Chapter 162: 162. Thanks For The Meal! Your Girlfriend Is Delicious!

The storm ended the way serious storms always do, not gradually but all at once, like something that had made its point and seen no reason to continue. One minute the rain was pressing against the cabin walls with complete conviction, and the next it had retreated to a thin drizzle and then to nothing, and the park outside reappeared from behind it with the slightly surprised quality of a space that had been rearranged while it wasn’t looking.

The cabin was quiet.

Mike stood at the small window and looked at the park reassembling itself in the wet evening light, the lawn dark and flattened, the tree line still dripping, the pavilion across the way beginning to empty as people confirmed the rain was actually over and started making decisions.

Behind him, Maya was sitting on the edge of the workbench with her jacket back on and her phone in her hand, looking at the screen with the specific concentration of someone who was watching something they had not chosen to think about very hard.

The system notification had arrived ten minutes ago, quiet in the corner of Mike’s awareness.

[MAYA LAURENT — DESIRE LEVEL: 60/100.]

[ACQUISITION NOTE: SHE DIDN’T PLAN FOR THIS. NEITHER DID YOU, ENTIRELY. FILE THE DISTINCTION.]

[THE CABIN WAS YOUR SETUP. WHAT HAPPENED IN IT WAS NOT FULLY YOUR SCRIPT. NOTE THAT.]

Sixty. Mike had not expected sixty from a first encounter, particularly not one that had been compressed into the specific circumstances of a groundskeeping outbuilding during a storm, without the kind of deliberate construction he usually brought to these situations.

Sixty was what happened when the real thing showed up. Somewhere he had set the stage for something else. He noted it without making anything of it immediately.

Maya had not said much since the rain stopped. Not in a distant way, not in the way that sometimes followed something a person regretted, but in the quieter way of someone who was thinking and had temporarily relocated her social energy to a different floor while that was happening.

She was present. She simply wasn’t performing with presence.

He respected this.

’She’s feeling the guilt, but eh... who cares anyway.’

’At least I raised her desire level that fucking high where I’m so close to claiming her soon.’

Her phone screen showed Marc’s contact. She had been trying to reach him for the last five minutes, and the signal had returned as the storm passed, but Marc had not yet responded.

"He’ll have seen it cleared up," Mike said.

"He’ll come back."

"I know," Maya said.

She turned her phone face-down on the workbench beside her. "He always comes back."

The way she said it was not about the storm, and they both understood this.

...

The cabin door opened six minutes later, and Marc came through it carrying two wet paper bags that had formerly been umbrella bags from somewhere, repurposed into shields against the rain that he had clearly acquired with his characteristic logistical efficiency.

He looked at the two of them.

Mike was at the window. Maya was on the workbench.

The cabin was precisely what it appeared to be, which was a groundskeeping storage space that two people had sheltered in during a storm.

Marc handed Maya one of the bags. She took it without asking what it was.

"The car situation worked out," Marc said.

"Whose car was it?" Maya said.

"A guy named Cody," Marc said, with the neutrality of someone who had dealt with a situation and moved on. "He said he knew Mike from campus, but wait, you already talk about that earlier."

"He does," Mike said. "And yes."

Marc looked at him. "He seemed very worked up about his car, especially considering that it turned out to be fine."

"He gets worked up easily," Mike said. "It’s one of his qualities."

Marc held the look for a moment longer than the conversation required, and then he said, "Right," and looked at Maya, and the conversation moved on without any of them formally agreeing to move it.

Marc exhibited the quality of someone who processes information efficiently and organizes it, but he had not yet filed the Cody observation, which was evident in how his attention shifted around the room before finally settling.

"How long were you in here?" he said.

"About forty minutes," Maya said.

Marc glanced at the workbench, then shifted his gaze to the window where Mike stood. Finally, he turned back to Maya, arriving at a conclusion he had been contemplating and internalizing.

"Right," he said again. This one was slightly different from the first.

"Are you cold?" Marc said to Maya.

"I’m fine," she said.

He looked at her jacket. "You’re damp."

"I’m aware."

"Dinner’s still happening," he said. "We can change first. I’ll order ahead."

"Yes," Maya said. "Dinner is still happening."

She slid off the workbench and pulled the cabin door open and looked at the park beyond it, still wet, the evening light recovering from the interruption.

"What was the theory about postgraduate students again?" she said to Marc, as if resuming a conversation that had simply been paused rather than suspended by a significant weather event. "I want Mike’s actual response."

Marc looked at Mike.

"The third option," he said. "You gave me ’treat it as a revision opportunity.’"

"That was fast," Marc said, "and it was right, which is more interesting than being fast."

"He’s always fast," Maya said to Marc, and she said it casually, looking at the park, and the word "always" carried a particular weight from a woman who had known Mike for the better part of three weeks and had just spent forty minutes with him in a cabin with no signal, and Marc received the word with the quality of someone who was noting its implications without drawing attention to the noting.

"Then I have a follow-up question," Marc said to Mike.

"Go ahead," Mike said.

Marc then looked at Maya more closely; she appeared somewhat nervous, but he couldn’t quite determine the reason, so he stepped next to her. "Were you cold...? I was scared to death when the rainstorm didn’t end for almost an hour!"

"I... I’m fine now... so..." Maya looked at Mike, and then she forced a smile to Marc because she didn’t want to make her boyfriend worry about what happened in the cabin.

The secret remains between Maya and Mike, and it should not be revealed to Marc. "I-I’m kinda tired... I think dinner is going to be good for me..."

Both of them stepped ahead while Mike followed behind, wearing an evil grin because he knew that Maya probably felt bad about what had happened in the cabin. The session lasted a long time, and Maya promised Mike that she wouldn’t tell Marc anything.

However, Mike felt it was important to closely observe Maya, as he had noticed that she was beginning to speak in a low tone to Marc.

"Ahh... M-Marc..."

Marc raised his eyebrow. "Hm? What is it?"

"I... I... I... I..." Maya tried to say something, but the words felt stuck inside her throat.

And then Mike surprised both of them by putting his arm around Marc’s shoulder. "It seems like I have to say sorry to both of you... Maya... Marc," he said.

"Don’t make such a grumpy face, okay?" Mike said that to Maya, who then nodded while showing her frightened expression.

"After all, it was just one night’s mistake, right? Forgive me, okay?" Mike said "nonsense" to Marc, but Maya knows what he meant by it.

"Maya, you too, alright?" Mike said in an attempt to distract from the recent events in the cabin, which made Maya feel even more scared of him.

"Ahh... y... yea..." She said while averting her gaze towards both of them.

Marc then thought. ’What is he talking about...? I felt something strange between Maya and Mike...’

"Are you really okay?" Marc asked Maya again.

"Y-Yeah... I’m okay."

’It’s probably just my imagination,’ Marc said and then held Maya’s hand to walk together while Mike smiled behind them.

’Even though we’re getting dinner today... thanks for the meal, Marc.’ Mike licks his lips. ’Your girlfriend was so fucking delicious...’