DYSFUNCTIONAL • [ D. BOSTICK ]

| 26. | xbox

"Don't be mad." Devon hears Nora yell as soon as she comes through the door.

"Too late, where the hell is the Xbox?"

"Yeah, about that..." Nora says from the kitchen where Devon could clearly see her setting bags down.

"Continue." Devon said in a demanding tone.

Nora came into view, letting out a soft sigh. "The red ring of death." Was all she had to say to make Devon groan aloud.

"However," She stated, making Devon somewhat hopeful that there was good news. "I was able to fix it in a very ghetto manner-"

"So where the fuck is it? The one time I want to get home from work and shoot my problems away I can't?"

Nora gave him a confused look as she stepped closer to him, "What's wrong? What happened at work?"

Devon scoffed, "The fact that I had to go to work in the first place and fill a thousand buckets of popcorn only hear two thank you's. Where's the Xbox? I want my Xbox, Nora."

"Well after I fixed it, I pawned it."

"You-" He scoffed. "You what?"

"I pawned it." She said, nonchalantly, walking back towards the kitchen.

Devon stood there, feeling an array or emotions. He first felt annoyed, the he felt pissed, confused, and very upset.

"But," Nora said before she came into veiw. "I used the money I got for it, which was only like twenty bucks, to buy you this."

She had a rather large box wrapped in a foiled gold paper with a giant red bow on top. Devon could only see her nose and up since the box covered most of her upper body while in her arms.

Devon gave her a strange look, reluctantly taking the gift from her. "Thank you?" He said questioningly as he set the large - and heavy - box on the coffee table.

"Consider it a day early birthday gift." She said, trying to hold back a smile.

Devon reluctantly began to rip the wraping paper at a rather normal pace. He was mostly curious - and still upset that Nora just went and pawned his game console but he figured he'd find out what she got him before he started yelling. Nora wasn't the type to just take stuff and pawn it, so he hoped it was a good gift.

Nora watched as he slowly ripped small parts of the gift, waiting anxiously. She then saw how his eyes got big and he let out a soft gasp.

"What the fuck?" He whispered, finally just tearing the entire the wrapping off.

Nora then smiled and mentally did a happy dance since she really hoped he wouldn't go insane after hearing what she did. It really wasn't planned, she just wanted to turn a good situation into a bad one.

"This is the brand new PlayStation? Not a box filled with text books or pots and pans?" He asked and she nodded.

Devon let out an overly excited noise that Nora only heard him make once when their current landlord said that there was free cable and WiFi. She then figured that she'd be forgiven.

"You're a blessing, Nora Mendoza." Devon breathed out before making his way towards her, instantly grabbing her face in his hands and pressing his mouth to hers.

Nora let out a small shocked noise as she eased into the kiss. Nora then brought her hands to the back of his neck, slightly tugging on what little hair he had back there.

Nora gasped into Devon's mouth when he brought his hands down to her thighs and lifted her legs so that they wrapped around his waist.

"You're not even going to open the PlayStation?" Nora said, somewhat breathlessly as Devon kissed and sucked on her neck as he walked them to the nearest room.

"I can't fuck the PlayStation."

-

"So you're not mad?" Nora asked as she laid on Devon's shoulder.

"How could I be?" He said softly as he played with her hair, a soft smile on her face.

"I did pawn the Xbox."

"We got it from the pawn shop in the first place anyways. Plus, you bought me a new game console and a few games. I don't even want to ask how much you spent."

"Yeah, you don't." She said with a soft laugh.

"Wait..." Devon sighed. "How much did you spend?"

"Relax, I had been saving the money for a little while. I didn't spend any rent money, calm your cajonés."

"Why are you so responsible?" Nora laughed at his words and then gave a questioning him as if saying she didn't know.

Devon continued playing with her hair, purposely tugging softly every now and then to keep Nora awake. He kissed her forehead, really wanting to say three certain words out loud to her.

He kept his mouth shut, however.

Devon really wanted to say something, anything. But every time he thought of something, none of them quite felt right to he said in the moment.

Did he love her?

Sure, he loved her. But he always had, he couldn't tell when he fell in love with her or if he had. Devon was very confused, he really wished he had felt something similar to this before so he could know but he couldn't recall a single moment where he felt this happy and this comfortable with anyone. Not even his parents.

Devon was in love with her. Whatever it meant, he just knew deep down in his gut that it was true. He knew that this was the only time so far in his life that he ever felt this way, and maybe the only time her ever would.

He took a deep breath in, and slowly blew it out. Devon looked over at Nora, who was drawing some shape or pattern into his torso.

"Do you want to Richard's party tommorow night?"

—

note: im finally 20 years old today (well, when I first wrote this) and I used that power to go play bingo for one dollar instead of five and to get a free grand slam at Denny's lmao didn't win at bingo, but I got like $25 just from random elderly people sticking money on me. it's a good tactic, just fyi.