Externalizing [mxm]

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.