Feels like I'm dreaming
in the middle of the day
I just can't believe it
Still feels like a lie
When I open my eyes, I'm in your arms
I'm letting out a sigh of relief
Girl, when you call my name
Anything that passes through you becomes beautiful
I bloom like new, I bloom
As if I'm drunk with you,
I'm being pulled to you
I want this feeling to keep going,
I want it, I want it
My heavy eyelids and closing
So this moment can last forever,
I want it, I want it
— GOT7, Lullaby
VINCENT
I dunked the remaining of my coffee into the sink and let out a deep sigh. The world did not get better after the wedding. Well, maybe it did but mine did not. I felt like crap twenty-four-seven since I had bailed on Autumn. I was being a coward, if I did not want to meet her, I should have said it to her face. Now that I was back in NYC, I was having second thoughts about all of this. I wondered what Autumn had figured out. Hunter sent a text this morning, telling me that he had told Autumn about some of the stuff in the hope that she and I would have a talk and figure things out. He thought he was doing me a favor and maybe he did but right now, I hated him for telling her. She was not supposed to know any of this because I knew if she did she would try to dig further and that could cause more harm if the Italian guys found out someone was sniffing around.
"Fuck!" I slammed my fist on the side of the sink out of frustration. Hunter's stupid move may have put her in more danger than necessary. What I had done so far in order to protect her would be pointless now.
"Woah, I've let my place be your crashpad and now you're breaking my stuff?"
Turning around, I watched Mario standing six feet tall, arms folded and brows raised. "I'm sorry, man."
"Yeah, as long as you stop doing it." Mario, being the swell guy that he was, smirked then leaned and opened the fridge to grab a beer. "I'm in a good mood. You want some?"
Alcohol was the last thing I needed. I shook my head, declining his offer.
Mario shrugged. "Your loss." He took a swig of the beer and then walked out of the kitchen only to stop by the doorway and turn around. "Oh yeah, Faith is going to join us for dinner but we have to pick her off her yoga class first so hurry up and get ready."
I raised one brow. "Since when Faith is into yoga?"
"I have no clue." Mario shook his head slowly. "If I have to do those bending and flexible moves, man, I would rather do it in private."
* * *
About forty minutes later, we finally made it to Eight Avenue. Mario caught a glimpse of Faith sitting by the reception desk and groaned. "We're fucking late. Damn. She's gonna kill me."
I chuckled. "Nah, she won't."
"Oh, she will make me pay." Mario walked a tad faster as we crossed the street and descended the stairs. Faith had probably seen us because, by the time we got to the top of the stairs, she swung the door open and stepped outside.
"Did you two take the NYC tour bus or what?" Faith rolled her eyes as she carried her yoga mats and her gym bag.
Mario quickly took both the bag and her yoga mats. "Lemme carry that."
"It will take more than carrying my stuff to make up for making me wait an hour for you," said Faith, sounding annoyed. Yet from the look on her face when Mario was not looking, I could tell she was trying to bite back her smile. Their relationship had gone better and stronger each day. Both were still in disbelief that they could finally be together again. Sometimes I watched the way Mario looked at her, almost as if he just saw an angel or mirage in the middle of desserts.
"Where are we going to eat?" I asked both of them since they were the ones that dragged me into having dinner with them every day since I had gotten back here, almost as if they were keeping an eye on me just in case I had a breakdown.
Mario turned to look at Faith. She was the boss of tonight so she got to decide the place. "Hmm, I am craving some junk food. Pizza or burger is fine."
I smiled and nudged her arm. "You do know that those calories will cancel your hard work in there right?" My thumb pointed at the Sonic studio behind us.
"Shut up, Vincent!" Faith punched my arm lightly. "A girl can eat whatever, whenever she wants."
"Yeah, yeah. As long as you don't come to me and ask me whether you look fat or not in a dress." I rolled my eyes as I remember that she had asked me that question multiple times back in Vancouver when we were dating. Faith giggled and I glanced up to look at my friend. I was a tad anxious and wondered if he was okay with the fact that Faith and I used to date. Judging from the stupid smile on his face, he clearly was not worried. If he was, he should know better that there was only one girl who owned a permanent residence in my heart.
* * * * * * * *
SUMMERS
We had been waiting in the car outside Sonic for more than thirty minutes and I nearly reached my boredom limit. "Maybe she has left." I tore my eyes from the screen where Shawn Mendes looked absolutely stunning to Frazier who kept his eyes on the building entrance.
"Nope," he replied without looking.
I frowned. "How can you tell? Her Facebook post was an hour ago."
"Because there's your ex." Frazier jutted his chin to the front, giving me directions on where to look at.
Sure enough, Tyler was walking with one more guy and they stopped right in front of the building. Both guys had their hands in their pockets. I could not make out what the other guy looked like since his back was on us but I definitely could identify Tyler. He was wearing a black leather jacket on top of his usual white T-shirt with Einstein's mass-energy equivalent formula printed on black and a pair of Levi's. As always, he had his black-rimmed glasses resting on the top of his nose. His eyes were not on me but as if knowing he was being watched, he slid his gaze to me. I immediately ducked.
"What. Are. You. Doing?" asked Frazier with one brow arched.
"I think Tyler saw me," I replied, still ducking my head although I could feel my back aching in protest, after all, I was not the most flexible human being.
"No, he didn't." His thumb pointed at the window. "These are tinted. He can't see us tho we can see him."
"Oh." I suddenly felt stupid and returned to the sitting position.
"Autumn," Frazier turned to watch Tyler talking with Faith and the other guy, "do you know who that guy he's with?"
The guy was standing sideways so I could only see one side of his face but I knew for sure that I had no idea who that was. He looked like a European guy so my first wild guess was that he was one of the Italian mafias. "No idea."
"He looks so familiar," mused Frazier, almost as if he was talking to himself. "I swear I feel like I've seen him somewhere but where?!" He breathed an exasperated sigh as he continued to watch the threesome.
Suddenly I remembered what Hunter had told me that night during the video call. "I think his name is Mario."
"Mario," mused Frazier. He furrowed his brows in deep thought and just when I expected him to spill the missing puzzle he had found, his eyes flicked back to the group across the street. "They're going. Should we follow them?"
I put my hand on the dashboard and swept my hair to one side. "How good is your James Bond skill?"
Frazier chuckled, a devious smile at the corner of his mouth as he leaned forward, still holding my gaze. "Well, I'm British and I did meet Daniel Craig once."
* * *
Despite claiming that he had mastered James Bond skills, Frazier sucked at it and I was no better. We simply had no experience in the field although we had watched enough James Bond movies to get the theory of how it worked. Numerous times I watched either Tyler or Mario look over their shoulders at us. I mean, come on, when you were walking on the sidewalk and there was this black, sleek Jaguar, a car which evidently could take 130 km per hour, moved like three years old on a bicycle.
"Maybe we should stop at the side and wait for them to go further," I told Frazier when Mario whispered something to Faith, causing the girl to look over her shoulder at us. I knew they could see us but they might as well think they were followed by a serial killer and dialed 911 to bust our asses.
"I swear I've seen that guy before," muttered Frazier to himself, clearly not listening to what I had said as he continued to stalk the threesome.
"Frazier," I called on him yet he did not budge so I slapped his arm. This method, although violent, seemed to be effective as he groaned and rubbed his arm with his other hand.
"Oww," he groaned and sent me a death glare. "What the fuck is wrong with you?"
"I think we need to pull over and wait until they are quite far before we stalk them," I paused for a heartbeat as an idea popped into my head, "or maybe we can just go on foot."
"What?!" He looked at me as if I was being ridiculous. "No, no, no." Frazier shook his head adamantly. "We are not walking. Without the tinted window, they will bust us out and I bet your ex will drag his two friends as far away from us as possible."
I was about to yell at Frazier when I saw that Mario guy walking towards our slow-moving car with the face of a lion when his nest was invaded. "Frazier, we gotta run."
"Huh?" He followed my line of sight and caught sight of Mario crossing the street and closing the gap between us. "Shit!"
My eyes widened as Mario was only three feet away from us and he had a murdering look on his face. "Run! Run! Run!"
He hit the pedal and we soon abandoned our mission. I caught a glimpse of Mario flipping his middle finger at us and cursing animal words. Yeah, I would probably be pissed too if I caught someone stalking me.
* * *
Even though our mission had obviously failed, we had a laugh. Once we hit the main road and could no longer see Mario's pissed-off face, we started laughing. It was pretty funny.
"I swear my heart is not made to be a spy," I declared in between peals of laughter.
Frazier cast a glance at me before focusing his eyes back on the road. "Good thing we're not really spies. We sucked so bad."
"Yeah," I nodded in agreement, accepting the fact that it was probably for the best I did not apply for the CIA or any intelligence agency. "I can't believe we thought we'd be good at this."
"Definitely need to get more tips from Mr. Craig." Frazier shook his head, still smiling.
I recalled how he had gotten the information about Faith and straightened up in my seat. "Well, you're good though." He turned to me, lifting his brow incredulously. "Well, I mean the hacking and gaining information part. We would not be there if you didn't find out about Faith and her yoga class."
"Nah, it was nothing." He shrugged it off, eyes on the road. When I was going to go full-blown and argue that it was definitely more than nothing, he smirked. "Tell me, Summers, do you fancy some chips and a glass of Irish beer?"
The corners of my mouth turned upward. Seriously, it was a no-brainer.
* * *
Unlike the last time I had been in McSorley's, I did not get drunk this time. I wanted to remain clear-headed so I would not pull any stupid stunt so I only took one glass which was half a pint and let Frazier have the other half. We ordered the dark ale and some french fries. It seemed that he was on a five-month diet based on how he devoured the fries. He only stopped when he noticed I was watching him then blushed.
"No." I pushed the basket of fries toward him. "Don't stop."
Frazier breathed a chuckle. "I could think of a comeback for those words but I know you won't appreciate it since it's a tad sexual."
I rolled my eyes. "I mean, go ahead. Don't stop eating on my account."
"I think I'm going to order something heavier than this." He called one of the servers and gave him his order: two burgers, two turkey sandwiches, and one plate of American cheddar. Good lord, the boys could eat. I raised an eyebrow at him.
Frazier shrugged one shoulder. "I skipped lunch today and now I'm famished."
I found that last bit of his sentence rather hard to believe. If there was one thing I knew about Frazier was that even though he technically was twenty years old, he always ate like a growing boy, in other words, he ate five times a day, all in sumo portions. "Why did you skip lunch? I thought you needed those to keep your six-packs remain intact for the next twenty-four hours."
"Ha-ha, very funny." He then rolled his eyes before muttering under his breath, "Bad news always makes me lose my appetite."
The waiter came with his order and I was distracted enough not to ask what he had meant by that. We spent the next hour at McSorley's. He was eating all the food to his heart's content while I barely ate half a basket of french fries. To be honest, my stomach felt full just by looking at him munching all those down and gulping his dark ale which at one point got a refill.
"Okay, I'm done." He leaned forward and declared it like a champ. The waiter went to his side, ready to clear his plates and Frazier stacked them up, lending him a hand which made me raise my eyebrow again. That was when I noticed it. There was definitely something amiss with him, he did not behave the way he was behaving as usual and I felt bad that it took me quite a while to notice this. I was guessing it had something to do with the bad news he had mentioned earlier.
I finished up the remaining dark ale in my glass and placed the "Frazier?"
"Hm?" He proceeded to down his drink then took a napkin and wiped his mouth clean. "What's up?"
At first, I did not know what to ask him then I started with the usual, simple question for starters. "Are you okay?"
He froze for a split second. I could see the blood drain from his face and his eyes did not blink then he shook his head as if clearing his mind and smiled. "Of course. Why wouldn't I be?"
I narrowed my eyes and I thought we both knew he was not fooling anyone. Almost as if the universe was trying to prove my theory that he clearly was not behaving like himself to be right, he took his car keys off the table and dropped the subject. "Let's go."
A lot of possible scenarios came to my mind and I sat there for a while longer before I followed him outside.
* * *
We decided to do some more hacking. And by that, I meant he was going to do the hacking while I was stalking Harry Styles, Shawn Mendes, or maybe even that Korean bulletproof boys that were so popular these days. I had seen them in Billboard Music Award and they looked so adorable. One, in particular, the main vocalist I gathered since he sang lots of parts of the song, had killer abs.
Once he parked his car in the driveway, we walked towards his guest house. We both talked about our failed mission earlier this evening and laughed over how dumb we had been. His laughter died once he looked ahead and I tried following his gaze. On the porch of the guest house, a pretty woman in one of Victoria Beckham's elegant coats standing there with her eyes on us. A Gucci sunglasses resting on the bridge of her nose despite that the sun was out.
I took a glance at Frazier and watched his jaw clench and his hand curl into a fist. Uh oh. Was she one of his exes?
"Frazier," the woman called, crossing her arms in front of his chest.
Instead of returning the greeting, his eyes turned to slit and his response sounded almost offensive. "What the fuck are you doing here?"
"Wow," the woman took off her expensive sunglasses and hold them in her hand, "what a nice thing to say to the woman who gave birth to you."
My mouth hung open while my jaw was practically sitting on the floor. That woman was his mom?! She looked ridiculously young for someone who had a twenty years old son. Had she found a miracle cream or something? Also, I should have guessed that from her posh British accent yet how young she looked just threw the possibility off the roof.
"I said, what the fuck you doing here?" Frazier reiterated.
The woman walked towards us, her high heels clicking the wooden floor before the sound was muffled as she crossed the lawn. Only when she got closer that she started to regard me. Her nose scrunched in a way that some nasty rich people always did. You know, as if they smelled the fat biker's armpits or two years of unwashed socks. "You are still hanging out with the wrong crowd. This is why you should have gone back to the U.K."
"You don't get to say who I am or am not supposed to be hanging out with, Mother." He literally spat that last word. "Not after you abandoned me for a decade."
"My son," she put one hand to cup his face but he moved his face away, "always so dramatic but I do miss you." Sliding her gaze to me, her smile turned cruel. "You should leave. My son might be okay having you here but I don't. In fact, I despise little bitches like you."
What I hated the most was when people assumed things about you when they did not know jack about you so I took a deep breath and gave her my sweetest, most innocent smile. "Well, I have met puddles deeper than you." I could see Frazier looking amused from my peripheral vision, he had not seen me going against his ex. When people rubbed me the wrong way, I could go all the way without backing down.
"Excuse me?" Frazier's mom raised her brows in disbelief. She had probably used her mean girl or snobby rich people's act and worked. Well, not today.
"Okay, I was going to compliment how good you look and maybe even ask you to hook me up with your miracle cream supplier but you seem to have a problem with me even though I'm just your son's friend." I pressed my lips tightly and shrugged my shoulders. "Let me tell you something. If you're waiting for me to care about what you think and maybe even cry my heart out, you better pack a lunch with extra pickles cos it's going to be a while."
I took back my words earlier about her being pretty and looking young because that impression was long gone after she called me a little bitch. And with fumes coming out of her ears and a murderous glare in her eyes, she did not look that pretty anymore.
All Rights Reserved © Rosen
a/n: well, my angels, could you take a wild guess? Who's Mario, really? ;)
also, what do you think of this "failed mission"? Did Mario and Tyler know that it was Autumn and Frazier What do you think will happen next? Take a minute and leave your theories in comments so I could read them! three more chapters left, cannot believe I get to reveal the mystery in a bit! ;) loads of pizza, agatha x