Chapter Twenty-Two

Lia + Nintendo

 

After leaving my dads’ apartment, I shoot Barnabas a quick text.

Me: Bring the girls outside really quick.

Barnabas: Um okay?

I roll my eyes, shoving my phone back in my pocket and turn to Kiev. “They are going to freak out.”

“I’m sure Pepe will be the one freaking out.” He sets the armadillo down on the ground and straps on the frayed leash, while I place the kennel against the ground.

A few minutes later, Channery and Dara are running toward us with their short, black hair springing up and down. Barnabas takes his leisurely time making his way across the grass behind them.

“Lia!” Channery flings her arms around me.

“Hello!” Dara screams, wrapping her arms tightly around Kiev’s waist. He shoots me a wide-eyed stare.

Barnabas pulls Dara away and lightly scolds her, “Introduce yourself first—you don’t just go around hugging up on strangers.” He looks at Kiev. “Not that you’re a creep, but they don’t know that.” Then his gaze drifts down to the armadillo in Kiev’s hands. “Huh. So Lia wasn’t exaggerating. You actually do have an armadillo for a pet.”

“How would I have been exaggerating, Barnabas?” I ask. “I said he has an armadillo for a pet.”

“Who knows with you. You may have just thought it was an armadillo when in fact it was a rabbit.” He air quotes with one hand, and his fingers resemble bunny ears.

“A rabbit with armor?” I ask.

“Precisely.” He takes the time to pull up a photo of a rabbit wearing knight armor on Google, obviously photoshopped.

“That doesn’t count,” I say.

“Can I pet it?” Channery shouts, tired of waiting.

“Hold it!” Dara demands, reaching her long arms out.

“Children, children, calm down. Let Kiev”—Barnabas pauses and examines the leash with an arched eyebrow—“set down the armadillo and hold onto its leash.”

Kiev sets Pepe on the ground, who automatically shuffles to Barnabas’s black boot and gives it a whiff. Channery shoots out a hand to pet it. Barnabas grabs her by the fingers, and looks up at Kiev. “It doesn’t bite, right? My sisters need all their fingers intact, so I don’t have to take care of them for the rest of my life.”

Kiev shrugs his shoulders. “He hasn’t bit anyone yet.”

That must be enough of an answer for Barnabas, because he releases her small fingers. “Softly, Channery.”

Her hand brushes against Pepe’s tiny head, and his eyes close for a second, seeming to love the attention. Dara follows her sister’s lead, except stroking the tail. Pepe twists away from Channery to chase his tail, stopping to sniff at Dara’s hand, who lets out a fitful of giggles.

“Hey, I want him to sniff my hand.” Channery pouts.

Barnabas rolls his eyes. “Then stick your hand by its nose.” Channery does as he says, and Pepe sniffs at her palm, giving it a small lick.

“Barnabas!” Mrs. Lao yells from the edge of the grass, appearing out of nowhere. “Get girls inside away from that filthy thing.”

“It’s just an armadillo, Ma.” Barnabas grins.

Mrs. Lao’s whole face contorts into confusion. “I don’t care.”

Shaking his head, Barnabas tells the girls to come on. “No offense to Pepe, Kiev. She doesn’t even allow them near dogs. I can’t even remember how old I was when I finally was able to pet something.” He pulls his hands up and wiggles his fingers. “My fingers had to stay intact, since they were destined to play the harp.”

“Barnabas, go home. I’ll text you later.” I laugh.

The girls scream their goodbyes to me and Kiev, and run off to Mrs. Lao, who is already pulling out a small bottle of hand sanitizer from her pocket.

Kiev scoops up Pepe, and we head into Mom’s apartment.

“Mom?” I set down the kennel next to the cloth sofa. There’s no answer, so I shoot her a quick text.

Me: Where are you? I have a surprise.

Mom: I’m running late with work, but I’ll be home in a couple of hours.

I turn to Kiev. “Mom won’t be home for a few hours. Do you want to hang out for a while, or do you need to head home?” I hope he wants to stay—I had fun with him at my dads’.

“I’ll stay. What do you want to do?” He looks around the living room toward the TV.

Kiss, but I say, “Do you want to play a game on the Nintendo?”

He places Pepe inside of the kennel. “Sure, let me see these ancient games of yours.”

I nudge his shoulder with mine. “Shut up. I know you’ve played Pac-Man before, which is older than Nintendo games.”

“Yeah, I’ve played Pac-Man, and I’ve also played Galaga. Does that give me cool points?” Smiling, Kiev takes a step closer to me.

“That just gave you five hot points.” I grin. I almost need a fan with his cuteness and video game talk.

Turning, I head toward my room and wave him to follow, leaving Pepe to take a nap.

Kiev looks around my room at all the movie and video game posters on the walls. Then his eyes zoom in on my purple beanbag chair. “Mine.” He practically leaps down into it.

I turn the TV and the Nintendo on. Bending down, I pick up the controller and the plastic gun. “Mario or Duck Hunt?”

“I’ll take that plastic gun.” His hand is already reaching out. He made a good decision, because I can always be in a mood for Duck Hunt.

Shuffling toward him, I kick his foot softly. “Up.”

“Down.” Kiev reaches forward and pulls me down into his lap. I let out a squeal, and I want to punch him for startling me, but then I relax. He wraps his arms around my waist and places his chin on my shoulder. “I rather like you sitting here.”

“All right. It’s not so bad.” I smile to myself. It’s definitely not bad at all.

He pulls the hat off my head, and sets it down on the floor. “It was poking me in the face.”

I finally hand him the gun, and he shoots at ducks across the screen for a long while. When it’s my turn, I switch to the clay shooting, because it’s way better than those annoying birds.

After making it pretty far, I miss the piece of clay I needed to hit. Leaning my back against his chest, I sigh, then turn around to face him. “Kissing time?”

A loud chuckle escapes his throat, and I feel the vibration against my back. “You know, we don’t have to schedule all of our kisses,” he says.

Giving him a shrug, I smile. “Okay, you can pick out a game to play instead if you prefer that.” I maneuver myself off him and lie down on the bed, still smiling.

He runs a hand through his thick brown hair, his gray eyes meeting mine. “I think I’ll pass on the game.”

He lies down beside me, and I feel my nerves kick up a notch when he places his hand on my hip. I’ve kissed him already, but it’s still nerve wracking—damn nerves.

Turning on my side to face him, I reach a hand out to move the lock of hair that is concealing part of his right eye. It falls back down. I frown at the stupid, beautiful pieces of hair.

He angles his head to the side. “So, you get mad at hair, too.”

I try to fight my smile, and he leans forward, pressing his lips to mine.

Kiev begins to move his mouth against mine, and I wiggle closer as I caress his soft lips right back. I don’t know where to put my hands because I want them to be everywhere on him at once. But I only have two, so I settle with wrapping one around his neck, and the other hand grasping at his hair.

We kiss for a long time, and his hand has drifted closer and closer to the cup of my bra. Tired of waiting, I grab his hand and place it on my chest. “You were taking too long.”

A wry smile crosses his face. “I didn’t want to get slapped or punched.”

I kiss him again. “You know you can t if you want, but stay over the bra for now.”

His answer is him smiling against my lips and letting his warm hand trickle under my shirt, slowly sliding up my skin. I think he’s doing the slow movement on purpose to drive me insane, but it isn’t working. Okay, it is working, and his smile signals that he knows it is.

A fumble of a lock comes from the front door. “Shit,” I say, hurrying and pulling back from Kiev to straighten out my shirt. He’s already off the bed, looking casual like we weren’t just making out. The door swings open, and I start walking out of my room to meet Mom, but Kiev pulls me back to straighten my messed-up hair.

I glance at the clock when I head into the living room and see Mom made it home thirty minutes earlier than she said she would. Of course, on the day I want her to be late she comes home early.

“Hey, Mom,” I say. She looks past me to where Kiev is, her eyes narrowing slightly. But then a loud bang comes from beside her and Mom yelps, her keys falling to the floor.

“What is that?” she asks, her eyebrows all the way up while staring at Pepe’s kennel.

“Oh, that’s just Pepe,” I say. “He belongs to Kiev.”

Amusement splatters over her face when she hears the name Kiev. Turning to him, she says, “Oh, Alex told me you went with them to IHOP. I’m surprised you would still want to hang out with her after the assault and all.”

“It was an accident. I already told you this, Mom.” I think the part about him defending me so she didn’t have to pay a fine is the only part that’s making her not mad he’s here.

“Can’t say I’ve ever accidentally punched anyone, but okay,” she says.

Kiev reaches his hand out to shake Mom’s hand. “Nice to meet you, ma’am.” He should have stopped while he was ahead.

She looks at his hand as if it’s a lion ready to pounce. “Did you just call me ma’am? What am I, eighty? Just call me Amanda.” Mom didn’t have such a nice response either when Barnabas called her Ms. Abbie. I guess he didn’t realize that Mom didn’t have my dad’s last name anymore.

“Nice to meet you, Amanda.” Kiev smiles broadly, still holding out that damn hand.

Mom takes it and shakes it, even though she hates shaking hands.

“Mom, are you ready to meet Pepe?” I ask, motioning at the armadillo.

“No. Not really.” She examines the kennel with disgust.

I open the door and Pepe zooms out. Mom screeches to get that thing back in the kennel and off the floor.

“Is that an armadillo?” Mom asks. I guess she wasn’t able to fully see through the metal front of the kennel.

She jumps on the back of the couch as Pepe whizzes by. I almost catch him, but he jumps freaking high. Mom looks like she’s about to pass out. “That thing better not use the bathroom on my carpet.”

Kneeling, Kiev lets out a low whistle, and Pepe darts toward him. He scoops up the armadillo and holds him safely in his arms.

Mom stares at it like she’s about to throw up. “That’s interesting. Now, are we done with it?”

Stepping toward Pepe, I give him a little pat on the head. “What’s wrong with him?”

“It looks like a rat, for one thing.” She grimaces with disgust.

I look over Pepe. I guess he does look like a rat with armor on—definitely not a rabbit.

“I should probably head home,” Kiev says.

“All right,” I say, “let me walk you to your car.”

Mom shoots me a look, and I shoot her a “what” look.

Kiev places Pepe back in his kennel and as we walk to the door, he waves at Mom. “Nice meeting you, Amanda.”

“Yeah, you too.” Mom smiles, which surprises me.

“Your mom seems nice,” he says, after we leave the apartment.

“Really? Even with her all hating Pepe?”

“Yeah.”

“If you insist.” Mom is a good mom, even if she works a lot. And she’s been here to help me on her own without ever asking Dad for child support.

“I would have stayed longer, but I want to talk to Dad about Mom.”

“How are you feeling about it?” Kiev opened up about his Mom earlier to me, and I know he has hurt and open gashes inside of him, but he doesn’t seem to let it affect him. He’s far from perfect, but none of us are.

He clenches the back of his neck. “I don’t know. I’m mad at her. I’m confused in general. I know why she did it, even though to me it was the wrong choice. There’s no reason to just up and leave your family. I don’t care how depressed you are—she still should have told us. We would have all stood by her side. I know Dad’s going to forgive her quickly, Vi seems to already have, but it’ll take me a lot longer. And that’s only if she keeps her word.”

“I think you have a right to be confused, and take as long as you want to figure it out. And if it were me, I would be pissed, but I wouldn’t shut her out if she’s trying to fix things.”

His lips purse together, and he nods. “I’m going to try.”

When we reach his car, he opens the passenger side, placing Pepe’s kennel on the seat. Turning back around, Kiev holds his arms open.

I stare at his open arms, and he motions me with all his fingers toward him. Laughing, I shake my head, and wrap my arms around his waist. If someone would have told me a few weeks ago that I was going to punch Kiev Jimenez and then make out with him, I would have told them to shut the front door and all the windows. But here I am, and here he is with the front door wide open.

“You want to do, like, an actual date night tomorrow night?” he asks.

“Okay, but pick something amazing,” I mumble in his shoulder, because it’s so comfortable I don’t want to lift my head.

“I’ll come up with something.” He pulls my face to his and gives me a gentle press of the lips. “I didn’t want to have to text you again and tell you I should have kissed you goodbye.”

“Nerd.” I give him one more kiss and tell him bye.

I head back into the apartment where Mom is nestled on the couch with a blanket wrapped around her. “So, are you dating the victim now?” Mom asks, trying not to smile.

“Not all guys are bad, Mom.”

“Most are, besides your friend Barnabas, but he’s also still young.”

“So, you don’t like Kiev?”

“I didn’t say that. But I won’t admit that he seems nice.” She gives me a real smile.

“You just did.” He must be some kind of warlock if he can make my mom be even semi-charmed by him.