But now it felt like the only right thing in the world. Sometimes it was crazy what time could do.
I let one of my hands drape over Mitch’s shoulder while the other nestled into his hair, stroking it gently. After a half hour, I was so certain that Mitch had fallen asleep beneath me, all cozy and content. I was startled when he spoke.
“I love you,” he said. He was half-asleep, I knew, but the words still meant the entire world to me.
My heart fizzed inside me like goddamn Pop Rocks.
“I love you, too, M,” I murmured. “Always have.”
“I know,” he said.
“And about that cooking,” I continued, “I am definitely going to show you how to make a mean chicken dinner, my friend.”
His eyes were closed, but he smiled. “Is that right?”
“Yes,” I said, squeezing his shoulder. “You’ll be Chef Mitch in no time.”
“F’you say so,” he mumbled.
“You can do anything.”
“With you around,” he replied.
He shifted just slightly, cuddling up a little closer toward my body before falling asleep. Some amount of time later, the football game ended and I gently moved lower so I was lying down on the other side of the couch and Mitch’s head rested on my chest.
It was slightly awkward positioning, and I knew my neck might not thank me the next morning. But I didn’t give a fuck. Having Mitch sleep on me like a big, muscley, beautiful angel was about the only thing I needed in life right now.
And for once, it felt like he really needed me, too.
16
Mitch
When all else fails, Evan will know what to do. If only that rule of thumb worked when I had to know what to do about Evan.
“Okay. Let’s add the sauce, then all you need to do is add the red pepper flakes and we will be set,” Evan said, flitting from one side of the kitchen to the other. I’d been watching him all night like he was some sort of wizard, making magic on the stove. Zach had just left to go for a walk around the block, claiming that Evan and I were “acting like idiots” and he needed some peace and quiet.
It was always good when a fourteen-year-old kid thought you were joking around too much with your best friend.
Evan crouched to reach into one of the lower cabinets for another saucepan, and as he bent down, I could see the waistband of his boxer briefs sticking out. They were a light lavender color, with a little pattern on them that I couldn’t quite make out.
My body flushed with heat instantly. I had been trying to keep my hands off of him and be less flirty over the past couple weeks, but every time I was near him, it felt impossible.
I wanted to see the rest of those underwear. I wanted to peel them off his body and take his cock into my mouth again.
“Don’t you have a strainer?” he asked, rummaging around in the cabinet, leaning a little bit further forward.
Do not. Look. At. The waistband.
“I do,” I said, crossing to the other side of the kitchen and pulling it out of the pantry. “I’m not that hopeless in the kitchen department.”
He raised an eyebrow at me. “Hopeless enough that you keep a strainer in the pantry?”
“At least I don’t keep homemade batteries in there,” I said.
“Hey, I haven’t done that in a long time,” Evan said.
This was the third time in the last two weeks that Evan had come over around dinner time and helped me create a big, proper dinner meal for us and Zach. At first, I’d worried that Evan was doing it because he pitied me. On the night Zach sprained his arm, Ev had said that he’d help me with cooking, but I figured it might just be a way of making me feel better when I was clearly in distress.
How wrong I had been, though.
As soon as I saw how Evan worked in the kitchen, I realized that none of this was an act just for me. Evan loved being in the kitchen and cooking, and he approached all of it like a science. He measured everything so precisely. He checked the temperature of every piece of meat.
“You should be wearing a lab coat instead of this,” I said, tugging on the front of his plaid apron as he stirred the pot of pasta.
“You think so?” he asked.
“Yeah. You’re like a mad scientist in here when you cook. You’ve got the crazy hair to prove it.”
“Shit, is my hair messed up?”
I grinned, slipping out my phone to take a candid picture of him. I showed him and he laughed.
“Okay, so my hair is sticking up in every direction right now, but this is going to be the best spaghetti carbonara you’ve ever tasted.”
“It’s going to be the first spaghetti carbonara I’ve ever tasted,” I said.