Color

Sixty Five

Mitch found Scott sitting at the table holding Mitch's phone as well as a beer.

Mitch tossed his school bag onto the seat beside Scott to get his attention, and then leaned down to kiss the side of Scott's head before he spoke. "Hey. Come outside with me for a second?"

Scott slowly began to stand up, handing Mitch his phone back. "Here's this. I put some of our stuff on here, but not a lot."

"Thank you, baby." Mitch mused, slipping his phone into his pocket without a second thought.

"How was school? Was anybody mean to you?"

Mitch didn't answer him until they'd walked out the back door, past their laundry room to be outside. "It was fine."

"Doesn't sound like you wanna talk about it. Something on your mind, or..?"

Mitch shook his head, and took a seat at the table, smiling at how nice the weather had been recently.

Scott sat down next to him. "Babe, you're making me nervous."

"No, no, don't be nervous. But... I may have scheduled an appointment of some kind.. And I can't tell you what it is, because it's a secret, but I was too excited not to tell you a little bit, so there."

Scott blinked at him a few times. "Appointment..? And you're going without me?"

"Yep. Part of the surprise."

"Okay well you're not allowed to get a piercing without me being there, nor are you allowed to get a tattoo without me standing next to you. So re-evaluate if you must." Scott snapped a little quicker than he'd meant to.

"Not allowed to? What the Hell does that mean?"

"So it is one of those two things."

"Could be. But even if it wasn't, now I'm just curious... Why not? Can't trust me to do things on my own?"

"Those are my areas of expertise, Mitch. I don't want you getting anything infected or having someone use a dirty needle on you. Because you wouldn't know any better."

"Okay, that's fair... What if I take Avi with me? Or what if it's a different kind of appointment entirely and I'm just using Avi to throw you off?"

"Is it... A doctor's thing? Or like are you seriously changing your appearance somehow..?"

"Not a doctor. But I won't confirm or deny the other one."

Scott whined, slouching in his seat. "I just wanna know what's going on..."

"But it's a secret. Because I don't know if you're gonna hate it or not, but this way you won't be able to stop me." Mitch responded with a giggle.

Scott looked away from him. "Fine, whatever."

"You can't even be upset, Scott." Mitch stated matter-of-factly. "You pull this shit with me all the time. Most recent being the tongue thing, if I remember correctly."

Scott stuck his tongue out at Mitch quickly. "But it was hot, right? You can't deny that."

Mitch's eyes flashed down to Scott's tongue briefly, before he met Scott's eyes again and shifted in his seat. "Speaking of that... Are we done with the bet now, or no?"

"Unless you're willing to lose?"

"Not a chance. I was just wondering if you and your hand are getting lonely yet."

"Not really. He gets the job done, y'know? Maybe even more efficiently than you."

"Oh good. So you won't mind if I venture out a little bit? See if I can find someone else to hook up with until you're ready for me again?"