Mouse takes his own car to work the morning after they started watching Doctor Who, and waves off Jay and Erin that night as they head out together, while he returns to his own apartment. It's cold, as always, but being alone feels less lonely than it had last week. Knowing that Jay and Erin have made a conscious pact to include him in their lives, to make something for the three of them, makes the quiet evening lighter, and that night is the best night's sleep he's ever had in that apartment. (It's not quite nightmare free; he's not sure if he'll ever be really nightmare free again, but he gets up in the morning with only the vague remembrance of some dark dream that is left tangled in the sheets while he slips into the hot shower.)
And the three of them make good on their plans. At least once a week – and it's frequently more – the three of them troupe over to Jay's apartment to make dinner. They make a habit of alternating who chooses the recipe. They start with simple things, easy and uncomplicated. Soon though, they branch out, trying new things – Mouse brings his mom's Mac and Cheese recipe one time, which Erin declares the best Mac and Cheese she's ever eaten; another time he suggests sweet and sour meatballs with rice; another time honey lime salmon and mango salad. It's Jay's idea to try to make their own fried chicken, which turns out surprisingly well (Mouse had very real concerns about burning down the apartment); Jay also is the one to introduce 'Everything Crock-Pot Stew,' roasted red pepper pasta, and butternut squash soup. Erin contributes frittata, burritos, chicken and quinoa, and once sends the three of them on an adventure through the grocery store to find all the ingredients to make their own sushi.
Mouse only stays the night at Jay's some of the time, because as much as he likes the company and the atmosphere, his own bed really is more comfortable than Jay's couch. But sometimes he stays. They've been working their way through Doctor Who, and it makes Mouse grin that he no longer has to coerce Erin to watch it at all. While Jay watched it all with him and liked it, Erin is fast becoming much more enthusiastic about it than Jay ever was. Jay, for his part, sits back and watches Erin and Mouse's enthusiasm with a content smile.
One night, they stray into the prickly topic of their childhoods. Prickly, for Erin, for obvious reasons, because she didn't have much of one with Bunny's habits and bad parenting. Prickly for Mouse and Jay, not because they had bad childhoods, but because it's hard to look past the bad that came later and remember the good. But they stray in that direction, because as they're sitting around waiting for the chicken to cook, Erin mentions overhearing some of the patrol officers talking.
"They were talking about going to a games café, like a café where you play board games. Is that an actual thing?"
"You haven't heard of them?" Jay says with raised eyebrows. "They've been around for a little while. It's just what it sounds like, people go and play games and have coffee and stuff."
"They have ones that are bars too," Mouse interjects. "I've never been, but I've heard of them. You not a board game fan then?" Erin shrugs.
"I don't know, I never really played them. Never had anyone to play them with as a kid. I mean, I've played the standard card games obviously – poker and crazy eights and whatever. But board games just…" She trails off with another shrug. "What about you guys?"
Mouse gives a wistful smile, and sees a similar look on Jay's face.
"My mom loved Boggle," Mouse says. "She'd pull out all these weird law words that she picked up around her work, and my dad would pull out all these funny tech terms from his work, and they were constantly challenging each other on their words, making each other look them up and prove they were valid. And I was a kid, so I was pretty terrible at it, but it was fun just to watch them argue and accuse each other of cheating because they'd always end up laughing like crazy. And as much as they loved Boggle, they equally hated Scrabble, god knows why. My dad taught me to play chess, which we were both pretty good at, and my mom was terrible. And we played all the usual ones, you know, things like Jenga, Trivial Pursuit, Yahtzee, oh god, Monopoly – the bane of my existence."
Jay snorts.
"Monopoly," Jay says scornfully. "We had Dogopoly. That stupid game. Will liked to try and cheat, and he got angry whenever I called him on it when we were kids, and he'd mess up all the pieces and storm off to leave me to clean it up." Jay shakes his head in irritation. "My mom loved board games though. It was something she'd always done with her family, so we had this whole, like, bookcase full of all kinds of board games, and she'd just randomly come home some days with a new one, and we'd all drop everything and try it out that night. And this was before I was seriously telling my dad I wanted to serve and then be a cop, so he was pretty civil. We had things like… Ticket to Ride, and Carcassone… Oh, Settlers of Catan was everyone's favorite." Jay's grin dimmed slightly. "But, well, I haven't played in ages, obviously. I think my dad sold all our board games after Mom died."
Erin twines her fingers through Jay's, and they move on to a different topic pretty quick. But the next dinner night, Erin shows up with a large cloth bag, out of which she pulls a red box labelled "Settlers of Catan."
"So," she says, "how does this work?"
(Mouse wins the first game, and Erin wins the second. Jay scowls good-naturedly and blames beginners luck, and says he'll get them next time, and they pack everything into the box and Jay clears a space and sticks it on his bookcase.)
AN: Sorry! It's been way longer than usual since my last update - I just started back full time at my summer job and I've been devoid of internet for the past week and a half. Unfortunately, I've now run out of pre-written buffer chapters, so updates will probably slow down, especially as I try to get back into the routine of 40 hour work weeks and living independently in a trailer (I work at a campground). I've also hit a bit of a slow point in the story that just doesn't want to write easily, but have no fear, I won't be abandoning this story. I have too many plans for it. Reviews make me super happy, as always!
While I have your attention, I just want to let everyone know that I'm not ace, nor do I really know anyone personally who is, so if you know more than I do and you see something in my story that you think isn't right, tell me! Please, help me avoid misrepresenting asexuality.