Oreo

Chapter 22: Let's Celebrate!

Orion's POV~

Our faces had become numb from the crisp winter air, as if it had vented from a freezer of mint. Even Romeo's nose and ears had visibly turned pink through his olive skintone. However he didn't portray many signs of feeling cold besides a clenched jaw and staying rather quiet. Perhaps because if he loosed his bite, his teeth would chatter.

That was something I'd like to see.

We made it back safely to the apartment and I let us inside so we could turn up the heat and warm up. There was almost a drowsy feeling nagging at me, but only due to how much we ate at IHop. They never ceased to fill.

Romeo rubbed his hands together once we entered the apartment, going over to the thermostat.

"You've been rather quiet, Ro." I finally put into words. It wasn't that I wasn't used to him typically being quite, per the norm. It was just that his responses to things seemed far shorter and held back that usual. Instead of shy and reluctant retorts, he'd reply bluntly with occasional hesitation. His thinking process seemed different. Like the pond of his mind had a ripple in it.

Romeo paused, standing with his hand still up but closer to his chest as he'd just withdrawn his hand from the dial. Subtle hesitance. "Just... a lot in my mind."

"Like what?" I questioned, trying to probe for better details. I sat on the couch and remained calm and casual in hopes that it would make him more comfortable.

He hesitated again. "... Work.. school."

He's holding his tongue again. "What about 'em? Do you want to talk about it?"

Romeo shrugged and slumped down beside me with a little space to spare. "Meh.. I got let go."

My eyebrows raised in surprised. Come to think of it, he hadn't gone to work in a while. Was he late too many times? Did he miss a few days on accident? He seemed like a good worker, but it wasn't like I'd ever really seen him in his working environment. "Do you know why?"

He shrugged again, his eyes wandering about the room and lingering on the boxes left in disarray. "Too many staff members? I dunno. The boss emailed me the notice so I didn't ask any questions or argue with him."

"That sucks." Luckily I was able to get that form turned in yesterday. "And what about school?"

"We need to catch up on all our missing work..." He replied, his answer like a slap of realization. We had missed quite a few days not just due to the recent snowfall. It made me wonder what those bastards at school were thinking of our absence.

I pondered a moment. "Well... we can worry about that when we go back tomorrow. For now, we should unpack some more and then we can celebrate." I gave him a reassuring grin with a slight smirk that I couldn't quite hold back.

He blinked at me. "Celebrate what?"

"Moving into our new apartment, getting out of Juny's radar, our blossoming relationship - you know; the good things."

"Blossoming..?"

"Yes." I said, getting up and clapping my hands once. "Now, let's try to finish unpacking everything."

~

Romeo's POV~

It took maybe 5 hours to get everything out of boxes and haphazardly put away. A few heavier boxes of glass materials were left in the kitchen, Orion claiming to take care of them later. It was highly unlikely some things would stay where they were, but at least we had met out goal. Orion ordered us a pizza as I hung up a calendar on the wall by the hallway. It needed updating but I didn't feel like hunting down a pen.