Searching For Jenna novel Chapter 28

Jason said," Sounds good to me."

When Steven stopped in the middle of the road, several guys came up to greet him. Elliot made a mental note that there was a mix of ages among the men, but most of them seemed to be in their late twenties to early thirties, with a stray older man amongst them.

Elliot pulled up beside Steven and yelled to him, "Where you want the food?"

One of Steven's friends, a burly blond man that might have been Steven's cousin came to the driver's side window. The guy had been drinking but was not drunk. "Hey, I'm Chase. Just hang out here for a minute, and we're going to start unloading the food and taking it down to the tables we have set up on a flat spot by the water. A bunch of people brought food, but we're glad you guys did too. Way more people showed up than we thought."

"Cool," Elliot said.

Jason hopped out of the truck and started helping unload. When they were done, Chase came back and told Elliot, "We got it all."

"Where can I turn around? I want to park closer to the dam. I may have to leave early."

Chase pointed further down the road. "There's a driveway about a hundred feet up. You can turn around there."

"Thanks, man," Elliot said and pulled away. He noted that Sandy had parked on the far side of the cars going further out Eight-oh-one in case she wanted to leave early too.

Elliot turned around and found a safe place to park along the road. He grabbed the folding chair he kept behind the seat of his truck, and walked back to the path, not far from Steven's Ford F250, which led to the patch of rocky beach that was completely covered with people. Fireworks were shooting off from other places, and the lake and the moon were shining creating a beautiful atmosphere. If there weren't so many other people here, this would be a perfect spot to watch the fireworks.

Jason found Elliot and brought him over to a cooler that was filled with beer and sodas. Jason took out a beer and Elliot took a soda. There was no way he was drinking with this crowd. He didn't recognize anyone he'd met over the last few months of living in this area, except the people he worked with at the restaurant.

Sandy and Sarah brought folding chairs down from their vehicles and set up a semicircle of the group from the restaurant. Cara was sitting on a big rock next to Sandy looking very uncomfortable.

Steven walked over from where he'd been standing with his friends. "What do you guys think? Great view of the dam, huh?"

"This is great, Steven," Sandy said. "Thanks for inviting us."

"Wow, this is fantastic," Tom, Megan's fiance?said. He put a folding chair down next to Sarah for Megan and then opened his chair.

"Yeah, this is awesome," Elliot said and jumped at the boom of the first fireworks being shot from the dam.

Jason sat down on a large rock next to Cara. "There's a cooler full of drinks over there," Jason said, pointing to where Elliot and he got their drinks.

"Cool," Chase said.

"I'm from Lexington," Sarah said. "My parents keep a boat out here, but I haven't been out here for the past few years. This is the first summer I haven't taken classes in two years. I've never been out here for the fireworks."

"We have," Megan said, "but we usually watch from the dam. This is way better."

"What about you, Sandy?" Chase asked. "What made you want to open a restaurant here?"

"I have to admit that I'd always been a city girl until I joined the military. I've seen a lot of stuff in my life, and when I retired, I decided I wanted to go someplace quiet. I fell in love with it out here, but there's not a lot of places to eat that are not chain restaurants. That's the one thing I missed from the city. Then, I got bored, so I decided to open my restaurant. That way I had good food and something to do with my time," Sandy explained.

Elliot smiled. Sandy was great with telling her made up story, mostly because some of it was true.

"What about you?" Chase asked, surprising Elliot.

"Well," Elliot began and sat upright. "I came out here from Maysville when Sandy hired me right out of culinary school." He put his hand on Jason's shoulder. "I recruited my friend Jason for the summer because I knew he was on his way to being a great chef."