A Bachelor For Christmas

Cider

Once we started grabbing our food from the buffet, others followed, and that's when things really started to set into motion. And, thankfully, it all started off well enough.  I loaded my plate up with a few slices of turkey, a heaping dollop of mashed potatoes, a couple biscuits, a healthy spoonful of green bean casserole, and a little bit of cranberry sauce.  I then forced Ellie to at least grab some salad, which she managed to eat a few forkfuls of.

This was fine until I decided to go get seconds, after that I got lost in the spectacle.  

I couldn't look away when Alicia Quincey did an obviously intentional fumble of her napkin, which she chose to pick up with a bend at the waist instead of the knees.  It was terrible, which is why I laughed with mouth open and full of food, drawing some rather disgusted sneers from some of the ladies who decided to stand around the buffet table to look like they were eating so Rowan didn't notice that they were in fact avoiding anything that wasn't the sparkling cider.

Then there were the two women I passed by on my way back from the buffet table.  I caught them whispering about how best to steal Rowan's attention.  Apparently both were from Chicago and that shared sisterhood could at least ally them together early on in the game.  They thought that if they stood close to where the swarm around Rowan was and acted like they were telling some hilarious story amongst themselves, that it would gain his interest without having to throw themselves at him.  I admired their inclinations towards reservedness, but it got them no where seeing as Rowan couldn't possibly hear their playful laughter over the nonstop barrage of chatter he was enduring with the ten ladies already surrounding him.

When I finally got back to our little high top table on the outskirts of the party, Ellie was gone.  I tried to look for her in the horde of lusty women, but a squabble that pulled some of the women away from Rowan — and coincidently brought the camera crew inching forward — kind of blocked my view.  It would have been worth it had it come to blows, but they dispersed civilly, though still spitting fire, and I was no where closer to finding Ellie.

"You need to talk to Rowan."

My brain registered the owner of the voice fast enough to keep my surprise from manifesting in a little bounce.  Instead my hand gripped my fork hard enough to leave an imprint, which was preferable over giving Noah Cyrus any pleasure at having the jump on me.

"No, I do not," I stated while stabbing my fork into a pile of stuffing.  "The rules were pretty clear, which was that there were no rules and we can make whatever effort we want to get his attention.  Seeing as I have no desire to get his attention, food is my current priority."  I shoved the forkful in my mouth with indulgent pleasure, watching Noah from the corner of my eye.

"Well, this isn't a command per se, more of a suggestion."  He leaned in and rested his elbows on my tabletop, his eyes looking past the swarm of women, who were becoming more and more frantic and pushy as the clock ticked away.  I followed his gaze and saw it landed on a corner of the party where one young woman stood alone beneath the light of a street lamp bedecked in a festive harvest bow.  "Seems Ellie has gotten some stage fright."

"Don't you toy with her," I said, stabbing my now clean fork at him.  "What are you trying to play at?"

"Nothing," he said with a smug smile and a raise of his hands in surrender.  "Just that, she doesn't look like she's going to make it past the wall of bodies and time is starting to run out."

I looked back over to Ellie.  I couldn't see her eyes from that distance, but I could tell by the way her hands fumbled with the fabric of her dress and how her jaw sat tight and square that she was doing everything she could to fight off a panic attack.