Color

Thirty Seven

The next day was the day that Kirstie had invited Kyle over for dinner so he could meet Kirstie's friends. 

Scott and Mitch offered to take care of dinner, because Scott had offered to buy everything while Mitch offered to cook it. 

This left the others to stay home and tidy up the house a little bit.

However, Kirstie had left about twenty minutes in, because she wanted to quickly get her eyebrows done before tonight. 

Alex was the one to suggest that she leave, but that was not his cordial invitation for Avi to start harassing him. 

Avi was only kidding, of course. But he still struggled to draw the line between harassing Scott and harassing Alex, because he wasn't yet aware that the two were very different things. 

So when he gave Alex a shove and then hit him with a pillow, Alex just paused and stared at him. 

Avi tried laughing, so Alex would know he was kidding, but Alex just kept staring at him. 

Alex took the pillow from Avi to set it on the couch. "What are you doing?"

"Just fuckin' around." He replied easily, before wandering away to do something else. 

Alex shook his head slowly. "Babe, would you mind dusting? I can do the other stuff, if you'll just--"

Avi came out of nowhere, just to hit Alex with another pillow and laugh even louder. 

"Christ, Avi. Are you off your meds or something?"

Avi gradually stopped laughing, and pouted at him. "You're in a bad mood."

"No, I just..." Alex sighed, looking away. "I just wanna get this done, okay?"

Avi tossed the pillow onto the couch, only to break himself into Alex's personal space to get his attention. "What's goin' on, Lex? Something's wrong."

"I'm just nervous to meet him, that's all. I want... I mean, Kirstie deserves the world. But I don't want her to get in a relationship because she's lonely. And... I don't want this guy to be an asshole, because I don't want her to get hurt."

"I know. But... You talked to this guy once, didn't you? Did he seem like a dick?"

"No... But there was alcohol, and... I don't know for sure."

"I'm sure it'll be okay, Al. You're gonna get yourself all worried about nothing."

"It's not nothing, Avi. She's my best friend, and this is important to her."

Avi paused a second, smiling in an almost pained way. "I thought.. I was your best friend?"

Alex met his eyes with a small frown. "Oh, honey, of course you are. You know what I meant."

"No, I know... I know this is important to both of you. But rest assured, if he does turn out to be a dick, Scott and I will take care of him."

*

Scott reached up to take the can off the shelf, but had to pause and lean down to Mitch a little. "Which one..? The red one?"

"Yeah. Scott, you asked me that already."

"I just wanna make sure."

Mitch raised an eyebrow, continuing to walk down the aisle. "Why, is the other one healthier? Should I have grabbed that one?"

Scott paused, before rolling his eyes and walking up behind Mitch quickly. "Will you knock that off?"

"Knock what off?"