"There's whipped cream on the ceiling."

"Huh?"

She wiggles a little to the side, cranes her head back. Murmurs, voice thick with bracing pleasure, lashes fluttering, "There — mmh — above the stove." He doesn't respond, follows the column of her neck with his mouth, marked path. "How do you think it got there?"

"I don't — what?"

"The whipped cream, Taichi."

Shifts her against the refrigerator door so her skirt rides higher up her thighs, legs anchored around his waist. "Can we not talk about that right now?"

"What's wrong with whipped cream?"

"What? Nothing — I just — ,"

"Cream goes on everything. Don't you think?" And she giggles. Hates that it makes him laugh, too.

"Mimi — ,"

"Pancakes, pastries, potatoes — ,"

"For fuck's sake, will you just — ," he's groaning, face buried into her shoulder as he stills. "Dammit."

She pats his head, catches her breath with his. "You're hungry now, too, aren't you?"

"Yeah." He's miserable.

"Because I mentioned potatoes?"

"I just wanted ten minutes."

"It takes you ten minutes to eat a potato?" Alarmed, head pulled back to stare at him. Forever easily distracted.

He presses his temple to hers, knocking their heads together. A little rough, the way she likes. "Just ten minutes."

"Hm." She squeezes her knees together, rides herself onto him again, drawing a low growl from him she feels against her throat. Kisses under his ear, soothing, "I think I'm worth more than ten minutes."

Mouth open to catch her whimpering gasps when he rolls his hips again, picked up pace. "You're barely worth the ten years."

"Ten years?" Laughs into his kiss, lip between her teeth, marking him. "Isn't that a little pathetic, waiting that long for me to — ah — ," because he's pinned her straight-backed to the fridge again hard enough to make her lose her voice, one hand braced around the top of the door, heat coiled. Babbling, in that way she gets sometimes, when he has her at the edge of herself, little death. Still, she speaks, desperate for the last word. "Not — not as pathetic as — as someone unaware of whipped cream stuck to the ceiling, but — ,"

Drops her so suddenly she shrieks, pulsing legs nearly giving way, aching in almost there. He takes several steps back, adjusts his short-sleeved button-up, re-buckles dark denim jeans, hands run through his hair in a frustrated huff. "Oh, come on," she's whining, eyes flashing in a heady laugh. "You're really going to leave me unfinished?"

"Finish yourself. You've got hands."

"Taichi — ,"

But he raises both middle fingers at her before stomping from the room, and she's giggling to herself, wistful, and still pent up. Fixes her skirt, walks to where she'd left her purse on the counter when he'd stolen her into the kitchen, the only empty room available. Sends him a snap of the offending ceiling. Anyone would be distracted by that.

He answers less than a minute later, as she's walking back to the living room, passes him lounging with some of their friends. Doesn't look at her. if you've got time to think about wall fixtures, you're doing things wrong

Sounds like a you problem.

you're my problem

Grins as she sips her gin and tonic, listening to one of the girls chatter about a funny work story. I can't help what interests me.

so what, i'm beat out by food mysteries that defy laws of gravity?

I'm not surprised by it being on the kitchen ceiling specifically. I mean, where else would whipped cream go but up?

not on potatoes for starters

Be adventurous.

was trying to be

What, in the kitchen? That's the baseline, Taichi. Even my parents have sex in the kitchen.

Hears him choking on his drink in the other room, hacking cough. mimi!

Oh, stop. You love my parents. Don't you want to see them happy?

no!

Well, they are, and have been, for twenty-five years.

how old are you again?

That's not funny.

you're the one with the horny ass parents. dammit I've eaten at that dining table!

I'm sure it's been cleaned.

how are you not bothered by this?

Bothered by the fact that my parents are still very much in love with each other?

so what? i'm very much in love with you and i've managed not to t

shit

hold on

mimi

listen

hey

let me exp

"You're in love with me?"

Spills his drink, drops his phone. Looking up at her where she looms before him, barged into the cluster of their oldest friends he'd been sitting with. Everyone's staring at them, her loud voice carrying over the music, the chatter. Is aware, unbearably, that this is the precise opposite of emptiest available room. "Uh — ,"

Her lip is quivering. "I didn't know you were in love with me."

"I'm — ," but stops. Gives it up. Used to think she made him weak willed, then free willed, but realizes now. She's an adventure. "Yeah."

Mimi hasn't blinked once, staring at him with wide, round eyes. "So — so all the flirting and the making out, I just thought we were — ," then gasps out in a rambling rush, high-pitched, "I didn't know you were getting me off in the kitchen a minute ago because you loved me!"

Taichi feels the earth drop out from underneath his feet, and now someone nearby is yelling, a general fluster of activity starting to form around them, friends flocking in shocked panic at what they didn't know they didn't know. Can't see a thing, the world going dark. Why did it have to be her? Ten years worth of falling, and he couldn't have landed smoother than this?

Still rambling, and manages to make it worse. "I wouldn't have teased you about creaming if I knew you — ,"

The world snaps back into focus. "No, no, no!" He's ducking out of their friends' retributive strikes, protective grasps, mortified reaches. On his feet, grabbing her wrist to use as a shield, chivalry be damned in the face of everyone's scandalized wrath. "It was actually whipped cream, on the ceiling, I swear — I don't know how it got — Mimi, tell them!"

"That you're in love with me?" Still winded by the revelation, reeling. Aware but uncaring of the chaos she's created, oblivious in the eye of a hurricane of her own making. "Because you've never said that to me before, and I just thought we were — that you — ,"

"For fuck's sake — ," and kisses her, shuts her up. "Yes. Okay?" Holds her face in his hands. Shakes her a little, for emphasis, or from despair. Kisses her twice more. "You're a natural disaster, and I'm in love with a storm."

Arms around his neck, raised to her toes in three-inch heels, still not tall enough. Bottom lip pouting, doubtful after an initial laugh. "I'm the storm, right?"

He laughs, utter defeat. "You're the menace."

"For whipped cream."

"Any other kind?"

Kisses him back, conquered, or maybe conquering. Either way, a surrender. "I know another kind."

More outcry, frantic claims to modesty, pleading reminders of decorum when in public.

"You really are your parents' daughter." She squeals another protest, but he's already kissed the back of his hand where he covers her mouth with his palm, grinning at her red face. Never a dull moment, or a moment's peace, but then he'd had enough of those, waiting for her.