His Muse

Certified dad smell

Copyright © 2018. All Rights Reserved

When Nic came back from dinner with his Ma, he went to check in on Sav—with warning, of course. He didn't have plans to get punched in the balls for showing up unannounced. So when he knocked on the door, it was with the hand that didn't hold a to-go box of chocolate cake, and a deep breath to ensure that his smile looked genuine.

She opened the door scowling, anyways.

"What." she deadpanned. She looked relatively better since he saw her that morning, if not all variations of tired.

"I brought dessert. You want some? If you don't eat it all I'll take the rest," Nic said, holding out the to-go box to her. She looked at it hesitantly before reaching out and accepting the offering. She turned away from the door, and Nic caught it before it could swing shut.

He sat on the floor next to her beanbag where she sat. The windows were open now, and it was brighter and less dungeon-esque. As Sav used a spoon to scoop out bites of cake, Nic reclined with his head against the beanbag. He scrolled through his phone, and found himself lingering on the message from Kieran saying, Get out here loser before I leave without you.

Sav's hair tickled Nic's head as she leaned over to look. She reached over his shoulder and swiped her finger over the screen. Nic let her, because there wasn't much evidence for her to sort through. "Is this literally the only conversations you guys have had via text?" she asked.

"Yeah. He doesn't like to text, I guess," Nic murmured. "How's the cake?"

"Perfect. Everything I could ever dream of. What is with you and Leo spoiling me just 'cause I'm bleeding a gallon of blood today?" she asked around a mouthful of chocolate. Nic scoffed a little, and leaned his head back to look at her.

"Leo and I had a conversation about it. It's unfortunate that you have to have a period when you never want to have kids."

"Or have sex."

"Yeah, that too."

"Glad you two could have a meaningful conversation about my non-existent sex life. I really appreciate that," she said, but it was so stone-cold that Nic couldn't tell if it was sarcastic or not. "No seriously. Besides, it'll probs help you and Kieran understand each other better, you know? I'm hanging out with him on Sunday."

"Yeah, you're probably right, and—wait, what? How? He never mentioned anything about it to me!" Nic whined. He never mentions anything at all, he corrected himself internally, bitterly, and altogether offended by it. "When did this happen?!"

"I hunted him down on Facebook. He's kind of cryptic—he doesn't even have any photos of him or anything. I'm surprised I was able to track him down with just one picture of him taken by someone at the Co-Op," she explained, and handed the cake to Nic so she could pull up her laptop. "He said that he doesn't use Facebook at all, so it's useless friending him on there. So now we're Snapchat bros. See?"

She opened her phone and held up her assortment of friends, with the emojis next to the top ones. She swapped the default emojis for knives, and Kieran even had a skull next to his name. They had... a five day streak. A five day streak.

"What the fuck," Nic whined, grabbing her phone. "Why am I not Snapchat friends with him! I bet he takes the most mind-blowing selfies the world has ever seen. People would kill for them! He could take over a government with those selfies for all we know!"

"He doesn't take selfies. He takes foot-shots. Speaking off..." she reached over and opened her phone. The devil always takes screenshots, and she had plenty of evidence of her devil-status. She even had a picture of... both Kieran and Nic's feet in the same frame, on the tiled kitchen floor. He could tell that the pictures were taken fast because of the slight blur, but either way it read, "I just assumed he was extroverted I dunno."