Chapter 3.5

“Sorry, like, I’m not trying to intrude. You do you, obviously.” With some space now cleared out in the fridge, Avi resumed putting his groceries away. “But I went to school for physiotherapy. So come see me if you want help with recovery.”

“Do you charge a copay?” joked Mitch.

“Nah, just pay me in coffee,” Avi laughed. “Full disclosure: I don’t have a doctorate or anything. Never actually finished the degree, much to the chagrin of my parents. But I came close!”

“What happened?” Mitch immediately regretted asking, unsure if this was crossing into too personal of a territory. He was about to take it back and apologize, but Avi shot him a hapless smile.

“Wrestling happened,” he answered.

“Oh. That was a dumb question, huh?” Rubbing the back of his neck, Mitch moved away from the fridge to give Avi more space.

“Nah. I had the choice to finish graduate school, or go to Japan. Break my spirit, or break my body. Went with the latter. Ironic, given my initial career choice.” The way that Avi spoke about such a life-alerting decision was so casual that Mitch felt stupid for not reaching the same conclusion during his senior year in college; at the time, he nearly fell into a drug-induced coma, and in retrospect should have taken time off. It was a miracle that he graduated at all.

He was pulled out of his bullshit reverie when Avi asked, “Hey, could you pass me that bag of fake cheese that’s on the counter? I think that should be it for refrigerated stuff.”

“Fake cheese?” Mitch turned to the counter on his right and spotted the dairy free bag of ‘shreds’. Handing it over to Avi, he raced to take advantage of this opening. “Uh, so you know about the party tomorrow, right?”

“For Victor’s birthday? Yeah, Jodie told me.”

“Cool. She wanted to know if you had like, any dietary restrictions or…” Mitch coughed. “If, y’know, there was a preference for chocolate or vanilla or whatever? She’s trying to poll everyone for cake flavor, I guess.”

After the bag of cheese-like shreds were put away, Avi shut the fridge door and faced Mitch, looking all apologetic yet again. “Well, I really don’t wanna be one of those guys, but I’m vegan. So don’t let my opinions on cake be a limiting factor.”

“Oh, word,” Mitch gave several quick nods. “I’ve always been sorta interested in going vegan, but I struggle a lot with the recipes. What’s that soy chunk stuff called…”

“TVP?”

“Yeah, that! Can’t get it to work how it’s supposed to.”

“Well, if you need a cooking sherpa, I can be that,” offered Avi.

“That’d be great, actually!” Mitch exclaimed, then, suddenly very aware of himself, coughed and lowered his voice by an octave. “And, for what it’s worth, I’m sure there’s other vegans that’ll be there. At the party, that is. So, we can make something happen.”

“Well, alright,” shrugged Avi. “Put me down for vanilla.”

“I’ll let her know.”

Riding high off of this victory while simultaneously at his bandwidth limit for social interaction, Mitch double checked the rest of Jodie’s bags to determine if anything else was perishable; the rest was either cupboard or party supplies, and with no further reason to hang around the kitchen, his objectives were met. “Guess…I’ll see you around then.” He nearly smacked himself for being so abrupt. One adjustment at a time.

“Oh! Later, man!” Avi gave a small wave, and didn’t appear to be offended in the slightest. Relief washed over Mitch, and he retreated to the sanctity of Jodie’s bedroom, collapsing onto the bed while his eyes raised to the ceiling as he zoned out. Moments later, the door creaked open, and the light scent of perfume confirmed her presence.

“You survived, huh?” she teased, and the mattress slightly dipped where she sat down on its edge.

“Barely,” Mitch closed his eyes. “He’s vegan, and he likes vanilla.”

“You’re the best!” Crawling until she was parallel with him, Jodie grabbed his chin and held his face while planting a vivacious kiss on his cheek. He was positive that a lipstick print was left behind. “This party’s gonna be great. Gonna kill so many birds with one stone. Love that for me.”

“Also, you have to put away the rest of your groceries.” He cracked open one eye, and burst out laughing at the way her face scrunched in disgust.

“I take it back, you’re the worst thing that’s ever happened to me personally.” She flicked the side of his head before departing, presumably to pick up where he left off.

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