travis
guessed that it was Hurricane Cecilia. It usually was when it looked this bad.
Fred must’ve known that too, since he only threw one eye at the mess, before he
bellowed her name.
“Cecilia!
Get your ass down here!”
Cecilia
jumped down the stairs and landed in front of Fred. She put her hands into her
back-pockets and bit her lip. “What’s up?”
“Did you
just hear me yell at you?” Fred asked calmly.
“Uhm,
yeah!” she said, bouncing up and down. Fred put his hands on her shoulders to
keep her still.
“I’m mad,
do you understand why?”
“Uhm, nah, not
really.” She was trying to pull off that cute-routine, but it only made Fred
even madder.
“Clean up
here. Now.”
Cecilia
smiled at him. “I didn’t do this. It was Luis.”
Travis saw
that Connie made a face when she heard the mentioning of Luis’s name. What the
hell was going on here? Was everybody out of their minds?
“You’re
saying that it was Luis that made this mess? Why?”
“Because
it’s the truth.”
“I mean,
why did he make a mess?”
Fred tried
to be patient, but Travis knew that he was about to wring Cecilia’s neck at any
minute now. It was probably best to step between them before that happened.
“He
probably have a good explanation for that, go ask him,” Travis suggested.
“Meanwhile, Cecilia, help me and Connie to stuff these things into the fridge,
okay?”
“Great,
food!” Cecilia shouted and dived into one of the bags. “Did you buy any Coke?
I’m thirsty as hell.”
“There’s
some perfectly good water in the tap,” Fred growled. “Maybe you should drink
that instead? It might get you a tad less, I don’t know, hyper?”
Cecilia
giggled. “Nah, I rather drink Coke.”
“Get away
from the food, Cee. We have to unpack it before the frozen stuff melts.”
“Fine, I’ll
help. By the way, Charlie was asking for you a while ago. He’s mad, because he
thinks that you stole the key to the liquor cabinet.”
“Well, I
did, so tell him to get over it,” Travis smiled. “Connie, can you please tell
Cecilia to move out of my way?”
Cecilia jumped
up on the sink and waved her legs. “I can supervise instead. I’m pretty damn
good at that, right Fred?”
Fred
mumbled something and disappeared out, probably to get hold of Luis.
Travis
smiled at Connie. They both knew that Cecilia’s ‘supervising’ would include a
lot of talking from her side, and a lot of work from their side.
“I hope
you’ve loaded the fridge with food now. It’s gonna be a great party,” Cecilia
promised. “I hope Fred’s a bit less cranky, though. He’s no fun when he’s
grumpy.”
“Wonder why
he’s like that? Trav?”
“No idea,”
Travis said.
“I know
that he’s pissed at me for some reason. But that doesn’t matter, coz tomorrow,
I’ll be sober, and he’ll have a hangover. It’s pay-back time.”
Travis felt
very bad for Fred in that exact moment.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Author’s
Note: Guess what I
found out today? This story is nominated in the Fan Fiction Awards. Thank you
for nominating me, whoever you are!
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