Need - Jude Bellingham

28

I got out the uber, thanking the man before shutting the door behind me, approaching Lara's house. Her car wasn't outside and the front door open so I wondered in without knocking, hands in my pockets.
"Lara? Alejandro?"

"I'm upstairs!" The boy shouted, making me kick off my shoes and run up the staircase, pushing open the door to the spare room hesitantly to find him laying on his bed the wrong way with his back up against the wall.

"Y'alright?" I asked, sinking into the spot next to him that he gestured for me to sit in.
He nodded, "Fill me in on the drama, come on."
"Urgh," I groaned, "Let's just talk about something else. What did you do today?"

He looked at me annoyed, rolling his eyes, "Out with the boys this morning, did a food shop with Lara then just been chilling since. Now tell me what happened with you."

I laughed, realising he wasn't gonna be pleasant until he knew what was going on.
"My parents didn't show up to the game and then Bukayo had a go at me for it, saying I was lying and that basically because they love him they're always at his games and I just wouldn't know about it. I told him that weren't fair to say and he said I'm not being fair by trying to turn him against them," I threw up my hands, "I was literally so nice about it. Lied and said something must've just came up and I'm sure they would've loved to have come but he weren't hearing none of it and just said all that shit to me."

"I'm sure he didn't mean it," Alejandro winced as he listened to the story, "Playing a big game like that's stressful and he's probably just in denial that his parents let him down. It's nothing to do with you, just shoot the messenger I guess."

"Yeah well I don't care. He knows things that my parents have done to me that nobody else does, yet he has the audacity to talk to me like that. 'You wouldn't know?' Fuck off!" I groaned, putting my hands in my hair.

He looked at me sympathetically, "You're right, he shouldn't have said it but I doubt he meant it like that. He probably weren't thinking."
"Well it's done now, is what it is. Tell me about your day properly this time," I laughed, shrugging the situation off.

He smiled, leaning his head against the wall and looking up, almost to recollect everything that happened in his mind.
"Well this morning the guys and I just hung about. Went corner shop and ate a bunch of shit in the park, cracked joke. Then-"
I laughed loudly, "Since when do you know all this slang? These lot are bad influences for real!"

He rolled his eyes, shaking his head, "Came back around two and went with Lara to Tescos. We were in there for literally an hour and a half, I was dying. I wouldn't have gone if Jayden wasn't such a dick and agreed to taking turns. I don't know how you ever dated him."
I shrugged, "Free weed."

He tried to hold in his laugh, not wanting to encourage me obviously using weed but my abruptness of just openly saying it made it too hard for him to restrain himself as he burst out laughing.
"No it isn't funny," he shook his head, biting his bottom lip, "I'm not laughing."

"Oh by the way," he sat up a bit on his shoulder, "Aryan was gonna come round for a bit but it's completely fine if you wanna just chill. I know he can be a bit much."
We laughed at that as I shook my head, "No it's okay. I came last minute and messed with your plans, I'm not gonna make you cancel them."
"Good because he probably would've climbed through a window or something anyway," he shrugged as if it were a normal thing as my eyes widened.
"That kid's got issues."

———

We spent the next forty minutes just chatting shit and pissing ourselves as we waited for Aryan to turn up. We heard the front door open and so I got up to stretch my legs, jogging down the stairs.