“Dad!” Jodie shouted, her voice echoing in the wide open room. “C’mon over here!”

“Little busy, Jojo!” Victor shouted back from where he stood by the beer. As far as Mitch could tell, he was playing some sort of makeshift bartender role with the homebrew beer that Jodie had brought.

“Are you checking IDs?” Mitch asked incredulously as he walked past the small gathering.

“This is a reputable establishment, Mitchell!” Victor retorted, then squeezed past the crowd and caught up to him. “Did you know that the drinking age in the Dominican is 18? These poor kiddos.”

“You can buy wine in France when you’re 16,” mused Mitch.

“Too bad for you, huh? Came over here and had to wait an extra 5 years!” He gave Mitch’s back a hard slap. “Oh, I remember being so pissed when I first came here at 19 and found that out. Not that I couldn’t get it, but…” His head whipped around, and his voice lowered to a whisper, “We can discuss that at the after party.”

Mitch snorted as Victor tossed him a wink. “Alright,” he conceded, and Mitch slowed his pace to crawl while Victor rushed to meet Jodie. Hanging back, he set the diningware on the table that the snacks had been arranged onto. He half listened to the speech that Jodie was giving, more of an affectionate roast than anything else, and the other half of his attention was on the cupcake that he’d been placed in charge of. Not interested in being the gentrified confection’s assigned ward, he considered also putting it down and walking away. As the scales heavily tipped towards going through with abandonment, a chorus of ‘Happy birthday to you…’ interrupted his thoughts.

“Sweet party,” came a voice -yet again- from behind him, with an accompanying hand on his left shoulder; this time, he didn’t jump, which merited being self-congratulatory.

“Jodie knows how to throw ’em.” Mitch didn’t even have to look to know it was Avi, but he considered that whole manners thing and did anyway to acknowledge him. Then, he lit up in recognition as he realized that he could be freed from his duties. “Oh! Hey, this is for you.” The cupcake box, pinned by the sling between his right hand and his body, was fumbled with as he attempted to present it.

“I can-” Avi laughed. He reached towards the box, getting his fingers on it.

“No! No, it’s-” Mitch instinctively wrenched away. “It’s fine, I-“

“It’s cool, dude. Got it, see?” The container was removed before Mitch even noticed that it was gone; but for whatever reason, he stood there hunched and tense, ready to bolt away. Thankfully, he caught himself as Avi was focused on opening the box, and he willed himself to loosen up. “Oh wow, did you actually go out and get a vegan cupcake for me?”

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“Well uh…Jodie did, actually,” Mitch impulsively lied, then mentally smacked himself for being so profoundly weird when it came to his instincts. Of course he’d been the one to go to the stupid hipster bakery and paid out of pocket for an overpriced vegan dessert. He’d been earning his damn keep, after all!

“I’ll be sure to thank her,” nodded Avi, and the stress melted out of Mitch, draining to the floor and congealing into a sickly puddle and leaving him clammy; if he lifted his shoe, it’d probably make an awful squelching noise from the metaphorical manifestation of his non-existent ego. Affirmation was simply something that he did not want under any circumstance, but fuck if he could figure out why; it didn’t make him feel good to have it, not did he feel any better when he was denied it, either. The few people that were aware of his tendency to behave this way had let him know that it was weird, which only made it all the more impossible to bring up.

Applause erupted when the song ended, and as Avi took a break from delicately extracting the cupcake from its packaging to join in, Mitch took the opportunity to study his face for the fleeting few seconds. He wondered if his neurosis was just as transparent with someone that hardly knew him. There was no way that he didn’t come across as a total freak, but how was he supposed to fix that at 29 years old?

“This is so nice!” Flimsy cardboard defeated at last, Avi looked over and beamed. There wasn’t a hint of reproach in his expression or body language, so maybe Mitch’s awful reaction or minor deception weren’t so obvious. At the very least, they weren’t about to signal the end of the world.

“Yeah,” Mitch agreed, quickly looking away. “I think it’s from somewhere that’s pretty close to the house. ‘Frosting’ or something like that?”

“Oooh! Does it have chalkboards everywhere, and a logo with a big ‘X’ in it?”

“You know the place?” asked Mitch with a raised eyebrow.

“Nah, just guessing. They’re all the same,” Avi flashed a smile before putting the cupcake to his mouth and taking a bite. Despite exercising caution, he still got crumbs in his beard, which he wiped away. After swallowing, he remarked, “But this is great. Wanna try?”

“I’m good,” Mitch shook his head. “Thanks, though.”

Avi shrugged, then wandered off in Jodie’s direction, and Mitch backed away even further, to the outskirts of the crowd that’d popped up all around. His nerves, jittery and swollen, were only mildly calmed the further he got from other people. Victor spoke loudly, thanking everyone for coming, and for Jodie putting the entire thing together, but Mitch barely paid heard it as his hearing faded in and out. Eventually, he ended up back in the kitchen, and slumped onto the grubby loveseat that had been jammed in there.

“What the fuck,” he grumbled as he rubbed his eyes, frustrated that he couldn’t keep his shit together for more than a few minutes at a time. It’d been a good day, surrounded by friends that he assumed cared about him, or at least tolerated him. There wasn’t any feasible reason to become overwhelmed so quickly, so heavily.

Yet, all that he wanted to do was cry. He couldn’t pinpoint the trigger, so he chalked it up to just needing a little solitude to gather himself.