"Are you trying to torture me?" I complain to Henry. We are still in the parked car, knowing that Ava and James are close by. We are on our way to some random restaurant with them. Ava did text the details even though I hope she would not. They parked not too far away for us. This is my last time complaining before showtime.

"If I wanted to torture you, I would've jumped into that prick's car." Henry refers to James offering to drive us there which Henry shut down quickly. I wish he had shut down the date as quickly too.

"You asked for this," I grumble. Henry is already on the other side of the car, opening the door for me, while I am still grabbing my bag from the floor. That is the actual last comment I get to make since Ava is already here with James.

"How romantic," Ava says to us about Henry opening the door. James and Ava are watching as I get out of the car, while Henry holds his hand out for me to hold. He locks the car.

"Henry treats me well," I reply. It's the truth. He always makes my tea just the way I want it.

"James, you need to take notes," Ava teases. Henry holds my hand while I walk next to Ava. James is walking on the other side of Ava, with Ava holding onto his arm.

"You're too fast for me to keep up. One day I'll manage to open the door." They laugh at some inside joke while Henry and I exchange a look. My look says 'I don't want to be here' while his is 'what the fuck?'. Both valid.

The restaurant is a short walk away and James made reservations so we are seated almost instantly. We are seated upstairs under the veranda. I open the menu to choose a drink. I am definitely going to need something a little strong than a cocktail to get me through this lunch. It's a good thing that Henry is driving.

"Order whatever drink you want, I got you," Henry whispers to me when he sees I'm looking at the shots. Not the most appropriate drink for a lunch so I chose to go with a cocktail with two shots of vodka instead of one.

"So Henry, tell me more about what you do?" Ava asks. Henry is sitting across from Ava again and I am sitting across from James. It's safer to look at Henry so I shift the chair slightly to face him instead.

"I am a programmer, nothing too interesting here." Henry is lying. He is an amazing programmer. He came up with some sort of program that a bunch of audit firms purchased from him. The software allows the clients and audit firms to share information in an easy and secure way so that the whole team has access instead of emails being forwarded left, right and centre. He is always updating it and right now he's working on something else too. Sometimes he asks me to use his programs so he can make it as user-friendly as possible.

"So you can hack facebook?" I don't know how we got here.

"He's not a hacker, Ava."

"Anyone can hack Facebook thanks to the internet," Henry adds. I think of all the reddit posts where there is someone who gets into their partner's social media and finds out that they are cheating on them. He's right, all you need is the internet and you are good to go.

"Should I be worried about my Facebook?" James jokes. He seems more like himself as he's lost the attitude he had this morning. Maybe he was testing Henry out per Ava's request.

"Too late for that. I know what cat video you liked last night at 3.02 am," Ava claims. We laugh at the idea and the tension slowly leaves my body. The waiter arrives at this point to take our order. We decide to order both drinks and food at the same time.

We move onto safer topics like the weather and the wedding day plans. Ava's contagious excitement has us all ready to count down the minutes until the big day. They are just spending time ironing out minor details and meeting with vendors to confirm things for their big day. Everything is going surprisingly well.

"So tell us more about yourself Henry," Ava turns the spotlight onto him. It's rare for her to do this. I expect her to continue talking about the wedding planning process for the rest of the lunch. It's wishful thinking from my side for sure.

"I don't think we want to spend all this time talking about me." Henry brushes her off. While he is my fake boyfriend, he doesn't need to share everything about himself to them. I suppose this is what he gets for accepting the invitation since James did say that we can all get to know each other better.

"We all know each other very well. You are the new kid to the group. I want to know everything about you," Ava replies. She is right, we all know each other a little too well. Henry is saved by the food since the waiter arrives with both our drinks and food. Ava does not allow us to start eating until she's taking a video and a million photos of our food from different angles. Luckily she does not take long because no one wants to eat cold food.

Henry switches the topic to the food, allowing the restaurant to have a moment to shine. The food is delicious. As it should be considering the price of the food. There is a lull in the conversation as we all enjoy our food in peace. We finish our food when Henry jumps slightly.

"Did you tell them about the monkey story?" Henry brings up suddenly. I can't tell if this is a monkey story from yesterday or an emergency. We should've changed our word yesterday. He puts his hand on my thigh and gives it a squeeze.

"Monkey, Evelyn," Henry repeats, giving me a look. I think he means monkey. The emergency monkey. It's happening. I didn't think we would get this far.

"I don't think we did," I pretend to continue the conversation. I have no interest in continuing the story since I am trying to figure out what I'm supposed to save Henry from. I didn't think we would actually need to use the word. Do I make up some reason to leave right now?

Henry makes it easier when he stands out and tells me to switch seats to get out of the sun. I just follow his lead. There's barely any sun hitting me. I know it's an excuse, but we need to sell it, "Isn't he the sweetest?"

"He really is," James agrees, once again surprisingly. The waiter who seems to be the best saves the day once again. They deserve a massive tip for this. They don't comment further on the switching of seats at all. Even though we move on, I am still trying to figure out why Henry wanted to switch seats.

Ava asks about the monkey story which Henry tells to make us not look suspicious. At least we have a real monkey story to tell them about. Making a believable story up on the spot is not easy. She laughs and James shares his own stories about monkeys.

Henry waves the waiter down, asking for the bill when everything shifts. He has his card in his hand already.

"Don't worry about it Henry, I got the bill," James announces, pulling out his wallet to grab his card.

"No. no, I think I need to treat yours both for everything you've done for me," Henry declines. He places both elbows on the table with his card in his hand while James does the same with his arms crossed.

"You're my guest," James deflects, adamant that he pays the bill. They really out here arguing over a bill when they can just split it.

"It's my gift," Henry replies. Their pride is not going to let either one of them back down so I make an excuse of going to the bathroom. Ava nods at me, far more interested in the pissing contest on the table.

I find our waiter before they can even give us the bill and quickly pay for it so we can leave and prevent a fight when both Henry and James try to tap their cards to pay. She is thankful for the tip and I tell her not to come back to our table unless she wants to watch a fight about paying a bill that's already been paid. When I look at our table, they all look like they are having an extremely intense conversation to anyone who looked at them. If only they knew it is a pissing contest over who's going to pay the bill.

When I sit down, I think they are still on the paying of the bill saga, so I leave them to it and only mention it's paid when Ava complains that they are taking a long time to bring the bill.

"Oh I already paid it earlier, we can go now."

"You didn't have to do that Evelyn," James comments. He puts away his card and stands up to leave. Ava and James need to get to some appointments that Ava mentioned earlier.

"Don't worry I have you sorted," Henry says. I don't know what he means, as long as we can leave. He's busy on his phone.

"I don't want to part ways yet," Ava complains, "Why don't you guys join us on last-minute wedding errands?"

"I think we will pass, there is going to be plenty of time for us to spend time together during the week," I decline. I give Ava a hug and a slight wave in James' direction. Henry puts his arm around me after giving a handshake to James to avoid hugging Ava. I am glad to go our separate ways.

When I get back to the hotel, I realise what Henry means by having me covered as I see half the bill amount transferred into my account.

~*~

What do you think happened?

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