Page 99 of Debugging Love

“You do eat chicken. I have seen you eat chicken,” Drew says.

“And fish.” Morgan mmm-hmms.

“So where are we going then?” My hunger is making me impatient and the slow guy in the passing lane is making it worse. I give up and cross to the right lane. “Chicky Chops? Fish ’n Grits? Something else?”

“Chick-y Chops. Chick-y Chops,” Morgan chants. Danni joins in, pounding her fists against her thighs for emphasis.

“Chicky Chops it is.” I pull onto the exit ramp and follow the sign that’s telling me to go right. Chicky Chops is up ahead on the left, the building resembling a chicken in a feat of architectural engineering. After waiting a couple minutes at a stoplight, I pull into the parking lot and find a place to park.

Morgan and Drew don’t waste any time. They both jump out of the van calling shotgun on the bathrooms. I didn’t know that was a thing. While they’re doing their business, Danni and I get in line behind a middle school girl’s soccer team and wait our turn. Many minutes later we’re still waiting and more soccerplayers in knee socks are lined up behind us. Morgan and Drew are several heads back.

We finally reach the register, Danni orders chicken tenders, I order boneless chicken wings, and then I pay with the company credit card. As we carry our food to a table, I pass the card to Drew so he and Morgan can pay on JetAero’s dime.

Danni chooses a booth by the front window, excuses herself to go to the “little ladies room,” and returns before our coworkers order their food.

Her gaze wanders to the front of the restaurant where Drew is using Morgan for a crutch. Morgan’s arm is wrapped around Drew’s waist, her hand precariously close to his bum.

Danni raises her eyebrows at me. “What on earth is going on with those two?”

“Don’t ask if you don’t want to know the answer.”

This garners a faint laugh from Danni. She bites into a chicken tender and then dabs her mouth with her napkin.

Here we are. Alone again. After a grueling five-hour road trip where Morgan and Drew stole the show. Now it’s just me and Danni and her shiny hair that’s tucked behind her ears, looking as fresh as it did back in Charleston despite the temperature fluctuations and the unrelenting humidity. Now would be a good time to ask her what hair products she uses, but I have more pressing questions to ask.

“Hey. Danni. About Friday night. We’re cool, right?”

“You didn’t chew gum the entire ride. What gives?”

She’s trying to distract me. Won’t work. “My jaw started hurting, so I gave up the habit. Are we cool?”

“Why wouldn’t we be?”

“Well.” I plunge a French fry into ketchup. “Because you said it didn’t mean anything, but to me it seemed like–”

Danni coughs, draws her hand up to her chin like a piece of chicken is gonna fall out. She grabs her drink. “Oh. My. That went down the wrong pipe.”

I think she’s faking, but I don’t call her out. Instead, I say, “Eating is hard.”

She nods and we’re quiet for a moment as she devours her Chicky Chops and I try to work up the courage to bring up the kiss again.

I take a swig of Coke to clear my throat. “Back when Drew and Morgan were falling into a ravine, we were talking, and I didn’t get a chance to finish.”

“I did,” Danni says brusquely, her crankiness suddenly on high.

It’s not the answer I wanted. And yet it is. I misread her body language Friday night. Danni isn’t into me. Heck. I don’t even know if she likes me.

“Thank gawd,” Morgan says as she plops next to Danni.

I scoot over to give Drew room. They chatter on about how the help here sucks and they thought they were never going to get their food, and oh crap, they forgot Morgan’s cheese.

“I told them I wanted a plain Friskie Chicken with cheese and they gave me a plain Friskie Chicken without cheese,” Morgan says.

“Are you going to go complain?” Danni asks.

“No.” Morgan humphs. “I’m too hungry.” She takes a huge bite of her sandwich, and then she gets to work, pulling out her phone, four different colors of pens, and a notebook. “We need to decide who is going to what.”

She writes four categories on her page: Cyber Security, Front-end Development, Back-end Development, and Web Services, and then she pulls up the Chai World schedule and starts divvying up the sessions under the headings, color-coding everything, while I sit here wishing I was back home on mybalcony listening to the night sounds of the marsh or staring at JustInCase.xslx deciding what to do next. I should have gone with my gut. No initial zing, no soulmate material. With Danni being cranky, Morgan flirting with Drew, and Drew hurting himself every five minutes, I’m pretty much over this trip. And even though I’m not quite over Danni, I will be soon. Her bad mood is accelerating the process.

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