"Yep!"

"Paaaaan. Cayyyyyks."

"Are you having as much fun as it looks like?"

"Yessssssss."

Trouble grins. "It's adorable."

Ax smiles, a little. <Is there any more food or should I demorph?>

"Mmm... nothing more right now," says Trouble.

Ax goes back out to the garage.

"How'd talking with Ax last night go?" Bella asks Trouble.

"It went. I dunno."

"Affordances for privately discussing it are kind of limited when the house is this crowded unless we morph and thoughtspeak."

Trouble shrugs. "I don't need, like, secrecy," he says, "I just don't wanna talk about it in front of everybody. Can we go sit somewhere less crowded? Upstairs maybe?"

"Sure." Bella gets up and heads to the master bedroom where she and Andi have been temporarily sleeping.

Trouble follows.

Bella sits on the edge of the bed.

"Is the mutual not-getting going to cause problems?"

"Who knows? I know I'm better about it since we talked. I guess he might be too. He likes my pancakes, anyway."

"Yes. He does."

Trouble shrugs. "That's all I got."

"Okay." Bella writes something. "Thanks."

"Hmm?"

"Mmmm... thinking about how we left off last night."

"What about it?"