Cabin Fever (BXB)

I Try Building Corners

I make breakfast for everyone the next morning. And the morning after that. And the one after that. It becomes a thing – I make breakfast to earn my keep or something. It's nothing really special – just pancakes from a mix, because I'm scared of touching anything more than I need to. I think, also, we're all a little down with the national lockdown and Covid and how the Stock Market is going to recover and everything else, but I'm quietly optimistic about it. With everything going on, it's an opportunity to learn about my future in-laws. Get to know Simon a little more. Get to the bottom of this tension, maybe. Learn how to cook, even. I think it'd be fun to know how to make a good tiramisu.

Mrs. Hopkins is on board with that. "I have some cinnamon Simon's father and I got when we went to South Africa, direct from Zanzibar." It smells like regular cinnamon, but that more than tempts me to use it.

Simon's sitting at the breakfast table, too, picking at his food and eating slowly, chewing with his mouth open absentmindedly. He has that look on his face that says he barely slept last night. I woke up with him working on his computer at the foot of the bed.

I did get morning cuddles which, with Simon, is always nice.

I can't watch him eat, though. It's like watching a cow chew cud, and it turns my stomach.

"So which one of you's the girl?" asks Finn.

"Phineas," Mrs. Hopkins warns.

Mr. Hopkins sighs. There's nothing new on the news, but he's still watching it on mute.

"You strike me for being the girl." He nods at me.

I smile. I don't know how to answer that.

"Finn, enough," Mr. Hopkins says, the same downtrodden look as his son on his face. "No one wants to know that." He takes another bite of pancake. "It's undercooked, Mr. Cohen."

"Colin," his wife says. "You didn't make it."

"If I was making it, it wouldn't be undercooked."

I smiled. "Thank you for letting me know, Mr. Hopkins. I'm not used to cooking. I guess it's more...intuitive, than I thought it was going to be." I glance back down at the pan, wondering how you're supposed to tell if one side of a pancake is done. I start scraping it with the spatula. "Tomorrow, I'll do better!"

"You're not staying with us, are you?" asks Finn. "You've been here 3 fucking days already. Shouldn't you...I don't know, go shoot heroin and make a gloryhole in a public bathroom?"

Both Mr. Hopkins and Simon grunt under their breaths.

I blink. "I'm not into heroin, and I'm not into gloryholes, either."

Simon smirks at that, though I doubt anyone sees it.

"Watch yourself. Rotten child," says Mrs. Hopkins. She pokes him hard in the arm. "And where are they supposed to go? Everywhere is closed."

"I don't know, somewhere else?"

"Then maybe you shouldn't have snuck onto my computer and sent that email to them in the first place."

"I didn't think they would come back!" Finn says, his face growing more and more red by the minute. "It's all Pansy's fault!"

"I have a name, and my name's Micah."

"Shut up! What'd you do to Simon? If Pansy wasn't around, he would've ignored it. I just know it! Like he ignored every single other fucking email I've sent him!"

"Phineas, enough."

"Listen to your mother, Finn."

"Listen to your mother, Finn," he mocks back.