Star Bright

Eight: Manipulation, Part One

After school, Dani went to see Gabe at home. She'd imagine he would be in bed, angry and upset but certainly not playing videogames in the living room amidst a forest of ice cream buckets and candy wraps. When he heard the door close behind him, he jumped on the white sofa and pretended to be asleep. Dani walked to him and slapped him on the hip.

"Ow! What the hell, Mom-" he looked surprised as he took in Dani's furious face. "Hey, Dani..."

"And me," Jeremy said behind her, taking some things out of the fridge. "I'll be in my room." He turned into a hall that led upstairs.

"Really?!" Dani yelled, furiously. "You missed school for this? For video games and ice cream?"

"I'm upset, how else do you expect me to grieve?" He said innocently enough. "I'm not Jeremy; he grieves by banging half the girls at school."

It hurt to hear that but she tried not to focus on that now. "Get your butt up and get dressed. We need to talk."

"Where are we going?" He asked, standing up. A bowl of ice cream crashed to the floor. Seeing the shocked look on Dani's face, he said, "don't worry. The maids will clean it up."

"You heartless piece of trash." She tried to reach him but he moved quickly; a trait that showed why he should be on the football team.

Minutes later, they were in Jeremy's car driving to Hawks' Eatery. Dani was still debating on whether she should tell him about the deals she had made for his sake when they walked into the diner. Gabe wasn't in his usual chipper mode; he didn't comment on how disgusting it was to see guys eat burgers or how tight the waitress's white shirt was. It wasn't as fun as it normally was with him. They slid into a booth. All the seats in The Eatery were red, it was the main theme. The waitresses and waiters wore white shirts and red trousers/skirts. The place was owned by a well-known man named Ernie Hiffold. He was a grandpa and a good contributor to the town.

"So," Gabe said picking up the red-themed menu, he was sitting opposite her, "what'd you want to talk about?"

Dani's mind was a battlefield. If she told him about her two recent deals, he might help her get the invite from Jeremy. Hell, he could even go himself, but Dani had always wanted to see The Summit. If she didn't tell him, it could be a lovely surprise. He would be blown away completely and the feeling of being so important in someone's life mattered to her. But now that she had seen that getting the invite would be harder than she had thought, what if she failed? That meant telling Gabe would make him depressed even more.

"Gabe, I have something to confess."

Gabe dropped the menu and gave her all his attention.

After taking a deep breath, she said "I did something to help- Ian?"

Gabe squeezed his face. "That dude at your place? What'd you do to him?"

"No, look! Ian!" She pointed over his shoulder. Gabe turned. Several feet away, on the other side of the Eatery was Ian, sitting alone in a booth. On his table were different combinations of food, ranging from pie to pizza and smoothies.

"Whoa! He ordered all of that?" Gabe asked, straining his neck to get a good look at Ian's table. "He must have cash."

It wasn't only them that were staring at Ian's table in amazement. Half of the people in the Eatery were, even those who had come in to take their food to go. Dani couldn't stop staring. Ian wasn't even stuffing his face, he was simply picking at the food, completely oblivious to the stares and whispers. A boy started crying, telling his mom he wanted what that guy was having. A girl took a pic and giggled as she typed away on her phone.