Between Ties

2. Noisy Neighbor

Maverick's Point Of View

"Beth, I'm sorry." I said apologetically as I held the phone to my ear using my shoulder, as my hoody had hung from my left hand while my right one had struggled to open the front door of my apartment. This fucking lock is so stubborn, it took me fifteen minutes last week just to get this thing to budge, I seriously contemplated about burning the fucking door down.

"Maverick, you went off the grid for the whole weekend! You constantly do shit like this and I'm..." she breathed deeply and then calmed down to admit that- "I'm worried Maverick."

A wave of softness melted over my heart as I swallowed and then shut my eyes for a moment and stopped what I was doing,

She sounded like my mom, I had no choice but to be soft towards her.

"I get that baby but you don't need to worry about me. I'm fine." I said to her and honestly I was.

This weekend was crazy, I went to visit my mom and I had really missed her, her and I no longer live together, we can't. It's not safe.

"Okay, I trust your word." she accepted defeat and then quickly changed the subject as I tried to wave off my emotions and go back to focusing on opening this fucking door. "Hey I gotta go, it's late and we have school in the morning. Please bring me Starbucks and don't be late." I could feel her smiling a kind of bitchy smile and then she hung up as I shoved the door a little too hard to have it open, causing me to almost fall in.

I stumbled into the darkness of my apartment and visualized flames to have all the candles in my apartment lounge light up as if they had greeted me with a warm hello from the windy night that had previously consumed me.

"You not going tonight?" I saw a figure appear out of the darkness like a crazy wife waiting for her husband to come late from work because she assumes his cheating, as the dim light from my candles had now made him visible on the couch.

I rolled my eyes and then flicked the light switch on.

"One, how the fuck did you get into my apartment and two, why the fuck is yo dumb ass sitting in the dark?" I cocked my head back at Tusco while I tossed my keys onto the kitchen table that was separated from my lounge area.

"One, I unlocked it with a spell and two, I wanted to be dramatic I'm finally on a break from college and I just wanted to have a little fun with my little brother." He said as he noticed a glass of water that I had left from this morning placed on the counter top of the zinc.

Tusco was the third oldest between the four of us, he was nineteen, Nix was twenty-one and Kenzo was twenty-five,

And ya boy was the youngest, a whole ass eighteen.

"An unlock spell?" I rolled my eyes "that one would actually come in handy. My fucking door is the worst." I said as I threw my hoody on the kitchen stool and then twisted my body to opened my refrigerator door.

"Well if you showed up at meetings more often you'd learn cool shit." He was cocky in a playful way.

"Yeah, seems like Kenzo's really been studying daddy's little journal." I was being a dick and then smiled thinly as I licked my lips while my eyes browsed over the contents of my fridge.

Cheese, garlic, spinach...I think I have pasta in the cupboard.

I narrowed my eyes trying to create a meal in my head from the shit ingredients in my fridge. I really should go grocery shopping soon.

"Firstly, the book's called a grimoire you know that and secondly can you just show up tonight we need you, we already don't have Nix because of his tour and you know that the more of us together the better. When we're together our powers don't drain as fast, our union makes us more resilient and we need energy when we practice." He told me something I already knew and didn't care about as he got up from his seat to open the windows of my lounge because it was kind of stuffy in here.