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wordsforthesoul · 3 years

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New York Hustle // Chapter Four

When I walk a few steps, deep in my thoughts, I remember I have nowhere to go. I mean I still could sleep at Hannahs, I know Lele, Hannah’s mother, wouldn't mind. But I don’t wanna be a liability.

So staying up it is.

I decide to go to King for a while. Just watching the city and listening to music, should calm my nerves a little. Staying outside all night isn’t the best thing to do when you live in New York, but it’s beautiful. Because it never gets dark, the lights from the billboards are so bright that you could think it’s daytime.

When I realize that the weather at night is still so could that I can’t take it, is it already 1 A.M and since the weather will just be getting colder I chose to go to a diner.

But at this time, there are a lot of bad people at the more popular diners. So I drive across the city, via subway, to get to a nearly empty one.

I stand a little further from the glass door, I don’t know why but I don’t feel like being alone. I know Hannah is home, I know I could call her, she even would come out, I don’t really know why I’m not calling her.

“Debating if you are hungry or not?”, I hear the now very familiar voice of Nero behind me. I turn around to face him, his hands are shoved into his front pocket. The coldness in his eyes isn’t as present as it used to be, but he’s still the most unreadable person I’ve ever met.

“Okay now it’s getting kinda creepy. Did you follow me or some shit?”, I say with a laugh and a smile. He walks closer to me.

“At the beginning yeah actually.”, he says while scratching the back of his head. “But I lost you pretty quick. I had a very bad feeling to just leave you alone at night.”, Nero truthfully admits. He’s now standing right in front of me, I never realized how tall he actually is.

“Well you found me again.”, I say with a smile.

“I did.”, he says and smiles too. “So, should we go inside?”, he nods to the diner.

“Yeah sure.”, Nero opens the door for me and I immediately start to blush. No one has ever done so sweet stuff for me, even though it’s such a little thing to do. As we sit down I remember that Fynn guy and the three other boys, who were sitting at the table.

“What happened to your friends?”, I ask as I look at the menu.

“I ditched them.”, he says with a shoulder shrug.

“What can I get you?”, an older grumpy Lady asks us, in her hand she holds a block and a pencil, which she is impatiently tapping against the paper.

“For me an Iced-coffee, please.”, I say with the nicest smile. If I had to work at a diner at almost 2 A.M I’d be grumpy too.Nero orders a Milkshake and smile at the women too, which makes me happy, I hate people who reflect other people's behaviour.

“So you ditched them?”, I continue on the conversation. “Hopefully not because of me.”

“Well kind of.”, Nero says with a smile. “But you’re not the only reason.”

“Uh ouch that hurt.”, I say with fake emotions, which makes Nero laugh. The lady comes back with our order, we thank her and start to drink in silent for the first few seconds.

“What was the other reason?”, I ask curious.

“I had to do something.”, Nero says with a dry smile.

“And is that something selling drugs?”, I ask straight forward. Nero is shocked for a moment. He doesn't say anything. “Don’t look at me like that, it’s pretty obvious.”

“No, not at all actually.”, he says still confused.

“Okay listen, first thing the money. I promise I didn’t mean to look, but I saw how much money you had in your pocket and most teens with money have either rich parents or they are selling drugs.”, I’m pretty proud of my analysis, I read so many books about it and even though people call me weird when I say things like this, I just feel good, because I know I’m right.

“Why not rich parents though.”, Nero asks with a little smirk, leans back and crosses his arms in front of him. That was the part where I had to take a lucky guess, his reaction told me that I was right though. I think of the reasons why my guts told me that it’s the drug thing.

“Your eyes.”, I finally say.

“My eyes.”, Nero asks and raises his eyebrow.

“Yeah your eyes. I noticed before that you have very cold eyes, very unreadable. I figured people with happy and rich parents are less likely to have up such a shield.”, as soon as those word leave my mouth I realized how stupid this must sounds. He must think I’m so weird now, gosh sometimes I hate myself and my big mouth so much.

“You’re good.”, Nero simply says and takes another sips from his Milkshake. I didn’t expect this reaction, I don’t know what I’m supposed to answer to that. “Aren’t you scared?”, Nero asks still focused on his shake. This time I’m the one who raises the eyebrows

“Scared? Of what?”

“Of the drug dealing thing.”, he says and looks at me. “Usually when I tell someone I’m a dealer they freak out. One actually ran away from me.”, Nero says with a chuckle.

“Well I’m not gonna run from you, I can tell you this much.”, I say and laugh.

Everything is so weird with him. He’s so calm, he didn’t react to me acting like Sherlock Holmes at all, usually people freak out if I analyse them, they call me freak and shit. I don’t care though, I got the people I need on my side. I ain’t need no one else.

“That’s odd, but I think I can work with that.”, Nero says and leans forward, resting his arms on the table. I Look at him, he has a smile on his face, a promising one. I never connected so fast with anyone.

“Maybe he wants to hurt you.”, says the small voice in my head, I’m desperately trying to drown out. Not everyone is secretly trying to hurt me, just because they’re being nice.

“Hey you okay?”, Nero says and raises his eyebrows. I must have been silent for a little too long.

“Yeah I’m fine, just thinking a little.”, I say and give him a small smile.

“‘bout what?”, the more I look at Nero the more I see that he’s been through a lot in his life. He too has a lot of scars on his body, I could be wrong but a few of them look like gunshots. I think this is boy is more trouble than it seems.

“About life.”, I lie as I look at his eyes again, at those dark blue eyes which clearly hold a story behind them, an even darker story than the colour of theirs. I stare at the one scar on is upper right arm. Nero follows my stare when he lands on his scar he looks back at me.

“Did it hurt?”, I ask quietly, looking back into the blue.

“No.”, he says in the same volume. “Believe it or not.”, Nero continues while staring into my eyes. “Getting shot isn’t as painful as it seems or looks, but you wanna know what hurts?”, I nod fascinated by his words. “When they pull the bullet out of your arm.”, I don’t say anything I just look at him, so does he . Seconds pass, suddenly his mouth turns to a smile, so does mine, we start to laugh. I cover my mouth and Nero looks away, still laughing.

“Never in my life did I laugh when I talked about my scars.”, Nero admits.

“Well you can cry too, if you want.”, I say. Nero chuckles:

“I’m good with the laughing.”, we’re getting serious again.

“What did you do after you got shot?”, I ask curious, hoping I’m not crossing a line. Nero licks his lips and flinches his eyes lightly, he has worry on his face.

“I fell down on the concrete.”, something is off with his answer.

“What happened before you fell.”, I push a little harder. I don’t like when someone lies or hides the truth. They don’t need to tell me everything they can be honest if they don’t want to share a certain thing with me, but they don’t have to lie.

“Don’t push it.”, Nero says as he gets more serious.

“You don’t have to tell me anything, but you don’t have to lie.”, I quote him. Nero stops for a moment.

“You good.”, he says with a grin.

“I know I am.”, I say and take another sip from my coffee.

“But actually I didn’t lie to you, I did fell down.”, Nero says and points his finger at me.

“Hiding the truth is the same thing as lying.”, Nero thinks about my statement then shakes his head.

“No I don’t think so. See, people only lie to get something, so they’re doing it for their own benefit. But when someone hides something, most of the time, they are trying to protect the other person.”, Nero leans back, very satisfied with his explanation.

“Then what is it you trying to protect me from?”, I ask with a winning smile on my face.

“Oh I see what you did there.” Nero says with a chuckle. “From myself I guess.”,he says, answering the question anyways.

“And why would I need protection from you?”, Nero raises his eyebrows once again.

“You seriously asking this the nineteen year old boy with gunshot wounds?”

“Well just because you have the scars, doesn't automatically make you the bad guy.”, I think for a moment before I continue. “But I got a feeling the thing you did before you hit the concrete does.”

”How come we’re always coming back to that subject?”, Nero asks with a small smile.

“Because I’m that good.”, I say with a grin.

“I can tell.”, Nero says and leans forward again. “I shot back.”, Nero says, his head’s hanging low, his eyes looking up at mine.

“I figured.”, Nero lifts his head slowly confusion in his expression.

“Why aren’t you scared?”, Nero almost whispers.

“Is there a reason I should be scared?”, I ask calmly.

“No, not at all.”, Nero says truthfully while shaking his head.

“So we’re good then.”, I say with a bright smile.