Jodie turned to Avi and exclaimed, “That went well!”

As they conversed, Mitch snuck over until he was at Jodie’s side. He waited until there was a lull before asking, “Is there any way that I can help out tonight? Since, y’know, the camera thing.”

“Dude, just take it easy,” Jodie tried to bat him away, but he remained anchored to his spot. “Enjoy the show!”

“No, I’m serious, Jo. I don’t wanna just sit around,” he protested. Being tangent to the meeting but not a part of it left him with a hollow sensation in his chest, and its existence was loathsome. As a defense mechanism, he generally avoided consuming anything related to wrestling since the last thing that he needed was grief compounded with more grief. The one-off stint of doing commentary, while in many ways helpful, caused a yearning that was more damaging than it was encouraging; that may have been due to the stress brought on by Calvin, but he did not yet possess the bandwidth to dissect it. “You won’t let me be with Louis and Sandy, so there’s gotta be something?”

“I mean, you can go out with them, but you can’t hang around ringside,” she clarified. Her face showed signs of straining, which indicated that she was doing her best to be both sensitive and simultaneously firm on a stance. “But other than that, we’re actually pretty good tonight.”

“You can hang out with me?” offered Avi with an overabundance of amiability, as though he was attempting to mediate. “I’m not doing anything tonight, either. Be my date?”

“Oh, uh.” Mitch’s fingers twitched. His hand strayed from his side and ready to rub the back of his neck until it was raw. The word ‘date’ amplified in his ears, ricocheting off of the walls of his skull. It wasn’t literal, Mitch reminded himself. Avi just talked like that. However, the logic did nothing to drop the rate at which his pulse accelerated. “Maybe. I was going to go check with my guys first and see if they want me to do stuff with them for their entrance. But probably, yeah. I could do that, if Jodie just wants me to be on standby. We can hang out.”

“OK. I’ll be around,” Avi waved him off, and Mitch gave a small wave of his own. He continued to stare in the direction that Avi walked away until there was a sharp tug at his shirtsleeve, the pull so hard and sudden that it yanked his shirt collar and made him gag. He didn’t need to look to confirm that it was from Jodie.

“Wh-what are you doing?” Mitch asked.

“We’re going into the office right now.” Jodie continued to pull, dragging him down the small hallway and practically kicking the door down when she got to it. “Dad, out,” she demanded. Victor got up from his desk without any argument, yelping out a startled, “I’m going! I’m going!”

“Jodie, what the fuck?!” Mitch shouted, watching her shut and lock the door behind them.

“No, you ‘what the fuck’!” she hissed back. “What is going on with you?”

“Whaddya mean?!” Mitch swung his left arm out in exasperation, then pointed his thumb at his chest. “I’m doing what you want, I’m not getting involved with the show!”

“Are you flirting with him? Why are you flirting with him?” Her eyes narrowed.

“Victor?” Mitch half joked, half panicked.

“No, idiot!” She slapped her own forehead, causing the numerous silver bangles around her wrist to jangle from the force. “Avi!”

“I’m not flirting with Avi!” Mitch blurted out. “I don’t even- why would you say that?!”

“I have functioning eyes and ears, dude. I see the way that you stare at him when he’s not looking. I heard you guys a week ago in the living room, and in general around the house. You,” her index finger dug into his sternum, below his thumb, “don’t ever talk like that with anyone, unless you’re trying to get laid.”

“Iunno Jo, it’s banter I guess! He’s easy to talk to? It’s not flirting!” Mitch insisted, biting back the urge to explain that he couldn’t get laid even if he wanted to. He would rather deal with the heat from an argument and risk burn marks than to throw a bucket of ice on a topic to drive a point home. Sure, it would redirect Jodie’s fury away from him, but the idea of shining a light on his most intimate source of shame was not something he could yet bear.

“Oh, talk about safewords isn’t flirting? Dancing isn’t flirting?” she raised an eyebrow at him. “The giggling wasn’t flirting? You being a breathless dumbass isn’t flirting?”

“How did you hear any of that? I thought you were out! Is the house bugged?” He backed up to get out of her range, uncomfortable with whatever it was that she was seeing that he could not.

“Dude, I came back. You didn’t hear me, on account of the flirting.” She glared, her eyes like daggers. “I said ‘hi’ to him while he got you an ice pack. You can ask.”

“He. He…he started it, not me!” Mitch exclaimed, tugging at his hair as he could sense the panic rising to the surface, threatening to overtake the eroded storm-surge barriers that he failed to maintain. “I didn’t do anything, OK? Why are you bothering me about this, don’t you have shit to run?”

“Mitch,” her tone went from accusatory to delicate, and Mitch was about ready to explode when he caught on. The briefing may as well be over, he heard the words before she spoke them.

“Don’t start,” he gritted.

“You just got out of a really bad situation, and…” she sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger. “You know what? This time, I’ll just cut to the chase. I’d prefer if you didn’t attempt to fuck our roommate and my employee.”