What is it about Maisie?

 Cade thought he might be losing his hearing. What? Maisie and the Dr. Pepper guy?

Yeah, Brick filled him in. She still worked in the deli after graduating at the semester's end. She hadn't moved away. She was taking a class or two at metro and she was seeing the Dr. Pepper guy.

They'd lost touch. Cade guessed. Honestly, he felt a little bad about it, because she'd been such a good friend. And a new friend at that. After all, she'd moved here on her own from New York City. An aunt, as he remembered lived here, but she didn't live with her. She hadn't since she graduated.

"So..so is she living with the Dr. Pepper guy now?" Cade looked at Brick blankly. A part of him felt responsible for all this, yet he wasn't sure why. After all, he was a gay high school student with a boyfriend and he worked at the library. Another thing, how come Maisie didn't come to see him at the library? She could have at least got a card, he thought then.

"Oh, I dunno. He visits with her in the afternoons when he comes by to check on the Dr. Pepper supplies," was about all Brick could tell him. "I thought you two were close?"

Cade only nodded. He didn't want to go into with Brick. Obviously, not that close. Cade was beginning to think he'd just have to check this out for himself so he asked if Mercer wanted to go to the grocery store for fried chicken.

"Fried Chicken?" Mercer looked at him funny as if he'd lost it. "Remember that time we got the fried chicken at the Korean snacks place and you said it was too rich for your taste?" He meant that in the price of it.

"Well, it's much better at the deli," Cade said.

"I know what that means," Mercer chuckled. "It's cheap."

"No, it's reasonably priced and it's really good," Cade just said as they drove over to the grocery store before they had to go to work. "Besides, I haven't checked in with Maisie for a while."

"And why is that?" Mercer wanted to know as he practically lounged in the passenger seat.

"I dunno. She's a private person," Cade said. "But..but she's a really good listener and she always listened when I would talk to her about you. I feel like I let her down, somehow. You know, after we got together."

"Oh, you are some friend, all right," Mercer shook his head as if he was much better at this kind of thing than Cade would ever be.

Cade didn't argue. He got to the deli in time. Maisie was still behind the counter and who was she laughing with? The Dr. Pepper guy.

Of course, she looked at both Cade and Mercer as if they were just customers. She waited on them as she was supposed to.

Cade ordered a bucket of chicken. Mercer looked at him as if he'd really lost it.

"What?" Cade looked at him.

"That's a lot of chicken," Mercer said. 

Cade kept his eye on Maisie and asked how it was going.

"Oh, it's going," Maisie smiled. Finally, she caught the Dr. Pepper guy's attention as he was about to leave.

"This is my boyfriend, Harrison," she told him. For a moment, Cade didn't think she would acknowledge him, but he was glad to meet Maisie's boyfriend.