“Where’s Mikey?” I asked, trying to haul my ass out of the recliner with only one good hand. “He promised we could get sushi tonight if I made it through five more episodes.”
Sam laughed. “Not sure it counts if you bitch about it the whole time.”
“Mike!” I called out.
“He’s not going to answer you if you yell for him like that. You know how much he hates being summoned with a raised voice. Don’t you think he had enough of that growing up?”
He played the guilt card. Jerk. It was bad enough I’d had to spend the afternoon trying hard not to picture the two of them kissing, but he’d also assisted me so much over the past couple of weeks, I couldn’t help but remember what a nice guy he was. And he was protective as hell of Mikey which I had to appreciate.
I shuffled into the kitchen from the theater room and found Mikey sitting at the island scribbling in a notebook. His dark-framed glasses had slipped down his nose, and his eyebrows were furrowed in concentration.
“What’re you working on?” I asked, going to the fridge to get out the pitcher of lemonade.
He stood up and pushed me toward a chair. “Sit. I’ll get it.”
“I’m not an invalid, you know,” I said with annoyance. “I can pour it with one hand.”
“Yes. Yes, you can. And you can spill it like you did the jelly beans you must have had someone sneak in behind my back. We’re going to be stepping on those fuckers for weeks.”
“Never mind that. Can we please have sushi?”
He slid a menu over to me. “Take this in and ask Sam what he wants. His boyfriend is going to pick it up on his way over.”
“Boyfriend? Sam? Who? Not you.” Why did I sound like a Dr. Seuss book all of a sudden?
Mikey craned his neck to make sure Sam was still safely locked away in the theater room. “He’s been seeing someone a couple of weeks. We don’t like him,” he whispered. “He’s high-maintenance and a total dick.”
I looked down the hall again before turning to Mikey and matching his whisper. “Why is he with him? And why is he coming to our house if we don’t like him?”
Mikey shot me a look. “Because we like Sam, and Sam likes Rico.”
“Rico?” I asked way too loudly. Mikey waved his hands through the air as he shushed me. “Rico Moreno? The guy who cleans our fucking pool? Sam’s dating the pool boy?”
Mikey rolled his eyes. “Apparently he gives good head. Drop it. Let the poor guy get past his dry spell before encouraging him to brush the guy off.”
“How do you know about his dry spell and how good the pool boy sucks dick?”
Suddenly I imagined Mikey and Rico out behind the pool maintenance shed with Rico on his knees for Mike.
“Don’t go there, Raine,” Mikey warned.
“Sorry,” I muttered. “I just…”
“You’re bored. And you’re turning your own life into a telenovela. I get it.”
I reached for an apple and bit into it. “I think we should fly to Florida for the game.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Coach already told you you’re not welcome. Maybe if you weren’t a controlling bastard who can’t stop trying to wave his injured arm around while yelling at poor Brent Little, he wouldn’t have taken such a strong stand. It took four days for you to get your voice back after that, and you’re lucky you didn’t damage your shoulder again with all that wild gesturing.”
“His feet were stuck in molasses,” I countered. “He finally gets to start against the Denver Broncos and he can’t even get off the starting block.”
“You’re not the coach,” he tried reminding me.
“Mpfh.” I took another bite out of the apple. “Fine. We’ll throw a game-watching party here instead.”
Mikey handed me a glass of icy-cold lemonade. It tasted amazing. After growing up in Colorado, I still hadn’t gotten used to Houston “winters.” Heat in early December was just plain wrong.
“All of your friends are going to be in Florida. It would just be the three of us, and Sam probably has to work. Tell me what you want for sushi and I’ll put in the order.”
He ripped a sheet out of his notebook and passed it to me with his pen. While I jotted down the stuff I wanted, he disappeared down the hall toward his bedroom. I took the menu and paper to Sam. When I got back to the kitchen with our orders, Mikey had a folder sitting by my seat at the island.
“Pick one of these. We’re spending Christmas in Colorado.”
I blinked up at him. “We’re what?”
“Your mom and dad want to see you.” He didn’t look up at me as his fingers flew over the meal-ordering app on his phone.
“Too bad. I don’t want to see them. Do you have any idea how many times my father has asked me why I haven’t just sucked it up and gotten back to work?”