fandomtownies | The boardwalk, Friday evening

Blair didn't have ice to work with this time, but she tried to do what she could with the location she had. Luckily the beach was pretty. Besides, too much gold in the decorations tended to cross the line into tacky.

So she kept the decorations to twinkling gold lights and candles. Most of the linens were a crisp white, with golden napkins and table runners to provide pops of color.

The bulk of the gold went into the food. There were brandied apricots, lemon and chocolate cheesecakes, mango sorbets, small cups of saffron vanilla pudding, miniature stuffed yellow peppers, and any number of foods that followed the theme, along with the pies that Ned had made.

Drinks were mixed, but naturally included Goldschläger, as well as coffee and cocoa decorated with tiny gold letters which said things like "Fandom" or "Goodbye Summer."

Blair had staked out a prime table with a view of the water. She sipped at a passionfruit martini, listened to the music coming out of the various speakers she'd had set up, and looked forward to a night of ~~judging~~ watching the crowd.

She was also going to make sure nobody served those skunks. Clearly they didn't know how to hold their liquor.

[ooc: OCD up! Party down!]

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"You might," Cal said, congenially, smirking at her and smoothing his tie again, "but I wouldn't tell you."

He figured that, if you put aside the whole hermaphrodite thing, experience did prove that maybe there was something about him, to have both a girl and her brother in love with him at once, if that's what it really was. Or he could even take Zora's route: This is what people want. The best of both worlds, honey.

That got more eyeing.

"That's totally not fair," she complained.

"Oh, what? A guy can't keep his secrets?"

"You called yourself a daisy!" Ino protested. "That shouldn't lead to big dark secret!"

"Tulip," Cal corrected. "I called myself a tulip."

Weren't tulips sometimes uses as symbolism for the female... eeesh, nice one, Cal. He cleared his throat, deciding he had enough talk of flowers for the day. "So!" he said. "Where's your date?"

Oh, yeah. Cal knew how to change a subject.

"I don't have one," she said, rolling her eyes at his subject change.

"Really?" Cal asked, somewhat genuinely surprised by that. If a guy like him could get a date...

"Huh. Well. These things are more fun stag, anyway?" he offered.

"Why would I lie 'bout something like that?" she asked. "I mean it, I didn't come with a date." Then she shrugged. "I have fun either way, but it wasn't like Michael was going to come with the way he's been lately, so..."

"And how, exactly, has Michael 'been lately'?" Cal asked, head tilted. "And he's that guy who works at the diner, too, right?"

"Not 'round much," Ino said with a shrug. "Like, seriously, I told him he was hermitting in his room and he didn't much care 'bout it. We've only really, you know, talked once in... two months or so?"

Ino did not consider a few passed notes to count as meaningful interaction here.

"And yeah, that's him."

"Yeah, that's kinda..." Cal trailed off with the unspoken...whatever it was, realizing that he probably wasn't being very helpful, and, of course, it would be then that his mind blanked on something else to potentially change the topic to.

"Yeah," Ino nodded. "Just like that. It sucks and I don't know what's going on but it's seriously annoying. I've got, like, the worst luck ever in boys or something. One disappears literally into thin air, and the other barely talks to me for months on end."

And another was a self-conscious hermaphrodite who she thought felt she was practically too diseased to touch, Cal thought, but then realized that Ino probably never thought of him like that anyway, and it was just the confidence high he was riding on because of Amber and all her...

...there seemed to have been a slight shudder, though not a bad one, down Cal's spine and he shook it out, forgetting promptly what he was talking about and he tilted his head, scanning Ino's face as if trying to remember, trying to think of anything to say.

"I...so..uh, how are your classes?"

...

...

Fine. Ino shrugged, expression more tired than anything. It wasn't like he cared either way, right? "I got made TA by Tyler-sensei 'cause he didn't want to give me a detention."

"...so he made you TA as punishment instead?"

Cal just wanted to make sure he got that right.

"I think so?" Ino said. "Though he was impressed with how we got the pie to explode on him."

"Do you think TAing is punishment?" Cal asked, because if she wanted to do it, then it kind of defeated the purpose, didn't it? "And did I hear exploding pie?" ~~not dirty~~

"Well, yeah, in that he can order me to do a bunch of things I don't want to do," Ino said. "But it also means that if he's out sick I get to run the class, and can lay the smackdown on anyone who acts up. And that's a nice shiny perk."

A beat.

"And, yes, exploding pie."

"And why are we discussing exploding pie?"

"Because Anemone and I planted one in his office?"

There was a bit of a long pause there.

And then a grin.

"...Niiiiiice."

The boardwalk, Friday evening

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