Alex turned to Manny, exasperated. “You know what that is?” Before Manny could respond, he turned to Romero, who was on the floor now, thrusting his middle up in the air. “All right, will you stop? I give up, okay?” He shook his head when Romero continued. “I said I give up!’

“You don’t even wanna guess?” Romero asked, standing up. “C’mon at least try.” He placed his hands behind his head again.

“Okay, I’ll guess, “Alex said, holding out a hand. “Just don’t start that shit up again.” He thought about it for a moment then smiled as if he had it. “Napoleon Dynamite.”

“What!” Romero asked as Sarah fell back into the sofa and went on her second round of hysterical laughing.

“That scene at the end where he dances on stage,” Alex explained.

“No! That was Magic Mike, man!” Romero said, shaking his head disgusted. “Napoleon Dynamite?” he muttered as he walked back to sit next to Alex.

“I knew it,” Manny said with a big smug smile. “Man, why couldn’t we have gotten that one?”

Now Angel laughed. That might’ve been Manny up there twerking instead of Romero. He shuddered at the thought.

As the night went on, there was no shortage of laughter. They sat through Manny’s interpretation of White Men Can’t Jump as he nearly took out an ankle then laughed even more because every one of Romero’s movies had him dancing. The moment Romero started doing the twist on the fourth round Alex threw his napkin on the floor as if he were slam dunking a ball. “This is bullshit!”

“No, watch, watch, watch!” Romero said then brought two open fingers over his face pulling each hand off to the sides over his eyes as he continued to twist in slow motion.

Alex’s disgusted face eased up. “Pulp Fiction.”

“Yeah!” Romero jumped up in the air then clapped. “Finally,” he high fived Alex as he reached him. “Man, you suck at this.”

“I suck at this?” Alex looked at him incredulously. “How was I supposed to get Rocky from you prancing around up there earlier?”

“I was running in place and bobbing and weaving!”

By the time the game was over, Sarah said her sides hurt from how much she’d laughed. Another not surprising outcome was that Alex and Valerie were now in a corner of the kitchen, talking in hushed voices. Even though she seemed a bit pissed still, their faces were much too close for her protesting to be taken too seriously. Since her friends had already left without her, it was obvious who’d be taking her home.

“Those two.” Romero shook his head as he downed his beer.

“No more of those, Moe,” Manny warned. “Or your ass ain’t leaving this house tonight.”

Sarah walked back toward Angel from the bathroom. She almost walked into Max she was so busy reading something on her phone. Their eyes met as she looked up suddenly and she smiled. Angel could hardly wait to get her home. By the time she reached him, she was back to reading whatever it was she’d been reading on her phone. ‘You ready to go?” he asked.

She looked up and nodded. “Yep,” she said then looked back down at her phone.

“Something wrong?” Angel asked, hating that feeling that it could be anything these days—Leo, Syd, her dad.

“No.” She looked up at him again, smiling that sweet genuine smile he loved seeing on her like earlier when she’d laughed so heartedly. “I got the confirmation from UCSD that they were able to switch that class I wanted switched.”

Angel casually let out a sigh of relief. All he wanted was one night of no drama—a night he could just enjoy his girl with no outside third parties intruding in their carefree time alone. They said their goodbyes and Angel had every intention of doing just that tonight: enjoying every inch of Sarah all too himself without interruptions or other annoying thoughts.

~*~

Sarah

Last night Sarah had decided to keep Sydney’s opinion about Leonardo’s photo to herself. She hadn’t been able to help herself and had forwarded him the email yesterday from her phone. He didn’t respond until the eve when they were at Max’s party. His initial response was three capital letters.

“W.T.F?!”

He later elaborated with a longer email that he had no doubt Angel would have some objection about the photo. Sarah had wanted Sydney’s sincerest response, so she hadn’t mentioned in the first email what she’d thought of the photo or that Angel had seen it. She just sent it as a generic check-out-this-fish-Leonardo-caught type of email to see if Sydney would even mention it. As expected, his reaction was completely sincere and what Sarah had feared. He, too, was suspicious of Leonardo now. Though Angel hadn’t actually said so, she’d seen it in his face. She’d been reading Sydney’s email when Angel had asked her if anything was wrong. She didn’t actually lie about the confirmation of her classes being changed. It was the email just before Sydney’s second email regarding the photo. She just hadn’t wanted to ruin what had turned out to be such a fun night. When they got back to her place, she’d been glad she hadn’t because they’d had another amazingly exhausting night.

That morning, however, unlike yesterday, Angel had to leave early. He was opening the restaurant. Sarah had the day off and was planning to make a nice dinner for her and her mom when her mom got home later that night. She also figured, given the questionable photo, she should get to know him sooner rather than later so she could decide now if she was moving forward and meeting with him or cutting her losses now before she was in too deep. She shot off an email that morning letting Leonardo know her day was pretty much open if he wanted to chat online.