“But..!”

 

“I know that. Yeah, you always do but this....”

 

“Aw hell, come on... don’t be like that! You know I’ll see anything else just... “

 

The one-sided conversation Vin Tanner was having with his phone now drew the attention of everyone in the offices of Team 7. Even Chris Larabee was curious enough to emerge from his office to investigate. All eyes were fixed on the team’s sharpshooter, whose usually unflappable demeanour had given away to exasperation and was now tumbling towards imminent defeat.

 

“Alright, alright! We’ll go. I’ll pick you up at your place.” He grumbled, praying there was some terrible emergency requiring the presence every doctor at the hospital so he would spare hell he would otherwise be subjected to. Then again, wishing for such a thing might send him to hell anyway.

 

Tapping his phone to end the call, Vin looked up to see six sets of eyes staring at him.

 

“Trouble in paradise?” Chris Larabee asked, perfectly aware of only one person could get Vin this frustrated and it wasn’t him.

 

“No,” Vin growled, wishing to wipe the smarmy look off his boss’s face. “Nothing like that at all.”

 

“Really?” Ezra remarked, peering over his copy of GQ, “it certainly did not sound like nothing at all.”

 

“Come on, how bad could it be?” Chris asked as Vin started to pack up for the day, noticing the sharpshooter was taking more time than he should, as if trying to delay the ordeal he was going to inevitably face.

 

“It’s bad,” Vin sighed. “Alex wants to go to a movie.”

 

“That’s a problem?” Buck could not help but comment from his desk, flipping through the contact list on his phone to find the number of that stewardess he met earlier this week. “Haven’t you dragged her to every comic book movie there is?”

 

“Those were fun!” Vin protested, feeling guilty now Buck pointed it out. Alex had sat through those movies patiently, even the awful X-Men ones when they double-dated with Casey and JD.

 

“So what movie does she want to go to?” Nathan asked from his desk.

 

“Just a movie she wants to watch,” Vin muttered evasively.  “I don’t remember the name.”

 

“Bullshit,” Chris grinned, guessing now what the matter was. He’d been married and he had a good idea what Alex was making Vin do as payback for the movies he'd inflicted on her. “What does she want to see?”

 

“Nothing...” Vin hesitated to make the revelation because he knew how shit he was going to get about it. It was why he’d just about baulked when she suggested it. He wanted to go see that movie with Jeff Bridges. How could you not want to see a movie with a cool name like Bad Times at the El Royale? Apparently, Alex didn’t. She had played the 'love of his life' card and insisted on choosing the movie tonight. Not that he normally minded her choices, but this time...

 

“It’s a chick flick right?” Buck guessed immediately. Ah, Stacie, he smiled at the contact picture for the blond goddess when he finally found her on his phone. “Hey, chick flicks are great.  Women get all hot and bothered after watching the things. You don’t even have to work to get them into the sack. Just offer to get ‘em flowers or take a walk in the rain and they’re all good to go.”

 

“Who are these women who date you?” Ezra gave him a look, imagining Buck had to be trolling for dates on Tinder or Wal Mart.

 

“Hey, not all of us can land felons...” Buck giving the suave agent as good as he got.

 

“Julia is not a felon,” Ezra pointed out hotly.

 

“Not here anyway” Josiah threw in. 

 

Julia Pemberton, Ezra’s girlfriend had been an international jewel thief before her return to America. While Interpol would surely love to get their hands on the lady, the truth was as long as Julia remained on American soil where she had committed no crime, she was safe from the law. 

 

“Not anywhere,” Ezra fumed. “At least Julia does not enjoy films that involve unrealistic romances that end with a pursuit through an airport.”

 

“Uh Ezra,” Vin couldn’t help pipe up despite his present misery. “Didn’t you chase Julia through the airport when you thought she was stealing that Monet?”

 

“Just before she broke more of your ribs?” Nathan added helpfully.

 

“Bruised,” Ezra sniffed haughtily. “In any case, Julia prefers foreign films.”

 

“Almost as bad,” Buck made a face. “What’s the point of a movie you gotta read?” Movies ought to have three things...”

 

“Cars, hot women and gunfire?” JD smirked, familiar enough with Buck’s cinematic choices to speak up for him, especially after sitting through the seemingly endless number of Fast and Furious films.

 

“I’d take one of those Vin Diesel movies right now,” Vin lamented. “Better than what Alex wants to see.”

 

“Which is?” Chris asked, suspecting it had to be really awful for Vin to take this long to tell them. “What, she making you watch a Sex in the City movie marathon  or something?”

 

“There’s only two of those isn’t there?” Josiah asked, being a closet Kim Catrall fan from her days in Porky’s. Of course, if anyone asked him to elaborate, he would draw his gun.

 

“Two is enough,” Chris said icily, remembering having to watch the box set of the show with Sarah. For some reason, she would wait until he got home to put those things on, especially when he was late or missed some dinner they were supposed to go to. For all the things he missed about her and their life together, her viewing habits was not one of them.

 

“Can’t be worse than the Twilight movies,” JD shuddered, his face taking on the glazed look of a man who had stared into the face of horror and had glitter spat back at him. “Casey made me watch EVERY SINGLE ONE. How can you make movies about vampires AND werewolves and screw that up?”

 

“You should have taken her to see those Fifty Shades of Grey ones,” Buck winked. “That would have been worth the pain. You could have had some use for handcuffs that don’t involve a perp.” He wagged his brows at JD.

 

“Buck!” Nathan exclaimed aghast as JD’s eyes widened in realisation and then started to get palpitations.

 

“Nice Buck,” Chris gave his old friend a look of reproach before turning to Vin. “So what’s the movie?”

 

“It’s not a chick flick,” Vin protested, wondering why the hell everyone was so interested. “It’s...it’s,” he couldn’t even bring himself to say it. “A Star is Born.”

 

“Oh, Lord!” Nathan exclaimed in horror understanding Vin’s dilemma. “Rain wanted to see that last Friday but I managed to get out of it.”

 

“Last Friday?” Ezra furrowed a brow at the healer. “Was that not the evening of our poker game?”

 

“As far as Rain is concerned, we were at a stakeout,” Nathan said with a perfectly straight face. “She ended up going with a bunch of her nurse buddies instead. It was just as well because when I got home, there wasn’t a dry tissue in the house and all the red wine was gone. Seems she and her friends got together to talk about the movie afterwards.”

 

Nathan had never been so grateful to lose all his money to Ezra that night if it meant being absent for any of this.

 

“Oh man,” JD followed suit with similar sympathy. “I had to take Casey to see that! I wanted to catch Venom but she wanted to see it. I haven’t been able to get the songs out of my head in days.”

​

“They’re remaking it again?” Josiah asked, recalling the Streisand version and the New Age Wicca named Dawn he had gone to see it with. Of course, both of them had been so high on her famous brownies at the time, he’d hardly remembered it. Besides, it wasn’t as if they even attempted to watch the thing.

 

Josiah wondered if he still had her number.

 

“Apparently with the musical stylings of the dubiously named Lady Gaga,” Ezra commented.

 

“She’s alright,” Chris remarked and noted all eyes staring at him. “What? She was singing at the Oscars!”

 

Chris made a mental note to hide his copy of The Fame.