BORN TO LOVE YOU ━ Joe Mazzello

EIGHTEEN. YELLOW DRESS

A.N. Happy New Years folks! 2020 will hopefully be a better year for us all.

btw, I'm bringing back the smut for this chapter so be warned. I miss the smut to be honest so here's some. I feel like Joe would be super gentle but also a dirty bastard when he wants to be. That's just my take.

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June had come around fast and as Cleo predicted the pub was busy busy busy with people coming in from all over to catch the World Cup. The World Cup had been going a couple of days now and the pub had been decorated with flags of the world draped over the top of the bar and on the walls leading around the room, with special offers on beers and lagers to help entice the thirsty people of London to come in. And boy did people come in. Cleo had only known one other time where the pub was busier than it was now, and that was when the Olympics took place in London in 2012. London was a nicer place back then.

It certainly didn't help that a heatwave spread throughout the country, bringing even more people out to grab a drink and some lunch in the sun. And thanks to the houses not being fitted with air conditioning like all American houses do, Cleo had to buy a portable one off of Amazon to keep her room cool enough for Avery to relax in whenever she wasn't in. It came to the point where she had no choice but to bring him into work with her so she could keep an eye on him at all times, making sure he was as cool as can be.

And of course as the days continued with the weather not cooling down, Cleo's hair started frizzing up like it had done in New York last month. She didn't even begin to tame it as there was no going back once it frizzed up like it did. It really did look like she'd been dragged through a hedge backwards and there was nothing she could do. The only thing she could do, was to tie it up or push it back with a hair band so it didn't look as bad as it was, keeping it at bay until the cold came back.

"He should have passed that." Cleo thought aloud as her and San stood behind the bar, catching a couple of minutes of the football game on the TV. "Then he could have crossed it in to the guy who was free on the left. Why didn't he pass that?" Cleo asked her brother, motioning towards the game.

San wasn't listening very much, resting his head on his hand and tapping his fingers on the surface of the bar. He was in his own little world, thinking about what he had learned about himself a couple of weeks ago. There were many instances since then where he could have told Cleo the truth, sat her down and just said it, but he'd randomly become a scared cat all of sudden and couldn't find it in himself to tell her. He knew he had to do it soon, he just needed a bit longer.

Cleo frowned at the silence of her brother, never knowing him to be this wordless and especially when it came to football. She had noticed he had been this way for a few days and as his sister, she worried for him. She had asked time and time again if he was feeling okay, and every time he would say he was. But Cleo didn't buy it. If he wasn't going to tell her, he would certainly tell his best friend and bro for life, so she made her way to the other side of the bar and out to the front of the pub, where Archer was knelt down making amendments to a chalkboard. She tapped him on his shoulder to get his attention.

"I'm busy." He said without looking away from the chalkboard.

"You can multi-task. Talk while you chalk."

"Fine. What do you want?" He asked, glancing up her for a mere second before continuing his chalking.

"Has San be acting weird to you the past few days?" She asked, stepping out the way so a couple of people could enter the pub.

"It's San. He always acts weird."

"I mean weird for him. I just tried to spark a football conversation and he said nothing back. That's not the San, I know. The San we all know."