We Come Alive 4

Knife Stories

Thursday was colder than usual and the sun was well hidden behind the clouds. While he listened to Kiara talk from his desk, Mateo looked through some files through his filing cabinet.

"What're you looking for?" Kiara wondered, stopping in the middle of her story.

Mateo glanced over his shoulder as he to see her swaying back and forth in his desk chair. "The notes from the last game so I know what I'm focusing on today so I know what they're doing and what they're suppose to be working on."

"You're just now doing that?" Kiara questioned, a slight scoff to her voice. "Aren't you suppose to do that on Sunday or Saturday practice?"

Mateo just ignored her comment and walked out the office. "Ricky probably has it. I'll be right back."

Kiara just hummed as she watched him walk out. Mateo walked into the common area of the offices and instantly walked into Ricky's office at the far left. He knocked on the door before pushing it open to see Ricky wasn't in there.

Mateo looked at the clock and saw it was the time that Ricky usually went to have lunch with his brothers at their daycare. Mateo let out a deep breath as he looked over the pile of papers on the desk. He flipped through them, reading every paper as he went, and didn't find what he was looking for.

"Hopefully he filed some of this stuff." Mateo huffed, going towards the black file cabinet behind his desk that was covered in pictures of Ricky's brothers and other magnets he could tell his young brothers made.

Mateo opened up the top cabinet and shuffled through the papers, but there were no notes. Mateo went to the second drawer and found it was completely empty. Mateo opened the bottom one, hoping there would be something in there, but before he could fully open it he heard his name being called.

"Yeah?" Mateo called out, looking up to see Victor standing there.

"Hey, I'm about to head out to get lunch. Y'all want anything?" He wondered.

Mateo shook his head as he looked back at the filing cabinet. "No. I'm gonna take Kiara out for lunch. You going on the run with them? I got a few meetings."

Victor scoffed as he walked away. "Yeah, I'll run with them. But you're lifting weights with them tomorrow."

"Deal!" Mateo laughed. His laugh slowly faded as he opened up the bottom cabinet fully and saw the notes sitting on the top of a stack of papers.

"Does this boy just throw things in here?" Mateo complained to himself. Mateo picked up the notes and held them while also flipping through the other papers. When he lifted up the papers to flip through them, something else caught his eye. Mateo reached under the stack of papers and picked up Ricky's pocket knife.

"What the..." He breathed out. Mateo grabbed the notes, put the papers back, put the knife in his pocket, and closed the file cabinet drawers.

By the time he got to the common area and outside his office, Kiara was waiting on him to go to lunch. She was texting Manny while she held her purse in her lap.

"Ready to go?" Kiara said aloud, looking up at him.

Mateo set the notes down on the desk and let out a deep breath. "Yeah. Let's go."