Cold Steel, Warm Hearts

Chapter 3: Exploration

(Author's note: E= Echo, D= Echo's Dad)

Ted turns off his car, turning to Echo. "Well, here we are. The unit is the closest one, number 3." Without missing a beat, Ted climbs out of the car and up the small set of stairs in front of the apartment, unlocking the door and walking in. Echo, watching him leave her in the car, unbuckles and joins him. The path that lead up to it, Echo noticed, had weeds growing up between the path stones. She catches up to Ted inside of the kitchen.

"So, have you met the neighbors yet?" She asked, looking around the kitchen, noticing mainly paper clutter where there wasn't dishes or food. Ted turns to Echo with a raised eyebrow.

"No, I haven't. They don't bother me, so I don't bother them." Ted puts his keys on a lone hook in the wall above his shoe rack. He takes off his boots and puts them on the rack, Echo still just standing right inside of the door as she hasn't been able to get past him. She takes that time to wipe her paws off on black mat on the ground.

"What is so weird with talking to your neighbours? I thought it was a common thing to do." Echo contemplates aloud, as she realizes she is probably going to be the one mainly cleaning the apartment as Ted, in her eyes, clearly can't.

Ted stretches then walks right into the living room. "I don't like talking to people I don't know. I don't want to know them either; just in case you were wondering." Ted tells Echo as he plops into his worn-out couch and turns on his T.V.

Echo sighs a bit, then takes a good look around the kitchen. There is a small square table tucked away into a corner with 2 chairs that don't match pushed into it. It has paper clutter on it, though it did look like he dd a load of dishes. To the back of the kitchen there is 2 doors, one that leads to the back yard, as she noticed. 'I might be able to plant some veggies back there in the spring,' she thinks to herself, as she scans the fenced in yard. She turns to the other door, noticing that it has a washer and dryer that have glass doors in the room, with what looks like a load in the dryer.

Echo then moves into the living room to continue her self-guided tour, she see's Ted sitting on the couch watching a nature documentary. "So where are the bedrooms? I didn't see them off of the kitchen." She asks, her eyes scanning the darkly lit living room.

Ted gazes over to her lazily and points to the stairs across the living room. "Oh, the bedrooms are upstairs. You can take a look if you like." He offers to her, then lets out a long yawn. "My bedroom is on the far left; I didn't touch the bedroom at the top of the stairs or the storage room on the main floor if you want those."

"Thanks, I'll go take a look." Echo says as she scoots around the couch, the coffee table that was surprisingly clean with only the T.V remote and a Kleenex box on it, and the TV itself to the stairs. Her being a smaller race, she has to hop up the stairs that were made with a human in mind; luckily, it wasn't anything she wasn't used to.

Ted watched as Echo did little jumps to get up the stairs and he felt something stir within him that he has dreaded up until this point. It was a warm fuzzy feeling in his chest, and he let out a long, heavy sigh. "Oh, fuck me." He mutters to himself, knowing full well what this means.

When Echo gets to the top of the stairs, she gives a quick look around. The walls were a plain white, then two wooden doors on the left, then one on the right further down the hallway. She goes into door number one, and sees a decently sized room, obviously the smaller of the two, considering it was longer than it was wide. She noticed there was a closet inside to the left of the door, and a large window that was on the right-hand side. She walks right up to the window and sees that her view is of the back yard, which she is ecstatic about.

"Maybe I can put a bird feeder outside my widow? Ted probably won't care... At least I hope so, I can't tell much since he isn't even showing me around." She mutters to herself as she pulls up her phone to take pictures of her soon-to-be new room. She sends these pictures to her dad while rocking on her toes excitedly, thinking of all the things she could do to make her room feel more like her own.

E- Hey dad, here are some of the pictures of MY NEW ROOM!!

D- Oh that's great hun! I'm glad to hear it!

E- Yeah! I was wondering when your next day off was. I know you've moved your schedule around because of the pregnancy.

D- Well, I took off the weekend for ya, is your new roommate available then?

E- I'm not sure, he is downstairs on the couch

D- Well, you can ask him. I also have a surprise for you!

E-Oh???? What is it????

D- Weeeell...I may or may not have saved up enough to pay for your first and last for this place! I know how hard it can be!

E- DAD

E- I MEAN?? THANKS, BUT I ALSO SAVED UP ENOUGH

D- Do you need the rent yet? Like last month's rent or something?

E- Idk dad, no clue. Wanna meet at the regular pace for dinner? Gtg, bai dad

Echo was reading her dad's messages, getting more and more excited about moving. Thinking about how Ted was way more chill than she was at the moment, she tried to quell her excitement before heading back down the stairs to ask Ted some questions. Unbeknownst to her, Ted heard all of her excitement with his more sensitive hearing, though he doesn't say anything as he doesn't want to get up off of the couch. Once she has calmed down, she makes her way back to the living room.

"Hey Ted, my dad says he can help move this weekend, are you available? I know people don't normally move in before the first of the month, but I work that day and I just started so I don't want to miss any days. Also, do you need rent now, or on the first?" Echo blurts out as she rounds the corner to face Ted, not realizing she still had a tint of excitement in her voice.

Ted chuckles. "I don't work this weekend, so that works for me Carrot Cake. And on the first is fine." He pauses for a moment, looking at her with a cheeky smile on his face. "Did you know that the Dik-Dik is the smallest antelope in the world?"

Echo pinches the bridge of her nose. "Uh-huh. And on that note, I need to be meeting my father downtown, so I'm gunna go and catch the bus. So... yeah." She says as she awkwardly shuffles for the door. Ted lets out a hearty laugh and waves to her.

"Alright! See you this weekend!"

Echo makes her way to the mall, noting that it was only a 15-minute bus ride to it, which for city standards, was rather good. She meets up with her father at a Thai restaurant, and they talk about her meeting with Ted. She animatedly tells her father about her self-guided tour of the apartment, and how Ted was an okay guy, and that she thinks she can handle living with him, even if he seemed weird to her. Once they get home, she starts to pack her belongings well into the night, thinking about all things she can probably fit into her room.