Baby Blue [unfinished]

3

He shut the door to his apartment quietly. His old cat looking up at him, blinking slowly. He sat down next to him, scratching his ears before laying on top of him.

The cat whined lightly

He whined back.

A pleasant conversation with a pleasant being.

Sal sat up from his cat-cushion, pulling the paper Lisa gave him out of his pocket. Her words stuck in his head.

"One number is my own, and one number is my sons," she said lowly. "You have to take your guess on which is which, since I figured you'd want both."

She laughed before heading back into her apartment, leaving Sal standing alone, beet red, paper in hand.

Phone in one hand, paper in the other, he weighed his options.

She could have put the numbers in an order that he would expect, her own first and Larry's second. But she could have reverse-phychologied him, putting Larry's first and her own second. Or she could have reverse-reverse-phychologied him, putting her own first and Larry's second, similar to the first one but with more intention. He could also decide to text neither, but that'd be rude. He could put both into a group chat? But he hated group chats and it'd probably be uncomfortable to be in a group chat with a woman you barely know and her son that you only know the name of.

Eventually he chose the first one, quickly putting the number into his phone as 'Li/La?', then sending a quick text that only said "Hey."

Then he waited.

---

The next morning he woke up with a hungry cat pawing at his face, and a quiet bing from his phone.

He choked on the yawn that almost came out as he heard the noise. He grabbed his phone, unplugging the charger just to stall the inevitable. Either he'd be extremely anxious or slightly disappointed.

He opened it to see a simple text that said "Hey :)"

That gave him zero answers! A totally unhelpful text.

He sighed and set his phone in his lap, almost immediately hearing a 'bing'.

He picked his phone back up and looked to see two more texts from the same contact.

"You're Sal right?"

"My ma told me you'd probably text. Are you alright btw?"

He felt his soul leave his body. He'd like to say that he's not one to overreact, but that'd be a complete lie. At 'are you alright' he felt his whole being heat and light up. It was just stupid common courtesy, but in his dumbass monkey brain it somehow translated to 'I care about you so much that I'm asking you <3 <3' which is probably not what he meant at all.

He heard his phone bing again.

"Did you just like... really have to piss or something? Lmao"

He laughed.

"No lol"

"Sorry to be a downer but tbh it was more like a small panic lol"

He figured he could text twice. He could right?

"Sorry man haha. Did I do that?"

He could apparently.

"Kinda sorta. I'm easily stressed by new people but its good for me to get used to it lol"

"Ah oh!" 

530 words

2801 characters