A surprising answer, following the fake-couple's spat

Inside his head, Patrick was playing a high-stakes logic game with himself, trying to anticipate the outcome of each move. It was almost like he was trying to solve a wolf and sheep's puzzle, where you have to ferry people and animals across a river without the wolf eating the sheep. He broke every potential option down, possibility by possibility...

First off: what if he went with Billy, like Shauna suggested? "No fucking way... Shauna just wants to peep through a keyhole and watch that or something. Or she'll ask me to prop a phone up and record it so she can see it later. Worse, she might not really care that much and she'll just laugh about it afterwards, while I have my first homosexual experience that I didn't even ask for. No thanks..."

Second: what if he went with Shauna and they used Billy together? "That's just gonna be way too weird... Like, I think he's talking about getting on his knees and sucking off me while he puts his tongue in Shauna, but even if I'm not putting it in anybody's ass or vis versa, it's still pretty awkward. On the other hand... There are benefits to being in that kind of situation with her... Nah! Too fucking weird!"

Third: what if Shauna went alone with Billy? "..."

As Patrick stared down at Shauna's wrist, held in one of his long-fingered hands, he realized that this option was where things got difficult. It was the only one that required no participation on his part and which he had no reason to reject. Letting Shauna have her fun wasn't just a way to get her off his case; it was basically magnanimous. She'd found a hot guy right off the bat, the two of them connected quick and liked what each other had to offer, and his impulse was, what? "I don't wanna fuck, but don't fuck that guy either." Could he really have it both ways like that?

"Yo gal! Patty! Patrick!"

The red-headed boy shook his hair back and forth as he awoke himself from that mind puzzle. "Oh, dang, sorry," he mumbled, letting go of her wrist. "I uh... I think you should just go with Billy. I mean, I get it. He's... Look, I'm not gay, but he's-"

As he struggled to get the right answer out, Shauna smiled sympathetically and walked around to the other side of the table. When she got there, she plopped back down into her booth seat without uncrossing her arms, then leaned her head back.

"... I don't get it," Patrick spoke dumbly, unable to think of anything that would explain his pervy friend's decision to turn her back on Billy's not-at-all subtle offer.

Shauna idly began to unwrap her silverwear from a blue-and-white flower patterned table napkin while she explained herself. "Don't worry, I get it. I mean... This whole thing-- this fake date-- is about things not being weird, right? It was kinda fucked up I guess that like... I see a hot waiter and I'm all..." She paused, sighed, and made two mouth-like gestures with her hands, then cupped them in and out a few times with simulated kissing noises. Once she'd finished with that, she made a circle with one hand and then thrust her finger lewdly in and out of it while making grunting noises.

"I get it."

"Yeah, well... Anyway. You had that cute look on your face where you're all moody and pouty Patty, so I sorta realized, 'yeah, I fucked up.' We'll skip the Billy Break, if it's too weird for you. I just wanted you to have fun, you know?"

"... It's plenty fun just being here and eating pancakes with you, really," Patrick mumbled, scratching the back of his head. "On the pretend date." He added that last point quickly, as his jealous protection of his pretend date partner was starting to cause all of this to feel increasingly like a real date.

"Sure, sure. But if I win you over before the day's over, enough with the 'fake date,' okay? I'm gonna kidnap you down to the beach so we can live here from now on! We'll visit the pancake house and blue-ball Billy every day," Shauna grinned impishly. "Like, if you start feeling in the mood, don't be afraid to say-" she paused her, slumping her shoulders and scratching at her fro to imitate Patrick's mannerisms, "'Uh, let's go into the store-room and I'll lick your clit, Shauna.' Because, to be clear: I am not against getting my pussy licked in a store-room."

"You'll be the first to know," Patrick sighed, rolling his eyes. All the same, he set his back against the booth seat with a relieved posture. He'd managed to put things off for just a bit longer. After waiting a bit longer with nothing to do but pretend to read a news and events brochure on the table, he cleared his throat awkwardly and peered back towards Shauna. "Do you think we're actually getting served? Or is Billy still waiting there on his knees in the store room?"

"I don't fuckin' know!" Shauna snort-laughed, evidently amused at that image. "Just go stick your dick in there and see if anybody starts sucking it!"

Surprising the two of them, it wasn't much longer before their waiter reappeared, wearing his same self-sure smile and, just as before, little else. Once he reached the table, the boy set down their drinks first, then, to their surprise, a giant platter. "Uh, I think you got our order wrong..." Patrick grumbled, noticing the giant stack of pancakes with sausage and eggs arranged artfully around it.

"Ha ha! I did get something wrong, but not your order. We have a special offer, you see-" the boy winked, before Shauna regretfully informed him that the two of them decided not to go for any 'special offer' after all. "No, not like that. What I mean is, we have a special offer for couples. Ordinarily, I make people prove they're couples before I let them order it, but I'd say you two surprised me; you pretty much proved you're a couple just now."

Shauna pulled her head back with a wry smile. "Damn, boy! You're pretty cocky, aren't you? You think you're the snake in the Garden of Eve or some shit?" she challenged him.

A white grin spread across the boy's handsome face. "Well, it was pretty hard to resist, wasn't it?" He turned the smile meaningfully to Patrick as well, who shrunk backward, still unsure what to think about it.

"... You do have a point," Shauna agreed, laughing as she watched the boy begin to squeeze a giant tube of whipped cream over the pancakes to form a heart shape. "Oh shit, Patty, look. Heart pancakes. We're eating pancakes with a big fuckin' whipped cream heart on em. Yo, Billy, hit 'em with that syrup too!"

"Heart attack pancakes, more like it," Patrick joked along; for a while, he not only forgot that his date wasn't real, but he allowed himself not to care about whether it was or wasn't. "Aren't you worried there's like, a huge upcharge on this shit?"

"Naaah, how much can it be?"

"It's more when you factor in my blue-ball fee," the blond waiter giggled, letting slip that he somehow heard their earlier conversation as well. The guy was strangely mysterious for a pancake shack waiter. Shauna and Patrick spent the rest of the meal suspiciously watching Billy, to see if they could catch him disappearing into the floor or the walls like a ninja.

The two left feeling fat and happy, finding that it was still nice and early in the morning. "Gal, I mean it! I am gonna blow chunks," Shauna groaned. Well, maybe they weren't exactly fully happy.

"You saw it as a challenge, right? Couldn't leave any pancakes on that plate? You girls see everything as a challenge, I swear," Patrick sighed. "I guess we aren't swimming for a while if you're feeling like that. Anything else we can do? I mean, I'm already in my 'swimsuit' such as it is, so I don't know where else we could go that'd make sense."

"Fuck?"

"If you're about to blow chunks, I'm not fucking," Patrick responded dryly, as he considered his options. The answer "find a public toilet and wait it out" was way too uncool for their vacation. The answer "go back to sleep on the bus" was even worse. They probably couldn't even reach the hotel without taking the bus or using public transport. "There's gotta be something here on the strip we can do. What was your plan for the fake date after the pancake house?"

"... I mean, I thought we were gonna hit the beach, but now..." Shauna clutched her gut and winced.

"Right. Beaches sometimes have these things that are like bath-houses with showers and toilets, right? Let's find one of those. You can take a shit there," he sighed once more, then began the search, feeling like he was taking care of a little kid despite the fact that the "little kid" was the only one between them with money. "Besides, you're gonna change into a swimsuit too, right? You can change there too. Or are you swimming in a shirt?" In the back of his mind, it occurred to him that he hadn't taken a shower yet either... It wouldn't hurt to stand under the water for a bit. Ordinarily, as a boy, he was expected to smell good. Right now... he did not.

"You're interested, huh? Ha! Patrick's perving on me-" Shauna cackled for a moment, before squeezing her eyes shut and clutching her stomach. "Ooof!" It was hard for Patrick to be too interested when all he could imagine was her taking a giant shit.