Growing Up and Other Tall Tales

Chapter 68

Missy pulls me into a hug frantically before I could even invite her in. Sandy pats my back from a safe distance and ruffles my hair before rounding around us and walking in. Pushing Missy's wild hair out of my face, I press a quick kiss to her temple before ushering her inside.

Still clinging onto me, she pulls away turning to face me. I must look terrible—grey and drained, my hair a tangled mess and my stubble still not shaven.

"All you are missing is the mountains," she says, by way of greeting, and before I can argue, she pulls me back into her embrace, burying her face in my neck and I shrug despondently

It takes a while for them to settle down and they insist upon not leaving before Lyra arrives because they wanted know who exactly they stuck their asses out and I couldn't argue with that. Despite them beginning to steadily get on my nerves, I feel the relief of reconnecting with them after two weeks of being estranged from them. The tight band of pain that clutched around my skull like a headband eases a little too. Loki is happy about the reunion to. Choosing to pounce on the couple and licking under their faces until he is sure that they will remember him, or at least smell of him, till the next time he sees them. Missy sits as far away from the French windows as possible.

"Does Esmeralda know that Lyra is living with you?" Sandy asks scooping out a spoonful of peanut butter straight from the bottle

I tell him that I called her to let her know of the new situation and that she is happy to see Lyra when she comes to clean the place on Saturday.

"It's about damn time you call me about a woman, young man," she had said and I did not recount this to Sandy

Esmeralda is a sweetheart. She worked for Mother when Mother was too busy to be at home all the time and had to travel often. The house was never left unoccupied. They were our adult supervision. So once, Mother became more inclined to staying home and fanning out her workload, Esmeralda was deployed to me for the weekends because I could not take care of myself like a grown man should be able to. Esmeralda would divide her time between my place and anybody else living outside Mother's. Like her, nobody knew exactly how old Esmeralda is. I think Ace asked her once and she went on to all the boys in the house about how rude it is to ask a woman's age. Or to ask women anything. Period.

"—ucking fine. Yeah, thanks Zeke." Lyra's voice hums from the hallway and I lean forward to reduce the volume of the television that was on to kill time

Sandy gets up to greet Lyra who as soon as she steps into the living room does a double take so hard that she stumbles into a wall. I cringe on the inside; she is still jumpy, scrambling at the slightest unexpected sound. Swearing lowly, she kicks the offending infrastructure and gives Sandy a strained smile before greeting them. Missy waves at her lazily from the couch.

Lyra sits next to me and catches my eye. She raises her eyebrows. I thought you were at work.

I huff and look pointedly at Sandy and Missy who are beginning to hover over Lyra making her grey eyes twinkle as she swallows a laugh at my distress.

They barely notice when I leave the room to change into something more comfortable and it is when I come back that I realize that leaving Lyra and Missy in the same room, even with Sandy as a buffer, is fucking cataclysmic. Personally and exclusively, to me.

"—absolutely nothing in his fridge," I hear Missy saying judgmentally and Lyra listening in rapt attention, a smirk skating across her lips, "No wait," Missy amends holding up her index finger, her manicured, long red nail glistening dangerously, "There was something that possibly used to be milk, before it mutated into something with an intelligence all of its own, and a green thing, the origins of which I prefer not to speculate over."

"I don't cook," I say defensively before Missy could affront me any further

"He cooks now." Lyra says in my defense

Missy narrows her eyes at me. "Does he now?"

I look away trying to avoid her gaze.

Lyra turns to me gleefully, "Stop looking so smug," I mumble sulkily making Sandy pat me on the back sympathetically

Missy and Sandy leave after dinner and just before I can push them out of the door, Sandy halts and looks terrified at me,

"Esmeralda is going to love her,"

I slam the door in his face.

"So," Lyra asks. "What are we going to eat?"

Since we are both too tired to cook because Missy has effectively drained us. We both end up fighting over that too. She wants Indian and I want Mexican so we compromise and settle for Chinese. Neither of us are in the mood for Chinese but we do take great pleasure in blaming each other for our dissatisfaction.