The Bartender | BoyxBoy

||Four||

We left the school to Kyle's house via my car and I let Kyle drive since I didn't know where he lived. There was silence throughout the journey but it was a comfortable one, at least, for me. I was glad that we had been able to talk things over even though it was because I cut. Now that I thought about it, it didn't seem like a bad idea after all but I knew not to do it again. I didn't want to end up in the hospital, not again.

When we got there, I was a bit surprised. It was a nice house, but there was no car in the driveway. That meant Kyle's parents were not home, I thought. When I went inside, I realized that the living room was messy. There were clothes laying around, on the floor and couch, packs of chips which were finished, also lying around and an empty pizza box. Strange, because I've always known Kyle to be a tidy person. I scrunched my nose in disgust as the smell hit me.

I looked up to see Kyle in the kitchen and he didn't even look bothered. After tip toeing to avoid stepping on anything, I made my way to him.

"Where's your mom?" I asked.

Kyle shook his head. "She doesn't live here," I could swear I saw a hint of pain flicker through his eyes. It was gone in a flash though, as if it wasn't even there.

"What do you mean?"

I sensed a little hesitation from him. We had a lot to catch up on. I needed to know what was going on in my best friend's life. I didn't want to make him uncomfortable as we just restarted our friendship.

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to," I told him. "Only when you're ready," I assured him.

He nodded and handed me a can of soda which I took after muttering a thank you.

"But, what you do need to tell me is, what the heck is going on here?" I asked gesturing with my hands to show him that I was talking about the living room.

Kyle chuckled. "Brian."

"Who's Brian?" My curiosity had me there. I took a sip of my soda and leaned against the kitchen counter.

"We live together."

"As in roommates?" I questioned making him nod. "Okay, but that doesn't explain the mess back there in the living room."

"Let's just say, he has this strange and fake allergy to cleaning, but he'll come around," he chuckled as if it wasn't a big deal.

I only nodded. However, I kept wondering about who this Brian was and why Kyle wasn't living with his mom. Or dad for that matter. When he told me he was coming back, he didn't mention not living with his parents or even having a roommate so I was confused as to why. And why did his roommate live like such a pig? I gagged, internally, of course.

I loved being neat. It wasn't a germ phobia or anything like that but I did like to keep my surroundings clean. I kept everything well arranged. Kyle was also neat, since I had learned the art of organizing from him. And he was a pretty good teacher so t made me wonder why his roommate was the opposite.

"You coming?" Kyle asked.

"What?" I looked up at Kyle who was already on the stairs. I must have zoned out when I was thinking. I looked around for a bit and I noticed that there were no rooms downstairs, except the living room, the kitchen, and a bathroom. So the bedrooms were upstairs.

"I said let's go up to my room," Kyle replied, already leading the way.

I nodded even though Kyle couldn't see me since his back was turned to me. After chugging the rest of my soda, I put the can in the small bin by the kitchen counter and rushed up to join my best friend. We had so much to catch up on. I wanted to know why Kyle came back and why he was living alone. But I decided not to bring that topic up, since he seemed uncomfortable when I asked at first.