Sequel: The City Spins Around

The Last Goodbye

You Should Keep Her Around for Awhile

“Are you in a better mood today or are you still whining about getting beat yesterday?” Adam questioned, walking into the house and seeing Patrick sitting on the couch, staring at the television, which was showing the news at that moment. “Really? The news? Since when do you care about what’s going on in the world?” he asked, plopping down next to him, putting his feet up on the coffee table in front of him.

“Shut up,” Patrick muttered, folding his hands over his chest, continuing to stare at the television.

“Seriously, dude, what’s up?” Adam asked. “Are you really still pissed off because of yesterday?” he asked, referring to Raylene beating him. “You need to get over it. Stop acting like a fucking baby,” he commented.

“It’s not that,” Patrick said through gritted teeth, angry that Adam was still implying that he was upset about yesterday. “It has nothing to do with Raylene.”

“Then what’s going on?” Adam asked. “Something happen with one of the girls last night or something?” he inquired.

“Getting warmer,” Patrick muttered, not that he would tell Adam even if he did guess that it had something to do with Delaney. There was no way he could tell his friend that he had kissed the girl that he had a crush on, and that she had ran away afterwards. And, he definitely couldn’t tell him that he wished that he could kiss her again because he had actually felt something the day before when their lips had touched.

“So, it was one of the girls,” Adam spoke. “Which one? Yvette? Juliette? Rosie?” he asked.

“How do you remember so many of the girls’ names?” Patrick asked. “I can’t even remember half of them,” he admitted.

“Because I actually pay attention to the girls.”

“More like you pay attention to their bodies,” Patrick mumbled.

“That, too,” Adam smirked. “Which girl?” he asked once again.

“It doesn’t matter,” Patrick shook his head.

“Well, at least tell me what happened? Did one of them turn you down or something?” he asked jokingly. When Patrick didn’t reply, Adam whipped his head around to stare at Patrick. “One of the girls turned you down?” he asked with a laugh. “Oh my God!” he exclaimed, howling with laughter. “One of them turned you down? What happened?”

“Stop it,” Patrick told him.

“Oh no,” Adam said. “I want to know exactly how you fucked that situation up,” he continued, but Patrick just stared straight ahead, not answering Adam. “Fine, you don’t want to tell me yourself? I’ll find out one way or another,” Adam promised him.

“Hey guys,” they heard Delaney say quietly as she walked into the room. “Pat, I just wanted to let you know that the girls will be coming down here for lunch at noon, and then you all can just spend the day here getting to know each other. We don’t have anything special planned for the day,” she explained. “We’re going to be interviewing them throughout the day, though,” she added.

Patrick nodded his head, glancing up at her before he returned his attention to the television once again. She looked at him, knowing that he was upset that she refused to talk to him yesterday, but she didn’t really know what to say to him. Adam saw the way Patrick was acting towards her, and he turned to look at Delaney. “Ignore his bad attitude,” he told Delaney, and she looked at Adam questioningly. “He’s just pissed off because apparently yesterday one of the girls turned him down,” he explained.

Delaney looked at Patrick, who glanced up with an apologetic look on his face. “Oh,” she said quietly. For a moment she had thought that Adam was referring to one of the contestants, but as soon as she saw the look on Patrick’s face, she knew it was her, not that Adam knew that.

“Yeah, he struck out with one of the contestants that’s supposed to be so into him,” he laughed. “I guess we’ll know one of the girls who’ll get kicked off this week,” he continued. “Now, if only I could get him to tell me which one it was,” he added.

Delaney continued to look at Patrick, but he refused to look at her right now. “Well, I’m going to get going,” she told the two men. “I just came to let you know that the girls will be down in a bit,” she said. “Bye.”

“Bye,” Adam called after her, while Patrick remained silent. After he knew that Delaney was out of earshot, Adam turned to Patrick, saying, “Delaney seemed different today, didn’t she?”

“What do you mean?” Patrick inquired.

“I don’t know. It’s just she didn’t seem like her normal self. She was pretty quiet, not very talkative. I wonder what’s going on with her,” he said, not putting two and two together that Delaney and Patrick were upset about the same thing.

“I don’t know,” Patrick lied.

“Seriously, man, are you going to be like this all day? Get over it. There’re fourteen other girls that are still in love with you. Just because one turned you down doesn’t mean that you need to act like this all day,” he pointed out.

“Yeah,” Patrick said, nodding his head. “You’re right. There are fourteen other girls that are into me,” he agreed, even though he couldn’t get his mind off of Delaney.

***

Adam looked around the room at all of the girls, trying to figure out which one of them was the one to turn Patrick down. He glanced over at Patrick, who was currently listening to Kristalyn talk about her sorority sisters, and he could tell that Patrick was extremely bored, not that Kristalyn was paying attention.

He saw Marissa and Rosie standing off to the side talking to each other, and he moved closer to them to hear what they were saying, hoping they knew who had turned Patrick down. But, as he moved closer, he realized they had no idea, as they were simply talking about their strategies to make it further in the competition and were even discussing making an alliance to get some of the other girls kicked off the show first.

He rolled his eyes at them, unable to believe that they were actually making a pact with each other to make sure they were the final two in the competition. “Listening to Marissa and Rosie?” he heard someone say from behind him, and he spun around to see Raylene standing there. “Are they still talking about their pact?” she asked him.

“Yeah, they are, uhh…” he said, trying to think of her name. While he knew most of the girls’ names, for some reason this particular one was slipping his mind.

“Raylene,” she said with a smile.

“Right, Raylene,” he said with a nod of his head. “So, these two talk about this pact a lot?” he asked, pointing back towards Marissa and Rosie.

“Oh, yeah,” she replied. “I share a room with Marissa, and that’s all they talk about. I’m pretty sure they don’t even like Pat for him, but they just want to be with someone of his stature,” she spoke, and then her eyes went wide. “I shouldn’t be saying this to you!” she exclaimed.

“No, I’m glad you are,” Adam told her. “But, I wouldn’t worry about it too much. Kaner’s not stupid…well, he is sometimes…well, he is a lot of the time,” he continued, and Raylene looked up at him, wondering what point he was trying to make. “What I’m trying to say is he’ll see through them,” he assured her as Patrick walked over to them.

“Hey, Raylene,” he smiled, looking over at Adam curiously, wondering what the two of them had been talking about.

“Hey,” Raylene said.

“So, what were you guys talking about?” Patrick asked.

“How Raylene beat you in the shootout,” Adam lied.

Patrick rolled his eyes. “Are we still on that?” he asked with a groan.

“Sorry,” Raylene apologized. “Adam was the one that brought it up, not me. But, if you want, I promise never to talk about it again. I can see you’re still not over it yet,” she said with a small laugh as her name was called to go and be interviewed. “I guess I’ll see you later,” she told him. “Bye.”

“Bye,” both Adam and Patrick said at the same time.

“You know, I like her,” Adam told Patrick. “You should keep her around for awhile,” he added, giving Patrick a pat on the back as he walked away, leaving Patrick standing there, confused.
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So, I'm curious.
Are you all Team Delaney/Kaner or Team Delaney/Burish?