I was sitting at the counter in my kitchen the next morning scrolling through my messages and doing some quick online research when Cyrus walked down the steps eyeing me closely, squinting his eyes at me, and rubbing his hands over his eyes dramatically shaking his head

"Do my eyes deceive me...or is Jesse actually..in front of me right now?"

"I live here," I roll my eyes

"Really? I wouldn't know," He says walking down the last step and coming towards me, "I haven't seen you in this house in the daytime at least. You always creep in late at night."

"Well, I'm sorry, dad. I'll try to keep my curfew next time."

"I don't care about what time you come in. I just wanna know what you're doing when you're not here."

"Well, if it was important wouldn't you think I'd let you know?" I ask trying to reason with him so he leaves me alone.

"No. I think you wouldn't." he shakes his head and laughs, "You didn't even tell me your last name until the third grade."

I forgot about that. I shrug my shoulders and go back to looking at my phone before he snatches it out of my hand forcing me to look at him again and I almost groan before he decided to speak,

"You want to know what I think?" he starts but I cut him off

"No, because I genuinely do not care."

Ignoring me he continues and says, "I think you've been hanging around with that little partner of yours." he starts to nod his head as if he's connecting the dots, "The girl that should've been... you know," he pauses and starts to put his fingers in quotation marks, " D-Word by now"

"I'm not hanging around with anyone. Nicholas and I have been doing some damage control all week, tightening up security, Cyrus."

"Um. No." We hear Simp coming from down the same steps that Cyrus sauntered down here from before he began his interrogation.

"You and Nicholas were in fact not together because he came here sometime during the week asking for you. You know, so you guys could do exactly what you said. Apparently every time he called you it went straight to voicemail." Simp stands on the last step staring at us, mainly me, and crosses his arms before placing them on his hips walking towards us and standing next to Cyrus on the other side of the counter.

Cyrus looks at him, taking this in since it is apparently new information for him, "Oh, so now you're putting your phone on 'Do Not Disturb'? You're a sly, sly man Jesse Duran." he says causing me to groan softly to myself and lower my head so I'm facing the white marble table in between us.

"You want to tell us where you really were now?" Simp says again.

"I was out."

"You were out doing what?" he presses

"I was out doing something that's none of your business."

"That's where you're wrong." Cyrus takes over, "Anything that messes with or threatens your safety is always our business."

Deciding that I've had enough of the interrogation process, and they're little tag-teaming thing that they have going on, I quickly decide to end the conversation.

"You two," I point at both of them, "Are assistants. We're friends so I understand that you've gotten comfortable but.." I pause for a while and then continue looking between the both of them, my face begins to harden as I stand up from my seat and say, 'Let's not forget who runs shit around here." I say as my voice starts to deepen in anger and frustration having been caught in a lie.

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The next Monday after that, I find myself pulling up to the daycare again driving the twenty-minute route that I've gotten familiar with.

Taking my keys out of the ignition, I turn off the engine, getting out of the car closing the door behind me. I walk to the building of the daycare opening the door and welcoming myself in.

Looking around the room, the sight of lego building blocks, miniature toy cars, an array of American Girl dolls and dollhouses are the first thing I notice before I see some familiar faces belonging to little people and a few slightly horny, yet kind volunteers. All but one.

I turn my head to see Karma sitting at a table with Giovanni, rubbing his arm as she speaks to him gently, He shakes his head continuously as they are clearly having a disagreement and it looks like he's about to burst into tears.

I walk towards the table, lightly placing my hand on Karma's back as she looks up from where she's sitting next to Giovanni. He hasn't noticed me yet as he's now resting his head on the table.

"Hi. Jesse..um" she says quietly as her eyes avert from me to Giovanni, and then back to me.

"What's going on with him?' I ask nodding my head towards the usual troublemaker

"He hasn't really been eating. I've been trying to get him to eat his yogurt." she says pointing to the greek vanilla yogurt placed in front of him, "But he refuses. We don't know what else to do." she shrugs and sighs as she rubs Giovanni's back slowly in circles. He lifts his head up and I notice how flushed his face is as he is now looking at me.

Deciding to give her a break I lightly tap Karma's shoulder again and tell her, "You can go. I got it from here." she looks up at me batting her eyelashes a few times as she looks at Giovanni and back at me shaking her head slowly, "Are you sure?"

"I got it from here," I repeat to her again.

She sighs and stands up before pushing her braids behind her neck and placing her hands in her pockets. "Okay," she says to me quietly looking at me subtly before walking past me going to tend to some other kid.

Pulling out the seat that she was in before I move it a little further and sit across from Giovanni. He leans back in his seat and looks at me with tired eyes.

I point over at the yogurt in front of him and see, "So you aren't going to eat that?"

He shakes his head once and sniffles a little bit and I notice the whites around his eyes begin to go red and he sighs.

This might be a bad time. But it's taking every ounce of strength to not laugh at how dramatic he's being.

I remember something quickly and tell him, "Wait here."

I rush out of the door, ignoring the look of confusion on Karma's face as I head to my car. I open the car door and look inside the passenger seat as I open a plastic bag that I had full of treats. They were meant for Karma but I don't think she'd mind sharing as I grab a small pack of M&M's.

I rush back inside after locking my car and I go to sit across from Giovanni again.

He looks at me as I drop the M&M's in front of me and he looks at me questionably.

"You kind of remind me of...me. When I was your age." I start as he tilts his head to the side and he scrunches his face in confusion

"Why?" he says in a small voice.

"Well. I was a bit of a picky eater myself and just like you, I hated eating these things," I say pointing at the yogurt.

"My mom used to do something for me every time I didn't want to eat them. Can I see that?" He slowly slides the yogurt over to me as it's already open, I open up the packet of M&M's and drop them inside the yogurt. I reach over to grab the plastic spoon that's next to him and mix the M&M's into the yogurt slowly, careful not to spill any over.

"When she'd do this. I couldn't help but finish everything inside this cup." I say as I stop mixing and hand it over to him, pushing it in his direction. He looks at it weirdly and then looks at me.

I nod at him telling him it's okay as he sniffles again and wipes the tear rolling down his cheek quickly.

He hesitantly grabs the cup and lifts the spoon, slowly taking his first bite.

He continues to chew as he looks at me and I catch the ghost of a smile on his lips as I nod at him in approval when he takes another bite.

I hear someone scoff behind me as I turn to look at the volunteers in shock, Karma's eyes piercing me with this intense stare as she smirks and shakes her head.

I do a small salute towards her and she scoffs again shaking her head going back to tend to the little girl.

I turn back around to see he's almost finished and he smiles widely at me showcasing his missing tooth on the bottom row.

"Thank you, Mr.Jesse," he says in a small voice causing me to laugh

"I'll let you call me just Jesse. If you let me call you Gio." he nods his head quickly as he shovels the last bite in his mouth, finishing his snack.

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Thanks for reading!