Call me kitten (boyxboy love) ✓

22. Happy family

When Ash's alarm went off, I had no idea where I was. I was groggy because of the weird sleep I had and the events the previous night. The feeling of un-realness didn't go away until I felt Ash turn next to me. He tried to silence the alarm but to no avail and tossed the phone over to me with a tired grunt.

"Turn it off..." he pleaded with a hoarse voice and pressed his palms to his eyes.

I got the phone to stop beeping and turned over to face Ash. It looked like the hang-over had finally gotten a hold of him now and I put a hand on his forehead. Was he willing to talk to me now? Explain to me what he'd been up to these two days?

"How are you feeling?" I said quietly.

He squinted at me.

"Like I've been run over by a truck," he muttered. "I know that's not the answer you're looking for right now, but just let me wake up a bit."

He drew a long breath and sat up in bed. I really felt sorry for him, sitting there trying to get the energy to even get out of bed, and I suggested that he could take a sick day instead of forcing himself to go to work. But he just shook his head and stood up slowly.

"I don't have a job left if I do that. And I really need this job."

Then he staggered out into the kitchen. That got me moving. Why did I lay here in bed? Ash was feeling like shit and needed my help. I jumped out of bed and got to the kitchen before he did. I grabbed his shoulders and pressed him gently but firmly into a chair. He just had to sit there while I got him breakfast. He stayed put and looked at me as I went around the shelves looking for cereals, coffee, and everything else that was needed to make a decent breakfast. I found some painkillers in a drawer and handed them to him with a glass of water. He smiled at me in gratitude as he swallowed them.

"I'm being evicted," he said suddenly.

I stopped dead in my tracks and just stared at him. How could you get evicted from an apartment that you owned? That would take some serious allegations if that was to happen.

"What do you mean?" I said slowly.

"Dear father and dear big brother came here to tell me that," Ash spat, his voice dripping with contempt. "Or rather, they visited here on Sunday to see if I had mended my ways and when I told them that I hadn't, they evicted me. Apparently, my baby brother will move in instead because he's starting university here."

Ash had never talked this much about his family. I forced myself to ready his cereals and put them in front of him as I sat down at the table with him. What he just said sounded completely bizarre. What kind of family did that?

"Didn't you inherit the flat from your mother?" I asked, not even bothering to ask about what kind of asshole his father was.

Ash flashed a cold smile and took a bite of cereals.

"There's a reason why I don't talk about my family. They don't accept me. My mother changed her mind at the end, but she never managed to actually put it in her will before she died so it just remained a wish she told my dad. And he honored that just because he felt obligated to, I guess. The apartment is his, and he's been damn adamant about it ever since I got it. If I don't change the way I lead my life I wouldn't have it for long. And I guess he was just looking for an excuse to throw me out. My baby brother going to the university here is a good enough reason to him."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. It was impossible for me to accept that Ash had such parents, him being that open and genuine.

"What do they want you to do, really? What is it that they don't accept?" I said, even though I had a pretty good idea.

"Let me put it like this, don't come out of the closet to your extremely religious parents and think that they'll still like you for who you are. Just a pro tip."

Ash went to the coffee machine and poured us both coffee and put the cups on the table. I was having trouble not looking like I just had my face slapped.

"Extremely religious?" I managed to croak.

"Hold on, wait here."

He exited the kitchen, and I could hear him digging around in the living room. I just sat there trying to imagine Ash going to church, but that was such an absurd notion that I couldn't even get a mental image of it, not matter how I tried. Eventually he got back to the kitchen and tossed a photo on the table in front of me. The photo depicted a family in front of a sailboat. Mother, father and three blond sons. Everyone was smiling except from the middle son, who just looked uncomfortable, and I recognized those blue eyes immediately.

Ash could be in his teens, maybe fifteen. He was dressed in light khaki's, a V-necked shirt and a cap that had 'Jesus is my GPS' on it. If it hadn't been for the eyes, I would have never believed it was really him. This was as far removed from the Ash that was sitting in the chair beside me as humanly possible.

"You can laugh if you want to," Ash said and rolled his eyes. "But that's my so-called family. Dad's a pastor in an evangelical church, he's making tons of cash. Big brother Brady is just like him. Nathan is my baby brother; I don't know much about him at all. Last I saw him he was eight and that was ten years ago. So, there you have them. My family."

He let his fingers run through his tousled hair and sighed. Then he looked at his phone.

"We better hurry up, or I'll be late," he said and gulped down his coffee.

I had hardly touched my breakfast. My head was filled with thoughts about his family, how he was even functioning after they had treated him like that, what he would do now when they had taken his apartment from him. But Ash almost seemed to be his normal self again as he got up from the table, like yesterday never happened. It was obvious that he didn't want to talk about it anymore. But as usual, I couldn't shut my brain off.

"Jaimeeee," I heard him sing behind me and his hands landed on my shoulders. "You're thinking too much again. We gotta go now, there's nothing I can do about it at this very moment anyway."

When I had washed my face and put on my clothes, Ash was already waiting for me in the hallway. Leaning against one of the walls was a pile of moving boxes. How the hell had I missed that yesterday? But I had been preoccupied with getting Ash into bed then, nothing else had been in my mind. And maybe that was a good thing, otherwise I would have been thinking about those boxes all night instead. Ash glanced at them, and his jaw tensed up, then he opened the front door and walked outside. When we got off the bus to work, I couldn't keep in in any longer.

"How the hell are you supposed to find a place to live in one week?" I said upset and turned to him.

He squinted at me, and his brows furrowed.

"Use small words, please. Remember that I am really damn hung-over," he smiled crookedly.

"I'm serious, Ash."

"I really like it when you're all worried about me," he said and suddenly pulled me into a hug right there among the people on the sidewalk. "I promise you that it'll work itself out. It has before."

Then he kissed me softly. I was so surprised by the sudden public show of affection that I just let him do it, I didn't even have the time to get embarrassed. It was only after he let me go that the insight reached my brain. We had done this openly. We stood there in front of the big glass-paned entrance to the office and I could see people looking at us.

"Fuck 'em," Ash said and grinned at the people on the other side of the glass. "See you at lunch!"

And with that he went towards the side entrance that led to the cafeteria.