"Reegan? What are you doing here?" A man with shaggy midnight black hair and a familiar set of grey eyes— the two key traits inherited by all the men in the Cordova family— stared back at me blankly, clearly not in the best mood. When I opened my door this morning, I hadn't expected to see my younger brother standing outside my apartment. With only a five-year age gap, we never had a bad relationship, especially since he had no desire to take over the family business, but he wasn't one to visit others.He worked as a freelance hacker who would've stayed inside his house 24/7 if it wasn't for my mother's mandatory weekly family dinners. As such, he stood just half a foot shorter than me at only 6 feet tall, with a much leaner build than my own from sitting around at his apartment all day. "I didn't want to come, but—" Reegan was abruptly cut off when an arm was suddenly thrown around him, and a familiar brunette popped up in the doorway."I thought we should hang out together this
He was covered in splotches of dust from head to toe. Even the collar of his shirt was torn apart. A bright red mark decorated the left side of his cheek, and deep scraps were littered across his hands.What happened to him?Why was he here by himself?I quickly made my way toward the little boy, parting the crowd like the red sea with my large frame. The moment I reached him, I swiftly scooped him off the ground. Liam reflexively swung his hand toward my face but immediately stopped mid-motion when his eyes widened in recognition. A series of emotions flashed through his eyes, from anger to shock to relief to panic. Tears brimmed at the corner of his eyes as he incoherently sputtered, "T-that man... O-over there... he w-was... he's t-trying to..." I never expected to see his previously cold demeanor break down like this. I caught his flailing hands, not wanting him accidentally hurt himself. "Liam, please try to calm down first. I can't help you like this."He yanked his tiny fis
By the time Ms. Belcalis finished her bath, I had finished disinfecting Liam's wounds and applying an ointment to the bruise on his cheek. I had also wrapped the open-wounded scrapes on his little hands with bandages since he seemed to have scabbed his tender palms pretty badly on the rough pavement when he was pushed around in the crowd. She walked out of the bathroom, drying her hair with a small towel. Even though I found a set of relatively small clothes from my teenage years, the shirt was barely hanging onto her shoulders and almost fell all the way down to her knees. To add on, the drawstring of the shorts seemed to had been pulled as far as it could possibly go to keep them on her hips. But she still managed to make my heart flutter, even though she had just come out of the shower and her face was slightly swollen from before. Taking barely any note of me, she went straight to Liam's side, kneeling down next to him as her eyes worriedly raked over his body. She chewed onto
I groaned as the bright ray of morning beated against my eyelids.I haphazardly threw my arm across my eyes and rolled into the back of my couch, trying to hide from the obnoxious sunlight. Due to the fact that my couch was much too small for my much larger frame, I was barely able to get any sleep last night with my feet dangling way off the end of the couch. My entire body was definitely aching from this damned couch. I wondered if the other two had a good night's sleep. I hoped they did, especially after all the stress they had gone through yesterday. But, at the same time, I wouldn't be surprised if they freaked out from waking up in an unfamiliar environment today. My mind drifted off, considering several things that I could potentially do to try to help ease their nerves. Maybe I could make them breakfast...But I had nothing in my apartment...Should I hop out to one of the nearby grocery stores and quickly pick up some stuff? But if they accidentally woke up while I was ou
Shit, this wasn't how I wanted her to find out. If it were up to me, I would've never wanted this situation to happen in the first place, for her sake. She didn't seem like someone who liked to the center of attention and I didn't her to be unnecessarily bombarded by paparazzi just because she was seen with me. But what's done is done. I let out a heavy sigh as I quickly turned my phone off, blackening the screen. When I turned around to glance down at her, she was still staring at the blank screen of my phone with her eyebrows completely scrunched up and her thumbnail locked between her teeth. I gently pulled her finger out of her mouth, not wanting her to hurt herself from chewing on her nail. I softly apologized, "I'm sorry, Ms. Belcalis. I should've been more careful." Her hand tightened, squeezing only two of my finger in her little hand. She looked up with bright violet eyes, quivering as tearing threatened to spill. "I-I... Um... Y-you..." I lightly brushed the tears out o
"So, do you have any woman in your life yet?" Huh? My hands stilled on the chopping board, not expecting such a sudden question from my mother while I was helping her prep the ingredients for tonight's dinner. I thought I had already finished all her questions when I first walked through the front door. She had already asked me about my work and my date with Mellisa's daughter. I thought she was already satisfied with the answers when she dropped the questions and told me to help her with dinner instead. My mother continued stirring the pot and repeated, "Do you think your own mother wouldn't notice the leaked picture of you with some woman? I know that Joseph is good, but my PA is better." I silently cussed in my head and looked back down at the half-chopped vegetables on my board. I didn't expect her to catch the picture so quickly when it had only been on the internet for less than 5 minutes. "So, who is she? You never date unless I force you and always go to your events with
I don't think I have been as nervous as today since I first met one of my father's business friends back from when I was still only 14 years old. I had changed my outfit 3 times already and fidgeted with my cuffs more times than I could count. Would she like the outfit? It was just a simple button-up shirt along with an oversized coat and some slacks. It wasn't all that different from my usual outfits or full-on suits for work. Would she think that I didn't put too much effort into my outfit and looked too boring?No, no, no. I shouldn't be thinking like that. Ms. Belcalis wouldn't be a person like that. I nervously glanced down at the bouquet of flowers in my arms. I ended up grabbing a set from a flower shop along the way out of instinct: a bouquet of lilacs intermixed with a few strands of lavender because of how they reminded me of her eyes. But did she even like flowers? It was such a cliché gift for the first date. A book probably would've been better for her... I had never
Stopped at a red light, I glanced over to my passenger passed out on side of my car. Miss Danary was completely tuckered out after our date, falling asleep almost instantly the moment I started driving.She had spent the last couple of hours exploring the bookshelves at the café and telling me all about her favorite books and pointing out the ones she had a home. She was so excited by the collection of rare books and new up-and-coming ones that she barely even sat down to take a single sip of water. She dragged me from one shelf to another without any resistance. Leaning against me as she reached for certain paperbacks on the higher shelves. Talking to me with barely any stutter. It was almost as if she had forgotten her fear of being around men. It was the complete opposite of her usual timid demeanor. It was like I saw her for the first time, the real Miss Danary beneath all her protective walls. However, our time was cut short when she realized that it was already 3 PM in the