Good morning friends! I have finally been inspired enough to pick up my old prompting habit again. This little snippet continues a story I began back in January. It only had two parts at that time, so this is part three. To catch you up, Drake has been pining after a break up, but his long time best friend Mick is sick of the moping. He thinks it's time for Drake to look around him and realize that love has been beside him all this time.
This Is Not About
Part 3
“Every morning…”
“Hey.”
“Hey yourself.” Drake didn’t bother to put down his book. In all honesty, he was still a little pissed at Mick for leaving him at the restaurant the week before.
“Do you mind if I join you?” Mick yanked the chair opposite Drake, dislodging Drake’s foot from the lower chair rung.
Drake dropped The Sandman Overture to the table, narrowly missing his coffeecup. He glared at his friend. “Doesn’t look like I can stop you, does it?”
Mick’s green eyes narrowed and his lips tightened. “Don’t act like a spoiled brat.”
That it of anger over being embarrassed last Friday spiked. “Fuck you.”
“You wish,” Mick retorted smoothly.
“You should be so lucky.” Drake shot back. They glared at each other for a long minute before Mick’s lips twitched. The microexpression was all it took to alter the direction of Drake’s emotion. He burst into laughter as the twitch became a grin and then a chuckle.
“Sorry.” Drake finally got control of his laughter. His stomach ached pleasantly from the laughter,and his mood was incredibly lighter. “You were right, and I didn’t want to admit it.”
“It’s fine.” Mick picked up a napkin and shook it out over his lap then flagged down the waitress. “So, you want to go out this Friday?”
It was like swallowing vodka when you thought you were drinking from a water bottle. His mind instantly went in the wrong direction. Mick was hot. So sexy.. lean, pretty, and so off limits. It took less than three seconds. Not long enough for Mick’s expression to change, not long enough for the waitress to get to the table, but long enough for Drake to picture his friend naked, get turned on and feel like a complete jerk. Then the other shoe dropped and he realized that Mick was NOT asking him on a date, but asking him if he wanted to go somewhere and hang out, like they did most Fridays. “Yeah, I’m u-” Aware of his stirring senses, he abandoned the word up and finished with “in. Maybe someplace with music.”
“Leave it to me.” Mick beamed,turning a brilliant smile on the waitress who’d finally arrived at their table. “Coffee,black please.”
“One black coffee. Can I bring you a muffin, or a plate of eggs and bacon?” The cute waitress was blatantly ogling Mick, and Drake felt embarrassed for the poor girl. He wanted to shoo her away from the table or tell her just how gay Mick was, but he couldn’t.
Mick however, it seemed was used to being stared at, and he just smiled kindly and shook his head. “Just coffee, sweetie, thanks.”
She blushed and scurried away, giggling.
Drake watched her go, turned back to Mick, who had grabbed a pen from his pocket and was writing on a napkin.
“Happens all the time.” Mick said, not looking up.
“Girls young enough to be your daughter hit on you all the time?” Drake derided. “I can imagine.”
“No.” Mick threw down the pen and pushed the napkin to the edge of the table. “People recognize me from the show all the time.”
“Oh yeah. She was eying you like a side of beef.”
“She was not.” Mick’s cheeks pinkened, and h ducked his head. “I’m gay. All of Morrisonville knows it. And she’s not young enough to be my daughter. I’m only thirty-five and my daughter is twelve.”
Drake spewed the coffee he’d just sipped. It sprayed over his plate and splattered the table. “Daughter?”
***
“Yeah. Did I forget to mention that little detail?” Mick watched Drake nearly swallow his tongue while he attempted to gather his wits. He tossed a napkin in Drake’s direction and waited while Drake mopped at the liquid he’d sprayed all over.
Finally, Drake spoke. “I have known you all our lives. In kindergarten you had a Barbie lunchbox.”
“You punched me in the nose because of that lunch box.” Mick reminded him.
“Because my dad wouldn’t let me have one. My sister Ava had one with sparkles, and sparkles were too cool.”
“My daughter went to school the first day of kindergarten with a hot wheels lunch box.”
“That’s great. But my point was, I know you. You’ve been gay since forever and everyone knew it. You do not have a daughter.”
“But I do. Want to see a picture?” He reached for his phone, where the latest pictures of Mika were stored in a separate file. “Her mother just sent these.” Without waiting for Drake’s answer, he swiped the phone on and set about finding the photos.
“Who?”
“Mika, my daughter.” Mick jerked as the phone was snatche dout of his hand. He glanced up to find Drake glowering at him. It was amusing, and yet… a little shiver went down his spine. Drake mad was seriously hot.
“Who is her mother? You’ve never dated a woman. I doubt you’ve ever even touched one, let alone impregnated one.”
“Her mother is a very nice lesbian named Gina who wanted to have a child. She lived-”
“I remember Gina. redhead, no boobs. Lived across the hall from you in that dive you used to rent.” Drake sneered, but his anger had faded, his expression confused.
Mick decided to end the joke. “I donated sperm, dumbass. She wanted someone to father a child, not a lover or a husband.”
“She sends you pictures. I suppose you split holidays like a divorced couple?”
“No,” Mick picked up the napkin and began shredding it. The talk about his daughter was all his fault, he knew that. He just had to blurt out the one big secret that he’d managed to keep from Drake all these years. Well, the second biggest secret. “I’ve never actually met her. It wasn’t a relationship. I was… down. Thought I’d never find anyone of my own, never have a chance to have kids otherwise. And we agreed, Gina and I, that she’d tell Mika who I was when she was old enough to ask.”
Drake bit his lip, eyes darkening. “She hasn’t asked?”
“She’s twelve. Barely old enough to realize that a woman can’t have a baby by herself. I’m okay with it. I didn’t bring this up to-” Every morning he woke up, wondering if today was the day he’d get the call, if today was the day he’d get to be called Dad.
“Hah! Have you seen-”
Mick held up a hand. “I have seen way more than I want to. But Mika and Gina live in the country, and she’s very sensible. Plays softball and the violin. No way is our daughter going to turn into Miley Cyrus. Speaking of… guess who not so politely canceled her appearance on Morning in America?” He deliberately changed the subject.
“There is no way you booked Miley Cyrus. Morning in America is just not…”
“Uh uh uh. We’re grabbing a bigger share of the audience all the time.”
“It’s regional.”
“It’s the age of cable, made for Netflix, and Amazon. Television as we knew it is dead my friend.” Mick drained his coffee and stood. “Besides, I hear they have a really hot, gay host.”
“I can’t believe you had a daughter and kept it from me all this time.” Drake was thumbing through the pictures he’d finally found on the phone. There weren’t a lot, because Mick saved the rest on a thumbdrive at home, but enough. A smiling dark eyed infant, a charming five year old with one front tooth missing, hugging that Hot Wheels lunch box, and one of Mika with her violin, a mutinous frown on her piquant face.
Already he regretted the impulse to prove to his friend that Drake didn’t know everything about him. This awkward sense of exposure served him right for trying to prove there was still enough mystery between them to make a relationship interesting. “It wasn’t really my story to tell. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“I’d like to meet her someday.” Drake looked like the comment had surprised him as much as it had surprised Mick.
“Yeah, me too. Meanwhile, I’ll pick you up tonight, eight o’clock ok?”
Drake was chewing his lip again, a gesture that spoke to his confusion. Mick liked it. He liked that Drake was confused by him, it reassured him that he wasn’t alone in his current state. “Ok.” Drake agreed, though he sounded fairly hesitant.
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