It only took a few minutes before the power returned everywhere but the kitchen and living room, which didn't impress their teammates or Greg's friends sitting on the couches.

Marc wandered into the living room from the basement. "Don't worry, we called an electrician, and he's coming soon."

"How soon?" a teammate asked.

"He'll be here within an hour or two."

Several people grumbled as the puck drop was in thirty minutes.

Marc raised his hands in front of his chest. "I know, but worse comes to worst, we'll drag the TV to another room and make the best of it, alright? The pig roast is on propane, so we'll still have some kick ass grub, capeesh?"

The crowd mumbled their agreement, and a few left for the backyard.

"Nomi, can you help me transfer food from the oven to the barbeque?" Marc asked.

She smiled at the welcome distraction. "That's a cooking task I was born to fulfil."

He laughed as they entered the kitchen together. It was the time of year when daylight lasted well into the evening, so the windows gave them decent visibility.

"You find Greg alright?"

The question reignited her anxiety about almost confessing and Tara's anger. She tried to calm it by swallowing. "Yeah, but I wasn't the only one looking for him."

"Who, Tara?" he asked casually.

Why had Marc mentioned her name so quickly? Naomi shook it off and nodded. "She came to his room right after he left to check on the power. Do she and Greg still..."

Naomi's stomach twisted at the possibility. She was about to bare her soul, and he could be... she dismissed the thought. He had never been a cheater, but were they an exclusive couple yet? What did he consider permissible with other women?

"She hasn't been by the house since she picked up her stuff after they split. Before you and Greg got together." Marc smiled at her sincerely. "But given that she showed up tonight, I suspect she wanted to talk to him."

"Do you think I should be worried?" Would her asexuality be the push he'd need to run back into his ex's arms? Tara was by his room for a reason, likely because she wasn't over him. Based on Naomi and Greg's supper date and the softball game, he still had feelings for Tara.

"He's been into you longer than you've been friends. I can't see him risking a future with you for anything." Marc's words served as her bunker during this tornado.

"Thanks, Marc." She gave him a quick hug that eased some of the anxiety Tara had caused. With how optimistic and no-nonsense he was, Naomi understood why of their trio, he was in a stable relationship while she and Greg floundered. 

Once she and Marc had the shrimp on a tray heading to the barbeque and the mozza sticks on a plate for the grumpy crew, they returned to the living room. 

"That's what I'm talking about!" Greg's redheaded co-worker with a face to match grinned at her. "Naomi to the rescue." 

She slid the plate onto the coffee table. "It was Marc, but the sentiment is appreciated." 

"Nomi." Greg patted a tiny bit of space next to him on the armchair. 

She obliged him by perching herself partly on the chair and draping her long legs over his. He drew her into a tender kiss. Unlike many people, Naomi didn't mind PDA with her partners, outside of the softball field. There was an element of safety to it where witnesses kept it from getting too intense. 

"Oh shit, that finally happened," Rory teased. 

Naomi's cheeks warmed, probably taking on the same hue as his hair.

Greg grinned and wrapped an arm around her shoulder.

"Naomi, you're going to laugh because, for months, when this guy started working with us, he'd talk about you, steady, so when he brings his girlfriend to the Christmas party, I start talking to her like she's you, even called her Nomi, and she was pissed." Rory threw back his head and laughed. 

"It wasn't quite as funny for the rest of us," Greg said with a forced laugh.

"Oh come on. It's funny now that you're together."

Greg looked at her with a tender smile and squeezed her knee. His actions just confirmed Marc's reassurances and Greg's words from the other night.  

Another of Greg's coworkers scoffed and shoved his phone in his pocket. "Did you hear the natives are protesting another pipeline out West?"

"Don't they have anything better to do?" Rory asked.

"Other than boozing and making up sob stories for government compensation?"

Marc tensed then closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. His lips were pressed shut like he was willing himself not to speak. Greg sat silently beside Naomi, oblivious to Marc's internal struggle.

"You mean the genocide our country committed against Indigenous people for over a hundred years?" Naomi said.

"Genocide in Canada? That's some world war two and third-world crap. People are overreacting. Schools were tough back in the day. My grandparents got the strap, and they're not whining about it."

"Your grandparents weren't forcibly removed from their families for the entire school year, punished for practicing their language and culture, and physically and sexually abused by their school-appointed caretakers."

"Sure some bad shit happened to some of them, but most are embellishing it because there's compensation involved. It's easier than getting a job," Rory said.

Marc stood up and left the room, and she couldn't blame him. He was Métis, an Indigenous group born from Indigenous people and the fur traders who'd worked in the region with a distinct culture, and Nimkii, who Naomi imagined he was off to vent to or warn not to come, was Anishinaabee. 

"Maybe try cracking open a book that's about more than making yourself rich. There are thousands of stories of this. Children dying at high rates, medical experiments including starvation, and parents being jailed for trying to protect their kids from this toxic system."   

Greg squeezed her knee which did the opposite of reassuring her since he was sitting here not saying a damned thing. "Come on guys, you know better than to say things like that. It's supposed to be a party."

Heat filled Naomi as she flew up from the chair, and muttered, "You're fucking kidding me," under her breath. 

"My bad, Greg. Didn't realize she'd turned into such a little social justice warrior." 

Naomi bit her lip and stalked past the kitchen into the backyard where Marc sat beside the pig roaster on his phone.  

"How are you that calm?" she asked. "I want to punch through a wall and that wasn't even about me."

"I've heard worse when Nimkii and I are out together. People are assholes, but if you let them all get to you, it's exhausting. I save my energy for her."

"Greg should have said something."

Marc shrugged. "You know Greg. His career advancement is always lurking in the back of his mind. It's his party, his work friends."

"But it's affected your family."

For most of his life, Marc had considered himself French Canadian because his family had hidden their Métis roots and intermarried with settlers generations ago to save their kids from the fate of residential schools. 

"The only knowledge I have about Métis culture, I've learned recently from non-blood relatives. I grew up in the suburbs like you guys, and I pass as white."

"Didn't your great-grandma go to a residential school?"

"Yeah, and she married a French Canadian man, so her kids would pass and be spared that abuse. Each generation diluted our Métis existence to invisibility. If Nimkii and I hadn't looked into it, my parents and I wouldn't have known."

"This country is fucked up. I'm glad you have her around."

He smiled like someone imagining the rest of his life. "So am I."

The porch door opened, and Greg stepped outside with a tentative smile. "How's it going?"

"Fan-fucking-tastic," Naomi deadpanned. 

"I'm sorry about them."

Naomi raised her eyebrows. "About them? Where were you when they were spewing racist garbage?" 

Greg's eyes darted around the backyard. "Nomi, can we not do this here?"

"You let their comments have an audience. Why does this conversation have to be private?"

"Because we're causing a scene."

"Why is my outrage abnormal enough to cause a scene and those comments were just status quo?"  

Greg looked to Marc who shrugged. "She's not wrong."

"They got the message to avoid the topic altogether once you stormed off." 

"Did you bring up how wrong their assumptions are, so they stop making them altogether? You think their opinions are problematic, don't you? That saying that it's in Indigenous people's blood to be lazy and prone to addiction is harmful. That it dismisses the mental health impacts of being torn from their families, shamed, and punished for practicing their culture and language."

"Of course, they're wrong, Nomi. I know our country has done unthinkable things to Indigenous people." He picked at his thumbnail and glanced at Marc. "It's not that simple. If I piss those guys off, my work life will be a living hell. I need my income to tackle this mortgage."

Naomi's chest simmered with heat. "I'm glad you care more about that than people's dignity."

The doorbell rang, saving Greg from having to address the issue. Why couldn't he see how damaging it was to allow those harmful lies to breed? She hung back a few steps. 

Not wanting to stay in the backyard, she followed Greg to the front door. When it swung open, the last person she expected stood before them in a blue and yellow polyester uniform.

His lips quirked into a contagious smile. "Naomi."

"Kieran?" she couldn't help the excitement in her voice.

Greg slung his arm around her waist and said, "Nope," right before he shut the door.

She extracted herself from his tight grip. "What the hell, Greg?"

"Did you invite him as a sick joke? Is that what you wanted to tell me?"

She breathed to keep in some of her anger. "No! He's wearing a uniform and holding tools. Didn't you guys call an electrician?"

Greg exhaled and looked out the peephole. "Yeah, you're right. Sorry, Nomi." He opened the door back up to Kieran, who bit down on his lip and whose shoulders shook like he was trying not to laugh. "You're the electrician."

"That'd be me."

"That was fast." Greg's tone was almost accusatory.

"I was finishing up another job in the neighbourhood when I got the call. Why don't you show me the problem? I can't imagine a power issue makes for a good conference finals party."

Greg's glance shifted between her and Kieran before he said, "No, it doesn't. It's in the living room and kitchen." Greg walked away without waiting for Kieran to step inside and unlace his boots.

"Damn, you've done the damned thing, eh?" Kieran teased as he stepped inside.

"What?"

"That man would murder me with his glare if it were possible. You'll have to teach me your magic ace ways." Kieran spoke softly with a small smirk he hid by keeping his back to the others. He kicked off his first boot.

Naomi kept her voice low, never sure who was listening. "I'll write up the Cole's Notes if you want to endure a decade-long friendship beforehand."

"I can give it a shot. Maybe she'll grow more tolerable by then." Kieran's gaze flickered further into the house as he unlaced his other boot. "You should probably go before your boy's plans change from a fantasized murder to a real one."

"I'm not too happy with him right now, but I'll do it for you."

Kieran laughed as he kicked off his second boot and stood.

She couldn't help but think of yesterday when he held her in the supermarket. But her eyes shifted to Greg, who remained in the doorway to the kitchen watching them with crossed arms. This side of him made her quite uneasy. She and Kieran approached him together.

Kieran addressed Greg. "According to what you said on the phone, the power cut out for the entire house?"

Marc entered from the kitchen. "Yeah, we may have loaded up the kitchen outlets because the living room's been having issues. We meant to call someone about it, but..." He tucked his hands in his pockets, and his gaze shot to Greg.

"It's expensive, you're busy. I get it." Kieran smiled, which only made Greg's posture stiffen. "I'll put a temporary fix in place for tonight and price out some long-term options for whoever owns the house."

Greg stepped forward. "That's me."

"Great. Let's start with the kitchen."

As worried as Naomi was about Greg decking Kieran, she chilled in Greg's office to avoid his awful co-workers. She sunk into the office chair and played on her phone, trying to ignore the world around her until a light knock echoed at the door, and someone called her name.

***

Thanks for reading and for your patience between updates. Between work commitments and these chapters turning out heavier than I expected them to be content-wise, it took a while to edit through them. Hopefully, I did them justice. I should have part 3 of this chapter up fairly soon. 

I always try to tie in a sense of place in my writing. The story takes place in Manitoba, Canada, in Treaty One territory which is the traditional homeland of the Métis people and the land of the Anishinaabe, Ininewak (Cree), Dakota, Dene, and Anishininwak. 

As a Canadian writer, I feel it's important that my stories acknowledge my government's systematic attempt to commit genocide, write it out of our history, and people who continue to challenge survivors speaking their truth. While I'm not the right writer to do an expanded version of Marc and Nimkii's stories justice, his experience is based on what I've read in both fiction and non-fiction and conversations I've had. I felt it was important to include the way Indigenous people are treated and viewed by too many as part of the Canadian reality still today. Naomi's approach is intentionally blunt and awkward with Greg. If the topic or the way it's addressed comes across the wrong way, please let me know.

Métis writer Katherena Vermette's books 'The Strangers' and 'The Break' explore a variety of realities within the Treaty One Indigenous experience. They're emotionally tough reads because of some of the hardships but very worthwhile and eye-opening reads. 

Other fantastic Indigenous authors whose books (fiction, non-fiction and poetry) I've had the pleasure of reading are Alicia Elliot, Helen Knott, Bob Joseph, Tanya Talaga, Edmund Metatawabin,  Eden Robinson, and Billy-Ray Belcourt. There are far more others as well.  

If you're curious about who the Métis are:

"Métis people are a post-contact Indigenous nation, born from the unions of European fur traders and First Nations women in the 18th century. The descendants of these marriages, the Métis, would form a distinct culture, collective consciousness, and strong Nationhood in the Northwest. Distinct Métis communities developed along fur trade routes that made the Métis Nation Homeland. Today, the Homeland includes Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, parts of British Columbia and Ontario, the Northwest Territories, and the northern United States." 

(source: https://albertametis.com/metis-in-alberta/history/#:~:text=M%C3%A9tis%20people%20are%20a%20post,strong%20Nationhood%20in%20the%20Northwest.)