November 18th

:10:

November 18th, 2010                      

"Where to now Ms. Azaiah?" Joel asked mindlessly as we just drove around the city.

"I dunno, I'm kinda tired."

"Are you okay?" Joel asked worriedly turning his head to me when we got to a stop light. "Do you want me to take you to Emilia's place to rest?"

"Joel, Joel, calm down, I just said I'm tired. And no I don't need to rest. I didn't come across the country to rest." I said laughing. "And definitely not Emilia's place, she just gonna keep teasing us." I said causing Joel to laugh with me.

"Well if you want, we could go over to my place and just hang around there." Joel asked scratching the back of his neck.

"Sounds like a brilliant idea." I said smiling.

"Well, here we are."

"There outside is beautiful. It seems really big." I said in awe, taking in the beautiful house.

"Yeah? Glad you like it." Joel said leading me inside. "Well, make yourself at home. Mi casa es tu casa." He said laughing.

"Will do." I said laughing with him as I followed him to the kitchen. "Don't you ever get lonely in such a big house?" I asked looking around.

"Well not really. I mean I still have my brothers." Joel said shrugging.

"Oh right." I said mentally slapping myself. "Where are they anyways?"

"Well Israel and Gabriel are at school. Emanuel's probably at work." He said pouring himself a glass of water. "Want anything to eat or drink?"

"Nah, I'm good."

"If you say so." He said putting his glass down. "Here, let me give you a tour." He said excitedly taking my hand. "Okay, so here is the living room, nice and spacious. TV, game consoles, movies and all are here. Some sofas-oh oh oh, look; they're recliners." He said sitting on one of them showing me the recliner. I laughed at how excited he was about everything. "Okay, let's go over here now, this is the family room or living room part two. I don't really know the point of it honestly."

I looked around, seeing the right wall full of photos. Family photos. I walked towards them,
seeing a framed family photo, each labeled with a year, starting in 1980. I looked through each one seeing the family grow, seeing Joel appear in the 1987 photo. I smiled at how happy everyone was in all the photos. A beautiful tall woman with long black hair appeared in all the photos, I guessed it was Joel's mother. I got to the year 2003 and noticed it was the last one. 2003.

I turned to Joel only to find him staring at he photos silently. It seemed as if all the enthusiasm had vanished in a single snap. He looked frozen in time. I walked over to him resting my hand on his shoulder to snap him out of his thoughts.

"Oh, um sorry about that. Here, enough with this place, let's go down to the other rooms." He said taking my hand as he flipped the light switch of the family room off.

"Joel, are you okay." I asked cautiously.

"Yeah, why wouldn't I be?" He said letting out a chuckle. "Here we are. This is the hallway, as you can see. This is the trophy case full of awards since elementary school." I briefly scanned all the awards, most of them being soccer awards. The one that caught my eye was a golden trophy in the shape of a book. I looked at it closely seeing it was a creative writing award dedicated to Joel in 1999.

"You really won an award for creative writing? I didn't 't even know they had that award." I caught him smiling at me when I turned to him.

He laughed before replying. "Yeah, it was just some random contest my mom entered me in when I was like 12 or something."

"Wow, you really must be some kind of writer." I said laughing walking over to Joel who stood by one of the many doors in the hallway. He laughed shaking his head before opening up one the rooms.

"This is Gabo's room. Sorry it's a bit messy, he was running late this morning." I nodded as he continued to the room next to it. "Just a warning, this room is definitely gonna be a mess, so just beware."

"It's all good. I know messy, I  used to live with Chris. And let's just say he's not the cleanest."

After showing me Israel's and Emanuel's rooms he took me to his room so we could just hang out there.

"It's a really nice house." I said smiling.

"Thanks, it shall remain under the Pimentel De Leon name until there's not a single Pimentel blooded soul left." He said dramatically making me laugh.

"Okay, you go do that. Good luck." I said sarcastically rolling my eyes.

"Oh yeah? Well, you know, you can help with that." He said winking.

"Get over yourself Pimentel." I said pushing his shoulder.

We were laying in Joel's bed playing Othello for the 3rd time in a row when the doorbell rang startling us.

"Must be Israel and Gabo. Let's go." He said as I followed him to the front door. He opened the door to reveal Israel and Gabriel clutching on to their backpacks. Behind them was a familiar face I remember from the diner when I first met Joel, Emanuel. None of them had seen me until they completely entered the house were one after another, they froze and stared in confusion.

"Oh-uh, hey, I'm Azaiah, Joel's friend-" I said nervously putting my hand out to Israel who was infront.

"-girlfriend actually." Joel said cutting me off. We all turned to Joel before Israel replied with his name and shaking my hand. After doing so, he turned straight to the hallway going into his room. I turned to Gabriel next and put out my hand.

"I'm Gabriel, nice to meet you. Sorry about Israel, he's not much of a talker." He smiled.

"Don't worry about it, sorry for the sudden appearance." I said chuckling.

"Don't stress it." He replied with a smile. I looked at Emanuel seeing he looked nervous.

"Hey, you must be Emanuel, right." I said reaching my hand to him.

"Y-yeah, that's me." He said not making eye contact with me. I could sense he felt uneasy but let the feeling go.

"Excuse me." Emanuel said leaving the room towards the hallway.

There was a silence between Joel and I when they all left.

"Sorry about that." Joel said looking down.

"Sorry for what? They're just a bit startled seeing their brother's girlfriend for the first time without any warning."

Joel smiled at me as he took my hand back to his room.

"Come on, let's cherrish these last few hours."

Elsa492