Chapter 1

Vic is sure there is a special spot reserved in hell for Monday mornings.

His avela has a select choice of rapid-fire Virellian words for them.

First misfire: he overslept, which happens often enough that he has enough sense to set his alarm earlier than necessary to account for it, but all the time in the world couldn't seem to catch him today.

Ben has no clean shirts to wear to school, all of them either in a pile in his room or inside the dryer Vic never started after getting home from a late shift last night and instead passing out directly into his bed.

He's shaking the wrinkles out of a shirt he found crumpled under Ben's bed as they rush out the door, eating cereal for breakfast without milk from a SnapSeal bag, while simultaneously battling Vic's near and dear friend— Westport morning commute traffic!

And as if the universe decided it wasn't enough nonsense to throw on a Monday morning at Vic to warrant a few premature gray hairs, he was supposed to sign up for parent-teacher conferences today.

This is when avela spits her few choice words.

Or really,

many.

In an effort to go paperless, Benjamin's school had set up some sort of online sign-up page for the parents to log into and choose a time slot to meet with their children's teachers next month.

But within minutes and every parent in the school trying to long in at once, the site inevitably crashed, leaving hundreds of people on hold with the unsuspecting school secretary now tasked with fielding calls and scheduling meetings their technology could not.

Vic feels for them, but at the same time, if they'd just sent Ben home with a half a sheet of paper, hell, a

quarter

sheet could suffice, for Vic to sign up on, they'd have avoided this massively migraine-inducing start to their Monday morning, right?

Vic noted some parents stayed behind after drop-off to schedule their conferences in person, but Vic had to rush to work, so he's got his avela on the line with the school, and listens to her complain about their choice in call hold music for the entire twenty-minutes he's at a stand-still on the highway.

The car barely rolls to a stop in its parking spot before Vic's got his bag over one shoulder and is all but running inside to change into uniform, head upstairs, wait and wait and wait some more for his latest parenting crisis and his most god-awful morning in a while to be behind him.

He's just going to hop up the stairs real quick and find a nice comfortable spot on the couch to to sulk in Monday morning blues (and maybe mute his avela, its not personal he's just on thin ice with patience today.)

He is immediately met with the sight of his teammates huddled around the kitchen counter by a basket of breakfast pastries that look like they could literally solve every problem in Vic's god-awful morning (Carbs!

No magic quite like 'em!) and is already feeling the slightest bit better at the sight.

He's just happy to see his friends, his

family

, all in what appear to be much better moods than his, of course.

His sudden uptick in mood has absolutely nothing to do with the way a certain blonde-haired firefighter catches his eye almost immediately upon his arrival, before Vic even makes landing on the last step.

Absolutely not.

Its his friends.

Plural.

He hopes his friends-plural miss how he almost trips over a chair when he sees that smile aimed directly at him, like its nothing and everything all at once, suppressing the urge to grin back.

He catches himself in a seat on the couch, phone in hand.

He's content to leave his avela to her own devices on hold with the school for a minute in favor of sinking into the warm feeling of being here, hoping a little good spirit can rub off on him.

He looks on at the three of his teammates with a hint of a smile still playing on his lips and its evident almost immediately what's happening.

Not that it's really a shock to Vic in the slightest.

Even from this far away and only half focused on their antics, the better half of his attentions still clinging to the hold music on avela's line, there's no mistaking the criminally red tinge to Nate's cheeks, the pressing laugher that hangs on the edges of Morgan and Des's smiles—they're teasing Nate.

Vic isn't sure what for, exactly, but whatever it is has got them wrapped up in their own little bubble, so it must be good, whatever Nate did to warrant it this time. Morgan is hunched over the counter, her fingers drumming excitedly and her laugh loud and oddly comforting to hear this morning.

It's having the complete

opposite

reaction on Nate though, Vic notes, as the guy squints his eyes shut like he can physically shield himself from their banter, his blush spreading while Des shakes him by the shoulders on Morgan's right, muttering something Vic can't make out.

Nate looks like he's one second away from throwing an everything bagel at Des and he gets redder, saying something Vic believes is along the lines of "

not today

" which Morgan only counters with "

you say that every day

"Vicel?

You still there?"

"Yeah, yeah, sorry, just got to work," Vic shift his weight forward on the couch, pulls the phone up to his ear and shakes his head out of his thoughts, struggling to pull his eyes away from those absolutely ridiculous Porter dimples he can see from all the way over here still—

"I just got the secretary, she said I am now third in line."

"Great," Vic lets out an anxious breath, "Good, you know we need the—"

"Seven pm slot on Tuesday night," his avela finishes seamlessly, "Contrary to whatever you may believe, I'm

crazy."

Yet

She hums on the line and Vic laughs, twisting the sole of his shoe on the floor nervously, "Okay, I'm not gonna keep you, I got it."

"Avela—"

"You're at work, I know what I'm doing," she argues in a tone Vic is used to never fighting his way back from, "I'll just text you when I get the time."

"Since when do you know how to

text

?" Vic's eyebrows furrow together.

"Your friend Nathan showed me how, at dinner last week," she says, very matter-fo-fact, like it isn't supposed to make Vic's heart somersault thinking about his best friend teaching his grandmother how to send emojis while he was at family dinner.

"No one calls him Nathan, avela," Vic tucks his cheek to one shoulder before he sports a blush of his own, "That would make him sound like an actual adult, which is giving him too much credit."

"Well he was very helpful, unlike

someone

I know," she sings, pointedly, "And very nice.

And liked my food.

So I'll call him Nathan."

"Whatever makes you happy avela."

"So I'll text you," she says, "Relax, go eat some breakfast, you're always grumpy without breakfast."

breakfast."

"Two cheerios you stole from your son doesn't count."

"I didn't—"

"Give Nathan a kiss on the cheek for me."

He's lucky he's already sitting, his voice rising uncharacteristically, "Abeula, I'm not gonna—"

"Vaela, Vicel," she hangs up after the sound of her blowing a kiss, and leaves Vic to collect himself from that whirlwind of a conversation, running the back of one hand down his face and dropping his phone to his side on the other.

With his senses mostly restored (because yeah avela, that's cool!

Lemme just walk up to the kitchen counter and kiss

Nathan

on the cheek!

He'll never figure out I'm harboring the world's worst kept secret feelings for him then!

Brilliant!), Vic claps a hand on his knee, stands up and shakes out his nervous energy as he wanders slowly over to where his teammates seem to still be fully immersed in poking at whatever antics Nate has gotten himself into today.

"Not with you here," Vic can make out Nate's grumbling, with his back to him, "Making those

eyes

at me."

"But my eyes are so pretty, aren't they Morgan?" Des comically bats his lashes and it makes Vic really laugh for the first time today, as he jumps up from his seat and heads over.

"Oh, sure they are Des, but you know whose eyes are even

prettier

?" but Morgan is looking directly at Nate when she says it.

"Whose?" Vic decides to jump into conversation when he arrives at the counter finally feeling a little better, (and it has nothing to with the way he'd been tracking Nate's smile from the moment he'd arrived, and everything to do with his avela helping fix his problems, obviously,) "Mine?" he plays along with a wink.

Morgan's answer catches him by surprise, because he was obviously kidding, but she just says, "Exactly yours, dreamy brown eyes.

Look at em," she pinches his cheeks adoringly.

"Oh, I agree, don't

you, Nate

?" Des says, and Vic's so busy looking at Nate for a reaction to cling to that he doesn't notice Des's face when he says it.

"Yeah," he breathes, after a long beat, barely a word at all in his huff, "You want a bagel, Vic?

Celeste brought us breakfast."

"Woah, hey,

brought them," Des objects earning him an elbow from Nate, "Technically Celeste bought them before work for us, and I

brought them

here."

"Well thank you Celeste and Des but uh, I am having the Monday from hell so I am going to very responsibly take all my energy and go punch something downstairs," Vic says bouncing on his toes, "Just wanted to say good morning first," and he'd be lying to you if he didn't drop his gaze deliberately before starting to back up slowly towards the stairs.

"Aw, but Des's face is right here," Nate squares Des towards the group and makes a faux pass at hitting him square in the nose.

Morgan leans back on the counter behind her with a laugh at their antics, but adds a genuine, "Anything we can do, Vic?"

"Oh no, yeah it's just, not my best morning," he huffs, "Nothing going my way," and he explains as much to his friends who listen attentively, cataloguing the ins and outs of the mile-long list of things gone wrong today before it's even hit noon.

Just letting it all out releases a bit of the tension, feels like half the battle.