Breed

Chapter Five

"I'm sorry about your car," Drake said through the open door.

"I got my stuff back," Mikaela said.

"I know. But I also know that isn't the point. Having someone in your space, it's a violation. You can stay over here, tonight, if you want."

She grinned. "Yeah, I'm sure the crime rate is much lower all of what, a block up my street?"

"You'd be surprised. We've been pretty thoroughly gentrified here. I mean, I'm pretty sure they're thinking about putting a Trump Tower across the way. But, you know, if it would be a little less intimidating, being in a new, demonstrably unstable space, knowing you have friends under the same roof."

"I'd say that depends entirely on whether or not I get too sloshed to walk back to my place from here."

"Sounds good to me. Iago, you ready?"

"I can't find my clean pants," he said, wandering out of the kitchen.

"They wouldn't have been in the kitchen; any pants you find in the kitchen are all but guaranteed not to be clean. And this is why most adults have more than one pair of clean pants at a time."

"Pft, adults," he said, mounting the stairs towards the bedrooms.

Drake shut the front door behind himself.

"You, um, heard from Tucker yet?"

"Nope," Mikaela said. "Kind of dreading it, actually. Though I have to meet him tomorrow. I'm taking over his lease."

"I'm still having trouble with that."

"It's pretty standard. So long as the landlord gets to keep one worm wriggling on the end of the hook."

"No, the 'him' part, I meant. Not that I begrudge 'him' his gender, it's just, I've been friends with Kaileen since eighth grade. We talked about going to our first Homecoming together if we couldn't get dates. When I came up here to go to school, we lost touch, but I didn't expect to see 'him' two years later as a dude named Tucker. And if I'm honest, I think the thing I stumble hardest on is that he's not a he- and has no plans to be. Physically. It doesn't feel like he's different; he's Kaileen with some shorter hair."

"This is going to get weird, isn't it?" Santiago asked, closing the door behind him.

"It doesn't have to," Drake said.

"No, I just hadn't put it together before right now. But I'm going drinking with a dude who dated my sister, a dude who really kind of wanted to date her, and a girl who practically gay-married my sister."

"I did not," Mikaela said.

"Yeah..." Iago said. "Or have you forgotten we shared a room at the time? I mean, I'm pretty sure I walked in on you two defiling my bunk at least once."

"Bunk?" Drake asked.

"We shared a bunk bed."

"When you were both eight?"

"It was a small room, dude. But it is. It's going to be super weird. And I'm laying down ground rules, now. Each time one of you makes it weird for me, you buy me a shot."

"We are going to get you so awkwardly hammered," Drake said, and slapped him on the back.

"Oh, God, what have I done?"

"It sounded like you just gave your friends a license to make awkward comments about your sibling while torturing you with booze," Mikaela said with a smile.