Rising Shards

Night one was kind of a bust for my goals, after we ate way too much triple cheese cheesy crust turbo pizzas from a local place (we had to go local as Alix somehow had either a major issue or run in with all the big chains), we both fell asleep. I apparently was more exhausted by work and my daily life than I thought if I needed that much sleep the first day of our trip.

Alix probably needed the sleep too, she had told me how hard she was working juggling her teaching duties with whatever assistant work she was doing for Kitty. The latter sounded like she was just being a lackey, which she probably could have told the school board about, but Alix seemed weirdly proud of helping Kitty out.

We met up with Stella, Evy, and Mahina for the hotel's very generous continental breakfast. Alix stuffed her pockets with every little plastic cereal tub she could get her hands on while I got a pancake platter, thankful I wasn't still full from all the pizza.

Mahina looked like she was still mostly asleep as she ate, wincing at every noise.

"I kind of took you for the type to never get hangovers," I said. "How much did you drink last night?"

"Way too much," Mahina said. "Usually I can shrug it off, but..." She bit her lip, and I thought she was gonna throw up for a second, but she composed herself. "I'll be OK in a minute. I think I made some new friends, at least?"

"You did seem to have the entire bar laughing," I said. "Probably skipping that tonight?"

"Oh, no, I'm on vacation! I'll be back every night!" Mahina said. "You should join me!"

"I'm down, how about you two?" I said. "Checking in on Zeta?" I asked as Stella tapped away at her phone instead of answering right away.

"Mhm, all good," Stella said. "I'm telling myself only a few minutes of phone time during this vacation. Otherwise I'm going to spend the whole trip worrying about leaving her alone."

I was kind of surprised Stella joined us, a bit before we left some family drama hit that I'm sure she was still processing. But I think she maybe needed to get away from it after that, and her little sister was fine staying in the dorms.

"Good thing Tik and the others weren't busy," Evy said.

"Right, Zeta says they've been checking in every couple of hours," Stella said. "If Zeta's annoyed, then she's probably not doing too bad. Oh, and the bar thing, didn't mean to ignore you!"

"You're fine!" I said. "Only join us if you want to."

"I think I could use a night of just letting loose," Stella said. "If the wine selection is good, at least."

"From what I saw, very expensive," Mahina said.

"Well, we're on vacation," Stella said.

Alix was down for drinks that night as well. Once breakfast was done, we left to go see the sights in Northern Lute, starting with its famous lake.

"God, don't you just wanna run some laps around that thing?" Mahina said as we pulled up to the glistening lake, that had a long trail around it.

"Not really, but you do you," Stella said.

"I'd maybe jog or power walk instead of running," Evy said. "Maybe it'll help with the hangover?"

"Great idea!" Mahina was out of the car so fast I barely registered that we had parked already.

"If I had a fraction of that energy, I'd get so much done," I said.

"Every time I hang out with her, Kalei makes a bit more sense," Evy said.

"Should we text her where we're headed?" Stella asked. "Though I guess we're just walking around, too."

"She'll probably lap us five times before we finish a single lap," Evy said.

Stella and Evy were ahead of Alix and I, looking adorable as Stella held her partner's hand, sometimes leaning her head against Evy's shoulder.

I felt a bit of longing wishing I could have something like that, before I remembered that I was on a weekend long date, and I absolutely could have that. I held my hand out to Alix, who high fived me. It took a couple tries before I just asked her straight up if she wanted to hold my hand.

"O-oh!" Alix said. Then she started coughing, getting too excited at the idea and shocked that I had even asked. The coughing spell lasted long enough that Evy and Stella got concerned, but eventually Alix calmed down.

"Maybe we'll ease into hand holding," I said. "I'll keep my hand by my side, and whenever you're ready, just grab it."

"That...sounds like it could work," Alix said as Mahina ran by, finishing an entire lap before we could finish a quarter of one.

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