Leonardo's POV.
I am drinking coffee and scrolling through social media, when my phone rings.
I see the caller ID and it is Parker. I accept the call and press my phone to my right ear, holding the mug full of coffee in my left hand.
"What's up man?" I say through the phone, taking a sip of coffee.
"Nothing much dude." He replies. I hear Jason's voice too, and I guess they are together.
"We found out about your grandma, your dad told us. Sorry to hear that."
"Yeah. I wasn't expecting this. Neither of us."
"Be strong dude." I hear Jason say.
"I'm trying." I sigh.
"I have something to tell you about the chick I fucked last night. That bitch Olivia, told me she wanted to be in a serious relationship with me, and I accepted. Not that I loved her or something, I just liked the idea of having a 'girlfriend' to fuck over and over. But guess what? I went to her house in the middle of the night, climbed in her window and saw her fucking some other guy. Fucking bitch. You should've seen the look on her face when she saw me there---"
I hear footsteps coming, and I take a look behind me. It's just Amelia coming downstairs. I wink at her just to see her reaction, but she sticks out her tongue at me and throws herself on the couch. She takes the remote and scrolls through the channels. I just can't help but stare at her.
"Duh, damn attitude." I mutter.
"What?" I hear Parker talking through the phone. I wasn't listening to any of the things he was saying about the girl he fucked last night. Was her name Veronica?
"Leonardo, are you listening to me?"
"Uh-huh." I continue staring at Amelia. She is focused on a TV show, playing with her hair, her feet plopped on the table.
"Stop doing that." She says, and I look around the room if there was someone else she was talking to. Then my gaze goes back to her.
"I said, stop doing that." She repeats, her eyes focused on the TV screen.
"What am I doing?" I furrow my eyebrows.
"What do you mean?" I hear Parker say.
She changes her sitting position, now facing me.
"That." She points her finger at me.
"This what?" I get confused.
"What?" Parker says. "Dude, are you on drugs? Are you having hallucinations? I think we said that we were never going to try drugs."
"Stop staring at me!" Amelia yells.
I realise that she caught me staring at her.
"I'm not staring at you."
"Yes you were, and you still are."
Embarrassed from being caught, I remove my gaze from her.
"How can you stare at me when I'm on the other side of the phone, four hours away from you?" Parker raises his voice an octave.
"I'm not talking to you." I finally say, after turning my attention back to Parker.
"Then who are you talking to?"
"Amelia." I reply, even though he has no clue who she is.
"Amelia?" He thinks for a second. "Man, are you with some girl at the moment we're talking? Because I thought you were going to your grandma's. You can't keep it in your pants for more than 24 hours, can you?" I hear him sigh in disappointment sarcastically.
"Come on man, how could you lie to us?" I hear Jason say sarcastically too.
"She is not my one night stand guys. She is some girl who helps my grandma, that's it." I realise that Amelia is still watching me.
"Boys." She mutters under her breath before she gets up and heads upstairs.
"Is she hot?"
"I would lie if I say she isn't." I take a sip of my, now cold coffee. I put the coffee on the counter and get up from the barstool.
"Then bang her!" Jason yells.
"She is not worth it. She has this shitty attitude and she drives me crazy. The more we avoid each other, the better." I say, walking around the living room.
"Oh, she is playing hard-to-get, believe me." Parker says.
"Believe me, she is not. She totally hates me. And I hate her too." I run my hand through my hair.
I explain to them how we both met, and how she turned out to be the girl who helped my grandma for the past three years. To be honest, I owe her for this. I can tell she loves my grandma, and my grandma loves her too. I tell them all what happened between us and the babysitter thing.
I hear Parker and Jason whistling on the other side of the phone.
"What?" I ask.
"Nothing." They say in unison.
"I just can feel the sexual tension between you two." Parker sings.
"Shut up, there's nothing between us."
"Of course, I'm sure." Jason says.
The front door opens and I hear voices.
"I have to go now, talk to you later buddies."
"Ok bye." Parker says.
"And bang the chick." I hear Jason whisper-shouting before hanging up.
I just want to murder these boys sometimes. It's true that I have a lot of sex with girls, but they usually throw themselves onto me, desperate for my attention. But Amelia, she is something else, she is different.
The voices come closer and I see my mom and grandma, also Jonah, entering the living room.
"Hello!" They greet me.
"Hi." I greet them back.
"Where's Amelia?" Jonah asks me.
"Probably upstairs." I answer him.
"I'm in the kitchen!" Amelia calls. When did she come downstairs?
She comes in the living room, kisses her little brother on the cheek then faces my grandma and my mother.
"I hope he didn't bother you." She says, looking at her brother and then back to them.
"Oh please, he is a really nice boy. He played around and had a good time." My mom pinches Jonah's cheek.
"I ate an apple pie!" He confesses to his sister.
She smiles at him.
"If you excuse us, we need to go back to our house." She says.
"Why?" I ask her without thinking. I want to slap myself in the face. Why did I ask her that? She doesn't live here after all.
"Umm, because we don't live here and we don't want to bother you?" She answers, and throws me a weird look.
"Oh, right." I mutter.
"Oh please Amelia, come stay with us." My grandma talks. "I want to have everyone I love around me now. Especially now that..." She doesn't finish the sentence, but we still understand what she means.
She thinks for a moment, throwing me some looks.
"Thank you, but you probably have to discuss your things. I guess your daughter wants to spend some time with you, also your grandson. I don't want to bother you or something. Also I need to clean the house. I haven't been there for two days." She smiles politely.
"Alright, alright." My grandma sighs. "But promise us that you will come tomorrow."
"Okay, I promise." She says, then she leaves with her little brother.
Me, my mom, and my grandma sit on the couch. I scroll through random apps on my phone, bored. Then, my mom and grandma start talking about Amelia.
"Eighteen, and manages to take care of her self and her brother. Also she takes care of you too. That's really impressive. Doesn't she go to college?" My mom asks my grandma.
"Actually, she is saving money for college. She had a job, but the boss wanted to take advantage of her. He almost raped her, but Amelia stabbed him in his leg with a fork. Luckily, he is in jail now." My grandma says.
My eyes immediately raise up from the phone and look towards them. I feel something inside me, something that makes me want to kill that jerk. How can you take advantage of a girl? Especially when she just minds her own business and works her ass off. I was pressing my phone so tightly that my fingertips turned white.
"That's terrible!" My mom furrows her eyebrows. "What an animal."
"The poor girl is looking for a job at the moment. She applied for three jobs, but no one has contacted her yet. I hope she finds a job soon."
"Yeah." My mom exhales. "Can I take a look at my room mom? I really miss it." My mom touches my grandma's hand.
"Of course Ellen. Let's go upstairs. Everything is just as you left it."
They head upstairs and I am left alone in the living room. I am still thinking about what my grandma said about Amelia.
The boss almost raped her.
I just couldn't imagine it. She must have suffered a lot, not having a shoulder to cry on. Her parents are dead too, I just can't imagine her working and going to school at the same time, also taking care of her brother for the past three years. Now she is saving money for college.
A knot starts forming in the pit of my stomach.
Guilt starts overwhelming me. I acted like a jerk with her.
God, I need to apologise to her.
I get up and walk outside. I make my way to her house.
Wait a minute... I don't even know where her house is. Ugh, I am so stupid.
I go back inside and call from downstairs.
"Grandma, where does Amelia live?"
"Six houses away from us, in the right side. Why?" She calls from upstairs.
"Nothing." I say and walk out again.
I make my way to her house. One, two, three, four, five, six... Yeah, this must be her house.
I knock on the door three times. It is a two storey house, with a small garden. The front door is coloured in red.
Nice, I think to myself.
Then the front door flies open and Amelia stands there. Her hair is in a messy bun on top of her head, her hands covered with flour. She looks so cute, standing there, surprised that she saw me.
"What are you doing here?" She asks, putting away a piece of her hair from her face with her forearm.
"Well, hello to you too." I let out a low laugh.
"I don't have time for your games, so what are you doing here?" She repeats, eyeing me.
"Umm, can I come in?" I ask hesitantly.
She looks at me for a moment, then she nods.
I step inside the house, and it is almost similar to my grandma's house. A living room and a kitchen downstairs, and I guess upstairs must be the bedrooms. I look around, and the first thing I notice are the picture frames, hanged on the walls. There are pictures of Amelia, her brother, and her parents. I turn my head and I catch her looking at me.
"Um, you have a cozy house. I like it." I smile politely at her.
"Thanks." She says before she walks towards the kitchen.
My nostrils fill with a wonderful smell. I follow her to the kitchen and see that she is cooking.
"What are you cooking?" I ask her.
She continues to work around the kitchen.
"I'm baking cookies. My brother Jonah loves them." She smiles at the mention of her brother.
"I love cookies too." I confess.
She raises her eyes and looks at me.
"Really?" She demands, not really believing what I just told her. Then she continues her work.
"Why? Is it strange for a man to like cookies?" I sit on a barstool as I watch her preparing the cookies.
"Well, yes. I just don't know how, from all the different dishes you may have tried, you like cookies, Mr. Rich." She raises an eyebrow at me.
"Well, I just do." I raise my shoulders. "And can I ask you something?"
"Umm, okay?"
"Why do you call me that?"
She puts the cookies on the oven and then faces me.
"You mean, Mr. Rich?" She sits on a barstool next to me.
"Yeah, that." I rest my hands on the counter.
"Well, aren't you rich after all? And you have this shitty attitude that all rich persons have, thinking that just because you have money, you can do anything. And you are a man, so doesn't that make you Mr. Rich?" She crosses her left leg over her right.
I look at her for a moment, before dropping my gaze to my hands.
"Here we go again with the judgements." I say, throwing my hands in the air.
"Isn't this what you did too?" She snaps back at me. "You called me deaf, dumb, stupid, and not to mention the bullshit you told me at the hospital, and the whole babysitter thing." She drummes her fingers on the counter, waiting for my response.
"Hey, I didn't call you dumb or stupid!" I protest.
"In front of my face you didn't, but I guess you have called me more than these names behind my back."
Okay, she might be right.
"Look, the reason why I came here... I just want to apologise." I say sincerely.
Her eyes widen. Then she furrows her eyebrows.
"You came to apologise?" She repeats my words. "For what? For making gossip about me with your friends on the phone?"
She heard me? God, I just want the earth to open and swallow me in.
"Okay okay. Go on." She sighs.
"Umm, ok yeah. I just want to say sorry, for the way I acted with you earlier. I just feel bad for you that you have been through so much stuff, starting from the death of your parents, and the incident that happened with your boss..."
"I don't need your pity." She says, and gets up from her barstool.
I get up too.
"No no, you got me wrong." I shake my head. "I don't feel pity for you. I just feel bad that you had to go through so much stuff, and you had to deal with me and my attitude too. I just want to apologise for the way we met, and represented ourselves."
She raises one hand, as a sign for me to listen to her.
"Look, I accept your apology, if you really mean it. If you really feel like apologising. But if you came to say sorry, just because you feel pity for me, keep it, I don't need your apology. I have been through so much stuff, that you can't even imagine. I have suffered a lot, but here I am. All what I have achieved in life, it'sthanks to me and my hard work, not thanks to anyone's pity. "
"I promise, I won't ever make you feel like I'm feeling pity for you." I say from the depth of my heart. She smiles at me, and I feel better. Actually, her smile makes me feel better. It has some kind of positive effect on me.
"Okay then," she pulls her hair tie out of her messy bun, and lets her hair fall. "I'm sorry too, for acting that way with you before. But I'm still going to call you Mr. Rich." She laughs.
"Ughh, not again." I face palm myself.
"Now can we meet, I don't know, in a proper way?" She asks, her eyes shinning.
"Sure." I reply.
She thrusts her hand towards me, smiling.
"Amelia." She says.
"Leonardo." I say, taking her hand and shaking it. "But you can call me Leo."
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