“Need anything else?” I wasn’t sure what Teddy’s headspace was going to be, but I wasn’t planning on giving him a lot of time to overthink anything before I headed over. “You good?”
“Yeah.” Blinking, Dante took a sip and sighed. “I’m just working on Ruslan’s Christmas present and I stayed up way too late putting it together.”
Frowning down at himself, he sighed. “I need a shower.”
“And some new clothes…and a nap?” I had to laugh when Dante glared at me. “Yep. When you’re grumpier than me, you need a nap.”
That didn’t help his mood.
“Your happiness is scaring me. Who are you and where is my asshole friend?” Dante didn’t feel bad about calling me out but that was because he’d gone out of his way to ignore it for a long time.
So it was deserved.
“He’ll probably return when he has to deal with his family, but for the time being, he’s fine.” I was pretty sure it was the word choice that had Dante wincing. “Not the fake kind of fine. Honestly, I’m good for now. I figured out who was sending me soup and we’re good now. I’m heading over there to hang out for a while.”
That didn’t help his mood or the worried look on his face, but I wasn’t sure why.
“Really?”
He definitely needed a nap.
“Yep.” Not sure what was going through his head, I shrugged and shifted toward the door to the living room. “He forgave me for being a dick. I knew him back home but I didn’t realize he lived so close.”
Gesturing toward the front of the house, I rolled my eyes when he chuckled. “Yes, he lives across the street. I still don’t know how I missed that.”
Ignoring life probably.
“Well…I’m glad he’s not pissed enough to send you soup any longer?” Dante was clearly trying to decide if he could laugh or not, and his smirk was going to drive me insane.
“Me too.” Shaking my head as he started to laugh again, I gave up trying to make polite small talk and headed toward the front door. “Get more sleep.”
Because Dante looked a bit like Gregory after he’d stayed up all night putting my bike together the Christmas after I turned eight. My parents with all their money decided to save twenty bucks and made the house manager put it together before he could go home to his family.
Yeah, I should’ve seen the red flags with their bullshit long before they’d aimed it at me.
“Breakfast. Talk. Figure shit out. Do something fun that doesn’t involve a movie.” He was a cuddly couch potato but there were only so many movies we needed to watch in one day. “Then we’re going to figure out what I can bring his family for Christmas.”
I wasn’t sure what exactly his mother’s spiritual beliefs entailed, but I wasn’t going to show up empty-handed when he kept saying stuff about Christmas.
“Yes, breakfast…talk…shopping.” I wasn’t terribly enthusiastic about that part, but I had a few things I needed to get anyway, so it would be useful. “And there’s no way Chipmunk doesn’t like shopping.”
He might do his robot-imitating-a-human impression again, but he’d enjoy wandering around and looking at all the ridiculous shit.
I’d mostly organized our plans by the time I got to Chipmunk’s house and let myself in the front door, but my thoughts about everything else were more confused than I wanted to admit. So I practiced a bit of self-delusion as I set his keys down on the entry table and locked the door behind me.
If I actually managed to catch him in a more grown-up headspace, I wasn’t going to let the screamer interrupt us mid conversation.
Listening for Teddy, I thought I heard him moving around upstairs as I headed into the kitchen and took another sip of my coffee before setting it on the table. “Pancakes. We’ll do something healthier for lunch, though.”
“How healthy?” Grumbling, Chipmunk wandered in still wearing his race car jammies that I’d picked out the night before. “I don’t want any more bean salads.”
So, big?
“I’m not touching that restaurant with a hundred-foot pole.” Absolutely not. “I need to get some Christmas shopping done if I’m going with you, so we’ll head out midmorning and go over to that big shopping center that has the salad bar restaurant in it?”
That wasn’t nearly as healthy as it sounded, but we’d at least get vegetables.
“Olivia doesn’t like going there.” Still not quite awake, Teddy plopped himself down at the table. “She said it’s got too much…I don’t remember but she was frustrated.”
