Three's a crowd

"No. Nothing is alright right now, so I might be outside of your house." Dae could hear the tears in Leilani's voice over the phone. "I didn't want to knock in case Dadzilla is on a drunken rampage but..."

"Oh, Lei..." Dae's heart sank even further at the fact that she was already outside, "I wish you'd have told me earlier I'm not home..."

Dae watches Evan cock an eyebrow, motioning for the phone not a second later. Dae shook his head, hearing Leilani asking him where he is before Evan wrenches the phone from him.

Dae stays shocked for a moment while Evan brings the phone to his ear, "Hey Leilani. It's Evan...And I have to apologize for stealing him. However, Dae was about to be really dumb right then...So I'll ask what he should have. If you're up for it, Dae and I are watching shitty movies and you're welcome to join us here, but I completely understand if you need to steal your bestie back."

Dae realized how loud his phone actually was, hearing Leilani respond with a small hi to Evan before going silent for a moment. He held his breath unsure if she would accept Evan's proposal and--for the first time in his life--unsure if he wanted her to. As much as he adored his best friend, he and Evan were finally making progress.

But then he heard her say with a small, half-hearted laugh "I don't really know where 'here' is, but I do love a good shitty movie."

Evan is the next to laugh and it strangely warmed Dae's cheeks to hear such uncontained joy from the redhead, after having seen him so distant moments before. "Well, I can't promise that they're good--but they will definitely be shitty. I'll head out now to grab you--or we--I guess Dae can come too."

Evan smirks at Dae, any remnants of their conversation revisiting his trauma gone from his face--locked under a mask of calm in the present moment. Then he popped off the couch and started walking through his house with Dae's phone, "We're next door and heading out now."

Dae shook off his disbelief and stood from the couch. He followed Evan slowly through the house as the redhead smiled at Leilani's response on the phone. "No, no. I'm sure Ms. Greene would a hundred percent love if you stormed in asking for her secret lovechild and your best friend."

Dae shook his head and quickened his step in time for Evan to open the door and hang up the phone. The redhead waved briefly at Leilani, but the moment she saw Dae in the doorway she rushed over and threw herself around him and started to cry. "I'm sorry, Dae. I just couldn't..."

She trailed off as Dae wrapped his arms tightly around her too. He knew it was probably about Ant, but she already felt bad needing him, so he wasn't going to force her to talk about it in front of practically a stranger. Dae rubbed slow circles on her shoulder blades like he usually did when she was a wreck, to help calm her down and said, "Hey. It's okay. You're okay."

Evan slowly shut the door, a sad smile on his face as he looked between the two of them before he took a couple of steps back and said in almost a whisper. "I'll make us some tea."