Eddie had brought full-cream vanilla ice cream.

“What brand is it?” Jordan asked, after proclaiming its deliciousness. It was. Eddie rarely went half-way on anything.

“No brand. I made it myself. A friend loaned me his ice cream maker.” Eddie told him.

“You’re joking.” Jordan said, astonished.

Eddie preened. “Your admiration is well deserved and welcome.”

Christian ate his in silence, happy to let the conversation roll over him. Eddie had already apologised for the hangover, saying that it was the wine that had made it so bad. Christian doubted it, but he had no way of comparing. He wasn’t a drinker, which was probably why he had gotten so loopy after barely two glasses.

“Is that what you study then? Culinary arts?” Laurel interjected.

Brendan rolled his eyes. “Laurel, give it a rest.”

“Are you opening another round of Perspective? “Eddie asked her slyly.

“No!” said Laurel, Brendan and Christian together.

“What’s ‘Perspective’?” asked Jordan.

Eddie launched into a colourful explanation of the game, using moments from the night before to punctuate instructions. Jordan grinned and laughed appropriately, and Brendan argued that he hadn’t been so drunk as to suggest Eddie wore stockings under his jeans.

Chris felt his pocket vibrate and startled slightly. He had forgotten it was even in there, as he usually left it in his room. Pulling it out he saw a message from Jazz. When he opened it, it read:

Jazz: Can’t wait for tomorrow ☺

Chris smiled slightly before putting it away, but caught Laurel watching him with a questioning look. He shook his head but Eddie caught the exchange.

“What’s that? Come come, share with the class.”

“It’s nothing. Just a text.” Christian replied.

Eddie’s eyes wouldn’t let him go and Christian felt as if his mind was being read. Under the scrutiny, he couldn’t stop the blush starting.

“Chrissy has a boyfriend!” Eddie exclaimed.

“I don’t.” Christian said, but felt warmth climb up his neck and up his cheeks.

“Oh, look how cute he is when he blushes!” Eddie squealed.

Christian looked down at the table in desperation, knowing his face was probably glowing. Eddie had a way of prying open any situation to get his money’s worth.

“You have a boyfriend?” Brendan asked quietly, but Jordan said almost at the same time. “What’s his name?”

This was more painful than the day Brendan had interrogated him about coming out.

“Guys,” Laurel said them her voice low and stern. “No.”

“Oh come on-“Eddie started.

“No. Eddie, for once, keep your long nose out. It’s not your business.”

Christian got up and walked to the counter to escape, looking for something to do with his hands. Anything. Even chopping off his fingers would do.

Eddie heaved a dramatic sigh, for once giving in. “Oh alright. Let’s talk about Jordan instead.”

He fired questions at Jordan, with his classic Eddie charm and casual disregard for subjects that might be seen as too personal to share with someone you just met. Jordan, for his part, answered every one without too much pause, and a fair amount of good humour. At one point, Eddie leaned forward across the table to pat Laurel’s arm, at which she scowled.

“He’s lovely. You may keep him.” he told her.

“No one asked you Eddie.” She replied, but the annoyance sounded tired. She did lean over to Jordan for a kiss though, and he met her like he was drawn to her magnetically, his eyes drooping and blissful. “Welcome to the menagerie.” She told him and he grinned like they were alone.

“Does that make us all animals?” he asked “Can I be a tiger?”

“You can be a bunny.” She told him. And he grinned like that was perfectly alright.

“I’ll be a peacock.” Eddie added, while fluffing his hair to his satisfaction.

“Damn right.” Laurel agreed and all of them laughed.

“Bren is a bear obviously.” Eddie went on. “What are you Chrissy?”

Christian shrugged, he was still at the counter, leaning against the edge, and no one commented on his self-imposed exclusion.

“A fox? A mouse?”

“Those are two totally different animals. One is predator, one is prey.” Laurel objected.

“Maybe some sort of bird…”Eddie mused aloud.

Brendan stood up and brought the empty dishes to the counter and Christian took them wordlessly. They weren’t that dirty, so he just rinsed them well and towel-dried while Brendan helped.

“You didn’t say you had a boyfriend?” Brendan’s asked, quiet enough so the others wouldn’t hear.

Christian looked at him sidelong. “Why would I?”

Brendan looked uncomfortable. “I don’t know. You don’t have to. Just thought you would have mentioned it, when we talked last night.”

“I don’t remember much from last night.” Christian half lied.

They worked together in silence for a time, then Christian said:

“I don’t have a boyfriend. It’s just this guy…”

“The guy from the market?”

Christian had forgotten Brendan had actually seen Jazz, albeit from a distance.

“Yeah.”

“Oh.”

They finished the dishes and went back to join the group at the table. Eddie was fielding questions again.

“Maybe Jordan should ask me. I can never say no to a pretty face.” He batted his lashes at Jordan, who grinned back undaunted.

“Touch him and I swear, our shaky truce is over.” Laurel told him mildly.

Eddie pouted but they all knew it was fake. His face quickly rearranged itself though, along with the rest of him, which went from a hunched-back slouch to a straight shouldered alertness.

“Now that we are fed and watered, I have something to share with you all.” He announced. When he was satisfied they were all paying attention he went on. “I need all your phones, please. Unlocked.”

After a moment in which they all shared equal looks of mysterious confusion, phones were pulled from pockets and given over to him. Christian had no qualms about it now, three weeks of Eddie was enough to show that Eddie wasn’t out to get him and he now had five numbers in his phone

Eddie laid them out in front of him like a deck of cards and then pulled his own phone out and while typing, explained: “In the light of the near disaster of our first meeting, “ he nodded to Laurel. “I realised there is a niche in the market which must be filled. The ‘market’ being college students. So I had a friend make a phone app.”

“He just made an app?” said Jordan, impressed. “Isn’t that kind of hard?”

“It takes certain skills and time, yes. He had both. And I helped.”

“Is this the friend who loaned you the ice cream maker?” Laurel asked.

“Stop interrupting, and no. This is another friend. I have lots of friends. You should try it sometime.” Eddie replied, not looking away from his screens. Laurel scowled.

“I realised that if my good fortune hadn’t brought you lovely souls across my path, I might have been left to catch frostbite in the cold that day. No one knew where I was, no friends to rescue me from my bad decisions. Or at least, no way to contact them. So my friend and I put our heads together and we made this.”

He turned his phone on its back and laid it on the table so they could all see. It was a red, blue and white icon with the words ‘FindMe’ in bubble writing.

“Let’s say you’re out at a party, maybe drunk, maybe drugged to the eyeballs…”Eddie told them, eyes skating away from Laurel. Christian looked to Brendan to share the inside joke, but Brendan was watching Eddie. “And you don’t even have the ability to walk yourself somewhere safe. You press this icon…”

And he did, making it explode into three separate bubbles. Inside each one was a name, the third of which being Brendan Evans. Eddie tapped it, making it pop, and a second later, Brendan’s phone buzzed beside it. When he opened it, he saw a message from Eddie which said

Find me 45.5231° N, 122.6765° W. Eddie.

They looked at the message, realisation slowly dawning on their faces. Eddie watched gleefully.

“Wow.” Jordan said first.

“Thank you, yes, I know.” Eddie replied with a nod.

“That’s…” Laurel said, still nonplussed. “Really impressive. And useful.”

“No need to sound so surprised, Madam.” Eddie remarked a touch sourly.

“So if you need help..?”

“You send for help. The idea is that you choose the three people in your contacts most likely and able to help you in any given situation, and all you have to do is tap twice and your hero will be on his way!” Eddie explained.

“So if you’re lost?” Jordan asked.

Eddie patted his head. “I think you may be taking the name a touch too literally, but yes, you could use it then. But the main idea is for those who end up so wasted they can barely see their own shoes before throwing up on them. People aren’t thinking in big sentences then. So it’s a quick tap and SOS sent.”

Laurel leaned forward, looking shrewd. “Drunk people aren’t reliable. What if the person does end up walking somewhere, or catching a taxi or something, do the coordinates change then?”

Eddie actually stopped and looked thoughtful. “A very good observation Madam Laurel. This is why you lucky fish are the tester group. You can all use it this week and come back to me with any bug fixes and suggestions. Alright?”

Everyone nodded, excited to be part of something new. Eddie set to work on installing the app on all their phones, which was fun to watch. Eddie’s technological skills were the same as everything else he did: unexpectedly superior. Soon enough he gave them all back their phones, whose home screens all had the Application’s speech bubble icon on them.

“Now, you need to make sure your top three people are set up in the database. And make sure you have data, because it takes quite a bit at the moment if you’re out of Wi-Fi range. It’s probably easier if I just do this for you, darlings. No offence.” Eddie said as he took Jordan and Christian’s phones back and went to work on them. Christian didn’t mind, he knew he was hopeless with technology.

“It’s so nice of you to think of us.” Laurel said wryly as she set up her FindMe.

“Oh Laurel. We all need saving sometimes. Even you. Even me.” Eddie replied before scooping more ice cream straight out of the tub with his finger.