Fall For The Fangirl

11

*JOVANI*

After eating the breakfast my mom made I washed the dishes and went to take a shower. When I went back to the room I unplugged my phone from the charger and saw a speech bubble icon in my notification bar, a new text.

Nalah: Hey Jovani...can I ask you something? (9:15am)

She sent the message 12 minutes ago...hopefully she'll see my response soon.

-Yes, of course.

Only 3 minutes later, she responded.

~Nevermind

-You sure?

~Yup, sorry.

-It's ok. What r u doing up so early on a Saturday?

~Unpacking :'( gossssh you don't know how much you have until you move!

-Lol, I understand. Who is helping you and your mom?

~No one. We had movers to help get everything out of the house, but we're unpacking on our own because we couldn't afford the movers anymore.
~Why did I just tell u that? -_-

-Don't worry about it, my family isn't rich either. Would your mom let Julian and I come help? We have nothing to do today and we don't broadcast till 7.

~No, no, it's fine, thank you though.

I went downstairs to talk to my mom.

"So it's just the two of them unpacking the whole house?"

"Yeah."

My mom shook her head and put her hand on hip, she does that when she's thinking.

"How about you get her mom on the phone and the three of us will go help?"

"Okay." I smiled.

Without replying to Nalah's text, I called her.

"Hi Jovani." She answered. "You ok?"

"Yeah. My mom wants to talk to your mom."

"Why?"

"Because she wants to come help too."

"Seriously Jovani it's ok. You guys don't have to, we'll get it done."

"Please just give your mom the phone." I begged.

I heard her sigh of defeat and it made me smile. "Here's my mom."

I handed my mom the phone and sat down on the couch across from the one she was sitting on. I could tell that Nalah's mom was hesistant to take our help, but my mom managed to break her.

"Great. We'll see you soon Maria. Bye." My mom hung up and handed me my phone. "Go get dressed and tell Julian too, you have 10 minutes."

I rushed up the stairs, two at a time and told Julian of today's plans. He was more than happy to help Nalah and her mom because "it's the least we can do for someone who supports us", and I agree, but I also want to help them because I know that if the roles were switched Nalah would happily volunteer to help us too.

"How far is it?" Julian asked, putting on his seatbelt.

"About 20 seconds." Mom laughed. "She lives two streets down."

"Woah." Julian laughed. "That's awesome."

"Yeah." I agreed.

The house was really nice, but seemed too big for just two people. When Nalah and her mom stepped out onto the porch I waved. Nalah looks a lot like her mom, her mom's hair was a lighter brown, but they have the same eyes and nose. Nalah's mom is so tall, but Nalah can't be more than 5'3.

"Gloria, thank you." Nalah's mom said to mine and they hugged.

"No problem." My mom said sweetly. "We're happy to help. Especially for a girl who supports my babies."

"Mom." I groaned at her use of the word "babies".

"Your sons are amazing Mrs.Jara. They deserve all of their fans." Nalah smiled.

"Thank you Nalah, that's nice of you to say."

Even wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt that had bleach spots on it, she was breathtaking. Her long wavy hair was pulled back into a messy bun, with lots of stray pieces framing her face.

"Come in, come in." Nalah's mom told us. "I'm Mrs--Ms.Santiago. You two have helped my daughter through a lot, you guys are always welcome here." She smiled at Julian and I.

"Um...mom." Nalah spoke. "How should we do this?"

"Hmmm. Gloria can I get your help in the kitchen, and you three can work on the laundry room."

"Sounds like a plan." Nalah nodded.

Julian and I followed her to the garage where we grabbed boxes labeled Laundry and then we followed her to a small room that contained a washer, dryer, hamper, and some shelves.

"Detergent and dryer sheets can go on the lowest shelf, sheets on the middle shelf, and hangers on the top shelf." Nalah told us.

She played music on her phone and we all sang along while we worked, when we were done we started unpacking stuff for the downstairs bathroom and then went to the one upstairs. I could tell the one upstairs was Nahla's because the shower curtain was dark pink with black stripes, while the one downstairs was navy blue.

"Anything else we can help with?" Julian asked.

Nalah turned down her music and bit her lip. She didn't wanna ask.

"We wanna help." I reminded her.

"Yesterday we took everything out of my room so I could paint it, the dresser was really heavy. Would you guys mind helping me put it back?"

"Not at all." Julian smiled. "Bring on the challenge!"

Nalah opened the door to a room with things randomly inside. Her dresser was in front of everything else. Julian grabbed one end and when I tried to grab the other end Nalah beat me to it.

"I got it babe, its ok." I assured her.

"Thank you."

She turned her head before I could get the satisfaction of seeing her shocked expression. With ease Julian and I put the dresser against the wall of her room and took in our surroundings.

Two walls were white and two were black. Her silver dresser sat in front of a white wall and along the center of the wall was a string of music notes.

"You painted all this?" Julian asked.

"Yeah. Does it look bad?"

"Not in the slightest." I smiled. "It's really cool."

In my mind I checked off another thing I like in a girl: creativity.