May Contain Wine (SWAT Generation 2.0 5)

When I couldn’t handle the ignoring thing she had going on anymore, I sidled up even closer to her and insinuated myself in between them.

Sammy thought it was hilarious and backed up.

Calloway, not so much.

“So since when did you start doing this? Why do you do this?” I asked curiously.

She set down the light that she was carrying and put a camera bag onto the counter directly next to it.

“I’m here to interview you for my magazine because people love reading about heroes.”

I blinked. “Your magazine?”

She nodded. “Hero Magazine. It’s mine.”

“The magazine is yours, or you work for the magazine?” I asked for clarification.

“Mine,” she replied, looking away so she could start packing her camera bag.

I watched in utter silence for a few seconds before I turned and glared at my cousin, Sammy.

His lips kicked up at the corners.

Oh yeah, he’d known.

He’d known exactly who was doing the interviewing. That was why he wasn’t surprised or against it.

The son of a bitch.

“Well, on that note, I’m gonna go. You got the closing down of this place?” Sammy asked as he backed away.

I nodded once, jaw clenched.

We’d have words about him keeping his secrets later, that was for sure.

“Have a good one.”

Then he was gone, leaving just two. Calloway and me.

The way I’d always wanted it to be.

I wasn’t sure how she always managed it, but it never failed. I didn’t get to be alone with her. Not ever.

This was the first time I’d managed in the years since I’d broken up with her.

“I don’t like that you somehow hid this from me,” I muttered, my eyes on hers.

Why was this kept a secret?

She shrugged. “I didn’t really like that you had to donate your blood so I wouldn’t die, but that’s the way the cookie crumbles.”

I crossed my arms over my chest.

“Why do you refuse to talk to me?” I asked. “Why won’t you let anyone else talk to me about you?”

She narrowed her eyes, crossing her arms over her chest in a defensive measure.

“Why do you think that you deserve to know anything that’s going on in my life?” she countered.

That was true.

“I made a mistake,” I said.

She snorted. “Which time?”

“When I broke up with you,” I told her honestly.

I mean, I was talking to her alone. I had to tell her everything.

She snorted. “You didn’t make a mistake. I did in ever trusting you. I should’ve never taken that leap.”

“You should have,” I said. “The thing is, I should’ve trusted you to take that leap with me.”

“Whatever,” she said as she picked her lights up. “Have a good one, Louis.”

Louis. I hated when she called me by my full name.

For just once, I wished that she would call me by Louie, or Lou. Or hell, even Lou-Lou like she used to before I’d ruined everything.

“Bye, Cal.”Chapter 3

WTF is up with Grandpa Joe off of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory? Homeboy sat in bed for 20 years while his family lived in poverty but hopped up like a motherfucker to go to a candy factory.

-Text from Calloway to Louis

Calloway

“Hello?”

I swallowed hard. “Louie?”

There was a moment of silence and then Louis said, “What’s wrong?”

I looked out my window at the dead kitten and felt my lip quiver.

“I need you to come over here,” I whispered. “I need help.”

That’s when the sob broke free, and I couldn’t stop the tears of anguish anymore.

Dropping the phone from my ear, I backed away from my front porch and stared in horror at the window. Wondering how the hell something so horrible had happened to something so innocent.

Ten minutes later, four police cars rolled up, and half the SWAT team got out of the cars.

I only knew that because I could see them from where I was at on the ground, having opened the blinds to let the May morning sun into my rundown house so I could write my article.

Standing up, I walked to the front door and opened it, trying studiously not to stare at my little Buttercup.

Louis got out of the first cruiser that was parked closest to my driveway and hauled ass toward me, taking in my crying face and my ragged breathing.

Louis stopped at the dead kitten, stared at it, and then stepped over it as if it was only mildly interesting.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, looking anxious.

My lip quivered, and I pointed down at the ground. “The kitten.”

He frowned, turned around, and looked down. “What about it?”

My mouth fell open. “Somebody killed my kitten, man!”

His eye twitched. “You’re crying because of a dead kitten.”

I crossed my arms over my chest and glared at him.

Instead of talking to him anymore, I moved until I could see Sammy.

“Can you pick him up and put him into the shoebox so I can bury him? There are some gloves… I just couldn’t do it,” I whispered.