The Apartment Above Luke's, Monday Evening

[spin_kick_snap]

The lack of private function space was perfectly solved by the empty apartment above the diner. Kathy had spent the afternoon cleaning and setting up for dinner tonight. Her anniversary dinner, if you would.

A year ago today, she'd woken up in Eliot's house, surrounded by tight, worried faces. Her friends, pretty much en masse, had gone through a portal to LA and fought through hordes of exes to bring her home, in hopes that Nanika could bring her back to life. Or maybe just so she'd stop chanting Kathy's name. For whatever reason they'd done it, though, they'd succeeded. Kathy was alive again and had been for a full year.

A dizzying, challenging, terrifying year.

It seemed only right to hold some kind of commemorative dinner for it, somewhere between a celebration (which she still didn't think she'd earned, exactly) and an appreciation dinner. Not just for what they'd done, but for sticking with her this past year, for weathering the ups and downs, for reaching out and checking in, for reconnecting and promising to be better and stronger friends from here forward.

And, well, even if that didn't all come through, it would still be a delicious dinner cooked by Eliot and would give her a chance to just spend some time with the people she loved best, getting caught up with those she hadn't seen in awhile and offering an opportunity for them to get to know one another better, too.

If nothing else, they could all just stuff themselves silly with whatever delicious things the kitchen downstairs had whipped up and the super, extra, very chocolatey desserts Kathy had promised Alluka in her invitation.

[For those invited and up early for SP. No OCD, feel free to just ping in and around.]

Comments

[smilestopscars]

Ezra didn't reciprocate when it came to the kiss. The ground here didn't seem steady enough under his feet, here, so to speak.

But he didn't let that show.

"Please, darling," he scoffed as he stepped back. "You were never boring nor 'nothing special'."

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy gave him a soft smile and eased back a half step or so as well, giving him space. "Tell that to sophomore year," she said with a laugh. "But I think I've gotten more exciting with age. And good company."

[smilestopscars]

"Then you're aging like fine wine," Ezra decided, "or however the saying goes."

She was fine, was what he was saying.

He smiled. "It's good to see you again."

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"You too," Kathy said, eyes soft. "Thank you again for coming. It really means a lot. And I like getting the chance to spend more time with you."

[smilestopscars]

"By the looks of it, doesn't seem like it'll be a whole lot of time," Ezra replied, amused, with a gesture around the room. "It'd be crass to try and hog you all to myself."

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"There's always Dante to talk to," Kathy suggested, "...and wasn't Raven your big sister, back when you first showed up?"

She winked at him. "Besides, it's my party. Event. Thing. But that means that I can spend as much time talking to you as I want. And if anyone wants to say something..." She tossed her hair. "They're welcome to bring it up to me."

[smilestopscars]

Ezra was considerably more wary of stepping on figurative toes while he was here. But that was another one of those things he wasn't really going to let show. Different issues for different times.

"Well, your choice, darling," he replied easily. "Of course."

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"I know," Kathy said, reaching for his hand to squeeze. "I'm just letting you know that sometimes I'm gonna choose you."

Especially when the alternative was leaving him standing alone and feeling like an outsider. That's not what friends did.

[smilestopscars]

Ezra's feelings of being an outsider weren't going to be fixed that easily. But he wasn't looking to have anyone fix them right now, anyway.

He squeezed her hand back. "And I'm truly grateful for the honor," he quipped, smirking. "I'm just saying, I'm not going to be monopolizing you."

[spin_kick_snap]

Hell, Kathy had grown enough to realize she couldn't really fix anybody's problems but her own. The best she could hope for was to be support and comfort for him as he navigated through.

"Fair, fair," Kathy said. "Besides, you'd have to compete with dinner and that's hard enough. And then dessert is chocolate, sorry darling, chocolate always wins."

He knew perfectly well that wasn't true.

[smilestopscars]

"Well, that's just offensive," Ezra decided. "Not to mention untrue." Chocolate did not win over Ezra, thank you very much. (On Ezra, however... But that was not a thing to say right now.) "But, regardless, I'm intrigued by this chocolate dessert. Do tell me more."

[spin_kick_snap]

"I dunno..." Kathy mused, tapping a finger against her bottom lip. "It's supposed to be very good chocolate. We have fondue, chocolate hazelnut cream puffs, and a dessert called a chocolate-caramel fantasy. That's a lot to compete with my attention over."

[smilestopscars]

"I'm supposed to care about your attention when I can put all of my own towards all that?"

Yes, he'd changed his mind. Now she was the one who couldn't compete with chocolate.

[spin_kick_snap]

"Because it's my party, of course," Kathy said, laughing. "And you wouldn't be so rude as to ignore the hostess. Especially when she might need some convincing to share all that chocolate."

[smilestopscars]

"I'm beginning to wonder whether you know how a dinner party is supposed to work, darling," Ezra quipped. "You can't hold dessert hostage."

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"I'll just have to be a dinner party rebel then," Kathy declared, hands on her hips. "I do what I want and that includes hoarding dessert."

[smilestopscars]

Ezra just sighed sadly at her.

Just that.

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"Well, I suppose I can share," because Kathy was a sucker for pretty boys with sad eyes. "What's in it for me, though, other than less dessert?"

[smilestopscars]

"The knowledge of being a gracious hostess and understanding how dinner parties work," Ezra replied magnanimously. "My gratitude? I will be very nice and say 'thank you' at the end of it all."

It was so hard not to let his tone turn suggestive. Though less so than it would've been if they'd been even remotely alone.

[spin_kick_snap]

Indeed. Kathy'd worked hard to keep 'what's in it for me' sound like a friendly joke and not an invitation.

In no small part because her brain was offerign all sorts of ideas and she was doing her very best to ignore them all with light chitchat.

"But do I have to share all of them?" she asked. "How about three dips in the fondue pot and half a creampuff?"

[smilestopscars]

"Are you going to make everyone argue for their dessert?" Ezra retorted, with his eyebrows theatrically raised. "If not, I'm leaving."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Arguing is only the least of it," Kathy said. "People who want a slice of that chocolate, caramel fantasy are going to have to wrestle over it." She leaned in to whisper, "And while they're distracted, I'm going to run off with it and eat it in my old bedroom."

[smilestopscars]

"Then, again, darling," Ezra replied in a stage whisper, "you're a terrible hostess and a worse friend."

Friends didn't make friends wrestle for chocolate.

(And her whisper of that kind of thing was unfairly attractive.)

[spin_kick_snap]

It's entirely possible the whole idea was sparked by how attractive she'd find Ezra in that position. Not that she was saying that aloud.

"But," Kathy said, raising a finger, "I'll have an entire chocolate and caramel fantasy to make me feel better, so I'm still pretty sure I win."

She grinned up at him, smile made of pure mischief. "You're just mad you didn't think of it first."

[smilestopscars]

The wrestling wasn't the attractive bit. The part about using her cunning to distract people and running away with her winnings?

That was.

As was her mischief. "I'm not mad about anything."