burnt popcorn

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Adam's grin grows wider and wider as he tip-toes down the hall and up to his roommate's bedroom door. He gently places his hand on the door handle, twisting it ever-so-slowly as to be as quiet as possible. At the very last second, he swings the door open.

"JAMESON!"

James jumps upon hearing his name. He turns from his desk to face the interruption. When he notices who it is his startled expression fades into a grin as he chuckles.

"Hey, Adam. What's up?"

He places his stylus down on his desk and starts tugging at his smudge guard. The rubber clings to his hand for a moment before finally coming off.

"I was thinking we could watch a movie or something. Eat some snacks," Adam says. "I keep seeing people on Twitter talking about some movie on Netflix. I think it's like... The Mitchells or something. It sounds pretty good."

James smiles softly before shaking his head.

"I'm sorry, Adam. I'm behind on a video and I think if I could just get this part finished today then maybe I'll be back on track."

"How long have you been working for, Jameson?" Adam asks.

James hesitates, seemingly doing the maths in his head. He scrunches up his nose as he starts looking down at his fingers and counting them.

"Uh..." He looks up at Adam, "I dunno. Maybe 3 hours?"

"You've been working since 10 this morning. It's 5 now."

"Shit! Really?"

Adam laughs as he watches James glance at one of his monitors.

"Yep. You've been working for 7 hours. And I doubt you've had anything to eat. Am I right?" Adam says mater-of-factually.

A sheepish smile appears on James' face. "Yeah, you're right. I'll just grab something to eat then get back to work."

"Uh, no. You should take a break and watch a movie with me, your best friend," Adam says.

James laughs and shakes his head. "Really, dude? Listen, I'm sorry but I have to finish this scene."

"No, you have to watch a movie with me. You're obligated to by best friend law."

James can't help but laugh. Being Adam's roommate can be frustrating at times, as it would be no matter who the person was. But he really helps balance everything out. If it weren't for Adam he'd probably be drowning in his work every day of the week.

"Now, you're gonna finish whatever frame you were on, I'm gonna prepare some snacks for us, then you're gonna come downstairs with me and watch a movie. We're gonna have an awesome time, okay?"

James smiles and nods, "Okay."

Adam rushes downstairs to the kitchen as soon as James agrees to watch the movie with him. He runs down the stairs, his hand trailing along the railing, skips the last step, and jumps onto the wooden floor. As he runs around the corner to the kitchen his socks slide across the floor, almost making him fall. He laughs to himself before taking a run-up and sliding into the kitchen. His head jolts forward but he quickly catches himself. 

Before he can think about how he nearly cracked his head open on the kitchen counter he turns to the pantry and grabs out a bag of popcorn kernels. He gets a pot and lid out, tips half the bag of the kernels in, and turns the ignition on the stove up to the highest setting. The lid clinks loudly as it collides with the pot. 

Once it's on a few small popping sounds start echoing around the kitchen. The sounds quickly get drowned out as Adam focuses on getting chocolate. He grabs a bar of chocolate he got for his birthday. He'd been saving it for months and decided he'd share it with James.

As he was breaking the chocolate pieces into a small bowl he smelt burning.

"What the f..."

He turns to see smoke seeping out of the lid of the popcorn pot.

"Shit! Shit! Shit!" He yelps as he rushes over to the stove.

"Adam? Is everything okay?" James calls from upstairs.

"UH- YEAH!" Adam calls back. He yanks the pot off the stove and stares at it for a second trying to figure out what to do. His first instinct is to take the lid off. As soon as the lid is off the pot, mildly burnt pieces of popcorn fly out.

"Shit! Fuck! Damnit!" He quickly slammed the lid back on.

"Adam? What's going on?" James asks as he appears in the entry to the kitchen.

Adam rushes to the cupboard, ignoring James to grab a bowl. He turns to James and shoves the largest bowl he could find into his hands.

"Hold this."

He takes the lid off and quickly tips the pot towards the bowl. Pieces fall from the side of the pot to the floor. Once the pot is empty Adam sighs and puts the pot back on the stove.

"Great going, Adam," James teases.

Adam laughs, James quickly joining him. James looks down at the popcorn, grabbing a piece and trying it. His face scrunches up as he forces himself to swallow it.

"With enough salt and butter it'll be fine," he says, reaching for the salt on the bench.

Adam laughs and nods, grabbing the butter from the fridge. They fix up the popcorn, making it somewhat edible, clean up the popcorn from the floor and bring their snacks to the couch. They rest their feet on the coffee table as Adam navigates to Netflix, selecting the movie he mentioned. The movie starts, showing a few companies. Adam turns to James and frowns.

"I'm sorry I ruined the popcorn."

James just laughs. "It's fine. You did your best."

"I just feel like I kinda ruined this. It was meant to be, like, good to stop working. Not bad. And burnt tasting."

James smiles and places a hand on Adam's shoulder, "It's fine. Besides, I'm spending time with you. That's what matters, right?"

Adam smiles and nods, turning back to the movie. The movie starts and runs for a few moments before James mumbles, "That was really cheesy so we're both just gonna forget that happened, right?"

Adam laughs, "Sure, Jameson."  


this makes me go :]

also just gonna let you know ive come up with a bit of a scedule for how im gonna go about posting. i wanna make sure im separating my social media from the rest of my life so the plan is post chapters across books on saturday then check notifications on wednesday. so ye! hope you liked this little platonic chapter :)

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