Impress Me Not: The Handyman

Chapter 87

Niko had never seen Solomon so angry before. He wasn't even that angry when he yelled at him the time he thought that he was cheating on him. He had a look of determination in his eyes. One that Niko wasn't going to mess with. But he was going to be there for him.

Solomon was on the phone for some time. He had no clue who he was calling, but he decided to leave him be for the moment. Instead, he grabbed Maya as soon as she walked out and sat with her at the couch. They both picked out a movie and put it on.

He hadn't seen her like this either. She looked like Solomon had the day that he saw him laying on the ground with all those pictures. The poor girl was hugging her knees with a blanket wrapped around her, staring at the screen. It didn't seem like she was focusing on it at all. Every time Solomon would talk just a little bit louder, she would look back to the hallway where he was.

"Do you know who he's calling?" Niko asked her. Trying to avoid the subject was futile at this point.

"I have a feeling," she said. "He always told us that he would be there if we had any legal issues."

And here he was thinking that he was going to call up one of his lawyers. He guessed he was only there for moral support at this point.

"I'm sorry, Maya," Niko put his hand on top of hers. "I'm sorry you have to deal with all of this."

The modeling world had a culture surrounding overly skinny women quite a lot. They were just slowly stopping that, and when he said slowly, he meant really slowly. There had been models starving themselves since the beginning of the modeling industry. Trying to get people out of their old ways and habits was pretty difficult.

But this wasn't modeling, this was dancing. Dancers couldn't be super skinny. They needed to have muscle so that they could perform all those routines. It wasn't just unhealthy to starve a dancer, it sounded like it was deadly.

And these weren't women, they were girls.

Niko now understood why Solomon worried for her so much.

"I'll be okay," she smiled at him. She looked a little better now that she was home and comfortable. When she first came in, she looked like a wreck. "I just don't know what I'm going to do now. I don't know what school I'm going to go in. I'm going to miss some of my friends."

"It'll be alright," he told her. "You can always hang out with your friends here."

"It won't be the same," she shook her head. "Besides, this place would get too cramped if I invited all of them."

"Well, how about my place then?" he suggested. "I'm sure it's big enough to bring all of them along."

"You're really going to let me see your place?" her face lit up just a little bit as he said that.

"I should have a while ago," Niko chuckled. "You'd love it. It has a hot tub and about a thousand rooms."

"A hot tub?!"

"Yup!" he smiled at her. It was nice to know that even with all that she had gone through, she was still a kid when it all came down to it. "I'll take you there tomorrow, when I get off work."

"Okay," she said. "Maybe we could all have a sleepover there."

"That's only if Solomon wants to," Niko said. "The hermit seems pretty keen on staying in here all the time."

"Oh, he just says that," Maya waved the thought off. "As soon as he gets used to a place, he winds up wanting to stay there. Trust me."

Well. The thought of Solomon living with him over at his place did seem like a good idea. He would have more room to have him piano, and Niko had a much bigger kitchen. He could easily convert some rooms to accommodate the two of them.