THE SMITHS

Chapter Thirteen

“Good morning!” Micheal freezes momentarily at the cheery greeting as he held the door open for Midas, not exactly expecting that after the awkward encounter the night before but he quickly gets over his surprise and shuts the door after the other and gets into the driver's side to start their almost daily routine.

.

Midas gets out of the parked car, this time not saying anything to Michael, and the bodyguard follows him with his eyes until he was out of sight. Michael adjusts the car seat enough for him to lay comfortability in it with his legs mostly stretched out. He exhales, folding his arms against chest and he stares at the roof of the car.  Suddenly, he was smiling to himself, muttering a silent, "This is crazy.”

.

Midas runs into Jason on his way back to the car after his lectures. Micheal finds his interest piquing as he watches Midas stop to talk to someone. His eyes narrows for a sliver of a second as he wonders where he'd seen this person from and he lets out a small 'ah' , identifying him as the guy from the café.

They continue to converse for longer than Micheal would've expected, seeing as they were still just standing on the walkway. Micheal notices Midas doing most of the talking, the other guy just mostly nodding along, and after a while, the guy offers a hand, probably expecting a handshake.

'Weird' Micheal thought they had a better relationship than that and he was proven right when the guy suddenly pulls him into a hug instead. Midas' friends find them in the middle of this and were also greeted with hugs from Jason.

'You like to hug people, don’t you?' Michael mutters, eyes fixed on Jason.

Aiden and Diamond leave for their cars almost as fast as they showed up, and Jason escorts Midas to his. Michael springs into action the second they get close enough, getting out of the car and pulling the door open for Midas.

Jason says a greeting with a smile just as Midas was about to get in and was met with a glare from the older man that didn't go unnoticed by Midas who offers Jason a reassuring smile just as Micheal slams the door shut.

He watches Jason leave before going back to get behind the steering wheel. The journey home was silent and Midas keeps himself busy, playing games on his tablet until Michael was abruptly speaking up.

“Your boyfriend?”

Midas responds with a hum, almost immediately too, causing the older man's brow to hit his hairline.

“Well that was quick. Were you expecting me to ask?”

Midas ignores him after shrugging, continuing to tap around on his large screen.

“So it's a new relationship?” Michael really couldn't contain his curiosity and he almost regrets bothering him when Midas turns to give him a deadpan look.

“What do you think? I replied in the positive, no?” Midas pauses when Micheal nods in understanding before he was continuing with a question of his own. “And how is your girlfriend? You didn’t say anything about having one"

Micheal chokes on his own spit at that, "My girlfriend?” he repeats, before coming to the realization that he was referring to Salma, from the night before. He couldn't come up with an appropriate answer to that, so he decides to stay silent, sending the drive into silence once again with the occasional ping from Midas' tablet.

Midas drags his backpack out of the car and gets into the Mansion after sparing one last look at his bodyguard. Micheal watches him disappear around a corner with a sigh before going to park the car for the day.

Midas shut the door behind himself and leans against it on getting back to his room, surprised at his own sudden attitude.

“Why are you even upset with him, Midas? He didn’t do anything, so what's the attitude for? I mean.... we did good greeting him in the morning, so what's with with the sudden change? Even asking him about his girlfriend when we were caught eavesdropping yesterday, are you crazy?" He scolds himself before pushing off the door, throwing his backpack unto the bed and running a hand through his hair.