Early that next morning, when Winona and I were feeding Triple H some leftover pizza crusts as compensation for riling him up the night before after one too many intense hours spent playing Overwatch, she confessed that she too had received those same strange, badgering text messages from Benjamin and Felicity.
Together, we’d reluctantly accepted our invites into the group chat, but it seemed Benjamin and Felicity hadn’t wasted time putting together plans for Irish Navajo’s fateful road trip without us. They’d already booked an RV, cleared their busy schedules for a free week (Felicity was heading on to the World Fencing Championships in Paris immediately afterwards), and rented out a few instruments here and there for Irish Navajo to play if we got the travel bug as we drove along.
The only thing missing was the reservation we were heading to. That was up to Winona, and having one of our infamous late-night gaming sessions again hadn’t exactly jogged her memory for ideas.
“Didn’t we always say we’d go to Canada to visit the reservations?” she said, dipping the pizza crust into herb and garlic sauce before giving it to Triple H. You’d swear Winona had thrown him a sirloin steak from the way the hound devoured the thing.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
“Yes, in Quebec,” I said.
“Then we’ll find one there,” she smiled.
“Are you sure?” I asked. “I mean, you are going to be spending one long road trip with Felicity Brigham for company.” I wasn’t even sure if I could hack the thought of spending time with Benjamin Cohen in an RV. I hoped he picked out the biggest one possible — it was the only way such a small space could stop such mind-boggling egos from crushing one another to bits.
Winona shrugged. “I’ve had worse experiences on the road than dealing with Ms Fancy Fencer.”
“…And she’s going to be the actress in this music video, remember?”
“Yes?”
“Which means Irish Navajo will be sharing the spotlight with her,” I added, “and Benjamin.”
When I described it like that, it really did sound quite odd that we were letting Benjamin and Felicity make a music video with us. Winona didn’t like Felicity. I didn’t like Benjamin. Yet, if Irish Navajo ever made the big time, they’d be etched into the personal history of the band forever.
It would be like having the scrawny nerd hire the guy who used to shove him into lockers as one of his office drones. Well, that was apparently a common enough revenge fantasy among the bullied, but I didn’t quite understand it.
Wouldn’t you want to be as far away from someone you disliked as much as possible? I wondered if Benjamin and Felicity thought the same thing. Yet they were making plans, with or without us, to ensure that Irish Navajo had its success.
Now, that sounded fishy to me.
