ADRIAN
I filled a glass with water and walked out of my kitchen, and into the living room. Carlos was sitting on the floor, he was patting the little cat we rescued on our way back on its head when I walked over to them.
"Here," I said, handing the cup over to him.
Carlos took the glass, threw his head back and pressed the glass between his lips. He took a light sip before setting the cup down.
Carlos kept playing with the cat, not uttering a word.
Taking my seat beside him on the floor, I took his hand, the one that wasn’t all over the cat, and then asked. "Are you okay, Carl?"
Carlos shuddered, he stayed like that for a few seconds before shrugging off his shoulders. "I’m fine. Why do you think I’m not?"
There we go again. Something told me he wasn’t okay, but I didn’t want to push. He would tell me whatever was going on with him whenever he feels like it.
"Nah. You just look...
." I waved a hand in the
general direction of his face. "You look a little down."
"Well, it might be because I feel bad for the poor cat." He mumbled, within three seconds he looked at my face, my lap and back to the cat.
I nodded my head, he got a point right there.
"Do you think he was abandoned by his owner?" I asked, peeking at the white cat.
Carlos sighed, biting down on his lower lip.
"I think that’s the case, if not, she wouldn’t have jumped into the middle of the road to get herself killed." He let out, brushing the cat’s fur. "And she’s a she... Not a he."
Oh, didn’t actually know anything about that. I had barely hold the cat since we got him... Her. Since we rescued her from the traffic.
"Will she be okay?" I asked, pointing at the poor thing.
Carlos shrugged. "She’ll be just fine."
I noticed we hadn’t say a word about what went down at the game night we went to.
Both the kiss we shared and him asking me to fuck him just to prove how good he was at his, what again? His profession?
How absurd!
I had never for once seen Carlos as a slut, he didn’t chose that path because he wanted to.
His father had made him that way and I hated that he lost his self respect along with it.
Maybe it was for the best. Maybe I should just leave it be like that so I won’t get him mad again. But I do hoped he would stop seeing himself as a slut because he might be selling his body for men as per his father’s order, but that wasn’t who he is.
"What do you think we should name her?"
Carlos asked, pulling my attention back to him.
I stared down at the cat, for a while, I couldn’t even bring myself to think of any name we could call it. All my thoughts were
centered on Carlos, and I suddenly felt lost when he directed my mind to something I hadn’t been thinking about.
Slowly, I parted my lips open. "I think..."
"What about ’baby’?" Carlos grinned, cutting me off.
I couldn’t understand what he meant by that. So I had to repeat his question. "Baby?"
Nodding his head, he said. "Yes, yes. Baby." Carlos started clapping his hands together, bouncing on his legs. He looked excited for some reason and I really wished he would continue being this way.
"You know we could call her our baby. I think I’d love that." He said with a pout which made me chuckle.
I gently pulled at his cheek. Swinging it left to right. "Baby sounds cool. I love it too."
"Yay!!" Carlos jumped to his feet, scooped the cat in his arms and began dancing around the living room.
I watched him like he was my favourite TV show, smiling as I rested my arms on the couch. Just when I was about to look away from them, my eyes landed on the wall clock and I noticed that it was already getting late.
"Carl." I called, making him stopped to look at me.
"Yes?" He was panting heavily as he came to emptied the rest of the water. He drank, a little drop rolling down the corner of his lips.
"Aren’t you going home? It’s getting late." I said, pointing my index finger towards the wall clock.
"Oh, no. No. I’m not." He shook his head, plunging into the couch with the cat in his arms, he had my head between his legs and ruffled my hair. "I’m not going home tonight. I’m sleeping over."
"Alright then." I exhaled, relaxing my head into his thigh. Somehow, having my hair played with made me want to fall asleep so bad.
I didn’t want to think about the reason why Carlos refused to go home, I let my mind wandered off to his friends at the game night and I wondered if they knew Carlos, as much as I knew him.
"Hey," Carlos called out, snapping me out of my thought. I craned my neck to stare at him, his eyes were on my lips for just a second before he cleared his throat and dropped his gaze to his lap. "You won’t mind having baby here, right?"
"Don’t be ridiculous, man. Why would I mind having her here?" I smiled, rubbing his knee. "It’s okay, she’s welcome here.
The both of you are."
"Thank you." He mumbled, refusing to look
at me.
My phone buzzed and I dipped my hand into my pants pocket to fish it out. I groaned inwardly and frowned when I saw who was calling me.
Before Carl would notice the caller name and give me shit about the mysterious caller whose name was "I Love Him", I stood up from the floor and took a few steps away
from Carlos.
"Yes, what now?" I hissed into the phone, didn’t know why I was suddenly feeling mad. Was it because Giovanni was calling me, or was it because I had half expected him to call me hours ago?
Whatever the reason was, it was a fucked up one and I didn’t want to find out.
"Can you come outside for just five minutes? I need to see you.’ He said, Giovanni’s voice sounded a little pissed over the phone.
"No, you can’t see me." I argued, craned my neck to stare at Carl. To my surprise, he had his eyes fixed on me, a sad glare on his face.
"Why? Why can’t you come outside? You busy with something, or whatever?" He barked, I scoffed at his audacity for thinking he could get mad at me for wanting to boss me around and I didn’t allow it.
"I’m not busy with anything. It’s just that your call is disturbing my beauty sleep." I scoffed, bringing the phone down from my ear. "Goodnight."
I hung up the call before Giovanni could say another word. As I walked back to Carl on the couch, a thought told me to look out the window to check if Giovanni was really outside of my apartment.
I just shrugged and let the thought slide down to the bottom pit of my stomach.
"Who’s that?" Carlos asked the moment I got to him, he had a puzzle look on his face and I sincerely hoped he wasn’t thinking of something ridiculous that the person I was on call with was my boyfriend.
Not like it meant anything if he think that way, but I just didn’t want him to have the wrong Idea. Two of my crackhead friends already did, it would fuck me up if another orie of my friends also think that way.
"It’s a no-one." I chuckled, scooping baby off his lap. "Come on, let’s go to bed."
"You’re not seeing anyone and you’re hiding it from me, right?" Carlos sneered, reluctantly stood up from the couch.
"Don’t be ridiculous. I told you I won’t be seeing anyone until I have my life figured out." I said, making Carlos smile a little.
Well, you could call me a liar because for a second, I almost wished for this thing with Giovanni to be real. I hadn’t dated anyone since high school and I missed having someone I could call my boyfriend.
But I would be stupid to want to have anything to do with Giovanni. That bastard was a no-no. My father would kill me. Only if Giovanni didn’t kill him first.
"Fuck! My life is fucked up."