Miles (BoyxBoy)

Chapter 29

"You're so cheating," I tell Derek as we sit on the living room floor in the Home Our Community house three weeks after Christmas. Julian had asked me to come over here with him since there was another problem with one of the guys and he wanted me to be here to talk to him. The boy's name is Alejandro and he's such a sweet boy. He was having some problems with his aunt, who had been calling him and texting him ever since he came to this house after being kicked out by his mother.

Apparently, she had been texting him obscene things, like how he ruined their family and had made everything harder on his mother ever since his father died. I was told that he had come out to his dad in the hospital room, the last time he had seen him alive, and then ended up telling his mom shortly after since he thought she would handle it the same way his father did, with open arms. He was kicked out as soon as she could pack his stuff up and that's when he was sent here.

He had been dealing with the texts, telling the adults in the house that she was just texting him to check up on him. They called Julian when they realized how down he was with everything and when I showed up, they immediately told me all the details and asked me to talk to him. After about an hour of talking, he finally admitted to me what his aunt was saying to him, so I immediately told them that he needed to get his number changed. He had already blocked her number once, but she had found a way to text him even more things, probably from a different phone.

I was waiting for Julian since he wanted to have a word with the adults in the house to probably tell them that he was figuring the administrative things out. Ever since I realized on Christmas that I wanted to run Home Our Community, I've just been keeping it a secret from him because I felt stupid even thinking it. I was a 21-year-old that's only ever had one job and knew nothing about business. Even if I did tell him my thoughts, he would just let me down easy or something because there's no way he would like the idea. I was an emotional mess that might ruin those kids lives if I was in an administrative role with him.

After talking to Alejandro, Derek had asked me to play him in Call of Duty and I absolutely had to say yes since he seemed so excited that I was here and I had some time to kill until Julian wanted to leave. I let out a small groan when Derek kills me again in the game and immediately realize that he was a pro at this. It might also be because I made him play me on the easiest setting since I was so bad at it.

"How am I cheating?" He asks me with a chuckle, not taking his eyes off the screen for a second as he focuses on killing my team and me. 

"You have to be looking at my side of the screen or something or you're just seriously good at this game," I tell him, searching around for him since I haven't been able to find him ever since we started playing.

I hear Boyd chuckle from behind me. I glance at him for a second with a small smile before looking back at my screen because I needed to find this kid before the timer ran out. "Oh, he's just really good, Miles. We've played probably hundreds of times and I might've won, maybe, five times."

"I'm amazing, I know, you don't have to keep telling me that," Derek jokes, making the two of us chuckle. I concentrate on the game until I hear footsteps behind us and I turn quickly to see Julian walking in with the other adults. When he sees what I was doing, he gives me a smile and a wink before I focus my attention back on the screen since I could hear the timer starting to count down as it runs out.

I frantically hit the buttons to keep searching for Derek, but the end screen comes up a few moments later, telling me that I had lost to him by a lot and I put my hand out to him to give him a high five. "You're actually pretty good. I demand a rematch soon, I'll see you later, okay?"

"Alright," he tells me with a smile before throwing my controller to Boyd, who stood up as I walked over to him. I know that he was bummed that I had to go so soon, so I would have to come here at some point soon and just hang out with him and the other kids. I bet they like to have a new face around here and if I could bring them even an ounce of happiness, I would definitely do anything.