Building Shelters

Mikey: Diamond

I've never been to the second floor of the cafe. I imagined the different possibilities of what could be up here: a storage room with dusty coffee grinders and bags of dark roasts, or a secret nightclub that only operates after the cafe is completely closed. I didn't expect to be standing in the middle of a living room. My eyes shift to every nook and cranny of the place and I take it all in. To the right of the room, there is a marble countertop island and a gas stove sitting against the wall next to a stainless steel french door fridge. To the left, I see a wall mounted television surrounded by black sofas. There are art pieces hanging all around the brick walls of the room and I find myself surprised by how much art the owner has invested into this place. I'm sure there's at least 50 different pieces upstairs and downstairs combined. It takes everything in me to snap my eyes off my surroundings and back to the issue at hand: the loud scream from earlier.

"Meera, are you sure we are allowed to be up here?" I say hesitantly. Meera might be able to get away with it since she works here, but I on the other hand am just a customer. I feel like a robber breaking into somebody's house.

"Since when do you follow the rules?" She has a point. Dominique and I were well known for being rule breakers. However, that never stopped me from freaking out every single time we did something reckless. It usually took a whole lot of convincing on his end to get me to do anything. Even though I protested a lot, I never once regretted any crazy thing we did together. It's kind of like how parents will have to convince their kids to try a new food. At first, the child may kick and scream, but once they taste it, they find themselves getting lost in the new sensations dancing on their tongues.

"If my friends weren't such bad influences, maybe I'd follow the rules more," I point out.

"That's no fun," she says with a smirk. We turn into a hallway adjacent to the staircase and see a couple of doors, all of them being shut. Meera starts to press her ear against each door and I smile at her actions. I thought she'd be the first one to bang on each door and even kick them down if necessary.

"JEREMIAH, WHY DOES IT HURT SO MUCH!" We suddenly hear a voice scream from the room Meera had her ear against and she almost falls over. I press my hand against her back to keep her balanced.

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure I'm deaf now," Meera mutters while pushing the door open.

Inside, we see a flustered Roxie sitting on an unmade bed with her arms wrapped around her knees and an amused Jeremiah kneeling next to her, cleaning her ear with a q-tip. My eyes light up when I see the diamond stud glistening from the corner of her ear.

She did it!

"Welcome to mi casa," Jeremiah greets us without taking his eyes off Roxie's ear. "Feel free to make yourselves at home."

"So this is what all that screaming was about. Jeremiah pierced Roxie's ears!" Meera turns to me and says.

"Wait, you guys heard me?" Roxie asks with a panicked expression on her face.

"I think the whole cafe heard you," I say apologetically and Roxie's face turns red.

"That's so embarrassing."

Meera walks over to the two of them in order to get a closer look at her ear. I follow closely behind because curiosity was eating me up.

"Jeremiah, where did you learn to pierce ears? You did a great job," I say in amazement. The piercing looks perfect on Roxie and I can tell from the tools Jeremiah had sprawled out on a tray that he didn't just search up "piercing kit for beginners" on Amazon like I would.

"I used to work at a tattoo shop. I picked up a couple of things there like how to pierce ears," he says, finally looking at Meera and I for the first time since we walked in.