vegas | robin buckley

2. i scream

***

"One mint chocolate chip for the lady," Robin hands Jackie a cone, interrupting her from her now three hour long marathon of organizing the school's debate team's upcoming events. "Despite how painful it was for me to make it."

"Mint chocolate chip is superior," Jackie cheers her ice cream against Robin's cookies 'n cream as the brunette takes a seat across from her. "Argue with the wall."

"I get it, you like eating toothpaste, no judgement here," Robin puts her hands up in mock surrender, teasing Jackie all the same.

Jackie's comfortable with what her and Robin have. They have Steve as a mutual friend, but also get along well enough on their own.

Sure, they don't spill their deepest darkest secrets to each other, but when Jackie graduates high school, she doesn't plan on moving all her friend's with to whatever school she goes to (a minimum of a hundred miles from home), so the less relationships she builds, the better.

"Hey, Jackie," none other than Tammy Thompson slides into the seat next to Jackie in the booth she's sitting in. "Long time no see."

Tammy didn't take the breakup - if you can even call it that - badly, especially considering neither girls are very open to living on the edge, and every time they did something behind closed doors, they would quadruple checked it was locked.

Besides, she was worried Jackie would hold her back from her dream of becoming a world famous country singer.

However, Tammy seemed to think that her and Jackie were now friends, and Jackie didn't have the heart to stop waving to her in the school hallways.

"You stopped by my house this morning," Jackie replies, not to be rude, simply stating a fact. "You dropped off my clothes."

"Right. . ." Tammy frowns slightly.

"H- hi, Tammy," Robin speaks up, seemingly disappointed Tammy acted like she wasn't even there.

"Hey. . . Erin, right?" Tammy now acknowledges Robin's presence.

"Robin," Jackie corrects, not missing the way Robin's face dropped.

"Okay," Tammy nods, definitely already forgetting her name again.

"Well," Jackie says, trying to get Tammy to carry on. "I should really. . . um, do this," she gestures vaguely to the papers in front of her.

"Sure! I'll see you around, Jacks. . ." and then Tammy nods awkwardly to Robin before walking out of the store.

"Jacks?" Robin repeats the nickname, still staring after Tammy. . . longingly?

"It's stupid, I've tried getting her to stop," Jackie waves it off, genuinely hating how dumb the nickname sounded. "She just doesn't really listen."

"I didn't know you two were close like that. . ." Robin now looks at Jackie expectantly, but Jackie isn't really sure how to read the situation - she's never been good with feelings.

"I guess. . ." she also trails off. "I mean, we used to be close. . . 'like that,' I mean, but not really anymore, she just can't take a hint," she rambles suddenly, focusing her attention onto her ice cream before it melts all over her papers.

"Well, what happened? Why did she have your clothes? And why was she dropping them off?"

Jackie stares amused at the interrogation. "We just used to be friends," she tries playing off, slightly concerned with how interested in the situation Robin is. "And she's going to college this year, so, she's just. . . tying up loose ends, I guess."

Two years of lying about stuff like magic and Dungeons and Dragons monsters coming to life makes Jackie a pro at coming up with things on the spot - either that or Robin's brain is just too invested in something else to see through Jackie.

"Right, sure, okay. . ." Robin accepts. "Do you think it's weird she came in here?" Jackie thought it was over. "I mean, like, without getting ice cream, and she just sat right at our table, like, what does that mean?"

"I'm not going to pretend to know how Tammy Thompson's brain works," Jackie answers truthfully, getting back to her debate team stuff.

"I dunno, it's just-"

"Shit!" Robin's furthering rambling gets cut off as both girls and the other two costumers in the store whip their heads around to see Steve drop 3 cones of ice cream he was trying to carry at once onto the floor just in front of the counter.

"Let me get the whiteboard," Robin sighs, leaving the booth to go to the room behind the counter.

"And a mop!" Steve calls after her.

"No!"

a/n:
I swear I know where I'm going w this