It's Not A Side Effect Of The Cocaine, I Am Thinking It Must Be Love

chapter eleven- the world is ugly

All day my coworkers wanted to know how Pancho's birthday went, what we did, what kind of cake he had (which I cringed at). By the end of the day I was so tired and exasperated with all their questions, I wished I had stayed home after lunch again. It didn't help that I was sore all day from sleeping on the floor. But at the very least, it was Friday, so once I met a client right after work, I could go home and relax, besides the couple of errands I needed to run.

When I got home, Pancho greeted me as usual, with lots of questions about work. He, of course, wanted to know every single little detail about this and that, how our current project was going, if my boss was being an asshole again, all of those things. It was kind of cute, actually, how he found everything about my mundane office job so interesting, and I found that venting about my coworkers felt great after having to deal with them all day.

He listened intently and nodded thoughtfully when I was finished, tapping his fingers on the pool table. "Did you remember to tell them all 'hi' for me?" he asked.

I sighed as I untied my shoes. I had remembered, but I hadn't done it. Every time I vaguely mentioned something that could possibly have some sort of remote connection with Pancho, my coworkers wouldn't stop talking about "us" for the whole day. "Yeah," I lied, "I told them, they say 'hi' back. They all love you."

Pancho smirked and sniffed. "I know," he paused, leaning against the pool table and watching me stand up after finishing with my shoes. "Anyway, I was meaning to ask, do you guys have any Halloween decorations? 'Cause we should put up some Hallowen decorations this weekend. I fucking love Halloween, man."

"Nah, we don't really get trick-or-treaters at our house," I replied. "We're sketchy, y'know. No one wants their kid trick-or-treating at the house with the shirtless guy and the coke dealer. And even if we did, I dunno, man. We don't really do holidays. I mean, Christmas, I guess, but other than that, we don't get too festive." I shrugged off my jacket and strolled into the living room, glancing behind me to see Pancho following.

"Bad Twin!" Pancho called out, "Why the hell don't you guys have Halloween decorations?"

Bad Twin was blasting some obnoxious TV show, licking nacho cheese Dorito dust off his fingers. He looked annoyed that Pancho had interrupted whatever he was watching, and was probably rolling his eyes under the sunglasses he hardly ever took off. Not bothering to turn down the TV, he shouted over it, "We just don't, man. Nobody comes here to trick-or-treat." He paused to crunch into another chip. "Also, we're lazy."

"What'd I tell you?" I muttered, just loud enough for Pancho to hear.

Pancho sighed. I honestly didn't think he'd be so upset over Halloween decorations, but I guess I should've expected it. He was Pancho, after all. Nobody said anything for a few seconds, the TV blared on, and Pancho had his arms crossed and this look on his face like was thinking really hard about something. I was about to leave the room when he proposed, "What if we went trick-or-treating?"

I raised an eyebrow at him. "Are you kidding me? You're twenty six. I'm, like, almost a year and a half older than you. We're not going trick-or-treating." I wished I hadn't been so harsh on him, but it was difficult enough to disagree with him at all.

"Fine," he pouted. "We should at least get candy, though."

"Yeah, sure." I gave him a smile to attempt to make up for my lack of enthusiasm. "We could actually get some today," I offered.

At the mention of this, his face lit up.

"Yeah, I gotta go to the laundromat, but if you wanna come with, we can pick up candy while we're out?"

"Fuck yes, I wanna come with. Laundromat plus candy plus pretty boy is, like, a fuckin' three-in-one bargain deal," he smirked.

A three-in-one bargain deal? What the fuck. He had to be messing with me on purpose. I pinched the bridge of my nose, hoping that my face wasn't as flushed as it felt. "Um. Yeah, okay. I'm gonna get ready to go." I started heading into my room to get changed, but stopped when I noticed Pancho was following me. "Pancho?" I asked, hoping he would get the hint and go back into the living room.