ｃｈａｐｔｅｒ ｆｏｒｔｙ－ｔｈｒｅｅ

His day started out fine: he got to work early, his manager wasn't a complete bitch to him, he was lucky and was able to clock out early along with everyone else at the building, and he was home two hours earlier than usual. Plus, his ride home was filled with songs he loved from his array of music on his phone.

As he walked inside of the Balm household, Mikey heard an extra voice he hadn't heard in awhile. Therefore, he put away his phone and went to search for the voice. Once he found them he shushed Max who was watching him from in front of the person with a mischievous grin on.

"Brody!" Mikey yelled as he got closer and picked up the little boy, throwing him over his shoulder. The newly eight year old giggled like crazy, his legs flailing and almost kicking Mikey in the jaw. The runt screamed to be put down, but Mikey hadn't seen Brody since the summertime and his mother allowed him to come over for the day, and then Mikey had driven them to the community pool.

Once Brody was put down he whirled around and gave Mikey the stink eye, glaring and pointing a finger at him. He accused Mikey, "you were trying to ruin our game, Mikey!"

Mikey peered over the kid and saw the game of Candyland set up, two pieces set on the board. One was on the Candy cane man, and the other near the licorice guy. Judging from the colors picked, Mikey assumes his littlest brother was winning and sitting on the orange space far ahead of his best friend's piece.

Shaking his head, Mikey denied sabotaging the game, saying he hadn't known what they were doing, just heard his voice and came to bug them. Brody didn't seem to believe him, but he picked up a card and grinned when it was a peanut—he moved his piece and grinned complacently towards Max.

Mikey watched the two interact, suddenly remembering that they had shared a kiss. With a smirk, Mikey asked, "so, Brody, have a girlfriend, boyfriend?"

He shook his head and Mikey saw the way Max seemed to set his piece down harder than needed. It was a little shocking since Max was calm most of the time, and now he was subtly throwing a tantrum.

To probe the bear even more, Mikey teased Brody, "Max told me you two kissed? You sure you don't like him?"

Brody shook his head. "No. Chrissy dared me to do that at recess. Mrs. Tavert yelled at us though."

"What did your teacher say? Was she mean?"

Max took the time to answer bitterly, "she said we shouldn't do that, because boys like girls."

Mikey snorted, leaning back on his palms and shaking his head. Max seemed to understand his reaction and added, "but that's not true, you and Jasper are boyfriends and that's fine. And Sawyer told me he had two dads."

Brody looked up from the board as he landed on the last box successfully and nodded. "Yeah, Sawyer's dads are cool! They once had him bring in cupcakes for the class since it was his birthday."

"Well don't listen to your teacher, she's wrong," Mikey advises the two boys and stood up, ruffling each's hair. "I'll see you two whenever tonight."

In his room, Aiden was laying next to Cadence and they had a phone held up above their heads, sharing headphones. Mikey, in a playful mood, shouted, "ah, my eyes! I'm scarred! Nanny, Aiden and Cadence are having—"

A shoe came flying at him and luckily he ducked before it clonked him on the head. Aiden glared at him and stuck up the middle finger, mumbling, "shut the fuck up."

He dropped on his bed and stayed looking at the ceiling, contemplating on what he wanted to do for the rest of the night. He could spend it on TikTok, or he could be productive and put away his clean clothing. But, his brain also went to messing with his family for the rest of the night. Instead of the latter, Mikey chose to plug headphones in and play music while he folded and put away his wash. It was boring but he had nothing better to do until Jasper got out of class.

At one point Cadence squeezed by him to go to the bathroom and Mikey turned to his brother to nosily ask, "did he come home with you? Has he done anything wrong that I can beat him up for you?"

"No, now stop. And why are you like this?"

"What do you mean?"

Aiden shrugged, confessing, "I don't know, that!" He waved his hand around to the whole body of Mikey and gave him a questioning look.

"I'm not doing anything; I'm putting my clothes away, idiot."

"Well, you usually don't and I have to deal with it. I was just asking, calm down."

"It's annoying when you complain about everything I do and act like whatever you do when your bitch of a boyfriend is here."

Mikey rolled his eyes and slammed a group of hangers on the rod with shirts hung on them. Their door opened and Cadence re-emerged, grimacing when he noticed the awkward air between the brothers. The older of them started his music back up and went back to ignoring Aiden. He ended up getting distracted when he started cleaning up the trash around his room by his room from a notification. He scrolled through his social media app until a text from Jasper took his focus away.

👅

Tell me how my professor has the audacity to come into the lecture hall and proceed to tell us he isn't gonna give out A's. And I N E E D to take this class for my stupid major

👅

I'm finna kms

Wow ok, please don't kill yourself. And fuck that teacher he deserves to get pegged, but I have faith in you to pass the class 😊😘

A call came through his phone and Mikey answered his boyfriend's call. They talked for awhile until Jasper was yawning and telling him he wanted to go to bed to get rid of his bad mood, and Mikey understood. He wished him a good night and hung up, burying himself in the covers, glancing over to Aiden's bed to see if Cadence was still there. He wasn't and Mikey frowned.

He asked intrusively, "when did Cadence leave?"

"When you were talking to Jasper."

That was it said between them and Mikey crawled from his blanket cocoon to turn the lights off and close his eyes for sleep. He heard Aiden groan from the sudden darkness, but Mikey couldn't care. He heard his grandmother call out a goodnight to all the kids, including Brody who was spending the night, and Mikey was out like a light soon after he shut his eyes.

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I did not read this before hitting 'publish' so there's probably some mistakes. Sorry about those.

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