Chapter 123 – All-Hands Meeting, Nomination, and the Knicks Game (Part Two)
Bruce looked at his phone, recognized the number, and answered.
"Hey, Mom."
"Bruce." His mother's voice carried the particular warmth and mild authority she reserved for calls that were going to involve at least one specific request. "Christmas is coming up fast. You're coming home for dinner on Christmas night, right? I need a headcount."
"I'll be there. Grace is coming with me — we'll make it work."
"Good. That's good." He could hear her smile through the phone. "Oh, and your sister is back from Rutgers. Jocelyn gets in two days before."
"How's she doing? Those Biomedical Engineering courses have to be brutal."
"She says finals went fine, but she's been in the lab every single day — staring at petri dishes until her eyes cross, apparently." There was pride layered underneath the sympathy in his mother's voice. "She's tough. Takes after me." A brief pause. "Now — your friends. Ross, Monica, the whole group — should I invite them?"
Bruce thought for a moment. "I'll ask around. Whoever wants to come, I'll bring. But actually — Mom, I need to ask you something about that." He paused, picking his words. "Could we make sure there are a few solid vegetarian options this year? Not just salad — actual dishes."
"Vegetarian?" His mother's tone shifted into curious. "Since when? You never mentioned this."
"It's for Phoebe — she doesn't eat meat. I realized after the fact that last Christmas, pretty much everything on the table had meat in it. She probably got through dinner on salad and bread and was too polite to say anything, and none of us even noticed." He exhaled. "I felt bad when I thought about it afterward."
A short silence on the other end. When his mother spoke again, her voice had the specific quality it got when she was genuinely embarrassed on someone else's behalf. "Bruce. Why didn't you tell me? Having a guest sit at my table and not be able to eat — that's awful. I would never have wanted that." A decisive pause. "All right. Whether Phoebe comes or not, I'm making several vegetarian dishes. Good ones. Not an afterthought — actual dishes."
"Thanks, Mom. That means a lot."
"Of course. Now eat something — you sound like you've been working all day."
He had been working all day, but he let that go. After he hung up, he sat for a moment with the phone in his hand. Family, work, crew prep, nominations, catering logistics, Phoebe's half-brother — it had been a full day by any reasonable measure. He picked up the prop breakdown document one more time and made himself finish it.
By the time he drove back to Bedford Street and pushed through the door of Central Perk, the evening had settled into its familiar rhythms. Monica, Rachel, Phoebe, and Ross were arranged around the orange couch in various states of relaxation, coffee cups at different stages of empty. The Knicks game crowd had not yet returned.
Bruce had barely gotten his coat off when the door swung open and Chandler and Joey came in with the specific energy of two people who have just witnessed something exciting and have been waiting the entire drive home to tell someone about it.
"Bruce!" Joey pointed at him immediately. "You made a huge mistake tonight. Huge."
"The buzzer-beater," Chandler said, with the gravity of a man delivering a eulogy. "The whole arena. Absolute pandemonium. And you were home with spreadsheets."
"I had prop breakdowns to review," Bruce said.
"Prop breakdowns," Joey repeated, shaking his head slowly, as though this were the saddest sentence he had ever heard.
"Where's Richard?" Monica asked, looking past them toward the door.
Joey pressed a hand to his chest, affronted. "Monica. Please. What kind of people do you think we are? He's parking around back."
"I just asked—"
"We would never ditch Dr. Richard," Chandler confirmed, sitting down. "The man bought us actual good beer tonight. Top shelf. Not the stuff that comes in a trough."
Monica's expression shifted into something warmer and more interested. "So you had a good time with him?"
"Your boyfriend," Chandler said, leaning forward, "is genuinely great. I'm saying this without any agenda whatsoever. He is a legitimately great person to go to a basketball game with."
"He let us drive his Jaguar," Joey added, as though this settled any remaining debate.
Rachel raised an eyebrow. "He let you drive his car?"
"Joey did twelve blocks. I did fifteen." Chandler said it with the quiet pride of a man reporting a personal record. "I'm choosing to read that as a sign of preferential treatment."
"Or he just trusted the person who went second," Ross offered.
Chandler considered this. "I'm going to ignore that."
Joey, who had been building toward something since they walked in, leaned forward with barely contained delight. "Okay but the tipping thing. Bruce, you have to hear this." He grabbed Chandler's hand before Chandler could object and demonstrated — pressing an invisible bill into his palm, shaking it smoothly, the whole transfer completely invisible. "That's how Richard tipped the usher. You didn't even see the money move. It was like watching a magic trick."
"It was incredibly smooth," Chandler agreed, allowing the hand demonstration to continue.
"So then Joey spent the entire second quarter practicing it on me." Chandler held up his hand. "Hey, Chandler — thanks for showing us to our seats." He mimed accepting a nonexistent bill with complete seriousness.
Joey took the invisible money back with equal ceremony. "No problem. Hey, Chandler — thanks for the parking."
Chandler passed it back. "Hey, Joey—"
"All right," Chandler said, pulling his hand away with a laugh. "They've definitely figured out the bit by now."
Joey grinned. "Probably."
The café door opened and Richard walked in, carrying the easy, relaxed energy of someone who has spent a few hours doing exactly what he wanted to do. He looked around the room, clocked the group, and smiled.
"Hey, big shot!" Chandler called out immediately.
Joey was already on his feet, hand extended, going for the smooth handshake. "Hey—"
Richard shook it with the practiced ease of someone who has been watching this develop all evening, then made a show of pocketing something from the exchange. He looked at Joey with complete composure. "I'm keeping that one."
Joey spun toward the group. "He took my money! He actually did it back to me!"
The laughter that followed was warm and genuine, the kind that fills a room the right way.
Bruce watched all of it and felt the familiar, uncomplicated pleasure of being somewhere he wanted to be. He waited for a natural pause, then said, "Sounds like you guys had a better evening than I did. I spent mine with prop lists and budget revisions."
"How's everything coming together?" Ross asked.
"Solid. We're ready to go — just waiting on the start date." Bruce took a sip of his coffee. "Oh — and I found out today that Lock, Stock got nominated for Best Screenplay at the Independent Spirit Awards."
The table went quiet for exactly one beat.
"Congratulations!" Rachel said, immediately and genuinely.
Ross clapped him on the shoulder. "That's fantastic, Bruce. Well deserved."
"I knew it," Monica said, with the confident satisfaction of someone delivering a verdict they had already reached weeks ago.
Phoebe tilted her head thoughtfully. "Is anyone actually surprised? That movie is so good." She said it the way she said most things — as a simple, obvious fact that the universe had somehow failed to post publicly.
Chandler leaned back and adopted a formal expression. "So we're sitting here having coffee with a Spirit Award nominee. Should I be addressing you differently? Do you prefer 'Your Nomination' or is there a hand gesture involved?"
Richard leaned over and shook Bruce's hand with genuine warmth. "Congratulations. That's a big deal."
"Thank you." Bruce looked around at all of them. "All of you. Seriously." He let it sit for a moment, then looked at Joey. "Joey — before we start shooting, make sure you're deep in the Brooklyn Fantasia script. Vinny is a supporting role but he carries real weight. His arc affects the whole second half."
Joey straightened up with the particular seriousness he reserved for conversations about his craft — immediate, unironic, completely committed. "Bruce. I started the day I signed my contract. The day I got my advance. I have been inside this character for weeks." He held Bruce's gaze. "I take my work seriously. I'm a professional."
There was a half-second pause around the table.
"He really means it," Chandler said quietly, to no one in particular.
"I know," Bruce said. And he did.
[500 Power Stones → +1 Bonus Chapter]
[10 Reviews → +1 Bonus Chapter]
Enjoyed the chapter? A review helps a lot.
P1treon: Soulforger (20+advance chapters)