inhale, kevin day.

xi. a little more

chapter eleven
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Maeve was with Abby in the kitchen again, she had another busy day. Maeve didn't ask. Instead, she'd decided on making a batch of brownies for their dessert that night while Abby continued frowning away at her cookbook.

     "Just pick something." She said,"Anything."

     Abby sighed, drooping her shoulders and seemingly giving in,"Mexican?"

     She nodded,"Mexican is good."

     "Enchiladas or tacos?"

     "Well, it is Tuesday." Maeve mixed her batter and treated herself to a little taste test.

     "No, it's not." Abby laughed and she shrugged in a whatever way, the woman shook her head at her, but smiled,"Just say you want tacos."

"I want tacos." She deadpanned.

Abby smirked,"What's the magic word?"

Maeve pretended to think on that,"Beef?" Now beef and please sounded nothing alike, but if anyone would make it so, it was Maeve, and Abby laughed as she realized.

     "Close enough."

     They fell into silence after that, Maeve cleaning up her mess and Abby starting on her own. It wasn't until Maeve's phone began to ring that they both looked up, she groaned, would this become routine? She glanced at it— the name MATT blinked urgently across the tiny screen. She watched it for a couple seconds before declining the call.

     Abby stared at her,"That's twice in the past hour, don't you think it might be important?"

     "What do you care? You don't like him anyway." Maeve walked over to the oven, settling herself on the floor to watch it.

"It's not that."

"Nope. You're just scared that I'll fall back into old habits," she stole the woman's words from the day before,"You're scared Matt'll be right there beside me and that it'll all be his fault. But you don't have to be, we're past that, both of us, I mean look I've been properly clean since Columbia and Matt really started taking it seriously when..."

"Dan." Abby finished.

"Yeah." Maeve turned away again so Abby wouldn't see her scowl at the name,"He wanted to be clean for her, but that was just one of the reasons, and it doesn't mean I like her, or them together, any more."

     "Care to elaborate a bit more this time?" Abby began prepping her ingredients.

     She sighed,"I've told you before, it's the whole being with your teammate thing— never ends well, and besides, the Foxes are messy enough. It's like, yeah, go ahead, add hormones, see how well that goes over." She rolled her eyes,"Not only that, but they don't agree on much, Dan is bossy, and Matt is too nice, trusting, it's not a good combination, like he literally has to rope Renee in just to watch his favorite movie because Dan doesn't like it, which, again, what kind of person doesn't like Star Wars?!"

"Star Wars is amazing." Abby agreed.

"I just think it's time they both admit their power balance isn't healthy, and find people they're actually compatible with."