CHAPTER 23: Detour

"He's coming around. He's opening his eyes."

"He's alive!"

"Trevor, can you hear me? How many fingers am I holding up?"

"Grazie Dio!"

"Dammit, Diego! You didn't have to kick the ball the hard!"

"I'm sorry. I thought he could block it."

"Stop arguing, you two!"

"Hey, hey. Trev-turd, you there?"

The first face I saw was the one nearest to me. It was Louie. Opposite of him was London, looking so worried you'd think Louie was the one on the ground. And behind the kneeling Steffensons was the motley crew.

Diego and Sage looked like they were arguing. Kaye and Dax were between them, trying to stop whatever it was. And Gwen...

Gwen was towering over the three of us. She was staring at me. Her eyebrows were furrowed, button nose scrunched up in what I could only guess was pity.

I pressed my elbows down to sit up. Louie helped me. And when the world didn't seem so hazy anymore, I noticed the bickering had stopped and everyone was looking at me.

"You okay?" Louie asked, clasping my hand to pull me up.

"Yeah." That was a fucking lie. My nose stung like hell! This is exactly why I don't play sports outside of the screen. "Did we win?"

Louie laughed as we stood up. "Fuck no! Nice save, though."

"Yeah, I really put my head in the game."

Standing up might have reassured the gang that I had no serious injury so they went closer. Diego went a bit too close.

"Trevor," he said, "I apologize for hitting you. It was not my intention."

"Nah, it's okay, man," I lied, trying to sound all breezy about it.

Diego was speculating. With narrowed eyes, he observed, "Your nose is turning purple."

"It does that all the time," I said with a shrug. That was a lameass excuse. But I just got my brain rattled by a fucking soccer ball. Give me a break!

"I'm still very sorry." He sure looked like it. Diego's bright green eyes were clouded by guilt. That's when Dax oh-so-subtly nudged him.

"Go on," the brunet encouraged.

Clearing his throat, Diego looked at London, Louie and focused back on me. "Again, I'm sorry for hitting you in the face.  But, I'm having a small get-together in my house.Do you guys want to join us later tonight?"

The others behind him chuckled. "It's a party," Dax said. "Diego just likes calling it 'get-together' because it's more subtle." He then asked, "You up for it?"

"Sure," I answered right away. I assumed that when Diego said we, it included Gwen, too.

And if that were truly the case, the diary would be returned to the mystery girl tonight.

×××××

Louie was carpooling to the party. I mean, get-together.

After swinging by my house, we drove up to Sage's house just south of the park. We needed to give her a ride because she had Diego's address. And if you knew Sage, you'd know that she doesn't give out information for free. A ride in Romanoff in exchange for the address.

I had to share the backseat with her. She passed a torn piece of paper towards Louie.

"Astoria Heights? Shit, this is right outside of town," remarked Louie.

"If that's the case, we're stopping by a diner on the way," London said. "I'm starving."

"The party doesn't start for another 30 minutes, so we could dine in," Sage chirped.

"Get-together," I corrected her. She rolled her eyes at me.

"Fine," Louie said, stepping on the gas.

We stopped by the local Sikstee 9 Diner around Fifth Avenue. The place always reeked of grease but the food's delicious so it was packed as always. There were no four-seated booths available. But there were two tables for two, which meant we had to split up if we wanted to dine in.

"Maybe we could just get takeout?" I suggested.

"No," Louie immediately shot down, pointing a chiding finger at me. "You spilled mayonnaise on the passenger seat last time. No one's eating food inside Romanoff."

"Who's Romanoff?" Sage asked.

"The car," London and I both answered.

"We're taking separate tables," Louie announced and headed inside. The girls walked in front of us and he held me back, saying, "I'm not sitting with Sage and I need to talk to my sister about Diego."

"Why?"

"I didn't like the way he was eye-raping her, man."

I sighed. "Fine."

So not only did I have to endure the presence of Sage for the whole ride, I also had to share a table with her. Which wasn't so bad. Sage wasn't much of a pest when there's food. My theory is that her mouth's so full, she couldn't blabber too much.

Halfway through my nachos, I decided to ask Sage something. If I was going to tell Gwen about everything tonight, I had to have some sort of knowledge about her. "So how'd you guys become friends?" I questioned. "You and the guys from the park."

"Oh," she said, wiping marinara sauce off her face. "Our parents used to go to the same country club. Well, mine worked there but you get the gist. Grew up together. We used to be really close friends, the five of us."

"You're not close friends now?"

Sage took a breath to think and set her pizza slice on the plate. "Not really. We had a bit of a fallout."

She was starting to munch on the pizza again but I urged her to continue.

"Dax was too busy with basketball. Gwen got a new set friends at school. Then, Diego disappeared for a while. I guess Kaye and I were the only ones that stuck together," she said. "Then, when Diego returned, he wanted the old gang back together. We're trying to get along again."

"Why'd you guys fall apart?"

"I don't really like talking about it."

"No?" I teased. "Not even for 3 bucks per answer?"

Sage laughed. "There are some things money can't buy, Jettison."

"Okay, okay," I said, letting go of the topic. At the same moment, the song from the vintage jukebox started to play. The intro was funky. It sounded... uptown.

Out of nowhere, Sage hollered. I was so caught off guard that I dropped a nacho chip on the floor!

"This is my jam!" she yelled, making little disco moves with her hands.

"What is this?" It sounded familiar. I had the title of it on the tip of my tongue.

"Have you been living under a rock?" Sage exclaimed, sounding appalled. "This is Uptown Funk, brotha!"

"Bruno Mars?" I asked.

"Yeah," she hissed, moving along to the beat.

I tilted my head to the side. Staring at the blondie use a pepper shaker as a microphone to sing along, I couldn't help but wonder. That's when I had a fricking Freudian slip. "I think you're my mystery girl."

"What?" she asked, her movements slowing down.

"The girl who owns the diary," I said.

She scoffed. "Why?"

"The diary writer likes Bruno Mars. You do, too!"

She rolled her eyes. "Everybody likes Bruno Mars."

"Well, she also plays FIFA. We've played FIFA before."

"That's a coincidence."

"And she loves pizza."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

I pointed at her food. Her half-munched pepperoni pizza.

"Pizza is just like Bruno Mars. Everybody likes it." She took a bite of it. "And besides, those things are so standard. If you base your search on those things, then anybody could be your mystery girl."

"That also means you could be her." I smirked.

Sage was quiet, slowly chewing her food. Then, she swallowed. "That's where you're wrong, kiddo," she winked and pointed finger guns at me. Real mature.

"You have three out of three things in common with her already."

"Yeah, but you forget one crucial thing," she countered, leaning over the table.

I took that as a challenge so I leaned in, too, until our face were mere inches apart. "Oh, yeah? What's that?"

"The mystery girl had sex with you. I never did, never will."

Right. Shit, how the hell did I forget about that? Sage never slept with me. So, I arched my eyebrow and asked, "You wanna change that?"

She laughed straight at my face. "Yeah, sure. I'll meet you in the girls' bathrooms," she deadpanned.

I knew that she was joking. Anyone with half a brain would've known! But there's this tick inside me that responds to flirting the way I usually would. I guess old habits do die hard. My tongue darted out, wetting my lower lip as I continued staring at Sage who was still in hysterics. She never sunk back to her seat. Our faces were still so close.

My finger reached out to play with a stray strand of her blonde hair. When she felt the tug, her laughter stopped. When she noticed my eyes were locked on her lips, she gulped.

She's nervous. Good.

Tilting my head sideways, I leaned in. Just a few more centimeters and-- I stopped. I was stopped. Sage put a hand on my chest and pushed me back.

I snapped out of it.

"Your nachos are getting cold," she said.

Like an idiot, I looked down on my plate. And Sage took the chance to exit the booth. She zoomed right past me. Fucking hell, she used food as a distraction!

"I'm going ahead. Kaye texted me to go there now," she announced when she got close to London's and Louie's booth.

The siblings didn't even have time to react because Sage hurried towards the door. So, they turned to me for answers instead. I didn't have answers!

What the fuck just happened?

Great googly-moogly, my laptop crashed! Let's take a moment to appreciate the fact that I had the draft saved on my works.