Page 23 of Blinded By The Sun
Ciro
Iget out of the shower first so I can give King her space… for now. I do what needs to be done. The basics of getting ready. There’s not much I can do with my now damp curly hair but put it up in a bun. I wear black sweatpants and a t-shirt. As I walk out of the room, I spotPoutinestill on my bed. “Boy, get off my bed and come on, let’s go.” I say to him.
Poutinelooks towards the bathroom and back at me. I place my hands on my hips and narrow my eyes at him.Poutine, the master of dog attitude gets off the bed and takes his time walking towards me as if King’ll come out of the bathroom to rescue him. “Watch when I tell your girlfriend you’ve been cuddling with another woman. You thinkMocha willappreciate this? Huh?”Poutinebarks at me. “Nope. I don’t care what you have to say and while we’re at it, how dare you embarrass me like that? We’ll have a talk about your conduct in my bedroom.” I open my door and let him out first.
Poutinelooks back at me and whimpers. “Oh now, you want to be buddy-buddy with me, huh? Traitor. Go, your girlfriend is waiting for you.”
Poutinebarks and then howls. I break my stern façade and watch him run off to play with Boston’s malamute,Mocha.When I make my way into the kitchen, I spot my brother Adriano first. He’s sitting down sipping coffee and then he looks up at me with a smile. I smile back because I haven’t seen him in a couple of years. Adriano stands up and I shake my head at his suit wearing self. I swear he was born in a suit. He let his grays come in much more than I have, well, I’m seeing some grays myself. “You look good, bro,” I say to him.
“Franchement?” He asks. He walks over to me and pulls me in for a tight hug. Adriano stands at 6’5 and is lean. The Sarkozy men don’t really run too thick except for yours truly and I despise it.
“Shit. I can’t believe you’re here. Feels like I haven’t seen you in forever. How’s everything? Your wife, the kids? I miss them.”
Adriano gives me the signature Sarkozy smile. “The wife and kids are okay. She hates that I picked up and came here without another thought. She’s always had it out for you, I don’t really get it.”
I roll my eyes. “We’ve talked about this. She got rejected by me on multiple occasions in high school. I didn’t know you guys would fall in love or else I would’ve been nicer in my way of saying no.” I laugh.
Adriano throws his head back and laughs too. “Yeah well, I was busy doing shit all then. Anyway, the kids miss you. They wanted to come, but I want them to finish their damn semester. You know Carlita is in her last year of university, right?”
“What? She’s graduating, and she didn’t even tell me? I thought we were best friends?” I say.
Adriano shakes his head, but the smile doesn’t disappear. “Yeah, she said if she told you, you’d buy her an outrageous gift, so she didn’t want you to know. But now that you do, you can buy me the Aston Martin, you cheap bastard.”
I roll my eyes. “On that note,” I turn to face my nephew. “Petit! Comment ça va?Shit, I’ve missed you. Come here.”
Matteo smiles as he comes closer and gives me a hug. He’s growing taller and taller every time I see him. His dark curly hair is courtesy of his mother and not his strawberry blonde ass father. He has natural strawberry blonde highlights. He has his hair shoulder length now and I know he looks up to his dad. The features of his West-Indian mother and his father are prominent on his face. He looks like what ignorant people claim to be ‘exotic’. He pulls out of the hug and I see his hazel eyes with flecks of blue in there. “You okay? Heard about your wife…” he says.
“Kid, come on, I’m good. Are you? Heard you think you’re tough as nails now. Anything you want to run by me?” I ask him, giving him a stern look.
His natural tanned face becomes paler, and he scratches the back of his neck looking down. “No, I’ve got nothing to run by you.”
“Good. Don’t let me hear shit, all right?”
“Yes, uncle Cir. Got it.”
I ruffle his hair. I can’t believe my 16-year-old nephew is 6 feet tall already. I shake my head as I look at Boston who is eating like he doesn’t care about us at all. “Hey asshole, nice to see you too.”
He bites into half of his bagel. “Yeah eh? Fuck you. Feed my dog, will you?”
I snicker. “Who shit on his Beaver-tail?” I ask Matteo.
“Dad is mad because mom chewed his ear off for hanging up on her. She cursed him out for legit 10 minutes. She’s my hero.” Matteo says. Boston chucks the rest of his bagel at his head. “Ow!” Matteo exclaims.
“Make me another one.” Boston says.
I throw my head back and laugh. I missed these crazy bastards.
“You see what he treats me like? This isn’t right.” Matteo fakes his sadness. “I should call mom.”
I shake my head. “Kid, go make the bagel.” I hear King’s soft footsteps and when she turns the corner all the men in the room turn her way.
I roll my eyes and run a hand over my face.Here we go.The first one to get to her is Adriano. “Well, hello there. I’m Adriano Sarkozy and you are?”
I look at King to see what she’ll do. She smiles at my brother and gives him her hand. “Hi, I’m King Storm. It’s nice to meet you.” she says.
Adriano tilts his head. He looks at me and then back at her. “You look a little on the young side. How old are you?”
“I turned 25 three days ago.” she says.It was her birthday?
