Exposed (#wattys2016)

chapter twenty-four

The man looked at me and I held my lighter up to light the cigarette. He had piercing blue eyes that almost naturally glowed. His hair was messy and dark brown, with a jawline that could slice a diamond in half.
"Thanks man," he raised the cigarette before sticking it in his mouth.
"Why are you sitting out here?"
He curiously asked me, blowing smoke out of his mouth.
"I, um, don't like hospitals very much," I shrugged and rubbed my eyes with my palm.
"So you're not gonna visit your loved one, you're just gonna sit out here on the curb and wave to them through the window?" The man smirked quietly. I looked at him and shook my head, "Not necessarily a loved one. My brothers girlfriend. Well, I guess cousin."
The man's eyes grew wider.
"Your brother is dating your cousin?"
I quickly realized how badly I worded that sentence, meeting this man's astonished eyes.
"No, you see, I'm from Florida. I called him my brother but he's actually my cousin but I live with him and his siblings, and his girlfriend is in the hospital. In fact, I don't even know if she's from this country because she has an accent," I pondered this for a while before continuing, "But she's pregnant and I guess had some complications but I was asleep for four days because my boyfriend and I had a fight and I just didn't want to be-"
The man grabbed my wrist on the same hand my cigarette was in.
"Dude, I don't need a life story. I don't even know your name," He tilted his head to look at me closer, dropping his fingers from my wrist. They were tattooed like Caspian's and his father's. "Is it Hale?" He said without guessing.
I leaned away from him, my eyes growing wider, "How the fuck did you know?"
The man smiled, "Psychic."
I tired to find the humor in his voice and expression, but it was nothing but a serious demeanor. The man noticed me looking at his knuckles, lifting his hands in front of me, showing me the backs of them. "These numbers mean something, you know," he wiggled his fingers before speaking again, "they mean I'm part of Black Iris. Everyone who is has some sort of numbers on their knuckles."
Black Iris, I thought, That sounded so familiar. I finally realized that it was Caspian's dads gang. I studied this man's knuckles, noticing the roman numerals looked oddly familiar to Caspian's. He held up his other hand, but only one had the knuckle tattoos.
"There's nothing on this hand," I said while pointing to his left hand. Caspian had both knuckles tattooed.
"Yeah, thought I'd just show you anyway," He smirked again and dropped that hand to his knee.
"These look a lot like my boyfriend's knuckles," I said as I kept studying the tattoos.
"Oh yeah? You're gay?" The man kept his hand stretched for me to look closely at his knuckles and fingers. I just nodded and carefully inspected the dark color of the ink.
"Does your boyfriend know Jack?"
I looked around at the parking lot in front of me, almost saying the truth. I figured that Jack was Caspian's father. Instead of blurting the truth, I shook my head. "Nah."
"I'm gay too," The man with glowing blue eyes smiled warmly and acceptingly, smashing his cigarette butt. "Never had much luck dating."
"Um, you do know Jack is homophobic?"
I said, and soon smashed my own cigarette butt too. The man nodded and leaned in closer to me, "Nobody needs to know I'm gay. Don't want to end up like Jack's son and his boyfriend."
He sighed loudly, like the event was so overwhelming he never wants to date a guy again.
"Yeah, that was bad..." I said while scanning the scenery in front of us again, trying to stay cool because his psychic powers obviously didn't pick up on the identities of Caspian and me.
"You said you and your boyfriend were fighting, wanna go get some beer later and talk about it more?" The man smiled and blinked once, making his sharp eyes appear even more vivid. "We don't have to call it a date. Plus, I owe you for this cigarette."
I laughed at the man's offer, shaking my head once I thought of entering a bar, "I don't even know your name." He rubbed his chin and laughed with me, his jawline angular and perfect against the setting sun in the background. "It's Giovanni," The man said, running his fingers through his thick, dark hair. "You don't want to do it tonight, that's cool, we can meet some other time. I'm a nurse here at the hospital and this is my cigarette break spot. Almost everyday, I'm here a few times between 7 and 5."
"Why are you here now then?" I asked him.
Giovanni smiled with perfect, square teeth.
"I just happened to see you sitting here."
And within a second, he winked one of his precious blue eyes and started walking in the opposite direction.
"Wow," I mumbled exhaustedly.

Once Levi and I got home, the sun was set and it was dark outside. Our porch light was on and Caspian was sitting on the steps. He stood up when he saw Levi's old car bounce and hiss down our narrow street. Levi had all the windows open since the air conditioning didn't work.
"Where the fuck you been?" Caspian said while smashing a bottle on the cement, standing up from our porch steps. Levi just calmly parked the car, taking his time ignoring Caspian.
"Hospital, calm down," Levi finally said while locking the car and heading up the porch steps to leave me alone with Caspian. He kicked some of the glass with his right foot on his way up, the sound of scattering glass shards clashing with eachother while the sole of his shoe brushed against the pavement.
"Well, you alright?" Casp said while studying my face, making sure every centimeter was like it was before I left. "We went for Gina, dickwad," I nudged his chest lightly and he did the same back, a bit harder. "Fuck, you wanna go?" I said, sensing his playfully angry touch.
I pushed his chest again and he raised his eyebrows, biting back his lip as he pushed me back with both hands now. He nodded afterwards. I rose my fist up, punching my knuckles into his shoulder blade. He did the same thing back to me, except this time he grabbed my shirt with both hands while pulling me against his chest.
"Fuck you," He whispered as his face got closer to mine. Our lips were like magnets, each movement making it harder to stay away. I finally let my lips press against his, both of our eyes shutting as we stood there in the dark, nothing but the dim moon and porch light. We were helplessly tangled up with each other.

***
thanks for reading!
so, this is sort of important:
How would you all feel about a title change? ALSO! I was thinking about creating the cast of this story on Sims 3, because I have a LOT of CC and relatively good graphics. I can also pose them, so I might do that sometime this week and upload it here. Since I want these characters to be something original, and not a celebrity or site model, I thought this would be a fun way to get their appearances across.