Chaucer's, Thursday Afternoon

[geoff-chaucer.livejournal.com]

Geoff bursts through the door and tosses the papers onto his worktable. He starts toward the stairs, then thinks better of it and heads into the back room instead.

Comments

[chasingangela]

Angela pops her head in. "Um ... I mean, I can go home, if you want to be alone right now."

[geoff-chaucer.livejournal.com]

Geoff looks up from the couch, where he's sitting with his head in his hands. "Oh God, I'm so sorry, Angela. No, please, come in."

[chasingangela]

Uncertain, Angela twists a piece of hair as she takes a seat next to Geoff.

"God, it looks like you're worse off than I am," she says.

[geoff-chaucer.livejournal.com]

Geoff takes a deep breath and grabs for the change of topic. "I wanted to ask you about that, Angela. If you don't mind. What happened? Between you and Marty, I mean."

[chasingangela]

Angela sighs. "We broke up," she says simply. "I don't know, Geoff. We had a fight, and it was like the fight was having us, you know? He was angry, I said some stuff I probably shouldn't have said, and the next thing I knew he was walking out."

"It's probably for the best, right?" she says, trying to convince herself.

[geoff-chaucer.livejournal.com]

"I think that sounds like the way most fights work." Geoff shakes his head. "I'm not sure that I'm the best person to be giving advice right now, Angela. But I will tell you this -- Marty was a wreck last night. He started a fight with Faith, and I think it was to punish himself for what happened between the two of you. Shane, CJ and I had to break it up, or I think he would've let her put him in a hospital."

[ooc: Just call me the Emo-Santa Claus, delivering emo news to all the sad little emo girls and boys.]

[chasingangela]

Angela drops her face into her hands. "Oh, god."

She looks up, eyes moist.

"I saw him yesterday in study hall. All the bruises ... Rory told me she thought it was Faith, but I wasn't sure I believed it.

He started the fight? What happened?"

[geoff-chaucer.livejournal.com]

Geoff shakes his head. "I don't know. He got up from the table and went over to her at bar when she came in. Shane and I joined them as soon as we realized the direction things were headed, but they were bound and determined to fight and we had a hard time stopping it."

He puts his arm around Angela's shoulders. "I imagine your rather angry with him right now, and to be completely honest, so am I. But...I think if you yell at him, it'll make things worse." He smiles at her. "Let us yell at him for you. CJ gave him quite a tongue-lashing afterwards."

[chasingangela]

Angela shakes her head, haunted by the mental image. "I don't want to yell at him. I have to see him in school, and that's hard enough, you know? I'm trying not to talk to him right now. I'd just start crying or screaming or something, and ..." she spreads her hands "There's no point."

She bites her lip. "I mean, not that I'm not glad we broke up. Right."

[geoff-chaucer.livejournal.com]

"No, you're not glad. If you were, you wouldn't be worried about him. And I'm glad to hear that you're not angry."

He squeezes her shoulders very gently. "You know if you need someone to talk to, or somewhere to escape to, I'm here."

[chasingangela]

"I am angry at him. Angry about our fight, about what I said, what he said, that the whole thing went down the tubes so fast, that I'm stuck with his stupid cat."

"But about getting himself beaten up by Faith? I feel bad for him just as a person. Not as a boyfriend."

She leans her head against Geoff. "The relationship thing just keep sucking, doesn't it? Does it ever stop?"

[geoff-chaucer.livejournal.com]

Geoff sighs sadly and rests his cheek on her hair. "I'm starting to think not, Angela."

[chasingangela]

Angela sighs, enjoying being close to Geoff. It's totally platonic, right? she thinks.

"You're a nice guy," she says. "Never killed anybody, did you?"

Post-Emporium, pre-Deep Thoughts

[chasingangela]

Angela taps on Geoff's door, one arm weighted with part supplies, the other with a bag of groceries.

Re: Post-Emporium, pre-Deep Thoughts

[geoff-chaucer.livejournal.com]

The door opens and Geoff, seeing the burdens Angela is carrying, takes both bags from her and leads her inside. "Angela! Please come in."

Re: Post-Emporium, pre-Deep Thoughts

[chasingangela]

"Hey. I brought, um, dinner stuff. Also supplies for Rory's birthday party. You're coming to that, right?"

Re: Post-Emporium, pre-Deep Thoughts

[geoff-chaucer.livejournal.com]

"I hope to. I recieved a call about it from her mother today." Geoff leads Angela upstairs into the apartment and deposits the bags on the counter.

"What did you bring?" he asks, looking into the grocery sack.

Re: Post-Emporium, pre-Deep Thoughts

[chasingangela]

Angela reaches into the bag. "Nothing too fancy. Just turkey burgers, oven fries, and salad stuff. But it should be good." Smiling slightly, she adds, "I hope, I haven't cooked in a really long time."

She looks around the kitchen. "I think all I need is, um, a skillet for the burgers, a bowl for the salad, a knife, and a cookie sheet to make the fries on. You have all that, right?"

Re: Post-Emporium, pre-Deep Thoughts

[geoff-chaucer.livejournal.com]

Geoff nods, smiling. "I think so." He opens the cupboards and pulls out the myriad cookware and utensils that Michael had sent over, setting out the items Angela had requested.

Re: Post-Emporium, pre-Deep Thoughts

[chasingangela]

"Yay, you have everything," Angela says, visibly relieved. After turning on the oven, she hands Geoff the bag of fries and a container of Old Bay seasoning. "Could you just pour these out onto the cookie sheet and dump a little of the spicy stuff on them? They won't be quite as good as Deb's, but I don't know how to deep-fry."

She busies heself with rinsing the lettuce, tomatoes, carrots and pepper for the salad.

Re: Post-Emporium, pre-Deep Thoughts

[geoff-chaucer.livejournal.com]

Turning the bag of fries over and over in his hands, Geoff examines it for an opening.

"Angela? How do you get them out?"

Re: Post-Emporium, pre-Deep Thoughts

[chasingangela]

Angela quickly steps over to him, and turns the bag, pouinting out the dotted line marked at one end. "You can cut it here, then just pour out about half. And, um, some of them will be stuck together, but don't worry about it."

She sighs. "Marty and I used to talk about cooking together. I wish we'd gotten to do it," she says, wistfully.

Re: Post-Emporium, pre-Deep Thoughts

[geoff-chaucer.livejournal.com]

Geoff's eyes flicker away from Angela and he busies himself with preparig the fries.

"Paige made pancakes once, but that was all. We're-- we were neither of us much for cooking.

I can't really imagine Marty doing it either," he adds, with a wry smile.

Re: Post-Emporium, pre-Deep Thoughts

[chasingangela]

Angela smiles as she drops the turkey patties into the heated skillet. She jiggles them with a spatula to make sure they won't stick, then turns to slice a tomato. "Yeah, I can't imagine him doing it either. But he was on his own for, like, a year, so ... he has to have fed himself somehow, right? Unless he just bought those weird not-really-an-omelets three times a day."

She giggles. "Oh god, he probably did." It's the first time thinking about Marty has made her smile since they broke up. That's the past, she thinks. Don't obsess.

"So ... what do you like on your burgers, anyhow?" she asks, changing the subject/

Re: Post-Emporium, pre-Deep Thoughts

[geoff-chaucer.livejournal.com]

Geoff echoes Angela's laugh as sets out the dinnerware. "I have no idea. What do you put on burgers?"