'Bullshit.'

Paulo sat back in his chair but kept staring at the chat window off his laptop for a moment. He reached over and took the cup of tea he left by it and took a sip of it, before setting it back down and sitting back with his arms folded to himself. He scratched his chin. Any minute now, he told himself.

And sure enough, the follow up message blipped up on the screen. 'Since when?' it asked him.

'Official a few days ago but we're keeping it on the down-low.' He continued, and pressed return. He thought for a second. 'For the obvious reasons.' He felt he needed to add.

'No, I figured as much. Sue was great at keeping things to herself.'

'When did she ever not?' Paulo typed.

'Ah. Yeah.'

'Anyway she kept it to herself up until we spent one night at my house when that super storm rolled in.'

'At your house?!'

'Long long story, but she became stranded and stayed the night.' He went back to his drink.

'You guys didn't….'

His eyes almost fell out of his head and he spluttered the contents of his drink in all directions some of it went down his windpipe by accident. He coughed it up before frantically typing back 'No!'

'Oh thank god. Because that wasn't sounding like Sue at all.'

'I didn't ask, and it didn't go down like that. At most we shared the same bed and we just slept in it.'

'You /shared/ a bed?'

Paulo blinked at the messages, he assumed the words in the backspaces meant they were supposed to be a heavy emphasis. It wasn't often he spoke online with his friends. 'What?' He asked.

'/That/ doesn't sound like Sue.'

'Well we did. It was fucking cold that night.'

'Gosh, you had her under your finger and even then…'

He'd seen Sue type it once before into her phone. He replied with '-_-;'

'…Oh my god you are typing like her. It just felt good teasing you this once.' The message said, and another message a second later 'So, you're keeping to your word?'

Paulo sighed at the monitor. 'Nothing's changed.' But he didn't hit send. His hand came up and he rest it off the table. He stared at the screen, and hit enter. Paulo sat there for another moment. 'Thanks for helping me out with Rachel, by the way.'

'I didn't do anything, you just needed to tell her.'

'Yeah, well you were there for me.' Paulo sent, he smiled. 'How's the old ball and chain handling you now that you're in the same building as her?' He sent again.

'Alright.' Mike sent back.

A miserable feeling filled Paulo's gut while he waited. He tapped his fingers on the desk. There was going to be more to his message, wasn't there? He continued to wait. But still nothing. He swore to himself, he was getting impatient. 'And?' Paulo typed.

'Yeah.' Came back.

Paulo sat back in his chair and sighed to himself - it wasn't even a straight answer. There had been a fear in him back that one time where he held Mike in his arms back in the cafeteria. Some surprise in Paulo, that had almost been nearly more than a year ago by now. He had asked Mike weeks before whether he had, or at least asked if she could at least start talking to him over the phone more. Paulo had guessed he had, or at least had tried to. Maybe that's why he disappeared right after, the question changed into a different question. Paulo thought to put his faith in his gut feeling that maybe if they were both together, things might've worked out.

But it seemed that wasn't the case at all. There was trouble in dreamland.

Paulo's fingers rapped on his chin. Now came the harder part. It was difficult to get Mike to talk about the problem in the past, having coped a face-full of a table and a lot of stares that frankly, scared the ba-jeezus out of him in the past. Not that he was scared of that, but…

He typed the only thing that felt reasonably sensible at the time, 'I'm around if you ever want to talk about it.'

'I'll think about it. I still want to try some things.'

'Alright. Just let me know if you need a hand.'

'Yeah, sure. I'd better get going. Got a few things to take care of. I'll catch up soonish.' As soon as the message arrived, the online indicator next to Mike's username disappeared.

A hand came up to Paulo's head. He'd forgotten to give him his mobile number. Oh well, he told himself, there'll be another time. He rose from his seat at the same moment he heard his father pull up to the house. He went out the front to him and pulled various tools and equipment off the back and helped put them inside.

The weekend was going to be busy, they were going to replace the pipes in the house.

Author's note: A very short chapter that was part of a bigger one this time. Sorry. The last couple of weeks had been rough and I'd been mostly disposed of. We have one more new chapter before we go back to the draft chapters. I hope to have this story all wrapped up in a few weeks.