Everyone had helped him clean up after the meal, and Nora had insisted on doing the few dishes that weren’t disposable.
Now that there was nothing left to do and everything was quiet again, Makai took a shower and face-planted on his bed. It surprised him that it was only around four in the afternoon. He knew he was tired because of the nightmares he’d been having, too, but luckily he didn’t scream like, apparently, Emil did.
Instead of screaming, he tensed and woke up gasping for air. He had sore muscles in the morning after the worst nightmares before, and without Mouse coming to wake him up, he would’ve been much worse off now. She was like his own personal alarm clock that reacted to weird behavior, like changing breathing patterns and the tensed-up lines of his body.
Maybe he was too tired for nightmares, but somehow he managed to avoid them and woke up at five in the morning after thirteen hours of continuous sleep. His bladder was killing him, so he stumbled into the bathroom first, then went to feed a very demanding Mouse.
He made coffee and sandwiches for breakfast. If he added a couple of Nora’s lemon bars to his plate, nobody was there to see.
He discovered a couple of texts from Emil in his phone but chose not to reply to them yet in case Emil was asleep, still. Instead, he went online and finally figured out that he wanted to buy a Nintendo Switch, and ordered one with a few games to play on the console.
In the early-morning hours, he caught up on a few episodes ofSouth Parkand then ended up cleaning the house even though it was pretty damn clean already. When he finally deemed it late enough to text Emil, he sat on the couch with another coffee and settled in.
I fell asleep once everyone left and woke up at five this morning. Oops?
He waited for a while, petting Mouse, who came to him for affection.
Wow, I managed to stay up until nine, but I slept for twelve hours too. No nightmares though.
I think we might be onto something there, none here, either. We need to do more things, I think, to get them to stop? I don’t know.Makai frowned at the text but sent it anyway.
It only took a minute or so to get a reply.Yeah. We started it, I think we should figure out how to stop them. I like walks, and I’ve been thinking about getting a camera. Maybe go take pictures and stuff?
Sounds good to me. And there’s painting the house if we get tired of walking.Makai smiled and put a smiley on the end to portray that. Look at him being an all-modern emoji user!
They texted for a while more, until Emil’s dad needed him for something or other and they said bye.
Makai went on with his day, rainy as it was, in a comfortable silence except for the music drifting from the various themed Spotify playlists Emil had made him in the last few days.
THE NEXTweek, they met twice. Once was by accident at the grocery store, and they ended up walking together, not side by side because there wasn’t space, but instead they used the same cart, and Makai pushed it while they filled it with groceries for the two households. Emil was doing his best to not get them mixed up, but by the time they arrived at the till, they made Mr. Miller laugh at the mess they’d produced in their cart.
When they had packed the stuff, Mr. Miller looked at them seriously but with a kind smile on his weathered face. “It’s good to see you happier. Both of you.”
They got the groceries on Tuesday, and on Wednesday, Emil came by to watch movies with Makai. They decided—together, which surprised Makai because he’d thought Emil would run him over with his opinions—that he needed to see the Hobbit movies, since he’d liked the Lord of the Rings ones back in the day.
They watched the first one, which Makai felt okay about. The second one he liked but mostly because of Smaug. After those, they made dinner and ate on the couch, side by side, and it didn’t feel weird or claustrophobic at all, not even for Emil who commented on it.
Sadly, the third film was a bit of a disappointment, but then Emil had warned him it would be, so it was okay. To make up for it, they ended the night watchingZootopia, which made Makai cry. Twice.
“I can’t believe you did this to me,” he sniffled when the end credits rolled.
Emil laughed through his own tears. “You just wait until I force you to watchInside Out.”
“Ooh, I’ve heard good things about that, too. My nieces said they loved it, but my mom said she really liked it too.”
“Yeah, I really like these new animations. Maybe it wasn’t as obvious when I was a kid, or maybe they just weren’t as clever and filled with stuff for adults, too, but there are some great ones out there.”
By then, it was near eleven, and the sheriff called Emil to ask if he wanted a ride home when he’d get off shift. Emil looked at Makai questioningly.
“You can sleep on the couch,” he said, smiling slightly.
The thought of Emil staying over filled him with excitement, and something about it felt a lot like when a friend had gotten the permission to stay overnight after all, when he was a kid.
“It’s okay, the couch is comfy. Makai has to go tomorrow to get the stitches out, so I’ll ride with him then.” Then he was quiet and listened, frowning a little. “Dad, I’m sure he remembered you have a meeting tomorrow.” Emil widened his eyes at Makai.
Makai flinched, he hadn’t remembered that. How had he only been in town for two weeks? It felt like so much longer. So much had happened. Emil read his expression like an open book.
“He needs the stitches out tomorrow, so do you think you could maybe skip the meeting? Okay, I’ll tell him, thanks. Bye, Dad.” Emil put his cell on the table looked at Makai shyly. “I’ll have to borrow a T-shirt to sleep in, but on the plus side, Dad said you don’t need to go to the station tomorrow.”
