I take a bite of my bagel and stare at the screen just as Michaels strolls by in nothing but a pair of low-slung sweatpants, his hair still wet from his shower. He’s singing quietly to himself, and I’m surprised that he has a half-decent voice.
“Are you singing REO Speedwagon?”
Michaels blinks owlishly at me as if he didn’t realize I was there. He nods. “I’m surprised you recognized it. It’s my rock-bottom song,” he says with a wink.
He stops in the kitchen and rummages through the pantry before reappearing with a box of Lucky Charms. Despite my objections, Fi convinced me that junk food is an important staple for mental health, so against my better judgment, I picked up a few snacks that she and Michaels requested.
He opens the fridge, grabs the milk, and closes the door with his hip. Michaels pours his cereal, popping a few stray marshmallows into his mouth. Then, he grabs a mug and fills it halfway with coffee, sloshing some on the counter, before topping up the other half with milk and adding a generous spoonful of sugar.
I sip my very bitter coffee, feeling like I’m watching a kid make their own breakfast for the first time.
When he starts to eat his cereal over the sink, I sigh.
“Do you want to sit with me?”
“Oh. Uh, sure.” Michaels picks up his coffee with his other hand and joins me, but it’s a pretty small table, so he ends up sitting more next to me than across from me. He leans over my shoulder, chewing loudly in my ear as he watches me work.
I grit my teeth and glare at him, but he doesn’t seem to notice.
“Is that for the new menu?” he asks around a mouthful of cereal. I nod. “Are you making that for dinner?”
“I was planning on it.” I push my shoulder against his bare arm in an effort to get him to sit back. Instead, I’m distracted by how warm his bicep is through the thin cotton of my T-shirt. He still smells like Swagger (as he called it), but the scent is more subtle now.
“Do you have more recipes?” he asks when he finally sits back.
“Yes, but is there something wrong with salmon?”
“No, but I’m curious what my options are.”
“I wasn’t taking requests, Stitch.”
He ignores me and pushes my hand aside so he can click on one of the other documents I have open. “Oh! What about teriyaki? Do you know how to make it like a real Seattleite?” His hazel eyes are bright with excitement. “It’s so fucking good.”
Michaels presses his hands together in a begging gesture, and it disarms me. It’s unnerving how my resentment and angertoward him lessen slightly, like cracks in my armor. It’s still there to protect me, but he found a chink.
I clear my throat. “Yeah, okay, I guess I can make that one instead.”
He grins, and I think it's the first time I’ve ever made him really smile. My stomach does a weird backflip. He has a nice smile—boyish and genuine. It’s different from the cavalier smirk he often used when he spoke to the media.
After that, Michaels lets me work while he finishes his breakfast. I found out yesterday that I can get a tenuous internet connection by tethering to my phone, but the signal is so weak that it’s like accessing dial-up in the nineties, or so I’ve heard. But it’s enough that I can send off a few emails and iMessages.
Fi joins us with her Kindle in hand. She glances between us, and now that we’re all in close proximity, the tension in the room thickens like a prevalent fog. Michaels stares out the window, his knee bouncing, the last few bites of his Lucky Charms forgotten. I can tell he feels it too. Fi’s admission yesterday was like a bomb drop on our already tenuous bond.
When nether of us speak, she moves to the the floor in front of the fire. “Shoot, my battery is really low,” she mutters. “I don’t think I brought the charger.”
Michaels stands and puts his dishes in the sink. “There’s a lot of books here, though based on the vibe of this place, I’m guessing they’re pretty old.” He walks over to the shelf and squats down. “A lot of old board games here too. Maybe we can play something.”
Fi and Michaels play a few rounds of Battleship while I make the teriyaki sauce; being that I’m cooking it tonight, the chicken marinade time will be woefully short, but I’m sure it’ll still taste okay for a first try.
I throw the ingredients into a bowl and stir everything up as I watch Michaels and Fi giggling over her latest sunken ship.
“This game would be so much better if we played stripBattleship,” Michaels says with a smirk, and Fi throws a peg at him.
Michaels still looks off. There are dark smudges under his eyes like he didn’t sleep well and I still noticed a tremor in his hand while he was eating cereal earlier.
Fi keeps checking her phone every few minutes like one of Dennis’s texts might pop up.
But I’m honestly glad they’re distracting each other right now because I feel like I can finally relax a little.
