London's Guard Is Falling Down

𝐀𝐍𝐓𝐈𝐂𝐒

[𝐋𝐎𝐍𝐃𝐎𝐍]

"𝐃𝐎 𝐈𝐓."

Paris looked around the aisle before doing a one-handed cartwheel.

  "Oh wow, cool."

  "I know, right. I used to do gymnastics."

  "Seriously?"

  "Nah," she laughed and I laughed with her, rolling my eyes.

Rather than getting dough or ingredients to make the dough, we bought pitta bread.

"Action."

"Hi, you're watching Cooking With—"

"You don't need to do the intro again, just go from where we left off." Paris shot me a quick dirty look.

"Anyways, as I said, you're watching Cooking With—"

"What did I just say?"

"Don't interrupt me again—"

"I just did."

Paris let out a long sigh before continuing. "My cameraman's being rude but we're going to continue."

She went on with her little cooking show without burning anything or doing anything wrong, so it went smoothly.

"Try it."

"No, I'm good."

Paris wanted me to try the first slice that I was originally cutting for her.

"You know I don't even like pizza." I really didn't.
Thinking about all the different ingredients as one and how they're all from different food groups made me want to gag.

"My pizza's not like other pizzas — she's different."

I recoiled from the piece she shoved in my face.

It's just one bite.

I took the piece from her and took a bite.

"You know that shit is a ten out of ten. Look at the camera and tell all the Parisians watching that
my pizza is immaculate."

"Parisians?"

"The Cooking With Paris fans."

"Oh." Mind you, the home videos we made were home videos for a reason; they stayed between us and Paris's family.

"Give it a ten out of ten, do it for the Londoners."

  "Oh, is that what my fan base is called?"

  "Yeah, and I'm your number one Londoner."

  I put my hand over the lens of the camera Paris was holding and bent down to kiss her lips. Subtly, I slowly slid my tongue into her mouth. When I did, she pulled back.

   "Give it a ten out of ten first."

   "Eleven out of ten."

  "That's all I needed — well, not all."

  She turned off the camera and wrapped her arms around my neck. We started where we left off.

☽☽☽

"Before we go, we should recreate Kim and Ray J's sex tape."

  "Let not—"

  "And say we did?"

  "No. Let's not, period point blank."

  Paris's shoulders slumped as she let out a long exasperated huff.

   It was the night Paris and I had to go back to Seattle and we were doing some last-minute packing — well, I was doing last-minute packing, for myself and Paris.

  I had called to get my Audi shipped to Seattle beforehand. Everything that once belonged to my father and mother that now belonged to me — I didn't know what to do with.

"What do I do with all the cars?" I had asked him over the phone, playing with the ring that had Paris's representation.

"Ship the one or one's you want to Seattle so you can drive them, and the ones you don't want, keep them in storage, sell them. Hell, keep all of them."

"The houses?"

"The houses are yours, London."

"Your stuff?"

"They're now yours."

"It doesn't feel right — taking your things."

He chuckled. "You're not taking anything — I gave them to you."

"I guess."

"You know, I almost had to fight somebody yesterday."

"Really? What happened?"

"This hooligan tried to take my wedding band."

"Really?"

"Yeah! You know how ghetto that is?"

"Very."

"Who the fuck tries to take somebody's wedding band? What the hell are you going to do with it?"

  I had to laugh lightly at that.

"So you visited Mom's grave?"

"Yeah," I replied, wondering something. "Dad, do you remember when I left — well, ran away?"

"How could I forget?"

"Right," I muttered. "Why did you forgive me so quickly when I came back?"

"Why shouldn't have I forgiven you?"

"Because I left you when you were already at your lowest."

"True, but, you were upset."

"And you were worried. I put you through hell."

My dad never let me know how he felt when I left home because he didn't want me to feel bad about it, he didn't have to. His actions spoke for him.

"And I forgave you. London, you're not perfect, you made a mistake and if I can forgive you for it then you can forgive yourself. If you keep clinging to this one bad thing you did, you're never going to be happy with yourself ."