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Normally, Grayson would have eaten lunch with one of three people if they were available, or any odd combination of them depending on the day of the week and who was present. Dani was a new friend but a persistent one, and she'd informed him quite staunchly that she was going to sit with him from now on, okay, so he could get used to it, and Grayson was mostly okay with that. She was outgoing and kept conversation flowing (to be fair, she supplied ninety percent of the conversation) which gave him plenty of time to enjoy his lunch, adding commentary here and there where it was necessary.

If he had to put up with much more of her one-on-one, he was going to scream.

It wasn't that Dani was a bad person. She really wasn't. It was just that she was a good person. A good person who apparently went jogging with Jude, had heard just about enough about Hero, and was resolved to do something to help him. Grayson would have been all for this had her bright idea not been to set him up with someone new.

It was wrong on so many levels. It was not only doomed to failure (rebound relationships almost never worked, he was sure of it) but she was trying to recruit him to help her. Him.

In all fairness, she had no idea about his constant internal struggle when it came to Jude, but she should have known anyway that Grayson wasn't the man for this kind of job. He was lazy, unmotivated, denser than a doornail when it came to some things. (How long had it taken him to realize that Jude was actually his type?)

And yet, she persisted.

So, when he saw the back of Barnaby's head, he felt like his coworker was a godsend.

Making a beeline, still murmuring appropriately as Dani chattered beside him, Grayson set his tray down in front of the redhead and gave him a slightly wide-eyed look. It was classic male for help me, I can't make her stop.

"Hey, Barnaby." He slid onto the bench, smiled a little. "Have you met Dani? Dani, this is Barnaby."

Not bothering to ask, Dani settled herself right next to Grayson, beaming Barnaby a quick, bright smile. "Hi. Nice to meet you."

She then immediately turned to Grayson once more and demanded, "Why are you being so difficult?"

Grayson cringed, then looked at Barny. "She wants to set Jude up," he clarified, sounding for all the world like this was the Worst Idea Ever Conjured.

Dani looked between the two boys, puffing her cheeks out as she considered them both, a faint frown on her face. Seriously, why was everyone being so difficult? They weren't the ones who had to hear Hero this, Hero that, Hero is the peanut butter to my jelly, Hero, Hero, oh my God if she heard about Hero one more time she was going to die.

Dani didn't even know Hero. Yet, after listening to Jude, she felt like she could describe her with accuracy and clarity to anyone who needed it, possibly provide a psychological profile in the event she was ever wanted for a heinous crime. It was unsettling. It was also really sad. Jude was totally lonely.

"Well, he's never going to get another girl if he keeps obsessing over Hero." She attacked her salad with verve, muttering something about going to gag him and tie him up if she had to.

Ignoring her for the time being, Grayson opted to disassemble and reorganize his taco instead. "Yeah." He started sprinkling lettuce back on it, apparently entirely focused on the task at hand. "We all met... uh, not long ago."

"Jude and I go jogging together," Dani clarified, some of the moodiness leaving her voice as she addressed Barnaby. "How do you know Jude?"

She shot Grayson a questioning look, and he shook his head. This seemed to satisfy her, because she turned her attentions back to Barnaby expectantly.

Had Dani been aware that Grayson was gay, she would have possibly thrown him a coming out party and then demanded he go inspect her boyfriend-hopeful. Not because she would want Grayson to sweep Parker up in his arms and ride away into the sunset with him, but because she was abysmal at guessing sexuality and had still not come to a concrete conclusion on his. She was leaning heavily toward straight, but she didn't want to put all her eggs in one basket and end up helping him pick out lip gloss for his Saturday night date.

Not that she thought all gay men wore lip gloss. But, well, Parker had long hair. It wasn't that much of a stretch in the universe where he was gay.

"Oh." She waited a beat, then hiked a light blue eyebrow at him. "Dance off? Like, your eyes met across the street and you had to do battle, kind of thing?"

Being Dani, she was completely unaware she'd just made a backwards Pokemon reference. Grayson, however, did not miss it, and snickered.

She gave him a look that said clearly, What are you laughing at? and he sobered. "Sorry."

Dani wasn't really the type to go to arcades. She was the type to go for an afternoon jog and then go to the activity center to scale a rock wall for a while. She was also the type to approach random strangers in the park and have a conversation with them, and the type to recruit people to her causes without their consent. She'd already decided Grayson was going to be in on it, and by simple virtue of being a mutual friend of Jude's, Barnaby had been recruited. He just didn't know it yet.

"Cool. I didn't know Jude had so many friends." Barnaby would learn soon enough that Dani was a very frank young woman. It might have even been refreshing, all things considered, except she wasn't the way she was to be a relief to anyone else. She was just Dani, and therefore amazing, so everyone else had to adjust. "And isn't it obvious? He's lonely. He misses her. He's never going to stop thinking about her if someone else doesn't, you know, distract him."

She looked around the table, made a grim expression. "Not it. I don't think either of you two will do it for him, either. So. We have to find him someone."

It made Perfect Sense.

Geez, boys, try to keep up.

Grayson had remained very quiet during Barnaby and Dani's exchange, looking for all the world like there was nothing that interested him more than his lunch of questionable quality. For one thing, he didn't feel he had anything valid to contribute, as Barnaby was a better friend of Jude's, and therefore privy to more personal matters than Grayson was. Dani, too, was probably a better friend of Jude's, since he made the effort to go jogging with her and talk about Hero, which made her another big contributer to the conversation. Really, Grayson probably could have stood up, walked away, gone through the lunch line again, sat back down, and only be noticed because he accidentally sat on the edge of Dani's skirt.

It was a little depressing. He was used to it, though. More than that, he didn't want to be an active part of this conversation. He liked to think he was a very open, generous, kind individual when he could be, but he thought going so far as to attempt to set Jude up was pushing the limit. For one, he didn't actually think it was a kindness, and for another, he wasn't that much of a masochist.

So when Dani turned to him, asking in an I-can-only-be-patient-for-so-long tone, "You get it, right, Grayson?" he had to actually zero back into the conversation.

Oops.

"Um... sure."

Triumph lit Dani's face, and she said, "See. Like, Jude is closest to you guys, so if he was going to go for a guy, of course it would be one of his 'bros'."

Wait, what?

Placing his hands on either side of his tray, Grayson said suddenly and firmly, "I don't think it's right to try to set Jude up."

Someone had to be the voice of reason.

He wished Dani wouldn't kick the voice of reason under the table.

"I haven't found anyone yet. That's where you two come in."

Grayson didn't like the way this was going. He really didn't want to be involved. He also wanted to lean over and rub his left shin, but he thought that would look either too obvious or too awkward, so he decided against it. Dani's heart was probably in the right place, but there were more reasons than he felt comfortable admitting to why he didn't want to be a part of it. Unfortunately, Dani was the kind of girl who didn't seem to take no for an answer gracefully.

"It's not a good idea," he said again, shaking his head.

"I want him to be happy." Dani frowned, pulling her pigtails over her shoulders and combing her fingers through the ends of them. "No one is saying he needs to fall in love. Just go out, have dinner or something. Enjoy himself."

Normal things that boys his age did. It made sense to her.

She could also stand to stop hearing Hero, Side B on their morning jobs, so whatever worked.

Grayson brightened a little. Jude loved football as much as he did, which meant that everyone would have a good time during that particular scenario. Of course, considering it was the playoffs, it could either be a very good or very bad situation; if they won, Jude would be elated. (Grayson fully expected them to win.) If Baltimore managed to take them out, though, Jude might actually be tipped over the deep end.

Not a good thought.

"He'd probably like that," Grayson agreed, and then Dani put her hand on his shoulder. He blinked, turned to her.

She was staring at Barnaby with a most peculiar expression. After a moment, still looking at the redhead, she asked Grayson, "So, like, does it sound to you like he's considering taking one for the team, or is it just me?"

Grayson stared at Barnaby as well. He wondered if there was some kind of law against two people breaking the Three Second Rule at once, and then he remembered that, indelicate as she was, Dani was still a girl. He was pretty sure the rule didn't apply.

He was vaguely horrified by the thought of Barnaby taking anything for the team in this particular context, however. It certainly showed on his face.