Mike cooks dinner

Having just finished up his quick shower and swapping his board shorts for comfortable pants and a thin military jacket over a tank top, Mike heads back downstairs and to the kitchen. A few people seem to be hanging around, Dani jumped in the shower just after him and it seems Kate is taking hers downstairs, but Christian, Amy, Brianna and James are all hanging around and chatting.

No one disturbs him besides a few friendly smiles and waves, but that suits him just fine, leaving him to focus on dinner prep. He starts by getting out everything he'll need, impressed when he finds a proper skillet and some chef knives. _This'll come in handy, _he thinks to himself. Mike sets everything up, cutting board, the packet of steaks, the skillet, a knife, some salt and some butter as well as a cluster of potatoes.

Mike puts on a large pot of water on the boil, using that time to heavily salt all of the steaks and sit around for a moment checking his phone while everything heats up. There's a message from his Dad, sent about an hour ago.

Dad: "How's everything so far kiddo? Enjoying yourself?"

The boy taps into his phone,

Mikey: "So far so good, played some games, went swimming in the pool. I'm just making everyone dinner then we're going to drink a bit."

Mike had no concerns telling his Dad about the fact they'd been drinking ****, for an Australian 18 was the legal drinking age anyway, and his father didn't care if Michael partook as long as he was responsible. A text bubble appears a few moments later, the responding message coming in soon after.

Dad: "Sounds like fun. What are you making?"

Mikey: "There were some steaks Danielle brought along, just gonna fry them up with some boiled potatoes, should do the trick."

Dad: "Should be nice, let's you show off some of those cooking skills! You ever thought about going into culinary school? I mean you did pretty well at that summer job last year."

Mikey: "Meh, I've thought about it, but Uncle Benji told me that the food industry was pretty rough, I'm guessing it's the same between both countries."

Dad: "Aye, he's got a point but still, you're not a bad cook, might be worth thinking about in case you draw a blank once you start college. Most jobs are going to be rough, so choose one you're at least going to be good at, passionate about."

Mikey: "I'll keep thinking about it over the holiday. How's things back at the house? Keeping busy?"

Dad: "Yeah, I got started on one of those shows you told me about, that one where the Superman guy is evil. I like the British one."

Mike chuckled to himself, of course his father liked the rough and tumble asshole character, turning his head to one side, he notices the water has started to boil,

Mikey: "I figured as much. Look I gotta go for now, water's boiling, but I'll try and check in with you tomorrow okay?"

His father sent a thumbs up emoji in response, leading to Mike smiling and pocketing his phone. He quickly washes the potatoes and drops them into the pot, starting up the burner on the stove as he gets ready to start on the steaks.

Dani arrives downstairs, having slipped those denim booty shorts on but otherwise still dressed in her bikini, a pair of flip flops on her feet. She notices Michael already cooking and nods with a smile, happy to see that dinner won't be too far off, but before she can approach him her attention is drawn by Christian. Dani's face drops a little, but she approaches him and Amy anyway,

"What?" she says impatiently, still a little sore about their conversation in the pool,

Christian raises his hands up in a peaceful gesture, "I just wanted to say I was sorry for earlier. I got frustrated, but I shouldn't have brought your past up like that. Can you forgive me?"

After a few moments of thought, she nods, "Yeah, sure it's whatever. Let's just leave it, no need to go souring our time here like that."

They smile and Christian reaches to shake her hand, which she takes, the both of them agreeing to leave it there. Though now she's feeling like approaching Mike right now wouldn't be the best idea, given her mood was slightly lowered, so she figured she'd just wait until later.

Mike flips the two steaks he has in the pan, another two already resting on the cutting board for a few minutes. The potatoes are nearly done, so he gets to work pulling some plates and cutlery out. He drops another tablespoon of butter into the pan, letting it cover the steaks as it melts to give them a bit of extra flavour, they're only store bought, so anything to make them better is warranted.

Lost in his own little world, he barely registers Kate shuffling nearby as the goth starts pulling out bottles of ****.

"Almost done?" she asks, breaking his concentration for a moment,

"Fuck, didn't see you there, sorry." he startles, recovering quickly and nodding at her, "Yeah, yeah it'll only be a few more minutes. Mind letting everyone know?"

"Sure." she shrugs, collecting a few shot glasses and some tumblers for the vodka and rum respectively. "What're you drinking?"

Mike looks over the selection for a moment, before pointing to the rum, "Some of that I reckon, vodka just tastes like turps to me now."

"Turps?" Kate parrots, tilting her head to the side in confusion,

"Uhh, turpentine." he explains, "You know when you have too much of one ****, you get super trashed and you can't stand it after that? That's vodka for me"

"Ahhh, yeah for me that's gin. Even smelling it makes me gag" Kate chuckles, "Alright then big man, I'll let you finish up. Don't take too long though, I'm fucking starving."

Michael smirks, removing the two finishes steaks and adding them to the pile, "Yes ma'am, I've just got three left so that's, what? Six minutes? Thereabouts?"

"Cool, see you over there." the goth girl smiles, leaving Mike to smile back bashfully as he'd never really had much of a conversation with Kate before.
She was a good looking girl, something about that punk getup, the piercings, hair dye and dark makeup kind of did it for him. Plus with everyone constantly on his ass about Dani, he figured he'd try and be a little more open while he was here. Dani might not want to go for anything serious, so why not just enjoy things for once?