HARLOW

He walked into the kitchen in a grey tank top and joggers. He glanced up at me from his phone and continued what he was doing. After a few seconds he realized what he just saw and looked up again with an excited smile.

I was at the island counter, which was covered with vanilla cupcakes with different colored icing and sprinkles. I spent all morning making every single one. It had been a couple of weeks, I was healed enough to not need crutches.

He tucked his phone in his pocket and looked at all the cupcakes. "You mind telling me why there're so many cupcakes?"

"There are only around 65. Eat one." I tucked my hands in my back pockets.

"I've never tasted any of your cooking." He furrowed his eyebrows.

"What're you trying to say? It's not poison, just try one. I promise you won't die from it." I chuckled and he slowly grabbed one with blue icing.

He bit into it and nodded. "Thank God that's the shit."

" So that means..."

"It's amazing. Why didn't you tell me you could cook?" He licked the icing off his fingers.

"Correction, I can bake. I couldn't cook if my life depended on it. I've been baking all morning because I'm bored. It took me forever to find the sugar in this huge kitchen." I rolled my eyes, double checking that the oven was off.

He laughed. "What are you gonna do with all of these?"

"I'm gonna wait for everyone else to wake up. I bet you they'll all be gone by three o'clock." I giggled. "The blue are yours, the red are Zach's, the purple are Marcella's, green are Dominic's, yellow are Eli's and pink are Alexi's. The rainbow is for anyone else who wants some." I explained as they all came into the kitchen.

"Sweet." Zach grabbed a red one. Everyone grabbed their color and soon enough, half of them were gone.

****

"You really don't have to help, Marcella. It's my mess." I said sheepishly as I cleaned the counter of spilt flour.

We finished up the mess in the kitchen I made and sat at the island counter. "Are you excited for your proposal in a few months?"

I pursed my lips. "Um, yeah, I guess." I lied through my pearly whites. The engagement party is the night I tell him I love him. I'm not excited about that at all.

"You better be." I heard a voice say from behind me and someone covered my eyes. I heard Marcella gasp and I got kinda scared.

"Why are you covering my eyes, Cristiano?"

"Man, I wanted to be cheesy as hell and ask you to guess who." He whined and removed his hand from my eyes. I looked down at the object in front of me and smiled.

"What's this for?" I asked, picking up the small cavalier King Charles spaniel stuffed animal.

"Turn around and you'll find out." He said. Marcella nodded her head with a smile and I turned around to see the same puppy, but alive, in his arms.

He handed the puppy to me and I rubbed behind his ears, making him start to lick my wrist. "Remember the hospital garden? His name is Haydn."

I looked up at Cristiano and Haydn barked at me. "And he's ours?"

N/A- Although it makes more sense to name him after an Italian composer like Vivaldi, fun fact, Cristiano's grandparents were into Haydn and would play his music all the time in their house when Cristiano visited.

He nodded and I squealed in excitement. "He's very intelligent, already well trained, he already knows his name and responds to it, and he's very good with orders. It's almost like he understands basic English." He explained, petting Haydn's head. 

"He's so small." I breathed, lifting him up into the air. I could tell he was just a little puppy. I sat him on my lap and he immediately got comfortable.

"I'm waiting." Cristiano grinned.

I playfully rolled my eyes and kissed his lips. "Thank you."

"You are very welcome. Walk with us?" He raised an eyebrow and I nodded, putting Haydn down on the floor. He ran out of the kitchen and through the crack in the door of Dominic's office. Oh no.

We walked into the foyer to see his office fully. He walked out with Haydn in his hands and put him down, his eyes narrowing at Cristiano. Cristiano pointed to me and I scoffed, pushing him.

Dominic walked back into his office, completely closing the door. "Padre's not that all into dogs. He's more of a cat person." Cristiano laughed.

"Does everyone else know about Haydn?" I crossed my arms.

He looked away with a guilty look on his face. "Why can't I ever be the first to know about something?" I huffed.

"I'm sorry. I promise you'll be the first to know about the next big thing." He opened the front door for me and we headed outside. "Come, Haydn." He called and in an instant, Haydn came running out.

Cristiano attached his red leash to his collar and held the end. "Street market?"

"Sure. Gelato after, though." I smiled brightly, grabbing his hand.

****

We had walked through the market and Haydn barked and sniffed at almost every person there. He was playful with every child he saw, so we decided to get some gelato and take it to the park.

When we got to the park, we took off his leash and let him run around and play with other dogs. We sat on the bench and watched him, eating our small bowls of chocolate chip gelato.

"So why did you really get Haydn?" I asked.

He shrugged, tapping his spoon against the edge of his styrofoam bowl. "I just felt like it. Plus, I knew you liked dogs and I knew we needed one that day at the hospital. I knew it would make you happy."

He threw his now empty bowl and spoon into the trash next to the bench and wrapped his arm around my shoulders, bringing me closer to him.

Out of nowhere, Haydn comes running towards us and jumps up on the bench, sitting in the small gap between Cristiano and I. I laugh and pet behind his ears, because apparently that's his favorite spot besides his belly.

I happen to look next to me and there was a brown spider the size of a quarter on the arm of the bench. The memory of Cristiano telling me that he and his entire family were super scared of spiders popped into my head.

I took my phone out of my pocket and carefully moved it under the 'scary' arachnid and turned toward him with a mischievous smile.

"Hey, Cristiano?"

"Hm?" He looked down at Haydn and rubbed his back.

"Isn't this cute?" I asked and he looked up at the quarter-sized spider on my phone, his eyes started to widen.

"Shit!" He jumped and nearly fell of the bench, causing Haydn to jump off and bark. He stood up and ran a hand through his hair. I burst out laughing and he started hyperventilating. "That's not funny."

"Okay, sorry." I brushed the spider off my phone and it went flying at him and he jumped to the side with a muted yelp. I giggled. "That's a first. I should've recorded that."

He wiped his hands over his face with a loud huff. "Y-you can't--don't ever do that again!" He stuttered and closed his eyes for a second, he seemed strangely out of breath.

"Sorry. At least now I know what you're actually scared of."

"What?" He still wasn't sitting down, but I was sure he was discreetly checking the bench for more spiders with his eyes. "I-I'm scared of some things. I don't feel like telling you anymore, though." His eyes focused on me again.

I sighed, guilt taking over me, and got up and looked for more spiders on, under, and within a five foot radius of the bench. "What are you doing now?"

"Looking for arachnids." I said distractedly. When I found none, I grabbed his shoulders and made him sit down. "No spider or eight-legged creature near, so you're good to calm down."

As soon as he caught on that I was helping him out of guilt, he smiled slightly,creating a bit. I sat down and picked up Haydn, sitting him on my lap. "Sorry."

"You apologizing to me or the dog?" Cristiano chuckled over his words.

"Both. How about this, you can get me back by putting a snake, nonpoisonous of course, in my face. I promise you it will cause me a panic attack. It's happened before." I shuddered from the memory.

"No, I wouldn't do that to you." He said and I raised my eyebrows. "I wouldn't put it in your face, I'd put with you in the shower. That way you wouldn't hear or see it coming."

I scoffed and hit his arm, making him laugh. "You turd."

****

We went home at five o'clock and when we went inside the estate, we were nearly knocked off our feet by Eli and Zach, who were running through the house.

They stopped at us and Zach smiled a creepy smile at me. "Hey, I thought of you in the basement today."

I raised an eyebrow and they both laughed. He turned to Cristiano and said: "Hey, I thought of you in a closet today." And him and Eli burst out laughing. "Done!" Zach shouted.

"What is happening?" I asked, super weirded out.

"We're doing a bunch of dares that apply to the both of us, calculated by this app on my phone. All the random dares were put in by people in the estate." Eli showed me the screen of his phone, that had a spinner on it.

"Ooh! I wanna play!" I chirped.

"We'll have at it. I'm gonna go cook dinner." Cristiano pecked my cheek and headed to the kitchen.

Eli spun the spinner and after it stopped, he started laughing. "Kiss everyone in the estate." He nearly lost his mind from laughter. "T-This is Cristiano's dare."

"But why is it so funny?"

"We did a similar dare to this like, back when we were 16. Just the memories." Zach shrugged. "Okay, ready? Go!"

We took off running into Dominic's office. He looked up at us with an eyebrow raised and I kissed his cheek, the guys doing the same.

He gave us a weird look and we ran out and into the Tech Force offices. It took us ten minutes to kiss everyone on the cheek, and when we were finished, we were out of breath from the running.

We went up the stairs and I ran into Giovanni. Before he had the chance to piss me off with his pickup lines, I kissed his cheek and ran away, wiping my lips of disease. We kissed Alexi's cheek, Lola, who I hadn't seen around's cheek and even Haydn's dog cheeks. Do dogs even have cheeks?

We got to the kitchen impossibly out of breath. Cristiano had earbuds in his ears and it was turned up loud, I could hear what he was listening to. Never struck him as a fan of Panic! At The Disco and Drake. Odd combination.

"Okay, three people left." Zach mumbled and kissed the tip of my nose. "Two." He kissed Eli cheek and they both laughed. "One." He walked over to Cristiano and kissed his cheek, startling him.

"What the hell, man?" He sniffed and rolled his eyes. "You're drunk."

"Naw, just wasted." Zach said in a childish voice. "But hey! E's wasted too."

"Oh!" Eli jumped and kissed my forehead, Zach's forehead, and Cristiano's forehead.

I did the same, kissing Zach's jaw because he's taller than me, Eli's cheek because he's not that much taller, and groaned. "Why are you such a tree?" I asked Cristiano and kissed the crook of his neck. "That's as far as I can go." I shrugged and he laughed, leaning down to peck my lips.

"Well you shouldn't be so short."

"I'm 5"4' and a half, don't make fun of me, Mr 6"2'."

****

"Heeeey, baboon." I slurred, stumbling into our room. He was sitting against the headboard on the bed with Haydn relaxed on his lap, while on his phone. He, very agitated, put his phone down and looked at me.

"Did you just call me a damn baboon?"

I gasped. "No! I meant baby!" I burst out laughing.

"How much did you drink with Zach?" He put Haydn aside and stood up, walking towards me.

I counted on my fingers slowly. "1...2...5...8.." I zoned out for a second but checked back in. "3...I dunno."

"I'm gonna pretend you counted correctly." He blinked, scooping me in his arms and putting me on the bed.

I grabbed his collar and kissed his lips and he kissed back before quickly pulling away. "How'd you find the vodka?"

"Zach." I took off my jeans and walked into the bathroom to throw up.

****

CRISTIANO

Why would she take off her pants? That makes no sense.

I sighed, following her into the bathroom and she was throwing up with her ass in the air. I silently groaned, resisting the urge to ogle her ass.

Her hair was already in a messy bun so I didn't have to do anything. When she was done, I have her a cup of mouthwash as she requested and she gargled for three minutes before spitting into the toilet. She flushed and sat with her knees to her chest.

I went to help her up but she smacked my hands away. "Don't touch me!"

"Why?" I furrowed my eyebrows.

"I don't like you anymore. I hate you." She pouted. I pretended that didn't sting a little.

My right eye twitched a little. "Why do you, um, hate me?"

"Because you don't loooove meee." She pouted even more and I raised my eyebrows. I didn't know what to say.

"Uh, H-Harlow, that doesn't mean that I don't care about you."

"Dammit, I know you care about me, turd! Haydn!" She called and Haydn came running into the bathroom. "Sic him!" She pointed at me and Haydn looked at me, tilting his head.

"Haydn, go to bed." I ordered and he trotted out of the bathroom.

"No fair, he listens to you too!" She whined.

"He listens to the both of us." I sighed. "What's wrong with my angel?"

She narrowed her eyes with a smirk. "Nothing, cutie." She's a bipolar drunk.

My right eye twitched. She said the one word that I hate her saying, and the one word that pisses me off in general. "Harlow, I'm telling you now and now only." I gripped her arms and got incredibly close to her face, my face dead serious. "Do NOT call me cute. Do NOT ever say 'nothing' when I ask you what's wrong. Do you understand that?"

She looked down but I lightly shook her, making her look me in the eyes. "Do you understand that?" I repeated in the same tone. She flinched and I swallowed the guilt that hit me.

"Yes." She whispered, her eyes started to turn extra light silver and they dilated hugely. She closed her eyes and her fingers brushed against my jaw. "I'm sorry."

The slight slur in her voice was gone, and she wasn't rocking a little anymore. Did she sober up that quickly?

I sighed telling myself to just let it go, it's for the best. "It's fine, angel." I stood up and waited for an action from her. She avoided my gaze and looked down, biting her lip.

I held out my hands and she looked up. She grabbed my hands and I pulled her up, embracing her in my arms. "You want anything?"

She stayed quiet for a second. "Gelato."

I chuckled, letting her go. "Sure." I waited for her to exit the bathroom and I went out after her. We headed downstairs into the kitchen and it was completely silent, which was strange because it's never silent in this house.

I told her to stay in the kitchen and I went to the high stand table beside the door, seeing five sticky notes on it.

Gone to Club Inferno. See you tomorrow. - Zach

Followed Zach to Club Inferno. - Eli

Mob/Mafia Capo meeting tonight, you know the protocol. Ti amo. - Ma & Padre

Sleepover with Alana. - Alexi

Bar. - Giovanni

I smiled and walked back into the kitchen, hugging her from behind. "Looks like we have the house to ourselves tonight, angel."

___________________________

F I L L E R  C H A P T E R...

Bye, loves!

- COA