"What do you want?" - I asked hesitantly.
The boy looked at me with his piercing blue eyes and he just shook his head.
"From you, I want nothing!" - he answered without a beat.
"But you were the one who asked for help!" - answered him, making sur...
I didn't know how to pull it off but I had to be a brother, a father and someone at the same time, a person who James could look up to. I haven't decided what I am going to be for him but first of all, I could offer him a safe place to stay and make sure he was not lacking in anything.
When he showed up at my apartment, he was shivering from the cold, was wet from the November rain, and looked almost like a small puppy.
So as soon as we got back from the dry cleaner and picked up some chinese food, I showed him into the only guest room I had. I went to my bedroom and pulled out an old tracksuit bottom of mine and a hoodie then I stopped on the corridor, and got a set of clean bed linen from the press. With the clothes and bed linen in my hand I walked to the closed door and knocked on it with my free hand.
"I got you some clothes, and bedlinen, I figured you could change into something dry. " I told him once he cracked opened the door.
"Thanks, Cairo, I really appreciate it." Jamie said, his voice gravelly low. I suddenly worried about him getting a cold or something. Since my father's declining health, I was concerned about everyone's health around me generally. He took the clothes from my hands then retreated to the room.
"Hurry up, the duck is gonna get cold." I called after him, and I smiled as I knew, how much he loved his food. He was just like Marian.
Which made me think, why was Jamie in my flat, instead of hers. I scratched my sparsley growing stubble and went to the kitchen to unpack the goodies.
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I've heard James pottering around for a while, probably making up the bed. Then a couple of minutes later he emerged from the guest room that I already renamed as his room in my mind. Somehow I had this feeling that he won't be a one night guest in my place. I grabbed the remote and turned on the telly, found a channel that ran some old episodes of Scrubs, and set the volume low but still audible.
"Let's eat before it goes cold." I turning to him, and swiftly proceeded to open up the last styrofoam box on the kitchen counter.
"I had dinner at Marian's place but I had to walk here, so there is always room for more." James smiled, and rubbed his belly affectionately.
We dove into the delicious aromatic duck, smothered in orange sauce. It was so flipping good, I nearly moaned when the taste hit my tastebuds.
James must have had seen something on my face, because he suddenly laughed out loud, chuckling as he tried to slurp up the sauce with his noodles.
"That good?" He asked.
"Did I moan or just imagine?" I asked back after swallowing a big chunk of the tender duck meat.
James didn't reply this time but he went on polishing off his plate in record time. He ate with gusto, it seemed whatever Marian fed him with did nothing to his bottomless stomach.
