𝐒𝐮𝐛𝐮𝐫𝐛𝐚𝐧 𝐍𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 || 𝐕𝐢𝐧𝐧𝐢𝐞 𝐇𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐫

dude, goodbye to that

"Where are we?" He asked as I parked my bike up to a small building. The bags filled were in our baskets, so I grabbed the one in mine, "Follow me and grab your bag."

He followed behind me as I opened the door. We were greeted by an older woman, probably in her sixties, I never asked her age before, "Hey (Y/n). Another victim?" She joked as her eyes met the bag.

"No, just helping him out. Where's Mike?" I asked as she rubbed her tired eyes. She pointed to the back and I thanked her as we made our way back there.

Austin tapped my shoulder, "Have you been here before?" I nodded my head and continued walking til I made it to Mike's office. "Mike!" I yelled as I saw him sitting at his desk.

"The hell you want (Y/n)?" He was getting older, but I knew his words were out of love especially since he knew me since I was young.

"This is Austin." I pointed to the nervous boy behind me and Mike smiled. He got up from his chair and put his hand out for Austin to shake it and Austin did.

"Go ahead Austin, sit down." Austin sat on the seat in front of Mike's desk and I was about to sit down, "Not you (Y/n), you're young you can stand." Austin started to laugh as I stood behind him.

"So how do you guys know (Y/n)?" Austin asked as Mike got comfortable.

"Well (Y/n) used to come here when she was younger, she was this tall." He put his hand up showing my past height when I met them all at first. "She would come in here every month with bags full of liquor bottles, beer tops, some cigars, and would give them to us to recycle. She was pretty smart when she was younger, but she grew older and got pretty stupid now." This made Mike and Austin both laugh as I stood there taking the comments. "Nah, she aint that bad. She's just got a hard life that's all, right (Y/n)?"

I nodded my head as I smiled slightly. When I looked at Mike I could remember everything we would talk about after school when I would come, he talked about his sons all the time and he would tell me stories about when he was a kid.

I remember when my mom had passed away I came in and we started talking, he told me how his wife and him were getting a divorce. He said he was sad, but happy that he could still see the kids because she wasn't an evil woman, things just didn't work out for them. His sons were sad that they were moving away with their mom, but he would encourage them to behave and listen to her. To learn manners and never forget how much their parents loved them. And that's when I started to cry in front of him. At first I came up with excuses of how I was fine, or I was just tired. But once he asked "Are you really okay?" I just continued to cry and then I described that day to him and he was silent the entire time. He tried not to cry too, but he did. That's the only time I saw him shed tears.

The next time I came in, he gave me four letters. One from him, one from his ex-wife, one from his sons, and another one from his therapist. "Don't open them until you get home." I nodded my head and when I went home that day I remember opening each of them and seeing fifty bucks in each letter. On the note from him, which I read last, he said to use the money for my mom's gravestone and I did. It made me happy, and I don't think I would ever share that story with anyone else because that was our little secret.

Just for us.

>

"I'm glad we did that." Austin and I were laying on his bed again as he spoke up suddenly interrupting our silence. I opened my tired eyes and turned my body to my side to look at him. He was leaning his head on his hands as he was showing his flexed underarms.

"Yeah me too."

He turned himself to look at me too and smiled, "So what do you want to do tomorrow?"

"So now you're motivated?" I asked with a small laugh.

"Yeah, let's go to the movies. How about that?" He said excited with a big smile on his face. I just stared at him, noticing all these features of his, that made him, well him. His brown eyes and nice skin, his clean smile as he looked at me.

"I think we should go to school, get to practice since I can play now and then we'll got to the movies." He pouted his lips at me and I smiled.

"Or we could skip school, go see a movie, and then go to practice." I shook my head 'no' and he sighed. "Fine, we'll go with your idea." I nodded my head as he continued to look at me, he didn't stop. As I looked away and laid onto my back, he moved closer to me and propped himself up on his arm. "So what do you want to do when you get older?" He asked.

"Well I kind of want to play football for the rest of my life, but we'll see about that. What about you?"

"I don't know, maybe play for a NFL team. All I have is football."

I propped myself up on my elbows to look at him and spoke, "That's not all you have Austin. You're actually pretty smart despite your casual dumb moments."

"Well thanks, even though I don't try in school." Now I noticed his dimples, they were actually pretty cute. A nice feature to his face. "What are you looking at?" He asked laughing.

"Oh nothing."

"Really? Or were you staring at my dimples?" He smiled again as he got closer to me and I could feel myself blush. "Touch them they're weird."

I laughed as he started to hit his face lightly so I would touch them. He smiled again and pointed to them, "C'mon don't be scared."

I put my hand on his face as I outlined his dimple with my finger, "SO amazing!" I said sarcastically.

"Thank you, thank you. They came from my mother." He chuckled as he made his comment. "You know, I'm glad you've been staying here. It's been nice to have company."

"But you had other people around." I didn't want to say her name so he could actually talk about how he felt.

"Yeah, but I didn't smile or laugh as much as now and it honestly feels great." He smiled down at me and I slightly smiled too. "Thank you."

"Yeah, no problem." He continued to stare at me and his smile stayed but it faded a bit. He looked into my eyes, but then down at my lips. I didn't know what to do when he started to lean in, but all I could do was look at him and feel the warmth of his hand on my cheek. We were both looking at each other very nicely, it was comforting.

"You're beautiful (Y/n), inside and out."

"Thank you."

He nodded and sighed, "I better not though, Vinnie's still there in your heart even though you might deny it. But I'll keep in mind that kiss when I really need it." He held his hand out for me to interlock our pinkies. "You promise you'll save one for me?"

I interlocked them and gave him a small kiss on the cheek, "I promise."