Chapter 32: Chatty Friends

My choices seem limited once Nimrod and Saul leave for the evening. I can run after them and behave like a love struck baby. I can wander off and give Napoleon something to feed the gossip about me, or I can hang about and get some more dancing in, do my own politicking. The universe decides for me as Seattle comes over to me.

"You looked a little lost." he says. he gives me a quick comradely grin. "would you like to try the next dance?"

"I don't even know what the next dance is." I admit.

"Oh good," He sounds relieved. "because if you said yes I would have to talk you out of it." he takes my arm and leads me away from the center of the room.

"You don't like this dance?" I ask.

"The truth is I'm not much of a dancer." he admits to me with a rueful laugh.

"I would have never guessed." I laugh back at him.

"I guess, I just never got into the whole dance until you drop thing." Seattle ducks his head ashamed of is lack of enthusiasm.

"That is ... very interesting." Is all I can think to say and still stay polite.

"Not really, everyone kind of thinks of is as a joke. But enough about me." he moves into the real reason why he wants to speak with me. "I wanted to thank you."

I scrunch my brow up in confusion and say. "What did I do?"

I spend a moment wracking my brains trying to remember when we last spoke.

"Not for me," He says as he sees the confusion on my face. "I guess, it's for Saber and Holliday. I" He stops and rubs his jaw and takes a deep breath. "They are my best friends and I work with them and well the last couple of weeks have been hellish. Saber pining after Gwen and now this thing with Holliday and Alys. All I have heard lately has been the two of them. moan and groan about how confused their life are, and the like. I was going to kill them if I had to listen to one more soul-searching monologue about lost loves and the unfairness of the universe."

I blink in astonishment. Who knew?

"Glad to help." I say and give him a big wide grin.

"So thanks. Whatever you did has at least shut them up for the night." Seattle gives my shoulder a light squeeze.

While I have Seattle here I decide to do a little probing. "Do you guys talk about things together much of the time?"

"I guess." He says and tips his head as if to think about it. "We have been friends for a long time. it seems weird to have to say that, but I guess I'm going to get used to that kind of thing. At least that is what Saber says. We have made our first contact hell we have made dozen contacts. It is not just us any more and I guess I knew, somewhere in the back of my head that we couldn't do it on our own. I've read the books. We just don't have enough people and that is only one small problem."