How Much to Care (The Monkees: Mike Nesmith & Davy Jones (friendship/fictional personas); Missing)
Title: How Much to Care
Author: Crystal Rose of Pollux (rose_of_pollux)
Claim: The Monkees: Mike Nesmith and Davy Jones (platonic/friendship; fictional personas from the show only!)
Table: DIY
Prompt: Missing
Rating: G
Summary: You can only stay aloof for so long before that pesky thing called "concern" takes over.
Will be cross-posted to FFN and monkeesfic.
Author’s note: The characters aren’t mine (except for the OCs), and the story is!
*****************************
Malibu, CA; three years prior:
Several weeks of a casual acquaintanceship continued. Plans for making a two-man act were starting to come together. Davy had been reluctant initially to sacrifice his free time, but he soon found making musical plans with Mike to be fun after all. But Davy’s winter break would be rapidly arriving, and he had a feeling that would likely be the time when Mike would want to make significant progress with their act since Davy would be able to afford the time to do so.
Unfortunately, that was also the time that Davy had been hoping to spend some quality time with his current girlfriend, Cyndia. Cyndia and several of her friends had made plans for a skiing trip up in Lake Tahoe, Nevada-and the girls were more than keen on inviting Davy and few other boys along.
Davy hadn’t given his answer yet; had this been a few months ago, he would’ve been packed and ready to go by now, but he was having doubts about going. And he didn’t know why.
It was when the last day of the semester ended that Cyndia reminded him about it as they headed away from school.
“You haven’t told me about Lake Tahoe, Davy…” she said, lugging her suitcase from her dormitory. “We’re leaving the day after tomorrow; I need to tell the lodge how many people there’ll be. Don’t you want to go?”
“Sure, I want to go!” Davy said. “It’s just that…”
He trailed off. Was he… was he actually feeling guilty about being ready to ditch Mike over winter break just like that?
“Just… what?” Cyndia prompted.
“Well, I need to make sure I can. Look, I’ll let you know tonight-or first thing tomorrow morning at the latest, okay?”
Cyndia eyebrows arched.
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll be waiting. But just so you know, if I don’t hear from you, I’m going to assume you’re not going. And if you’re not going, I’m going single. And if there’s someone up there who sees me like that, well… I may not be your girl anymore. Keep that in mind.”
“…I certainly will,” Davy said, just managing not to stammer. “I will find it very difficult to forget that.”
Satisfied, Cyndia walked off, and Davy headed off in an aimless direction, in a slight daze. He had to hope Mike would be understanding about Cyndia’s ultimatum and would see why Davy simply had to go to Lake Tahoe.
A splash of water on his nose brought Davy around; it was starting to rain. The weatherman had predicted a cold, wet, and unpleasant evening and night; the rain just decided to start a little early.
Davy ran home to the beachhouse just as the rain started pouring down. Sighing with relief, he sat down, waiting for Mike to come back. Mike would, hopefully, return from his waiter job with some food from the restaurant as he usually did-with their stove and range gone, good cooking was hard to come by. Davy had to resort to the using a hot plate to heat up a packet of instant ramen to hold back his hunger until Mike returned-which wouldn’t be until 9:00.
That left him with nearly six hours to figure out how to explain to him about the Cyndia dilemma…
…Or so he thought. For back at the restaurant, Mike was finding that his own plans for the evening were being turned upside-down.
The day had been busy, and six hours had gone by in the blink of an eye. It was nearing the time for Mike to leave, and he had gotten their meal fixings all set up to go, his pocketful of tips larger than usual due to the rush. His boss was on the phone, and so the boy decided that this was the best time to leave-he wasn’t looking too forward to driving in the miserable rain, so the earlier he could leave, the better.
“Hold it, Nesmith,” his boss said.
Mike winced. He knew that couldn’t be good.
“We’ve got a large dinner party coming in here tonight; I need every available man working overtime-you’re staying until 1:00.”
“Overtime?!” Mike exclaimed. “Are you serious? Who eats dinner until one in the morning, anyway?!”
“We’re a twenty-four hour restaurant; we get people at all hours. Would you like to switch to graveyard shift and see?”
“Ah, no thanks; I’ll work overtime,” Mike said, shaking his head. He’d just have to hope that the next few hours would go just as quickly as the last several hours had.
He got back to work as a flock of giggling girls came in from the rain. His boss indicated the group to him, silently saying that he would be waiting on them next, and to prepare for the large party.
Mike silently got a tray full of water glasses and a stack of menus and started distributing them to the girls, barely paying attention to what they were saying-until he heard his roommate’s name mentioned.
“Cyndia, did your English boyfriend say if he was coming with us to Lake Tahoe? …Oh, what’s his name again?”
“You mean David?” the girl name Cyndia responded. “He still hasn’t given me an answer. I don’t know why he wouldn’t want to go with us; what’s keeping him here?”
“Maybe he can’t ski…” a third girl suggested.
“Well, I expect he’ll call up tonight and say that he is coming soon enough,” Cyndia said, shrugging it off.
“What makes you so sure?”
“I told him that there was every chance in the world that I might leave as his girl and come back as someone else’s.”
Mike’s knuckles whitened as he gripped one of the water glasses; he very nearly moved to “accidentally” knock the glass over so that the water would spill on her, but just barely refrained from doing so.
He walked away as the girls started giggling again (one of them even giving Cyndia a high-five), furious. What was Davy doing, going out with a girl like that? …And why did Mike even care?
The Texan boy let out a sigh. It seemed that the more he tried to distance himself from his English roommate, the more concerned about him he got. And what was this about a skiing trip to Lake Tahoe? Davy had certainly mentioned nothing about that-not that Mike should’ve expected him to, anyway. Mike’s knee-jerk reaction would’ve been to tell Davy not to go, especially since Cyndia was clearly trying to blackmail him into doing so, but seeing as though Mike was trying not to get involved, that pretty much went out the window. And yet the thought didn’t leave Mike’s mind.
Clearly, he was fighting a losing battle here, and he wasn’t sure for how much longer he’d be able to hold out.
He returned to the table and now began to take orders. Though his voice was calm and his smile on his face, his eyes betrayed his anger; Cyndia seemed to sense it, and that it was somehow directed towards her for reasons she didn’t understand, but she remained subdued for the remainder of her stay all the same.
********************************
Meanwhile, back at the beachhouse, Davy began to get more than a little concerned when 9:00 came and went with no sign of Mike. Perhaps the older boy was a little delayed from the rain-Davy held onto that thought for the next few hours. But when midnight came and went, as well, it was impossible for the English boy not to think of how many possible fates had befallen his roommate-and none of them were pretty.
In addition to that, there was the fact that Davy was worried for Mike in the first place. Davy was supposed to be a free spirit-tied down by nothing, and that included wool-hat-wearing Texans.
And, yet, here he was, wondering and worrying.
Davy spent the next several minutes trying to look up news reports on the TV-holding his breath in case a breaking story came in about an accident involving a red Pontiac or a mugging victim in a wool hat. But there were no such stories-not that the revelation soothed the younger boy at all; just because they weren't on the news didn’t mean that they were impossible…
The weatherman announced that the rain was bringing down the temperature to an unusually cold 40 degrees-Fahrenheit, which meant very little to Davy, who was trying to convert it in his head to Celsius. He soon abandoned this; he was far too worried to think about math. He grabbed his jacket and began to search for the umbrella; he quickly stopped upon realizing that Mike must’ve taken it with him. He’d have to go on without it.
Wincing as he headed off into the cold rain, he closed the front door behind him, shivering as he ran, getting more and more soaked with each step. He didn’t have to know the Fahrenheit scale to know that he wasn’t dressed for this weather.
He pulled his flimsy jacket around him as tightly as he could, silently praying that he would find Mike soon.
********************************
Mike, of course, had no reason to believe that he had given Davy such a scare by being late; he had never stopped to consider that the younger boy would be having the same trouble at staying distant that he was having himself. More than that, he expected that Davy had Cyndia’s ultimatum on his mind, which he assumed would’ve left little room for anything else.
“Little idiot…” he muttered, as he finally was allowed to leave at 1:00. He yawned, forcing himself to stay awake as he drove back home in the rain, blinking in surprise to see the lights in the beachhouse still on.
“Hey, I’m back,” he announced, as he walked through the front door-having quickly dashed inside to avoid staying out in the rain any longer than he had to.
There was no reply; the door to Davy’s bedroom was open, and he, clearly, wasn’t there.
“Davy?” Mike called, heading upstairs. Of course, he wasn’t there, either. A bit of detective work revealed that Davy’s jacket and shoes weren't around, either. He wasn’t here.
Mike removed his hat to run a hand through his hair. What on earth was he doing out so late? True, he usually waltzed in late at times, but he always made it back around midnight at the latest. And, more than that, he clearly hadn’t been with Cyndia-which would’ve been the only reason for his absence.
Mike glanced out the window at the pouring rain as his mind raced. He would not be able to sleep as long as Davy was out there; he was far too worried-a reality he had tried to avoid ever since he had agreed to take the younger boy in as a roommate. Despite the fact that he only had known the English boy a few short months… despite the fact that he had no obligation to the kid whatsoever, Mike had to concede that he just could not stay distant and aloof any longer.
Their food feud months ago had broken the ice. And Mike had since fallen through it while trying to deny it all this time.
“Okay,” he sighed, to no one in particular. “I give up. You win. The kid has gone and grown on me. Well, my jacket and shoes are still on, so I may as well go and look for him. But for all the trouble I’m going through, he’d better have a good reason for being out there at this time of night!”
He grabbed the umbrella he had propped against the wall and headed back outside and back into the Pontiac.
It was difficult to see with all of the rain around; before Mike knew what happened, another three hours had gone by. He had driven around in circles, making frequent stops back at the beachhouse to see if Davy had come back, but the house was empty each time he looked.
At this point in the night-now able to technically be called early morning-it was sheer worry and adrenaline keeping Mike awake. Worry eventually gave way to panic as, desperate, Mike resorted to leaving the window down and calling out Davy’s name.
It was outside one of the streets that Mike finally heard a familiar voice calling his name in response.
“Mike?!”
The Texan managed to pull over to one of the parallel parking spaces before freezing long enough to collect his senses. He quickly put the car into park and exited the car, opening the umbrella to shield himself from the rain.
Davy, pale and shivering, was illuminated in the Pontiac’s headlights as he stared back at Mike. The expression on Davy’s face was mostly unreadable, but there was no mistaking the fury on Mike’s, even in the dim light.
“Where have you been?!” the older boy demanded.
Davy’s face fell, and he looked down at the ground. He had been so relieved to see Mike safe and well, and he only just realized that the Texan had been annoyed by his efforts to try to find him. Of course, he should’ve expected it; Mike had told him from day one that he didn’t want to get involved in any of Davy’s problems, hadn’t he? Davy didn’t even feel as though he had the right to inquire as to Mike’s whereabouts.
“Well, I’m waiting!” Mike said, still glaring at the younger boy. “Where were you all night?!”
“I was… with my girlfriend, Cyndia,” Davy lied, still shivering. “There was a late night triple-feature downtown-Dracula Leaves, Dracula Comes Back, and Dracula Goes Away Again. And we wanted to see them all, so we just… watched them.”
Mike’s frown furrowed even deeper, knowing that he had just caught the younger boy in a lie.
“Cyndia?” Mike repeated.
“Yeah,” Davy said, managing a smile. “I just dropped her off home. She’s… she’s invited me to Lake Tahoe for the winter break with a whole bunch of her friends, you know. I’ll be going with her, so I’ll stay out of your hair until January.” His voice grew softer as he said that, and Mike thought he heard his voice quiver.
Mike exhaled, glancing at the buildings next to them as he tried to come up with a way to confront Davy with his lie. Why would Davy have lied about where he had been in the first place? He couldn’t have even known that Cyndia had been at the restaurant, thereby proving that he had lied…
Restaurant… Mike mentally repeated.
It was then that something clicked in the Texan’s mind. His eyes widened; in his annoyance and bitterness at being forced to work overtime, he had neglected to give a second thought to the fact that Davy couldn’t have known about it.
All the righteous anger faded from Mike as he realized that Davy had spent half the night out in the cold, pouring rain just to look for him; the truth of the matter was that Davy had been just as concerned about Mike as Mike had been for him. And now, thinking that Mike still wanted to remain aloof, Davy had withdrawn upon finding him, resigned to spending more than two weeks with that little heartbreaker who would surely walk all over him now that she realized she had the power to do so.
Wordlessly, Mike pulled the younger boy into a brotherly hug, disregarding how soaked he was; it was something Davy had clearly not expected.
“…Mike…?”
“I’m sorry, Tiny. I didn’t realize you’d get so worried, but I guess I probably should’ve after seeing how worried I got.”
“W-Worried?” Davy responded, his voice nearly squeaking as it rose a couple octaves in surprise. “Me, worried? I told you, I was with Cyndia-”
“Cyndia was at the restaurant where I was stuck working overtime,” Mike informed him, watching as his eyes widened. “You certainly weren't there, and she was bragging to all of her friends about how she was threatening you into going to Lake Tahoe.”
“…Oh,” Davy said, not sure of what else to say.
“Personally, I think you could do better,” Mike went on. “You deserve better than her. But if you still want to go with her, I won’t stop you. …Well, actually… yes, I will.”
But Mike’s words had sealed Davy’s decision.
“I don’t want to go,” he said, now returning the hug. “Not with her, anyway…”
Mike managed a smile.
“Tell you what,” he said. “We’ve talked for a while about starting up this two-man music act; I say we get it off the ground over your break-maybe we can even pick up a little extra cash along the way. But first… we should try to pick up at least 10 or 15 of those alleged 40 winks; it’s been a long night.”
Davy grinned and nodded, the cold no longer bothering him. And from that moment on, the two no longer had their merely casual acquaintanceship; they had lost the battle to stay aloof-but they had won something far more precious in return: true-blue friendship. And though the coming days brought a Dear John postcard from Cyndia and more grief from Mike’s boss, the two found it far easier to shake off those troubles-and plenty of others, too.
Author: Crystal Rose of Pollux (rose_of_pollux)
Claim: The Monkees: Mike Nesmith and Davy Jones (platonic/friendship; fictional personas from the show only!)
Table: DIY
Prompt: Missing
Rating: G
Summary: You can only stay aloof for so long before that pesky thing called "concern" takes over.
Will be cross-posted to FFN and monkeesfic.
Author’s note: The characters aren’t mine (except for the OCs), and the story is!
*****************************
Malibu, CA; three years prior:
Several weeks of a casual acquaintanceship continued. Plans for making a two-man act were starting to come together. Davy had been reluctant initially to sacrifice his free time, but he soon found making musical plans with Mike to be fun after all. But Davy’s winter break would be rapidly arriving, and he had a feeling that would likely be the time when Mike would want to make significant progress with their act since Davy would be able to afford the time to do so.
Unfortunately, that was also the time that Davy had been hoping to spend some quality time with his current girlfriend, Cyndia. Cyndia and several of her friends had made plans for a skiing trip up in Lake Tahoe, Nevada-and the girls were more than keen on inviting Davy and few other boys along.
Davy hadn’t given his answer yet; had this been a few months ago, he would’ve been packed and ready to go by now, but he was having doubts about going. And he didn’t know why.
It was when the last day of the semester ended that Cyndia reminded him about it as they headed away from school.
“You haven’t told me about Lake Tahoe, Davy…” she said, lugging her suitcase from her dormitory. “We’re leaving the day after tomorrow; I need to tell the lodge how many people there’ll be. Don’t you want to go?”
“Sure, I want to go!” Davy said. “It’s just that…”
He trailed off. Was he… was he actually feeling guilty about being ready to ditch Mike over winter break just like that?
“Just… what?” Cyndia prompted.
“Well, I need to make sure I can. Look, I’ll let you know tonight-or first thing tomorrow morning at the latest, okay?”
Cyndia eyebrows arched.
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll be waiting. But just so you know, if I don’t hear from you, I’m going to assume you’re not going. And if you’re not going, I’m going single. And if there’s someone up there who sees me like that, well… I may not be your girl anymore. Keep that in mind.”
“…I certainly will,” Davy said, just managing not to stammer. “I will find it very difficult to forget that.”
Satisfied, Cyndia walked off, and Davy headed off in an aimless direction, in a slight daze. He had to hope Mike would be understanding about Cyndia’s ultimatum and would see why Davy simply had to go to Lake Tahoe.
A splash of water on his nose brought Davy around; it was starting to rain. The weatherman had predicted a cold, wet, and unpleasant evening and night; the rain just decided to start a little early.
Davy ran home to the beachhouse just as the rain started pouring down. Sighing with relief, he sat down, waiting for Mike to come back. Mike would, hopefully, return from his waiter job with some food from the restaurant as he usually did-with their stove and range gone, good cooking was hard to come by. Davy had to resort to the using a hot plate to heat up a packet of instant ramen to hold back his hunger until Mike returned-which wouldn’t be until 9:00.
That left him with nearly six hours to figure out how to explain to him about the Cyndia dilemma…
…Or so he thought. For back at the restaurant, Mike was finding that his own plans for the evening were being turned upside-down.
The day had been busy, and six hours had gone by in the blink of an eye. It was nearing the time for Mike to leave, and he had gotten their meal fixings all set up to go, his pocketful of tips larger than usual due to the rush. His boss was on the phone, and so the boy decided that this was the best time to leave-he wasn’t looking too forward to driving in the miserable rain, so the earlier he could leave, the better.
“Hold it, Nesmith,” his boss said.
Mike winced. He knew that couldn’t be good.
“We’ve got a large dinner party coming in here tonight; I need every available man working overtime-you’re staying until 1:00.”
“Overtime?!” Mike exclaimed. “Are you serious? Who eats dinner until one in the morning, anyway?!”
“We’re a twenty-four hour restaurant; we get people at all hours. Would you like to switch to graveyard shift and see?”
“Ah, no thanks; I’ll work overtime,” Mike said, shaking his head. He’d just have to hope that the next few hours would go just as quickly as the last several hours had.
He got back to work as a flock of giggling girls came in from the rain. His boss indicated the group to him, silently saying that he would be waiting on them next, and to prepare for the large party.
Mike silently got a tray full of water glasses and a stack of menus and started distributing them to the girls, barely paying attention to what they were saying-until he heard his roommate’s name mentioned.
“Cyndia, did your English boyfriend say if he was coming with us to Lake Tahoe? …Oh, what’s his name again?”
“You mean David?” the girl name Cyndia responded. “He still hasn’t given me an answer. I don’t know why he wouldn’t want to go with us; what’s keeping him here?”
“Maybe he can’t ski…” a third girl suggested.
“Well, I expect he’ll call up tonight and say that he is coming soon enough,” Cyndia said, shrugging it off.
“What makes you so sure?”
“I told him that there was every chance in the world that I might leave as his girl and come back as someone else’s.”
Mike’s knuckles whitened as he gripped one of the water glasses; he very nearly moved to “accidentally” knock the glass over so that the water would spill on her, but just barely refrained from doing so.
He walked away as the girls started giggling again (one of them even giving Cyndia a high-five), furious. What was Davy doing, going out with a girl like that? …And why did Mike even care?
The Texan boy let out a sigh. It seemed that the more he tried to distance himself from his English roommate, the more concerned about him he got. And what was this about a skiing trip to Lake Tahoe? Davy had certainly mentioned nothing about that-not that Mike should’ve expected him to, anyway. Mike’s knee-jerk reaction would’ve been to tell Davy not to go, especially since Cyndia was clearly trying to blackmail him into doing so, but seeing as though Mike was trying not to get involved, that pretty much went out the window. And yet the thought didn’t leave Mike’s mind.
Clearly, he was fighting a losing battle here, and he wasn’t sure for how much longer he’d be able to hold out.
He returned to the table and now began to take orders. Though his voice was calm and his smile on his face, his eyes betrayed his anger; Cyndia seemed to sense it, and that it was somehow directed towards her for reasons she didn’t understand, but she remained subdued for the remainder of her stay all the same.
********************************
Meanwhile, back at the beachhouse, Davy began to get more than a little concerned when 9:00 came and went with no sign of Mike. Perhaps the older boy was a little delayed from the rain-Davy held onto that thought for the next few hours. But when midnight came and went, as well, it was impossible for the English boy not to think of how many possible fates had befallen his roommate-and none of them were pretty.
In addition to that, there was the fact that Davy was worried for Mike in the first place. Davy was supposed to be a free spirit-tied down by nothing, and that included wool-hat-wearing Texans.
And, yet, here he was, wondering and worrying.
Davy spent the next several minutes trying to look up news reports on the TV-holding his breath in case a breaking story came in about an accident involving a red Pontiac or a mugging victim in a wool hat. But there were no such stories-not that the revelation soothed the younger boy at all; just because they weren't on the news didn’t mean that they were impossible…
The weatherman announced that the rain was bringing down the temperature to an unusually cold 40 degrees-Fahrenheit, which meant very little to Davy, who was trying to convert it in his head to Celsius. He soon abandoned this; he was far too worried to think about math. He grabbed his jacket and began to search for the umbrella; he quickly stopped upon realizing that Mike must’ve taken it with him. He’d have to go on without it.
Wincing as he headed off into the cold rain, he closed the front door behind him, shivering as he ran, getting more and more soaked with each step. He didn’t have to know the Fahrenheit scale to know that he wasn’t dressed for this weather.
He pulled his flimsy jacket around him as tightly as he could, silently praying that he would find Mike soon.
********************************
Mike, of course, had no reason to believe that he had given Davy such a scare by being late; he had never stopped to consider that the younger boy would be having the same trouble at staying distant that he was having himself. More than that, he expected that Davy had Cyndia’s ultimatum on his mind, which he assumed would’ve left little room for anything else.
“Little idiot…” he muttered, as he finally was allowed to leave at 1:00. He yawned, forcing himself to stay awake as he drove back home in the rain, blinking in surprise to see the lights in the beachhouse still on.
“Hey, I’m back,” he announced, as he walked through the front door-having quickly dashed inside to avoid staying out in the rain any longer than he had to.
There was no reply; the door to Davy’s bedroom was open, and he, clearly, wasn’t there.
“Davy?” Mike called, heading upstairs. Of course, he wasn’t there, either. A bit of detective work revealed that Davy’s jacket and shoes weren't around, either. He wasn’t here.
Mike removed his hat to run a hand through his hair. What on earth was he doing out so late? True, he usually waltzed in late at times, but he always made it back around midnight at the latest. And, more than that, he clearly hadn’t been with Cyndia-which would’ve been the only reason for his absence.
Mike glanced out the window at the pouring rain as his mind raced. He would not be able to sleep as long as Davy was out there; he was far too worried-a reality he had tried to avoid ever since he had agreed to take the younger boy in as a roommate. Despite the fact that he only had known the English boy a few short months… despite the fact that he had no obligation to the kid whatsoever, Mike had to concede that he just could not stay distant and aloof any longer.
Their food feud months ago had broken the ice. And Mike had since fallen through it while trying to deny it all this time.
“Okay,” he sighed, to no one in particular. “I give up. You win. The kid has gone and grown on me. Well, my jacket and shoes are still on, so I may as well go and look for him. But for all the trouble I’m going through, he’d better have a good reason for being out there at this time of night!”
He grabbed the umbrella he had propped against the wall and headed back outside and back into the Pontiac.
It was difficult to see with all of the rain around; before Mike knew what happened, another three hours had gone by. He had driven around in circles, making frequent stops back at the beachhouse to see if Davy had come back, but the house was empty each time he looked.
At this point in the night-now able to technically be called early morning-it was sheer worry and adrenaline keeping Mike awake. Worry eventually gave way to panic as, desperate, Mike resorted to leaving the window down and calling out Davy’s name.
It was outside one of the streets that Mike finally heard a familiar voice calling his name in response.
“Mike?!”
The Texan managed to pull over to one of the parallel parking spaces before freezing long enough to collect his senses. He quickly put the car into park and exited the car, opening the umbrella to shield himself from the rain.
Davy, pale and shivering, was illuminated in the Pontiac’s headlights as he stared back at Mike. The expression on Davy’s face was mostly unreadable, but there was no mistaking the fury on Mike’s, even in the dim light.
“Where have you been?!” the older boy demanded.
Davy’s face fell, and he looked down at the ground. He had been so relieved to see Mike safe and well, and he only just realized that the Texan had been annoyed by his efforts to try to find him. Of course, he should’ve expected it; Mike had told him from day one that he didn’t want to get involved in any of Davy’s problems, hadn’t he? Davy didn’t even feel as though he had the right to inquire as to Mike’s whereabouts.
“Well, I’m waiting!” Mike said, still glaring at the younger boy. “Where were you all night?!”
“I was… with my girlfriend, Cyndia,” Davy lied, still shivering. “There was a late night triple-feature downtown-Dracula Leaves, Dracula Comes Back, and Dracula Goes Away Again. And we wanted to see them all, so we just… watched them.”
Mike’s frown furrowed even deeper, knowing that he had just caught the younger boy in a lie.
“Cyndia?” Mike repeated.
“Yeah,” Davy said, managing a smile. “I just dropped her off home. She’s… she’s invited me to Lake Tahoe for the winter break with a whole bunch of her friends, you know. I’ll be going with her, so I’ll stay out of your hair until January.” His voice grew softer as he said that, and Mike thought he heard his voice quiver.
Mike exhaled, glancing at the buildings next to them as he tried to come up with a way to confront Davy with his lie. Why would Davy have lied about where he had been in the first place? He couldn’t have even known that Cyndia had been at the restaurant, thereby proving that he had lied…
Restaurant… Mike mentally repeated.
It was then that something clicked in the Texan’s mind. His eyes widened; in his annoyance and bitterness at being forced to work overtime, he had neglected to give a second thought to the fact that Davy couldn’t have known about it.
All the righteous anger faded from Mike as he realized that Davy had spent half the night out in the cold, pouring rain just to look for him; the truth of the matter was that Davy had been just as concerned about Mike as Mike had been for him. And now, thinking that Mike still wanted to remain aloof, Davy had withdrawn upon finding him, resigned to spending more than two weeks with that little heartbreaker who would surely walk all over him now that she realized she had the power to do so.
Wordlessly, Mike pulled the younger boy into a brotherly hug, disregarding how soaked he was; it was something Davy had clearly not expected.
“…Mike…?”
“I’m sorry, Tiny. I didn’t realize you’d get so worried, but I guess I probably should’ve after seeing how worried I got.”
“W-Worried?” Davy responded, his voice nearly squeaking as it rose a couple octaves in surprise. “Me, worried? I told you, I was with Cyndia-”
“Cyndia was at the restaurant where I was stuck working overtime,” Mike informed him, watching as his eyes widened. “You certainly weren't there, and she was bragging to all of her friends about how she was threatening you into going to Lake Tahoe.”
“…Oh,” Davy said, not sure of what else to say.
“Personally, I think you could do better,” Mike went on. “You deserve better than her. But if you still want to go with her, I won’t stop you. …Well, actually… yes, I will.”
But Mike’s words had sealed Davy’s decision.
“I don’t want to go,” he said, now returning the hug. “Not with her, anyway…”
Mike managed a smile.
“Tell you what,” he said. “We’ve talked for a while about starting up this two-man music act; I say we get it off the ground over your break-maybe we can even pick up a little extra cash along the way. But first… we should try to pick up at least 10 or 15 of those alleged 40 winks; it’s been a long night.”
Davy grinned and nodded, the cold no longer bothering him. And from that moment on, the two no longer had their merely casual acquaintanceship; they had lost the battle to stay aloof-but they had won something far more precious in return: true-blue friendship. And though the coming days brought a Dear John postcard from Cyndia and more grief from Mike’s boss, the two found it far easier to shake off those troubles-and plenty of others, too.