Mike Chang's apartment

10 477A Hughs Drive

Seattle, Washington

Mike opened his computer one last time, to double check the gate his flight left out of. There were two emails blinking like mad in his email box. One from Matt and one from a vaguely familiar address. He opened Matt's first.

Dude. Dude dude dude. I've got a pro tryout with the Eagles. Can I crash at your place? Matt.

Grinning, Mike sent a quick email back. Of course, no problem. Plus you can help me pay the mortgage. Let me know when you're get in.

He opened the second one and couldn't stop laughing. Hey Mike, it`s Sam. Sam Evans. I have a question. My office just moved me to Lancaster. I was wondering if I could crash on your couch for a bit until I find a place to rent?

Yesterday he had a five bedroom house, today he had a five bedroom house with two roommates. Maybe this move wasn't going to be so bad after all. He sent a quick email to Sam saying that he could stay as long as he wanted and his new cellphone number, threw his laptop in his shoulder bag and headed to the airport.

.

Mike Chang's House180 North Haven DrivePhiladelphia, Pennsylvania

Mike swore as he dropped another box on his foot, the third in the past fifteen minutes. The way he was going he was going to be crippled by two and in a wheelchair by four. He couldn't remember having this much trouble in his apartment in Seattle, then again he only had two rooms in Seattle minus the bathroom. Here, he had five bedrooms, a living room, a dining room, a giant kitchen, three bathrooms, an office, a sunroom and a fully finished basement.

Thankfully he was anally retentive about organization and his stuff was reasonably easy to find, but he still had more crap than he ever thought possible. Granted, a bunch of stuff including a giant king sized mahogany canopy bed with a matching bedroom set, a hand carved oak dining room table and chairs came from his parents. That, and a giant china cabinet, complete with priceless china. His clothes had all been unpacked, his books unloaded in the study/library, his bed at least had sheets on them. Everything else was where the movers left them. Maybe moving alone wasn't such a bright idea. His OCD about where his stuff went outweighed the pain of moving by himself. Now, he was kicking himself for it. If he could still kick himself. Which he couldn't.

The doorbell interrupted his internal musings as he stood, looking rather stupid, in the middle of his entrance holding a box labelled "Kitchen Crap", which was more likely than not labelled by Jake who labelled everything something or other crap.

Walking to the dark oak door, Mike realised that there was no hole for him to look through. The thought of drilling through the thick oak door pained him greatly, but he also understood the practicality of it. Another knock jarred him out of his thoughts and he reached out to open the door. All of the movers were long gone, he was moving in on a Sunday afternoon so it couldn't be a delivery person. Pulling the door back slowly he looked around the corner and saw the back of a woman with dark glossy hair that fell to her mid back accentuating her slender waist. A pair of long slender legs that seemed to go on forever wearing a pair of accentuating dark jeans…

"Hello?" Mike asked, opening the door a little bit wider.

The woman turned around, giving Mike the startle of a lifetime. "Hey…I couldn't find a giant cake…or anyone that wanted to get naked and jump out of one." She grinned. "So would you settle for a homemade dark chocolate with vanilla icing cake and an old friend?"

Mike's arms were around her instantaneously. "Oh my God Tina! What are you doing here!" He ushered her inside so quickly she almost dropped the cake all over the oak floor. "If this is settling, than I'll settle any day. Why are you here?"

Tina grinned and put the cake down on the nearest horizontal surface that wasn't an empty box. "Actually…it just so happens that I live a few blocks away. I just came over to see how you were doing your first day in Philadelphia."

He smiled and leaned against a precariously stacked pile of boxes. "I haven't heard from you for ages…it's been…too long."

She shrugged. "I'd be inclined to agree. It's been too long. Did you know that the email announcing your move to Philadelphia was the first email I got from you for five years? If I hadn't have opened it I wouldn't have known that we're practically neighbours."

"Say what?" Mike pulled out two chairs and sat down on the closest one. "You live around here?"

"About eight blocks away." She smiled. "Guess we'll be seeing a lot more of each other."

He grinned. "Well, as fate may have it, I just got emails from both Matt and Sam…they need a place to crash for a little while in Philadelphia. Matt signed a professional contract with the Eagles, and Sam said that his office just moved him to Lancaster."

Tina threw her head back and laughed. "You don't say?" Her dark eyes twinkled. "It just so happens that Mercedes is moving in with me. She's starting her own fashion line here in Philly."

"No way." Mike laughed. "Looks like everyone's moving out to the East Coast."

"Sure seems like it." Tina pulled her foot underneath her. "So, you're the last person I thought I'd run into in Philadelphia. I always thought that you'd be gracing TV with your dancing, or doing professional tours."

Mike flinched and rolled his pant leg up, showing the thick dark scar that ran from the top of his knee down to the front of his shin. "ACL reconstruction. Twice. I tore it at my last tryout at Julliard…and then again a year later trying to dance." He sighed and rolled his pant leg down. "Thankfully my marks were good enough that I got into architecture school….and here I am now. I worked for a few years at a firm in Seattle and got enough capital to start up my own company. So here I am. I have a small office with a few other guys downtown and a few clients from my West Coast office…" He grinned. "So what about you? You performing in some small independent theatre?"

"No." Tina pushed her hair back behind her ear. "I'm actually a lawyer now." She smiled at his shocked expression. "I know I know…little miss stutter fly a lawyer. I took a few classes in pre law as an undergrad and fell in love…and here I am." Shrugging she gave him a small smile. "It's a lot like performing, but with far more research." She craned her neck around "Wow, this is quite the place."

"Yeah." Mike grinned good naturally. "Want the grand tour?"

"Absolutely." She jumped up and smiled as Mike gently took her hand. "Lead the way."

Mike squeezed her hand gently and gave her a soft look. After all these years, it felt so right. "How about we start from the top and work our way down?"

Tina wiggled her eyebrows. "Mister Chang, are you trying to get me into your bedroom?"

He laughed. "Oh come on, there are smoother ways for me to get you into my bedroom."

"One skill, if I remember correctly you don't have." Tina retorted with a laugh. He stopped and stared at her until she elaborated. "Being smooth."

Rolling his eyes, he tugged her up the stairs. She laughed and followed him up a set of beautiful hand carved banister stairway. Mike showed her every room in the house from the empty sloped ceiling attic to his wonderful master bedroom to the glass china cabinet in his chandeliered dining room. She pointed out suggestions and loved every moment of it as they laughed and joked easily through the whole tour. The old bond was there without effort to recapture it. But beneath it all was the gentle flirtatious nature of both. They were no longer shy young teens but mature and certainly attractive young man and woman.

"And this is the greatest part of the house," Mike said as he led the way to the back of the house. "Looks like it was a gazebo at one point, but someone modernized it about five or six years ago and turned it into a wonderful steam room."

"A stream room?" Tina's eyes went wide with laugher. "Why would anyone need a steam room in the humid weather that Philly gets all the time?"

"Don't know, but you don't see me complaining." He opened the wood doors to the small gazebo converted steam room with its enclosed walls and hot rock bed at the center. "I'm going to rework some of the old pipe work and add a temperature adjuster."

"You're going to computerize it?" Tina laughed with amusement. "Why don't you turn it back into a gazebo? I think it would be nice."

"I might, but then I would probably want to put in a Jacuzzi if I do so." Mike said with a smile as he lovingly ran a hand over the wood benches that were carefully paced over the cemented that kept the heat in. "What do you think? Steam room or Jacuzzi?"

"Oh," shaking her head at him, she looked over the rock bed. "That's a real toss up for me. I love them both for their different unique reasons."

Mike laughed and pulled her into a tight hug, the one he wanted to give her since the first one at he door. "God, I've missed you."

"Me too." She smiled as she wrapped her arms around his chest, feeling the hard muscles under her hands ripple and move as he tightened his grip on her, holding her hard enough send an alarming thrill up her spine.

"Want to stay for dinner?" He let go reluctantly and looked at the darkened window. The sun was setting fast on his first day in his new home. "I could really use the company right now."

"I'd like that." There was a twinkle in her eyes. "But do you even have anything in that brand spanking new kitchen on yours?"

"Good point." He grinned. "So, know of any good restaurants around here?"

"Absolutely." She took his hand easily, naturally. Only a little too natural. "How do you feel about Italian?"

"Love it." Mike said with a smile and a squeeze of the hand.

.

Now don't be getting used to getting two chapters in two days…it won't happen a lot, but this plot bunny was massively chewing at my brain and wouldn't let go. So here it is.