Chapter 56: Netflix wasn’t a bad investment

Chapter 56: Chapter 56: Netflix wasn’t a bad investment

Freya took her first bite and went quiet for a second, chewing slowly before setting her fork down just long enough to actually look at him.

"Okay. This is really good." She shook her head slightly, more at herself than at him. "I came here fully ready to laugh at you."

"I know right..."

"I’m serious. This is genuinely impressive." She took another bite, clearly not needing further convincing after that.

That was the last of it. The verdict had been handed down, and the conversation moved on. It drifted easily, the way conversations did once the main event of the evening had already been decided.

"So what do you actually do after dinner?" Freya asked, twirling her fork idly. "Like, normal nights. Not tonight."

"Depends on the night."

"That’s not an answer."

"It’s still an answer." Garrett shrugged slightly. "Sometimes I study. Sometimes I don’t. Watch something if there’s nothing better to do."

"Oh wow."

He raised an eyebrow at the word, and she caught herself a second later, waving it off. "I mean, sounds pretty normal, is what I meant."

"Most people’s evenings are normal."

"Yeah, but you’re weirdly hard to picture doing normal things. Like, I can’t picture you just sitting around watching something. You seem like you’re always thinking about six other things at once."

"I contain multitudes."

"Sure you do." She smiled at that, genuine amusement in it, and kept going, one question leading naturally into another. What he did when he wasn’t studying. Whether he actually relaxed or just called sitting still "relaxing" while his mind kept working anyway. Whether he had shows he actually watched or just background noise he ignored.

Garrett answered each of them without turning it into more than it needed to be, no long explanations, no performance behind it, just the plain shape of his life laid out simply enough that she could actually picture it.

Somewhere in the middle of it, he noticed the shift.

She wasn’t asking because she was bored, or because the silence needed filling. She was asking because she actually wanted to know, leaning slightly forward now, her earlier skepticism from the kitchen replaced entirely by something more attentive.

This wasn’t about the bet anymore. Wasn’t about proving whether he could actually cook, or whether the evening would give her something to tease him about later.

She was just here, talking to him, because she wanted to be.

Once the plates were mostly empty and the conversation had drifted into that easy, unhurried stretch of the evening, Garrett found himself considering what came next.

He thought about the Netflix subscription he’d signed up for after Sunday, a small, practical decision at the time, made on the assumption that there might be another evening down the line where having something to put on would actually be useful. He hadn’t really expected to use it again this soon, and definitely not for Freya

"I’ve got Netflix, if you want to watch something," he said, mostly as an easy option, nothing loaded behind it.

Freya’s face lit up slightly at that, more interest in it than the offer probably warranted. "Oh, yes. What have you got queued up?"

"Nothing specific. Haven’t really used it much."

"Okay, well, what do you actually watch, then? Give me something to work with."

He gave her a few names, mostly things he’d half-watched before losing interest, and she countered with a couple of her own, the two of them going back and forth for a minute before landing on something neither of them had strong objections to.

Garrett grabbed the remote and pulled it up on the television while Freya settled herself onto the couch, this time not bothering with any pretense about where she was sitting. She chose the spot right beside him, close enough that there was no ambiguity about it, tucking one leg up under herself the same easy way she had back in her own apartment.

The show started, and for a while, that was simply what they did. Watched.

It wasn’t dramatic. Nothing about it demanded much attention beyond what either of them chose to give it. Freya commented occasionally, quick observations about a character or a plot choice that didn’t make sense, and Garrett offered a dry response here and there, enough to keep the exchange going without either of them actually needing to focus hard on the screen.

At one point, something genuinely funny happened on screen, and Freya laughed properly, the sound easy and unguarded, her shoulder briefly pressing into his as she leaned into the moment before settling back.

During the quieter stretches, when the show slowed and neither of them had much to say about it, Garrett noticed her attention drifting toward him more than once.

The glances lingered a little longer than they needed to.

He noticed.

He didn’t comment on it.

Instead, he turned his attention back to the screen and let the episode continue, quietly filing the observation away.

Somewhere past the halfway point of the show, Freya reached for her drink on the low table in front of them, and instead of settling back into the same spot after, she came to rest a little closer than before.

Garrett noticed it, filed it under coincidence, and let it go.

A few minutes later, she shifted again, angling slightly toward him instead of the screen, her knee brushing against his leg as she got comfortable.

Small. Easy to explain away.

Except it kept happening.

She asked him something about the show, leaning in slightly as she did. When he answered, she stayed there a beat longer than the conversation required, close enough that he could feel the warmth of her beside him.

Garrett considered, briefly, whether he was reading too much into it.

Then Freya reached for the blanket draped over the back of the couch, pulled it over both of them instead of just herself, and settled in with her shoulder against his.

Garrett looked at her.

That was enough.

The pieces he’d been ignoring all evening finally lined up. The questions over dinner. Choosing the seat beside him. The lingering glances during the show. Every little thing had been leading here.

Freya wasn’t accidentally ending up closer to him.

She was choosing to.

And now she was waiting to see what he would do about it.

Garrett turned his attention back to the screen, though he wasn’t following it anymore.

’She’s making it easy for me.’

He didn’t move toward her. Didn’t say anything.

He simply let the moment remain what it was, sitting beside her beneath the same blanket while the show continued playing in front of them.