How (Not) To Save A Life: A Series of Expensive Mistakes// Book 2 (Ongoing)

4. High-Priced Paradise

K: "What's your favorite movie?"
N: "Hmmm...The Breakfast Club."
K: "I watched that shit once. I didn't see a muffin, a pancake, waffles; nothing. It's like those pornos where the dude says he has a pizza but I suspect there's really a pizza in the box."
N: "Who's your favorite serial killer?"
K: "Ya know, I'm always torn between-"
BEEP BEEP BEEP

I entered the kitchen, interrupting their bizarre game of twenty questions, and found Kiwi at the island with his coffee and going over building plans on his iPad pro. Nick was getting something out of the oven; the kitchen looking spotless and smelling like a tropical getaway. Come to think of it, the whole house looked spotless.
K: "Morning, princess. Come sit, Nick made muffins!"
T: "What a time to be alive. Did he clean the house too? It looks like Disney on Ice in here."
Nick turned around with my "I'll have a vodka and Xanax on the rocks" apron on, my skeleton hand oven mitts and holding a tray of still steaming muffins. This was seriously a sight that if you asked me five minutes prior, I would swear on my life I'd never see.
N: "I just wanted to say thanks for letting me spend the night. That was, no joke, the best sleep I've ever gotten."
He triumphantly shoved the muffin tin in our faces, silently urging us to take one.
I took one that I guessed was blueberry and took a bite. It tasted like being told you owe tens of thousands of dollars in child support but finding out the kid isn't yours before the first check clears. It tasted like being laid off on the day of the apocalypse, so it's a-ok.
T: "Nicky, this is amazing!"
K: "...I think this muffin is my soulmate."
N: "I watch a lot of cooking shows since I have to fend for myself. That Pioneer Woman really knows what's up."

I looked around the room and noticed he'd even dusted the baseboards and the chandelier, emptied the dishwasher, and mopped. I saw vacuum marks on the living room carpet, so I assumed the rest of place was as immaculate as the kitchen. If he was doing all this to butter me up, consider me a flaky-crusted blue ribbon winner at the county fair.
T: "So, Kiwi and I discussed your predicament and decided to let you stay for a month to get your shit together. I'm not gonna make you pay rent because you can't and Hitler would host a Passover brunch before you could or would ever pay me back. If you just wanna help with the cleaning, errands and meals if I'm ever too busy to cook. A month, though. You're seriously out in thirty days. I don't care if you didn't find a place, you're going back to your dad's house."
N: "That sounds great, T. Thank you guys so much. This is gonna change everything for me, you'll see."
He dropped the muffin tin and wrapped me up in a hug. It felt like I had my arms around a familiar stranger; not having embraced him since he was a much shorter teenager.
Kiwi pulled his glasses down and stared at Nick like a stern grandfather refusing to read the Sunday funnies to his young whipper-snapper grandson.
K: "You're welcome but you need to be looking for a job and a place. This isn't take a load off and relax time. I think it'd be a good idea to get a few therapy sessions in with Taylor, too. You're gonna go back to your old ways if you don't fix the wounds that make you act like this."
T: "...You've been hanging out with me too much."
K: "Yeah, I'm gonna call my mom and tell her I finally said something intelligent, then go brush the taste of brain cells out of my mouth."