"Boyfriends Squad!" Ethan announced loudly, with his arms held out like he was announcing something sacred to the world, as the four of them walked out the front door of the beach house.
"We're not calling ourselves that!" Aaron said immediately.
Behind them, some of the girls were giggling.
"See? They like it!" Ethan said.
"That's them laughing at you, not with you!"
"Matter of perspective."
"Matter of fact."
Miguel and Magnus simultaneously put themselves in between the two of them without having to discuss it. The four of them continued to walk toward Miguel's Toyota Tacoma.
Then Ethan said again:
"But, we're not just the Boyfriends Squad—"
"We're not calling ourselves that!"
"—we're also the Foot Soldiers of the Beach House Council of Women!"
Aaron groaned into his hands. Magnus glanced back at the beach house, where the girls stood in a line to watch them go, and thought — for a second, considering everything that had just occurred — that Ethan wasn't entirely wrong. He then looked back, caught Miguel's eyes, and saw the same tired conclusion in his gaze. They both kept the thought to themselves, though, because Ethan absolutely did not need any more enabling.
When they got to the car, Miguel unlocked it. He opened the driver's door, then froze as he noticed the other three staring at the passenger seat without moving.
"What are you three doing?"
Ethan raised a hand:
"Is the passenger seat reserved for only Carmen?"
Miguel furrowed his brows. "What? No! Why would it be?"
"Then one of us can ride shotgun?"
"Well, I mean, it is usually Carmen's seat," Miguel said slowly.
"Alright, we're all getting in the back then." Aaron adjusted his glasses.
"What? Why would you? It's not reserved."
"You kinda just admitted it was."
"I just said it was her seat."
"That's what reserved means."
Ethan elbowed Magnus in the arm and said:
"Bro, he's whipped!"
Miguel pointed at him. "You're definitely sitting in the back."
In the end, Aaron, Magnus, and Ethan all got into the back, with Magnus sandwiched between the other two to prevent them from strangling each other during the ride.
The ride into town and to the grocery store was relatively quiet: Miguel left the radio on, Aaron looked out the window, Ethan cracked jokes that nobody reacted to, and Magnus just sat awkwardly in the middle.
The grocery store was about midsized. Miguel pushed the shopping cart, Aaron looked through the shopping list on his phone and immediately made a beeline for each item, Ethan walked ahead and looked for things that weren't on the list. Magnus trailed behind them, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
At first, everything was normal — to the point of boring, even. They were just going through the store, picking up things they needed (and things Ethan thought they needed), and throwing them into the cart. Ethan was telling bad jokes; Aaron wore a constant annoyed expression but at the same time was the only person even reacting to the jokes. And Miguel looked exhausted. Magnus wasn't sure how Miguel managed to look like a tired father despite only being twenty.
They were about done with the list, on their way towards the cashier when it happened: three men in ski masks burst through the front entrance. One carried a handgun, another carried a shotgun, the third had a duffel bag and looked terrified.
"Everybody freeze!" the guy carrying the shotgun yelled, aiming around the store at customers — most of whom were elderly. The guy holding the handgun aimed it at the store employees, while the last guy put the duffel bag on the cashier's counter.
The Boyfriends Squad happened to be standing in a partially obscured aisle. The robbers hadn't seen them yet. Meanwhile, all four of them had a good view of the robbery in progress.
***
Meanwhile, back at the beach house, the "Council of Women" was convening for a meeting of utmost importance: planning a surprise belated birthday party for Magnus.
Sofia had just finished telling the Council, in excruciating detail, how Alex had not only been unaware of her own boyfriend's twenty-first birthday, but was also fighting with him during it — leaving out only System-related stuff. Alex was held in place by Maya on one side and Camila on the other, looking mortified and outraged at the same time. They finally let go of her after Sofia was done with the story, and Alex immediately lunged at her best friend. Sofia hid behind Nicole and Tori, sticking her tongue out at her.
Behind them, Camila stood up and rubbed her hands together. "Alex, Alex, Alex. The Council is very disappointed in you!"
Beside her, Maya was grinning ear to ear.
"Yes, how could you, Alex?!" She pointed a finger accusingly. "You've committed a grave sin — you've made all girlfriends in the world look bad!"
"We were fighting at the time!" Alex snapped. "And he didn't tell me…" she groaned into her hands, "…he didn't even remember his own birthday!"
A collective dramatic gasp. Then several girls shouted: "Guilty!"
Alex hid her face in her hands.
"Okay, fine! I know how bad this is." She peeked out through her fingers. "Now could you all please just lay off me and actually help me make it up to him?"
All the girls glanced around at each other. Finally, Rachel said:
"Alright, fine. What do you have in mind already?"
"Although," Nicole added, "we all reserve the right to hold this transgression over your head for all eternity."
"Yeah, Alex," Maya chimed in. "You've been a very bad girlfriend!"
The meeting shifted to something a bit more serious after that — or as serious as a group of partying college girls planning a surprise birthday party could be. Alex laid out the ideas she had and assigned roles to everyone. Sometime during that discussion, Sofia had to step outside to take a phone call. She came back with the phone face-down against her shoulder as she asked all of them:
"Hey, my friend has some kind of gas leak situation at her apartment building and needs a place to crash. You all don't mind if I invite her here, right?"
All the girls either shrugged or cheered; Alex raised an eyebrow at Sofia for a second but nodded as well. Sofia raised her phone back to her ear:
"Yeah, you can come stay with us. When will you arrive?" A brief silence as the other side answered. "Okay, see you tomorrow morning!"
Then she hung up and the birthday planning resumed.
After a while, they settled on the important decisions:
First, the surprise party would take place immediately the following day — the reasoning was that it would be a good way to start their Spring Break strong, with two parties in two consecutive days.
Second, Camila, Rachel, and Carmen would update their respective boyfriends and enlist them for this operation later that night after all the guys got back from their shopping trip.
Third, Maya and Sofia were given the duty of distracting Magnus and keeping him away from the beach house all day so everyone else could set up the party. The public reason given was that Maya and Sofia were the most capable distractions.
The private reason for Alex's decision revolved around Magnus's quests. This would be a good opportunity for him to make natural progress on both trust-building with Sofia — what better way to build trust than having a common goal of minimizing the damage of the Maya disaster? — and getting Maya to naturally open up to him. Effectively, this would be killing multiple birds with one stone.
***
Back at the grocery store…
Magnus focused a charge of Affective Discernment at the robbers. The reading came back instantly, as usual.
Fear. Stress. Desperation. Panic.
"They're desperate and panicking," Magnus said.
"They're clearly morons who didn't plan this through." Aaron said almost simultaneously.
Both of them paused, then glanced at each other. Clearly neither of them had expected the other to be able to read the situation as well.
Before either of them could say another word, though, Ethan had already stepped out of hiding and toward the cash register with his hands raised.
"Hey guys," he said, addressing the robbers.
The guy holding the shotgun whirled at him, surprised to find out someone was there.
Ethan continued, in the tone of someone about to explain something to a group of slow students. "Before you three do something stupid like shoot somebody, I just have two quick questions."
The three masked men stared. Apparently, nobody had prepared them for this.
"One." Ethan kept his hands up in surrender but pointed one finger at the ceiling and started swirling it in a circular motion. "Do you know how much paperwork this becomes, and how many years in jail you'll get if somebody actually gets shot?"
Silence. The three robbers were genuinely stunned speechless.
"And two," Ethan continued, entirely undeterred, "you do know there are cameras literally everywhere these days, right?"
The guy holding the shotgun glanced over at his friends, his hands slightly loosening their grip.
Then everything happened at once.
Aaron moved like a blur — one moment he was behind Ethan, the next he was rushing the guy holding the shotgun. There was a twisting and grabbing motion, and then the guy was somehow pinned against the counter, his own weapon trapped against his throat while Aaron held him in place.
As soon as Aaron moved, Miguel cursed under his breath. "Fucking idiots."
He tackled the nearest robber, the one holding the duffel bag, and pinned him down on the ground.
The third guy panicked. A gunshot rang out.
Magnus's body was already moving before his mind even registered the gunshot. He stumbled into Ethan and they both fell to the ground, just as the bullet was flicked slightly off course by an invisible hand and buried itself into the nearby wall.
From the floor, Magnus placed his right hand against the ground and focused on Oppositional Resistance Alteration while his left made a simultaneous, discreet flicking gesture.
Almost immediately, the third robber slipped and fell to the ground as his gun flew out of his hand, made a small arc in the air, then fell and skidded conveniently toward the store employees.
The guy tried to get up, but he couldn't. The floor under him felt like a skating rink.
Miguel's voice rang out, loud and clear:
"Is everybody okay?"
Everyone in the store — customers and employees alike — was stunned for a moment. Then cheers erupted and store employees rushed over to help the four of them.
By the time they reached the robbers, the ground underneath him had returned to normal.
Ethan turned toward Magnus, his eyes wide.
"Holy shit, bro." He pointed. "You saved my life!"
Magnus rubbed the back of his neck. "Technically Aaron saved your life first."
Ethan turned to Aaron. "Yeah — thank you too, bro. I take back every bad thing I said about you. You're not a snob!"
"You're welcome," Aaron said automatically, then paused. "Wait, when did you call me a snob?"
"I didn't!"
"You just said you did."
"I didn't! Because you're clearly not a snob! That's the takeaway here."
"…You know what? Fine. Forget it." Aaron exhaled. "And I was wrong about you, too. Looks like you can use your brain some of the times, when it matters."
Ethan opened his mouth. Closed it. Then:
"Why," he said, "does that still feel like an insult?"
***
The police arrived shortly after, already alerted by a silent alarm one of the employees had triggered earlier. The four of them gave their statements, then paid for the groceries — declining repeatedly when the store tried to give them everything for free — and drove back to the beach house.
When they arrived back at the beach house, Ethan walked in first, then froze. Magnus and Aaron followed on both sides of him, and froze as well. Miguel brought up the rear with heavier bags in both hands, before he, too, froze.
The four girlfriends stood in a line in front of them, arms crossed. Behind them, every other girl was shaking her head at them.
Apparently, local news had already covered what happened at the grocery store with CCTV footage. So, the Council of Women was already aware of their Foot Soldiers' heroics.
"We sent you four on a simple shopping trip," Alex began.
"…And somehow…" Rachel continued.
"…You made the local news?!" Camila finished.
Carmen said nothing. She just stood there, pinching the bridge of her nose and shaking her head slowly.
Ethan put the sodas and beers he was holding on the ground and pointed at Magnus and Aaron on either side of him. "They started it!"
At the exact same time, Magnus and Aaron pointed at Ethan with their free hands. "He started it!"
"You walked up to them first," Aaron told Ethan.
"I wouldn't have done that if you two hadn't said they were desperate morons!"
Every girl in the room turned to Miguel. The other guys also turned to him a second later.
Miguel slowly put the bags down on the table, then dragged a hand down his face tiredly.
"Don't drag me into this."
And that was all he had to comment on the matter.