Page 13 of Welcome to the Friendzone

“We have to baste it constantly so it doesn’t become dry. Believe me, it’d taste awful then,” she explained after they had placed the bird in the oven.

“I don’t know about you, but I’m starving. I can’t wait four hours ‘til dinner,” Oliver half whined, half chuckled.

“I’m hungry, too. What did you plan aside from the turkey?”

“Smashed potatoes and Brussels sprouts, but I won’t be satisfied with just that…”

A loud sigh left Oliver’s throat, and as if on cue, his stomach started to grumble.

“Nah, me neither,” Marta sighed as well before they looked at each other and burst into laughter.

“Let’s order some pizza! I’ll call Butch and ask what he wants. I bet he’s hungry, too, although he ate like half of the cookie dough when we were baking this morning.”

“Oh wow. That’s a lot of raw eggs. Hope he didn’t have a stomach ache,” Marta said, remembering an incident from when she was a child and ate a lot of cake batter.

“He’s tough. Some raw eggs won’t kill him,” Oliver laughed before he started talking to Butch on his phone.

She couldn’t hear what the other Agent was saying, but Oliver’s responses made her think that Butch was laughing at the blond man.

“No, I didn’t know it would take so long.”

“No, I didn’t buy a pre-cooked one.”

“Stop saying that or you’ll starve tonight.”

“Yeah, I am being serious.”

With a loud sigh he stopped the call before bursting into laughter and whispering “this guy” with a shake of his head.

“So?” Marta asked with a raised eyebrow.

“He insulted me and laughed at me for not knowing that a turkey needs more than a few minutes to cook. Oh, and he wants a pizza with ham and pineapple.”

“Pineapple?” Marta looked at Oliver with shock all over her face.

“Yeah… He’s… weird.”

“That’s not weird, that’s disgusting!” Marta exclaimed a little too loudly.

“It’s not disgusting, it’s delicious.”

A gravelly voice appeared behind her and Marta turned on her heel to see who was talking to her. She was surprised to see Butch enter the kitchen wearing black sweatpants and a black shirt. His hair was messy on top of his head and he looked like he’d just woken from a long nap.

“No, it’s disgusting. Every Italian will agree with me,” Marta huffed in his direction.

“Good thing I don’t care about Italians then,” Butch huffed, grabbing a bottle of sparkling water out of the fridge.

He was about to leave the kitchen again but suddenly stopped, alternating his gaze between Oliver and Marta and observed their Christmas sweaters with a frown on his face.

“Let me know when the pizza gets here. And Oliver?”

“Yes, pal?”

“Don’t even think about giving me the sweater you bought. I won’t wear it.”

And with that, the brunette Agent left the kitchen again.

Marta wasn’t sure what to think about that weird encounter so she only looked at Oliver with confusion. The blond man shrugged his shoulders, stepped to the couch, and grabbed a black sweater that was lying on it. He showed it to Marta and she could see a comic figure of Grumpy Cat on it and the words “Jingle all the way to hell” around it. She started to laugh, coughing a “very fitting” in between her shallow breaths.

---