Aftershock

“Ooh, how’s that for timing?” I laughed a little to myself seeing Drea getting out of her car in front of ‘our’ building as Mike pulled up.

Spotting us, she came to the Lambo instead of heading up to the apartment. “You wanna come in for a while?” She questioned Mike as soon as my door was open enough for him to be able to hear her. “Just us girls tonight, Dan’s at some party for one of his school friends or something.” Scott had essentially moved out at this stage, taking up residence at David’s, only venturing home for the occasional night to restock on clean clothes.

“Feel free to say no,” I offered.

Mike didn’t even hesitate, a grin and, “Thanks, I’d love to,” spilling from his lips as if saying no would be despicable.

It didn’t take Drea long to get down to business once we were inside. “So what did you two get up to today?”

“Just touristy stuff mainly,” I answered vaguely, knowing it wouldn’t be enough to satisfy my friend. “Oh, and Mikey boy got some medical clearance so he’s closer to being intolerable again.”

“Hey, you didn’t burst into flames being in our locker room.”

Drea had to laugh at that. She knew exactly the intensity of my dislike for her local team. That I was even conversing with one was amusing enough, but to have stepped foot into their inner sanctum? Surely I had a reservation with some nice padded walls in my near future.

Except that it was Mike. And he was gorgeous. And actually pretty fun. And impossible to hate because he just oozed adorableness.

“That holy water shower this morning must’ve done the trick,” I shrugged.

From there the banter flowed, only ebbing slightly while Drea and I took to the kitchen to prepare the ‘Drea Special’ for dinner. It was basically just chicken tortillas, with the chicken fried in Worcestershire sauce, that Drea had deemed her specialty dish on my first visit. Of course I took it back home with me, added a few of my own ideas – BBQ sauce and bacon - and thus the ‘Drea Special’ was born.

“So this is like a tradition?” Mike asked while we each assembled our own meal, having listened to somewhat of an explanation of how it all started.

“Uh, I guess so?” I’d never really thought of it that way, but it was a definite menu appearance whenever we were together.

Drea nodded, “Well if it wasn’t already, it is now.”

x

The evening was fairly laidback, just watching movies and talking shit. Around nine Drea headed to bed since she had another early shift, and soon after Mike decided it was time for him to leave. Since he now had clearance to ramp up his workouts that was exactly what he planned to do in the morning.

Things were a little awkward as he headed towards the door. Was this a post-date situation? Or was it just friends hanging out? What actions did this kind of circumstance call for?

Thankfully I was saved from my overworking mind by strong arms encircling my shoulders as I was pulled into a solid chest.

“I had a lot of fun today,” Mike smiled down at me, only loosening his hold a little. “Would you be up for a repeat?”

His slight hesitation was endearing – or would have been if I wasn’t already smitten. “Sure. How else am I gunna talk you around to asking for a trade? I believe you still owe me a beanie too.”

A small blush accompanied a sly smile, “Well I had to have a backup plan if you said no.”

Pushing him away, well attempting to anyway, earnt a chuckle and another squeeze of our rather long hug.

“Good luck with your workout tomorrow,” I called out the door as Mike finally made his exit. The smile that I received in return made me glad I’d waited until he was at a distance.

Settling back down onto the couch, in no way did I sniff at the cushions to see if any scent of Mike lingered. Definitely not. The fact that he’d happened to take up residence at the end where my pillow rested held no influence either. None at all.

x

After a begrudgingly peaceful sleep I was rudely awoken by a frequent buzzing on the coffee table. My phone was ringing. Why? Did this person not know I was theoretically on holiday and could therefore sleep as late as I damn well wanted? Well, besides the days or mornings that Drea had off where we tried to hang out and do stuff for as long as possible.

Throwing my arm out roughly, I was surprised when it actually landed on my phone. Damn, that meant I had to pick it up. Answering, on what must’ve been close to the last ring, I let out a not-so-graceful yawn before speaking. Well, what passed for speaking at this time of awakening. “Wha?”

Yup, so eloquent.

“Did you just ‘what’ me?” I was met with a masculine laugh.

There was only one person it could be. “Mmhmm,” well, it was close enough to what I’d said. As I slowly came around from my comatose state I sat up and looked across the room to the DVD player, squinting through my still blurry vision trying to scope out the time. No such luck. “What the hell time is it?” came out between another few yawns.

“It is eight twenty seven, m’lady.”

“Ugh,” I let out a groan. “Why are you so enthusiastic for so early in the morning? And why did you need to wake me up to showcase it?”

I could almost hear Mike blushing, a sheepish apology flowing as he realised I wasn’t exactly a morning person. “Sorry. I even waited an hour to call you.” There went a pout. “I just thought maybe you’d wanna celebrate me getting through my workout? The team will be back in town tomorrow so you probably won’t wanna hang out then…”

Letting out a sigh, I cursed my brain for being mush and not coming up with any sort of argument to his proposition. Not that I didn’t wanna spend some time with him, especially while Drea was at work anyway, but I really just wanted to curl back up into the warmth of my blanket and pillow.

“How long ‘til you’ll be here?”

With an oh so accurate estimation of, “Half hour, maybe an hour depending on traffic,” I gave myself another ten minutes of snuggling in warmth before jumping in the shower.

Of course, my luck being what it is, Mike was cutting it close to the hour he’d spoken of when he arrived. It had given me the extra five minutes I needed to blow dry my hair so it wouldn’t make me sick out in the cold air, but also another twenty minutes for sitting and twiddling my thumbs – figuratively, mostly. He’d barely gotten out of the car when I bound down the steps to meet him.

“It’s about time, mister!” I may or may not have consumed sugar by this point in time.

Mike’s laughter was coupled with a crooked finger, enticing me towards where he still stood next to his door. When I was within a foot of him he held his hand up, signalling me to stop. “Close your eyes,” he smirked.

“Ugh,” yet another groan escaped my lips in retaliation to his actions. “You’re really cashing in on the annoyance before I completely abandon you, aren’t ya?”

“Oh shut it,” he straight up laughed at me. “Please?”

I almost managed to resist the temptation of rolling my eyes. Almost. “Fine,” I huffed out, mostly just for effect.

I was stood there for about thirty seconds, just waiting. Mike rustling with something filled the first ten or so seconds, but after that there was just dead air. Finally, there was something being pulled over my head.

Eyes snapping open, I caught a glimpse of dangling pompom. “No!” Turning to the reflective window, I was indeed met with Mike’s ear flap hat resting on my own head. My hands flew up to check for the feeling of wool, “Seriously?”

“Uh, yea. I woulda given it to you yesterday but I figured I should wash it first.”

Somewhere in the middle of that sentence I flung my arms around his middle. I honestly hadn’t expected him to take me seriously, but he had, and I definitely wasn’t going to complain.

“Thanks,” I made sure to give him an extra squeeze as I spoke to his chest, just to make sure the message got through. “So,” I extricated myself and took a step back. “What are we up to this time?”

Mike didn’t have a plan of sorts. I was almost suspicious he was taking me to the middle of nowhere to off me when instead of heading onto the highway Mike navigated us through sparsely populated back roads. He pointed out things along the way; places of interest, stories he’d heard of, random tidbits.

As far as I could gather we were going the long way back to DC, where I’d learnt Mike lived, via Virginia. Not to say I’d ever be able to tell the difference. For all I knew we were heading south instead of west. I had absolutely no sense of direction in this country.

Eventually we made it into the city, doing somewhat of a lap of memorials as the rain pounded down once again. We had discussed checking out the other end of the Mall, which I’d done before with Drea, but that was not an option in this weather.

Instead, we settled down into Mike’s breathtaking home to watch yet more movies as we talked about even more random subjects. Not a bad way to spend a rainy day at all.