Child Of The Future

Episode 3: Group Of Grief

               "Uh-uh. Not that one." I hear Jesse's deep-ish voice call me back from my choice when he begins to linger towards a beat up truck, not even that big, and when he slaps the metal near the back, a cheeky grin spreads onto his face like butter on bread.

               "Why not?" I side-glance to the car that I'm sort of dying to sit in when my new friend pops the door open on the passenger side of his choice vehicle.

               "This one's better." He calls out, and I study his 'better' choice for a full one minute, the exterior chipped of crappy light blue paint, rust on the corners like it's a spreading mold, dirty tires, pretty much dirty everything, don't even get me started on the windows, and it looks like it'd rattle apart with one start.

               Fvck. I wonder what the inside smells like.

               "Jesse, that one's sh1t." I turn and lay my head on my shiny red, tinted windows, sports car. "This one is better. Perfect for an apocalyptic rock star!"

               "Ha. Spes, this one is gonna be good on gas, decent on the get go, and more storage space. This one's better. Sit in your precious jewel while I get this geared up." I watch him unzip his jacket, his body I correctly deduced to be slightly muscular exposes alongside his wife-beater shirt, and I begin to think about Estela's perverse words when Jesse wraps the sleeves of his material, low on his hips.

               I'm not going to lie, his body does catch my eye. 5 years, and only recently, since I've actually started looking, I noticed that back home, decent, attractive guys, were pretty much non-existent.

               Granted, Jesse is...hot. He's, hot, and nice, and cute, and that's the only reason I'm curious about his love life, his romantic side, his age, everything like that. If we're really the only two out here, and I'm probably being a weirdo for thinking about it first, I wonder if he'd ever fall so far in his mental state to consider me an option to ponder over.

               Estela would be all over his as$, rubbing his light skinned muscles with a bit of tan to them, inching her lips closer so she could kiss all over his lightly covered jaw of stubble.

               Just saying, I don't ever want to be in a situation where I find an older guy my last option. Still, if it had to be someone, I'm sort ok with the fact it might be Jesse.

               "Hey uh, how old are you?" I subconsciously push back my hair to settle behind my ear while Jesse's eyebrows crease towards each other, and he crawls into the truck further, just to sit on the floor. When I peek over, he's messing with a few wires and I'm pretty sure he didn't even hear me, until he darts his eyes to look at mine.

               "20."

               "Oh. So you were my age when this started?" I sigh and lean against the open door, looking around some more. "Why are you helping me Jesse?" I nearly frown with concern. "You don't know me, you don't owe me anything and...I know it might be sh1t but, don't you have a life?"

               "Most people wouldn't be so ungrateful for having a guy like me around." He cheeses and I use my fist to tap the bottom of his shoe.

               "I'm serious. I'm not even telling you my mission and you're still going with me."

               "Oh...we have a mission now? Glad to know I'm part of some highly important operations unit."

               "Yeah. Fvcking badas$es."

               "Badas$ery." He makes up a word. "Look, I don't care what you're business is. I've learned that things like that, in the long run, how's it gonna matter anyway?"