I sealed the silent vow to her upturned lips and pulled away. She smiled, oblivious to the fact that nothing would ever be the same again. She gave me a little shove towards the hall and my bedroom.
“Food’s almost ready if you want to change.”
She left me to decide and disappeared into the kitchen once more.
I swapped my jeans for sweats but kept my t-shirt. In sock clad feet, I returned to help drag dishes down and count out cutlery. Normal things I’d never done a day in my life. Even Davien and I seldom bothered with plates and forks. Half the time, we ordered pizza or something that got nuked in the microwave. Growing up, my dad hadn’t given a shit what I ate or how as long as I wasn’t around when he got home. Neither Dav nor I knew our mothers. I almost came close a couple of times while in my dad’s Charger. He’d point up a hooker with dark hair and ashen skin stretched over bones and say, “There she is, boy. There’s your ma. Let me know if you’d rather live with her. I’ll dump you on her corner and maybe she can make a few bucks off your ass.”
I walked by her a few times, curious to see if she’d somehow recognize me.
She never did.
She barely knew where she was. She was perpetually stuck in a crack induced haze, stumbling in and out of stranger’s cars to fund her next hit.
Then, one day when I was seven, she just vanished. When I brought it up to my dad, his response was, “Probably rotting in some dump pile.”
That was the end of that.
“Nero?”
Mia slipped a steaming plate of garlic and chicken alfredo into my hands with a smile that seemed to chase away the heavy cloud of dread closing in around me. It pulled me from the cruelties of the past to an apartment lit by the fading glow of sunlight, the creamy scent of a hot meal and two people who meant the world to me. I sucked in a breath thick with sauce and garlic.
“Hey, give me a hand.”
Davien slapped my arm as he passed me, headed towards the hall.
I set my plate down on the coffee table and followed my best friend into his room. I watched from the doorway as he yanked the blankets off the mattress. The pillows followed. Unlike my dislike of clutter, he had no qualms about filling his space with crap. His walls were littered with band posters, half naked porn stars, and movies. Clothes lay strewn across the floor in a jumble of dirty and clean. I caught the corner of his laundry basket peeking out from beneath a heap of fabric. He kicked the mountain back in his attempts to haul the mattress off the box spring.
“A little help?” he urged, glancing over his shoulder at me.
I raised an eyebrow. “I don’t think I have the proper shots for this room.”
Davien straightened and faced me. “Stop being an ass and get over here. What’s your deal anyway?”
I shook my head. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, you’ve been weird since you got back. I thought maybe it was because I brought Mia home, but after your talk earlier, I thought you would be fine with it.”
I glanced over my shoulder to the empty hallway where I could just hear Mia flipping through the channels on the TV. “I don’t know how I feel about having her here.” I faced my friend. My brother. “We’ve never had another person in the apartment. The whole thing feels like…”
“Like a mistake?”
I shook my head. “She doesn’t feel like a mistake, does she?”
It was his turn to peer past me to the hallway. “Truthfully, she feels like a massive mistake, yet…” He smirked without a shred of humor. “Here we are. Maybe we’ve both lost our minds.”
I couldn’t argue that, nor did I when I helped haul Davien’s mattress to the living room. We shoved the coffee table into the corner and positioned the queen-sized mattress in the middle of the room facing the TV. The bedding followed to create a cozy fort fit for three. Mia took the middle with us on either side of her, legs folded, plates of pasta in hand. The two next to me argued over the show Mia had chosen. Their bickering filled all the empty corners and painted the walls with life. I watched them between bites of supper, not contributing but amused.
Davien snatched the remote from Mia, deciding he would find something. Mia huffed and snatched it back. I had never seen anyone take anything from that guy, not without a few broken bones and a lot of bloodshed, but he merely rolled his eyes and turned back to his plate while she tried to find the show again.
They were interesting to watch together. Mia seemed to bring out the laid-back side of him I only ever saw with me. She made him laugh, which was nice to see; he snorted a laugh when she slurped too hard and splattered sauce across one cheek and her nose.
“We might have to get you a bib,” he teased.
Mia snickered and turned her head over her shoulder to give me a glimpse of her mess. The smear brought to mind a different kind of white substance I wouldn’t have minded seeing on her face.
“What do you think? Do I need a bib?”
I didn’t answer, except to lightly stroke the tip of her nose with a bent finger. I traced her full mouth and the curve of her cheek. I was rewarded with a smile before she turned to the TV as the intro started.
I had no idea what they were watching. The teen vampire drama made no sense to me, but they were invested in a way that had me eyeing my best friend warily. His knowledge of the characters and the plot was in-depth and excited in a way I’d only seen when he was talking about cars.
I cleared our empty dishes, taking my time scraping them clean and washing them, all the while, listening to the pair in the next room. Their arguments made me grin, especially how annoyed Davien seemed to get by Mia’s logic, a logic that sounded insane to me, but made some sense to him.
“How can you be okay with any of that?” he cried at one point.
“Because she’s horrible and should die,” Mia snapped back.
Davien gasped loud enough that I heard it over the rushing water. “How dare you! Get out.”
“You get out! Tell me one good thing she’s ever done.”
I shook my head, my amusement a full grin twisting my face.
I liked this.
I liked listening to them.
I liked the life and sound they brought into my silent world.
I liked seeing them sprawled across the mattress, Davien on his back, arms crossed under his head and Mia lying lengthwise with her head on his stomach.
I liked the tiny smile she shot me when our eyes met.
Realistically, she shouldn’t fit as naturally as she seemed to. Our lives were too shrink wrapped in grief and loss, in pain and horror. Men like us didn’t deserve what she was giving us.
But it didn’t stop me from joining them.
Mia wiggled lengthwise, taking the middle pillow and giving me room to stretch out next to her. Her attention stayed on the show, but one hand, the one closest to me, reached over and threaded five dainty fingers through mine. I felt it with the same intensity as her wrapping those fingers around my chest.
No. Something else.
I pushed the thought away. That was a dangerous seed to plant.
“There. See? Terrible character,” she blurted, waving at the screen with her free hand.
“Did you not see what happened before that?” Davien exclaimed.
“What? You mean the chaos she created?” Mia challenged.
“Okay, listen, I will put up with a lot of your smack, but I draw the line—”