Chapter 5

“Shit,” Marc hissed despite Ariel being right behind him. He jumped back and quickly turned the stovetop off.

“What?” Ariel asked excitedly.

“I just lost a chuck of potato under the burner.” Marc tried to peer under the pot. “You think it’ll catch on fire if I leave it there?”

“Probably,” Ariel confirmed with a grin on her face.

“But I can’t get it out without burning myself.” Marc scowled, glaring down the challenge of trying to make soup. “I’m calling out to order.”

Ariel let out a groan and tilted back dramatically in the chair. “But I wanted soup.”

Marc’s cell phone rang then, and for a second he wondered if maybe their usual place had some sort of sixth sense as to when he wanted food. He answered it after recognizing the number from work. “Hello?”

“Marc, hey. So, you need to come in.”

“You can’t be serious.” Mark checked the time on the microwave. “It’s almost eight.” Ariel would have to be in bed soon, and they hadn’t even accomplished dinner yet.

“Our computer servers just crashed, and we can’t get anything fixed without the right authorization,” they explained.

Marc groaned. That meant him. “Why not call Cooper?”

“He’s in California right now, remember?”

Yes, Marc did remember. He just didn’t want to. “I can’t… Is it going to take long? I have to get Ariel into bed soon, and she’s got school in the morning.”

“If we don’t get the computers running for tomorrow, the whole office will be hell!”

“Let me figure out a babysitter or something,” Marc grumbled quickly. “I’ll call you back.”

At least he had Terri now. He called her up, offering to pay extra if she had to stay the night and everything. “I can’t, my parents aren’t going to let me babysit passed ten on a school night. They say it’s too late, and I have homework,” she apologized.

“It’s fine, I understand,” Marc said. “It’s not that important anyways.” Just the core of his job crashing apparently.

He glared at the house landline before trying Brendan’s number. It wasn’t ideal, but he would rather do that than have to give in to his dad. “Could I maybe drop Ariel off at your place, or you come here? It might be a late kind of thing,” Marc pleaded. He was pretty sure that it crossed the bound of how Brendan should be interacting with a student.

“I can do that,” Brendan agreed. “Um… I mean she’ll just be in bed right? I’ll just be in the house?”

“Yes—well, she hasn’t had dinner yet, but then bed,” Marc explained.

“I can make something easy for her. Mac’n’cheese or something,” Brendan offered. “And I can crash on the couch afterwards.”

“There’s a guest room upstairs too,” Marc said. He looked at his sorry attempt for soup and debated on cleaning that up before Brendan came, or just leaving it on the stove until the next day.

“I’ll be over soon. Text me your address,” Brendan said.

Marc did so and ran upstairs to get into his office. He had to search for all of the right authorization papers and passwords that he had set aside, thinking he would never need them. Of course now he needed them.

There was a knock on the door later, so he let Brendan in. “I tried to make soup, just ignore it. You have my cell number—“ Marc took a moment to process that Brendan had an armful of art projects. “Shit, sorry. Were you grading or something?”

“Nothing I can’t do here,” Brendan chuckled. “Go save the computers.”

Marc ran out of the house and to his car. Traffic was at least minimal. The building was mostly dead, aside from the tech workers and a few other people trying to fix the problem. Marc turned over all of his authorization papers as they were needed, and watched as they tried to fix the problem.

Of course, this meant all of his work was at risk too. Still he was checking the time and hoping that Brendan wasn’t forced to stay the night. He would feel terrible for that.

He was lucky with it; they let him leave at ten, knowing he had to be home at some point. He got there and Brendan was still awake, sitting on the couch with art projects strewn across the living room as he was watching TV.

“Oh, so you’re back. Did it all get fixed?” Brendan asked.

“We’ll see in the morning.” Marc really didn’t want to think about it right then.

The red blinking of the answering machine caught his eye, making him stall. “Someone called?” Someone being a vague term for his father.

“Yeah, I didn’t think it was my place to answer though. Left a voicemail,” Brendan answered offhandedly. It probably wasn’t that hard to figure out that it was Marc’s dad anyways.

“Thanks,” Marc muttered, rubbing the back of his head. Brendan didn’t push it and started collecting all of the art projects he had set out. “Thanks for staying here with Ariel. Did you drive here? I didn’t see a car outside.”

“No I got a friend to drive me. I can just call her really quick to come and get me,” Brendan said, putting everything into a stack.

“No—shit. Let me get Ariel, and I’ll drive you home. She can sleep in the car for a few minutes.” Marc ran upstairs and pulled her carefully out of the bed. She groaned in confusion, so he shushed her and patted her on the back. “Just a short car ride, sweetie. You can go back to sleep.” He grabbed a blanket and carried her down into the car.

“Thanks for the ride,” Brendan said quietly as he got in the front seat.

“Thanks again for coming over.” Marc figured like it was a fair trade anyways.

Brendan lived closer to the school, in a house that looked worse for wear and small. There was one light already on. “My roommate,” Brendan explained briefly as he got out with all of the school projects. “I’ll see you at school I figure,” Brendan added.

Marc nodded and glanced to check back on Ariel, still laying like a log in the backseat with a seatbelt awkwardly stretched around her. “See you, Brendan.” It really felt awkward to say something like that to someone, but Brendan lit up anyways.

Marc made sure he got inside before driving home and setting Ariel up in her bedroom again. With that, he collapsed into bed. He was exhausted but he still couldn’t make his eyes close right away. Part of him was still worried about what would be there for him in the morning at work—how much of the computers they could actually save. He never usually worried about backing things up.

He also wondered some about Brendan. Marc still thought about the camps and what it was like to be in something like that. He couldn’t imagine being in a place like that. In reality it had never been a far off possibility for him.

***

“Hey, Marc, do you want to go out with us tonight?” One of his subordinates asked, popping his head into Marc’s office.

Marc looked up from his work. They asked him every Friday, even though he had been saying no each and every time. Maybe that’s why they kept asking, because they were being polite even though the answer wouldn’t change.

But then he could just think about Brendan giving him a hard time for not going out with other adults. Marc sighed and gave in for once. “Sure.” He would just have to call Terri and see if she could babysit again.

“Oh,” he said, seeming surprised. “Okay, sweet. We can just meet up in the lobby, unless you want to stop at home or anything, we usually end up at the Drunken Monkey.”

Marc snorted at the name of the place, but figured it had to be suitable. “I’ll probably just meet you all there.” He always left early anyways to go pick up Ariel.

He texted Terri so that she could reply when she got a chance. He could pick her up along the way too, and stop to get them something to eat before he left. He would feel bad if Terri tried cooking again and there was nothing to cook with.

Marc left the office around three-thirty so that he could get to Ariel’s school before it let out. Terri had replied by then that she was good to babysit that evening and just wanted to stop at home to change out of her uniform.

Marc went inside to stop and see Brendan again then. He was feeling quite proud of himself for agreeing to a social outing that wasn’t Brendan coercing him into anything.

Brendan smiled at him quickly when Marc stepped into the room. Brendan bounded over from the windows and came to a short stop in front of Marc. “Hey, how has your week been? Did it all turn out okay at work?”

“Yeah, lost a few recent files, but everything else was saved,” Marc explained. “And I actually got invited out to go drinking with some people.” He would leave out that they asked him every week anyways.

“Oh, cool. Are you going?” Brendan asked.

“Yeah.” Marc paused, almost wondering if it would be okay to bring Brendan along. In reality, he didn’t really talk with anyone outside of work. He didn’t want to end up sitting in the corner and feeling out of place while they all went in on it together. “Do you want to come?” Well, whatever. Marc was their boss anyways, so he could bring whoever he wanted.

“Uh, sure,” Brendan agreed. “What about Ariel?”

“I already checked with Terri, she said she can babysit. And I don’t really plan to be out super late or anything so it shouldn’t be too bad,” Marc said. “I can just come pick you up on my way.”

Brendan nodded in agreement and the last bell rang. Marc went over to Ariel’s class and then met Terri at the front gates of the school. Ariel was all too excited to learn she would be spending another evening with Terri, though they talked more about watching some movies than doing art.

They stopped briefly at Terri’s house, while Marc waited out in the car for her to change and grab a few things. Terri directed him to the nearest grocery store where she picked out some things for soup, including some produce that Marc was sure would go bad in their fridge afterwards. He never used anything like that.

“I should just be at the Drunken Monkey,” Marc told Terri, feeling slightly stupid while saying the name. What was with the places around here and their affinity for animals? He left out that Brendan would be there too, because he didn’t think students needed to be in on what Brendan did on his off time.

Terri nodded and started going through their collection of Disney movies next to the TV. Then she pulled out her laptop and used some cord with the TV so that a screen was shared, as she declared they would be watching things from Netflix.

Marc just went with it and slunk out the door and back to his car. He went back to Brendan’s house, and saw Brendan’s roommate first. She was a shorter girl with shocking blue hair and a small ring in the side of her nose. “You must be Marc?” she asked as she came down the front walk, though she looked like she was in a rush. “I’m Bren Bren’s roommate, Cheyenne.”

“Nice to meet you,” Marc muttered politely.

“Same. Sorry, I’ve got to get to work,” she said, taking off down the sidewalk.

Brendan came out of the house then and locked up the front door. It didn’t look like he had changed since he was still in long sleeves, but maybe he just wore something like that all of the time. He met Marc down on the sidewalk and saw Cheyenne retreating off into the distance. “Ah, so you met the Blueberry,” he said.

“She called you Bren Bren,” Marc informed as he tried not to laugh while repeating it.

Brendan swore. “Then next time I’m introducing her to someone as Blueberry.”

Marc chuckled and they both got in the car to head for the Drunken Monkey. The people from his office were already there, though it looked like they were just starting. One or two of them had someone with them from outside of work as well so he felt less bad about having brought Brendan.

“This is my… friend, Brendan,” Marc said, gesturing towards Brendan. It felt weird to say something like that. Were he and Brendan really friends at this point?

Brendan smiled and shook a few hands as people moved around to make space for Brendan and Marc.

The one who came in to invite Marc every Friday introduced himself first. “I’m Ryan,” he said, stretching across the table to shake Brendan’s hand. “I work under Marc, but I’m an account manager.”

Brendan nodded and shot Marc a quick look. “What is it you do?” he asked quietly.

“Oh. Sorry. I started up a business with a college partner, we create a lot of social media based outlets for businesses,” Marc explained. “Things like phone apps that get the business a lot more clientele.”

Brendan nodded, maybe understanding some of what that meant but not all of it. Marc was glad when a few others introduced themselves, because two of them were still new to him and he didn’t know their name.

“I’m Sandy, and this is my boyfriend, Pierce,” one of the women said, leaning into her boyfriend as she introduced him.

“I’m Kelsey, and this is my girlfriend Laura,” the red headed woman chimed in, putting a quick arm around a blonde next to her.

Marc felt that knee-jerk reaction of surprise again but covered it up better this time around. He looked over to see Brendan grinning at him cheekily. “What?” Marc hissed defensively.

“Nothing,” Brendan teased.

Marc didn’t drink much, so he let Ryan order a round of drinks that Marc would pay for. Marc tipped back one of the shots and couldn’t stop himself from coughing. Brendan ended up doing it too, and everyone else at the table started laughing.

“What was that?” Brendan croaked, holding onto his throat.

Marc’s throat was burning too, as his eyes watered. “Prairie Fire… it’s got hot sauce in it.”

Brendan groaned in complaint, and flagged someone down for a drink of something non-alcoholic. Marc ordered himself one too and gave Ryan a dirty look for it. Everyone else had known what it was apparently, because they handled it like a champ.

“I hate spicy,” Brendan moaned, eagerly taking a glass of soda as it was brought over to them.

Marc kept himself limited to that one shot—it was enough to get him a little bit buzzed, but he wasn’t planning to get drunk. Brendan had some more to drink though, and after about an hour started rolling his sleeves up. The girls were all over his tattoos—tracing over the butterflies and snowflakes, and commenting how pretty it all was.

Brendan chuckled and swayed slightly. “My friend did the tattooing for me, but I did the designs,” he said.

They all launched into a long talk about art then, and Brendan went into a lesson on the origins of tattooing. Marc only listened and kept an eye on the time. “You’re not going to have any fun if you keep looking at your phone,” Brendan cut in knowingly. “Just relax a little bit.”

Marc set a time alert for a little before when he wanted to be home before pocketing his phone. Brendan seemed to get along well with Marc’s co-workers, but maybe because they were all around the same age. Marc ended up being a little bit out of the circle but he realized he didn’t care. He was more content with just watching rather than actually participating.

Brendan stopped drinking after a while, and everyone else kept going. Brendan swayed and got in close to Marc’s ear. “I’m ready to go whenever you are,” Brendan said. “If we could just stop at the store after.”

Marc nodded and cleared his throat. “I think Brendan and I are going to head out,” Marc announced, taking another drink of his soda. It had been a good two or three hours since his one and only drink, and aside from the initial buzz, it hadn’t affected him much.

He made sure everyone else had a set type of sober ride home before he left. Brendan stumbled some but was able to stay upright and at least feign that he wasn’t as drunk as he actually was.

He collapsed into the car and they found a grocery store that was open twenty-four hours. Brendan wandered around until he found the right aisle and grabbed a couple flavored coconut waters. He presented them to Marc with a grin. “Super hydrating, helps prevent a hangover in the morning,” Brendan explained before paying for them.

Marc got out some cash so that he could pay Terri when he got home. He wasn’t sure what the actual going rate for a babysitter was, so he just kind of paid her. He knew he probably overpaid her but she certainly wasn’t going to complain.

“You want me to take you home?” Marc asked as they went out into the parking lot.

“Sure. Hopefully Blueberry should be home by now,” he said, taking the cap off of his coconut water and taking a long swig. “Want some?” he offered some up to Marc as well.

Marc hadn’t every really tried it before, so he agreed. He took a quick sip and cringed. It was a lot thicker than water, and sweet. He handed it back to Brendan as he tried to swallow it down. Brendan laughed at him. “It takes some getting used to, but it’s good for you.”

“Are you one of those overly health-conscious people?” Marc wondered. He couldn’t imagine someone putting up with something like that otherwise.

“No, but I don’t drink a whole lot of water, so I have to keep my fluids up somehow… and I like flavored drinks best, so it works.” He shrugged and took another drink.

Marc would just have to believe that maybe it wasn’t as bad as he thought it was. He dropped Brendan back off at home and watched him make it inside before leaving. When he got home, Terri and Ariel were part way through Lilo and Stitch.

Ariel begged to let them finish before Terri had to go home, so he let them. There was some left over soup on the stove for him, so Marc helped himself an watched the movie with them from the kitchen. Ariel seemed to like the movie a lot, and so Marc kept that piece of knowledge for the time when he would need to be buying Christmas presents. Supposedly the little alien thing was cute.

Once the movie finished, Marc got both Ariel and Terri into the car so that he could take Terri home. He gave her the money he’d taken out earlier, and she thanked him before running inside her house.

“What did you go do anyways?” Ariel asked from the backseat on the short drive back.

“I went out with some people from work, and with Brendan,” Marc said over his shoulder.

Ariel nodded. “So you like Mr. Brendan, too?”

“Yes, I do,” Marc chuckled.