The cool cat fence cafe had a rustic dark wood exterior with lots recycled fence boards making it look like an old cabin suddenly transplanted on the edge of the city. Inside the wood theme continued, giving a nature colored contrast to the leaf green faux leather booths. Wooden cat silhouettes perched atop more fence boards with a dark sky blue wall painted behind them.
Keith leaned towards you and whispered, “Is this place for real?”
“Yes, it has good food too”
Keith inhaled, “Smell's like a regular fast food with an over zealous theme”
“It’ll grow on you, don’t worry” You straighten up as the waiter heads towards you guys. Just as you had hoped it was Marcus. Wearing the restaurant's signature black t shirt with signing cat on it. A black t shirt which fit Marcus like paint. “H..Hi” You stammer out.
“Hello there, Come on in”, Marcus gives you both a big smile. He grabs some menu’s and gestures you over to a booth along the front window. “My name is Marcus, I’ll be your waiter for this evening” He puts the menu’s down in front of you. “Can I get you started with something to drink? Large mocha with cream?” Marcus was looking at you.
“Yes, thanks” Ok so maybe you came here a bit too frequently. Might explain why you car was still broken... well... was still broken.
“And for you?”
“Iced tea please”
“Sure thing!”
“Oh, we have these vouchers for dinner here”
Marcus looked at the vouchers, “Crazy Cool Cat Chowdown? Yup, these are good for any of our daily specials, except the steak. You guys check out the specials, I’ll be back with your drinks in a minute” Marcus headed back to the kitchen stopping to grab some plates on the way. You suddenly realized you felt eyes watching you watching Marcus. You turn back, Keith is giving you an amused look.
“Good food, huh?”
“They happen to have good food yes.” You grinned “And I like the scenery as well”
Keith smiled back at you then picked up the menu.
You ended up ordering, the woodsman grill burger, and Keith got a BLT.
“Why a BLT?” you asked Keith as you pick up the burger
“Cause I felt like it?”, Keith grabs the bottle of ketchup and starts covering his fries
“I mean... you can apparently eat almost anything. You could branch out. Try moose?”
“Moose wasn’t on the menu”
“True” you took a few bites of your burger
“Mmm... Nrr Rats Srumring Id lik re see on re enu”
“What?”
Keith gestured out the window at two ladies heading inside, “I said I’d like to see them on the menu”
You looked out the window. They were wearing designer clothes, oversized sunglasses and looked in good shape. Ladies who wouldn’t even have given Keith a second glance before, but he had improved a lot since yesterday. Just when you were thinking you could finally get to explore Keith yourself. Great. “Think you’re their type?” selfishly hoping he’d give up.
“Dude, I can be anybody’s type now” Keith focused slightly and shifted as his torso subtly expanded with muscle.
A sudden gasp to your right. You looked over at the sound, Marcus had been clearing one of the tables nearby and saw him suddenly focus intently on a spill on the table. Shit. You leaned towards Marcus, “You might want to take it down a notch, people will notice”
“Well yeah dude, that’s kind of the point”
“This was a bad idea, we should head back to my place”
“Suit yourself”
“Can you get our food packed up to go? I’m going to run to the bathroom real quick”
“Yeah yeah, sure sure” Keith wasn’t paying much attention to you as the two ladies were making their way inside.
After achieving your primary bathroom goals you took a moment to look at yourself in the mirror. Were you the kind of guy who would begrudge his friend a truly remarkable silver lining on an otherwise really fucked up day? No... You were better than that. You’re just feeling jealous. Before today you’d never even considered you might actually get to have Keith. He deserves compassion and empathy from his best friend. Him wanting attention from those ladies was no different than the way you’d been going after Marcus.... except Keith might actually be successful where you hadn’t.
You sighed and headed back out to the restaurant and then stopped slack jawed... Keith was huge. That was the first thing you noticed. The second thing you noticed was that those two ladies were sitting in your seat. The third thing you noticed was Marcus’s one hand resting on Keith’s shoulder and his other hand slipping him a piece of paper which Keith quickly pocketed.
What. The. Fuck. Forget empathy, you walked over to the table trying to keep calm. “Keith!”
Keith smiled at you a big ‘I’m awesome’ smile. “Later ladies, Marcus. Time to get back on the road” Keith got up, grabbed the food, and headed out the door. The three at the table just stared after him still mostly oblivious to your presence. You tried to follow as gracefully as you could.