Chapter 7
Levi
“You want to tell me where you’re going?” Dante frowned at me and looked kind of like he thought I was an alien or something, but that might’ve been because it was either early or late for him.
I couldn’t tell and since either way it wasn’t my business, I ignored the rumpled clothes and confused expression.
“Coffee?” I wasn’t going to trust getting anything like that in the kitchen from hell across the street at Teddy’s place because I couldn’t decide how old the damned coffee maker was or if it even worked. It looked like a reject from the eighties and when I’d pointed to it, Chipmunk had winced.
Nope…I wasn’t going to touch it with a ten-foot pole.
“Um, yeah…I think?” Since Dante didn’t seem confident about the answer, I decided he needed it and poured him a cup too. “Thanks.”
He needed to start sleeping over at Ruslan’s place more or just move in.
“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.”
Flavor.
The place had too much flavor for her.
“That makes it perfect then.” He seemed fine talking about her crazy, so as I moved around the kitchen, I stayed focused on that. “What was she doing yesterday? Her bitching made no sense.”
Letting out a small laugh, Teddy bent over and rested his head on the table as I got out everything I would need to make pancakes. “She was meeting one girl for lunch and another for a coffee date later, and somehow they both figured it out and lost their shit.”
Ah.
“I thought it was something like that.” She was insane if she thought that would work. “This school isn’t tiny but it’s way too small to get away with being that kind of player. The gossip grapevine works too well if you listen to it at all.”
Making another tired-sounding laugh, Teddy wiggled in what I thought was him trying to nod his head. “Yeah, I didn’t think it was a good idea, but I’ve given up pointing that out. I think she likes making bad decisions.”
“Some people just can’t make good ones at the very least.” I had a variety of relatives that fell into that category, which might be why his friend made me irrationally frustrated. “You will make better decisions than that, though.”
As I started measuring out the batter slightly haphazardly since they didn’t seem to have measuring cups, I ignored how still he’d gone. Surprise wasn’t a safeword and I could almost hear his brain starting to whirl.
It took a bit longer than I expected, but after a few more seconds his head popped up. “How did you get in? Why are you here?”
Well, it wasn’t a terrible place to start.
“I took your keys last night.” I thought that would’ve been obvious. “I put them on the table by the front door…and as for why I’m here…we needed to talk when you were grown-up…and I promised you breakfast.”
He blinked a few times as his gaze shifted to actually seeing me instead of just staring into space. “Pancakes?”
“Yes.” Keeping my answers simple seemed like the best idea at the moment, so I left it there.
“I like pancakes.”
His answer proved I was right about keeping it simple, but didn’t give me much to go on either.
“I’m glad.” Nodding toward the stove where I had a pan heating up, I frowned at it. “That one will do for now, but we need to get you a larger pan if you want pancakes on a regular basis.”
Teddy frowned and looked around. “I didn’t know we had one.”
That was ridiculous.
“Whose stuff is in here?” Because it wasn’t his.
“I don’t know.” After a few blinks and a shake of his head that made him look like a puppy, he realized that wasn’t enough information. “I was told they had plenty of stuff I could use when I first moved in, but it turned out the guys who were living here didn’t know who it belonged to either.”
That was ridiculous.
“Did the place come fully furnished?” If it had, they’d been scammed by their landlord because it was all crap.
Thankfully, Chipmunk shook his head. “Just beds and a few pieces like the couch in the living room. Nothing else.”
“It must’ve been left by previous tenants, but if you want real meals, we’ve got to pick up a few things.” As I tested the pan to see if it was hot enough, I glanced over at him before I made the first pancake. “Want to explain why you don’t seem to cook anything?”
He had a full kitchen for fuck’s sake.
“Not really.” Pouting, he shrugged as I started getting out the syrup and butter I’d bought yesterday. “It’s nicer to have someone cook for me and Olivia likes feeding people so she’s always bringing me stuff from work.”
God.
“She works at the soup restaurant?” My wince or maybe the pitch of my voice made him laugh. “Most of that food is inedible and you know it.”
He didn’t admit it out loud, but his shrug said a lot.
“We’ll figure out a plan.” He couldn’t keep eating weird crap. “Do you have a meal plan at the dining hall when that’s open?”
Thankfully, he nodded. “Yeah, one of those credit plans where I can go a certain number of times in the semester.”
Something about his expression…
“How many of them did you use last semester?” Yep, he winced. “Chipmunk?”
He dragged out answering with a long sigh, but as I went back to the pan and flipped the first pancake, he seemed to realize I could wait him out. “A dozen or so?”
For fuck’s sake.
“Care to explain why?” When the sound effects started again, I raised one eyebrow. “It would be a tragic accident if I told your mother how bad your eating habits are.”
Tragic.
“God.” His head went back to the table as he groaned. “Fine. It’s too far to walk and I always get lazy. I’ll do better.”
“No, we’ll make a plan for you to do better.” We could fix this without the need for tattling. “I’ll cook a few times a week and we’ll go to the dining hall together for the rest.”
I didn’t mind dragging him over.
“And if we look pathetic enough, I have a roommate who loves to cook and is like full-functional-adult good at it. He’s the one who fixed the soup yesterday.” For whatever reason, that had his head coming up.
“I’m supposed to ask what he did to make that soup edible.” My glare got a snicker out of him. “It’s got good ingredients. I wouldn’t poison you.”
That didn’t give me a lot of comfort.
“He added rice and some spices to it.” What else had he done? “He was meal prepping for the week at the time and he had a few things going on the stove. He might’ve added sausage and a few other vegetables?”
I should’ve paid more attention.
“We can ask. At the time I was just a bit worked up.” His laugh let me know he realized that was an understatement. “He’ll know what he did. He’s good with that kind of stuff.”
“Thanks.” Perking up, Teddy liked this topic more than he had the others. “That’ll distract Olivia next time she’s…excited.”
Asking why they were friends was probably too rude considering how early it was, so I decided to ask about that later.
“Glad to help.” Taking the first round of pancakes out of the pan, I brought them over to the table. “Here are two, but I’ll have more ready in a moment.”
“Thank you.” His brain seemed to turn off again as he started in on breakfast, but his mouth kept going. “I thought you might’ve forgotten about breakfast. I couldn’t remember what you said last night.”
My scoff got a laugh from him. “I did not forget and you were a handful who was more interested in trying to talk me into a sleepover than going to bed on your own.”
Not looking sheepish enough, he shrugged. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“Limits, Chipmunk. Limits.” I was going to keep reinforcing that. “They’re a good thing. You need to get some.”
“I have limits for strangers and regular people.” Teddy seemed to think that was a reasonable response as he took his first bite of breakfast. “You’re not either of those.”
I wasn’t sure what I was, but he probably wasn’t wrong.
“You’re going to find some limits for me too, Chipmunk.” My glare didn’t scare him nearly enough. “You’re…well…you just giggled at me when I tried to figure it out when you’re little.”
He just shrugged.
Ridiculous.
“You asked if I would run you a bubble bath.” Gesturing toward him with the spatula just got another laugh out of him as he put an oversized bite into his mouth. “We’re having a limits talk before I change your pants or put you in the tub.”
And the fact that he didn’t understand that said we needed to have talks on safety and making good decisions about who he submitted to.
Because me being on his list at all said he needed higher standards.