At twenty-seven, YouTube sensation Ben Leonards is married to his work. If he's not whipping up lasagna with a side of science experiments, he's running statistical analysis of bitcoin during explosive behavior periods.
When a friend asks him to org...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
"This smells better than the usual Friday Night pizza." Mike throws his bike helmet on the couch as he walks by it and heads to the rows of arancini and the shells for the cannoli that I've baked after Amelie's quick departure.
"Wash your hands before you touch anything. And don't eat the food on the island."
"But I want to try it."
"The plate over there is for you." I point at the small mountain of things that didn't turn out perfectly for tomorrow.
I cover the large bowl of cut-up vegetables with clingy wrap, take it to the extra fridge I have in the garage, and rearrange the products of my prep work for tomorrow to make it all fit.
"Hey, man, where's the pizza?" Mike's voice greets me when I get back into the house. "You're ruining our long-standing Friday Night tradition, here. Fuck." He picks up the grilled cheese sandwich off his plate.
"Pizza is for tomorrow's party. I had the oven tied up, and you love grilled cheese."
"Just messing with ya." Mike takes a bite and a quarter of a sandwich disappears in his mouth. I'm not sure he chewed any of it. "Mmm, it's so good. And I've had enough pizza in the last month. At this point, it's the only thing Angie eats. The delivery guy might need to get a permanent parking spot by our building."
"She told me. How's the Grand opening coming along?"
"The plan is still to open up next week. I can't afford any more delays." Mike's done with the sandwich and inspects the rest of the food in front of him. "The dojang is ready. We are only waiting on the permits, and, at this point, the baby'll be here before we get them."
"Remember my projection calculations. You are fine as long as you open up by the end of August. And if the enrollments are steady, in six months you can start drawing a salary from the new location."
"And start looking for a house." Mike takes a small bite out of the chicken cacciatore, nods, spears a bunch more onto his fork. "Our apartment is barely big enough for the two of us, not to mention long-term guests. I have to suffer through ten more days of putting clothes on to eat in my own fucking kitchen. Three weeks is too long to have a guest. Speaking of guests, Angie told me you invited Linda to her baby shower tomorrow?"
"Angie said she didn't mind. I need to talk to Linda, and she said she had something for me, and wanted to meet Saturday, and I mentioned the party, and I couldn't not invite her. We are technically still seeing each other."
"Hold on. Fuck. I thought you were going to break up with her last week."
"That was what I wanted to do, but she was visiting her parents and came back yesterday. And that's why I need to talk to her tomorrow. So we are officially not together."
"You sure she'll be OK with it?"
"We made a deal. It was nothing more than—"
"Nothing more than sex, you keep telling me that. I'd like you to prove me wrong, but I think you're fucking underestimating Linda's...interest."
