That October Night

Chapter 23

📌Every time I think of Rayya & Chris' father, I see Tyler Hoechlin with blue eyes instead of green ones.

                  IF THERE'S ONE THING that Josiah taught me was that I can't trust the guys who were chivalrous because it was all pretending. They pretend to be your knight and shining armor, with an easy-going smile and looks to die for.

But in reality, they were fuckboys in aluminum foil.

Trust.

I wasn't good with that, but I trusted Hakeem. And the only reason I felt like I trusted him was that he held a part of the past that no one else knew around here.

"How'd you even afford this car?" I asked Hakeem when we pulled up in front of his house. Even though the sun was still out the mustang icon illuminated brightly on the steering wheel.

Hakeem did the usual of picking up Kaden from the nursery, dropping him and Bre home, and then dropping Kat to work. Besides studying for a test, I didn't have anything to do, so Hakeem decided today would be a good day to hang out with his one-year-old triplet siblings.

Hakeem didn't answer me until we were standing in front of the house door.

"That baby there is a second hand. My father and I worked on it together." Hakeem's hand lingered on the doorknob.

"Mi Abuelita is here. She's...." He scratched his neck with the key as he searched for the right word. "She's...well she's her."

I leaned against the wall, facing Hakeem with a low chuckle. "Abuelita as in your grandmother. Right?"

He stepped inside with a smile. "Someone's been paying attention in Spanish class." I followed him in silence. "Let's go check on the triplets."

There was a small television on the wall with colors for toddlers on the screen, but Marisol and Leonardo were the only two who seemed excited and were trying to repeat the colors after the voice.

Serena didn't even glance at the television. Instead, she found pleasure in trying to rip the stuffed animals with her baby teeth.

"The shrekets!"

Hakeem looked down at me with confusion. "You're referring to my siblings as shrekets? I like it."

At the sound of Hakeem's voice, the triplets starting giggling and cooing. Marisol stood up, taking slow steps until she was in Hakeem's arm. Serena didn't bother trying and crawled to him.

Every time Leonardo stood up, he would lose his balance. It's like he just said fuck it, after six attempts of staying up but falling and crawled to Hakeem.

"They can't walk yet?" I asked Hakeem.

"They could. Just lazy most of the time."

Leonardo noticed that Hakeem's hand was full and crawled to me. When I picked him up, he just kept staring at me strangely and tilted his head to the side. He ran his finger that was dripping with drool over my face.

Maybe I was imaging it, but I swear he tossed an evil baby grin my way.

"Mami, why are the trillizos up? It's trece minutes para les quarto. Isn't it there napping time yet?" Hakeem called out to his mother.

"Oh for goodness sake boy, who cares if its thirteen minutes to four? If they sleep now then they won't sleep tonight." It was Hakeem's Abuelita.

Her Hispanic accent was thick and she talked as if she had all the time in the world. She was literally the same height as me.

Darker than Hakeem and shared the same forest green eyes as Leonardo while the girl's full round eyes were dark brown. Her short dark curly hair that had streaks of white framed her round face perfectly.