somewhere || George Russell

thirty

December 7, 2019
New York City, New York

"Okay, I'm out," Laurel stood up from the chair of her office. "This is completely ridiculous."

"Where are you going?" Emilio tried to stop her and also stood up from the chair.

"I need to do my laundry," she started collecting her stuff and putting it into her small black backpack. She smiled at her brothers and walked to the door.

"You can't solve your problems by doing the laundry," Rafael frowned and followed her with his eyes.

"You two, Booth and Aubrey already solved the case, I don't understand why I can't go," she shrugged and wrapped her hand on the knob of the door to open it.

"Who the hell are Booth and Aubrey?" Rafael tilted his head.

"Apparently, us," Emilio chuckled. Rafael frowned at him, wanting to know a real answer. "Those are the FBI Agents in that crime tv series that she used to watch, Bones."

"Seriously, you have the worst references ever," Rafael muttered. Laurel snorted. "We need to take the legal action..."

"And that's what Emilio came here for," Laurel ran into Emilio, put her hand on his waist and shook his body. "Am I wrong?"

"No," Rafael mumbled.

"Sorry, I couldn't hear you," Laurel teased, walking to the door again. "As usual, I am not wrong."

She opened the door and crossed it, leaving her brothers there. She is hopeless.

Emilio and Rafael came to New York yesterday as soon as they heard about the problem with Laurel's money, so that they did the bureaucratic process. Perks of Miami being just two and a half hours away from New York. The three guys called the police and an investigation was opened, and luckily it didn't took much to solve the situation.

The results: a cleaning lady found the money while doing the cleaning in Laurel's office. She made up a plan and decided to steal it by faking an extorsion call, claiming to be Laurel in need of that amount of money. The simple thought is ridiculous. Who would need ten thousand dollars out of nowhere?

Apparently, that cleaning lady wasn't as smart as she thought, because the police could easily track the call and found the criminal mind behind it. Laurel actually just steps into her office one or two times a month, when she needs to sign papers, so that's why the cleaning lady never imagined that Laurel would notice. Very sloppy assumption, to say the least.

Now, Rafael and Emilio are going to court or something like that to press charges for the theft. Rafael is the legal representative for the hotels, and Emilio is the lawyer, which means both have to be there, while now Laurel won't have to take part of that necessarily.

●●●

"I always wanted to come here," Laurel clapped her hands like a little kid and took her coat off, sitting on the couch in front of the table at the diner. "But there's always that gigantic line and I hate to wait."

"You hate everything," Andrew chuckled, sitting in front of her. Laurel gave him an unfriendly look. "I'm sorry."

She chuckled and shrugged. "It's okay, I do hate everything."

"How did you get us a reservation, anyway?" Michael asked, looking at Gemma.

Gemma was the one who suggested them to come have lunch here. Laurel was at her apartment doing her laundry when she came with this great idea of enjoying their last evenings out before the previews start. Seems like everyone is getting a little nostalgic.

"They don't do reservations," Laurel shook her head and pouted. "I wanted to book like two weeks ago, but they told me they don't do reservations, you have to wait in the line."

"We didn't wait," Richard muttered. Everybody turned their heads to see Gemma, waiting for an answer.

She shrugged. "I worked here when I was in college, so I just talked to the manager and told him we are soon-to-be Broadway stars and we wanted to come. He couldn't say no."

The Ellen's Stardust Diner is a very popular restaurant in New York City, where the staff of waitresses and waiters, hoping to make it to Broadway one day, get on stage to sing well-known titles, to entertain the public while working. Sounds like a great place to work, and it turned out pretty good to Gemma, who actually end up being on Broadway after working here. Dreams really do come true, people.

"You should probably stop saying that we are soon-to-be Broadway stars, or it won't happen and we're going to flop," Richard said, a little bit concerned. "Let's just don't get ahead of ourselves."

"But that was way too easy," Andrew shook his head. "What do we have to do in exchange?"

"Why do you think he wants something in exchange?" Gemma asked back.

"Because businesspeople don't often do something just for free," Laurel replied, giving a logical answer.

"I assume we are paying for the food," Richard spoke slowly and turned to see Laurel, raising an eyebrow.

"Yes, like everybody else in here," Laurel nodded. "But with the slight difference that they waited in the line, and we didn't. What's the trick?"

"Fine," Gemma rolled her eyes. "We have to perform a song."

"I knew it!" Laurel and Andrew yelled at the same time.

They laughed together and high fived their hands in the air. They are also good friends. They even play to be siblings in the show, Maria and Bernardo.

The five guys started to see the menu to decide what to eat. A few minutes later, a waiter came to take their order and so they started to think of what song to sing when they finish eating.

"I say we should sing Eddie Murphy's 'Party all the time'," Laurel suggested, smiling. "I love that song."

"No, it's too old," Gemma frowned. "I say Rather Be by Clean Bandit and Jess Glyne."

"I think I don't know that song," Michael shook his head slowly.

"What are you, a caveman?" Gemma chuckled.