Waffle Love

Chapter 2

I feel like I am walking on clouds as I walk towards the Waffle Love counter to meet Darius and have breakfast. I immediately

spot him sitting at a table waiting, and he sees me too. He instantly smiles so hard and starts to come towards me. "Good morning beautiful," he says and gives me a kiss. "Do you need any help with all of that?" he asks. I smile and say, "No, it's all good, everything is mostly on wheels. Do you want to go to the counter to order before we sit back at the table?" "You are going to sit at the table while I order for us. What would you like?" he asks me. I gave him my order while settling down. After he returned to the table with the food I say, "I was checking the weather on my phone and the wind is getting stronger and the temperature is dropping. Maybe we should take our food to go and eat at your house. I am not a big fan of really cold weather. You would think that I would be used to it after 24 years!" He nodded his head in understanding and said, "I agree, let's get out of here. I think that it is very few people who truely get used to it, and I am not one of them either." As we start walking towards the door, I ask "How far do we have to go?" He replies, "about five blocks." We step outside and the wind and freezing air smacks us in the face. We made a silent mutual agreement to just walk quickly without talking. After a while, he says "This is my street coming up." Soon I follow him up the steps of the fourth brownstone. We enter the first set of doors and then go up one flight of stairs. He unlocks the second door and we enter a apartment. The kitchen is on the left, the living room is on the right and there is a hallway straight ahead. The living room has three men sitting in there watching the sports channel. Everyone starts speaking all at one time to each other. Darius introduces me as his girl friend and introduces the three men as his best friends. Then Darius tells me that they are leaving soon and to make myself comfortable. I ask him to show me to the restroom and he tells me to follow him. I follow him down the hallway and we approach a door on the left. I go inside and close the door. As I use the restroom, I think to myself. Something did not quite add up. He told me he lived in a renovated brownstone house. This is a brownstone apartment that is still in the process of being renovated. It is huge for an apartment, from what I can tell, but it would be a huge exaggerated version of what he told me. It appears to be four bedrooms. Due to it currently being under construction, I am surprised that his mother is hosting his party here though. I strugg it off for now as I finish washing my hands. I open the door and Darius is standing right there." You waited at the door for me?" I ask in surprise. "Yes, they are my best friends, but they are men and they are strange men to you and I don't want you to feel uncomfortable. To be honest, even if you were familiar with them I would still wait at the door for you," he replied. He finished showing me around and as we walk back to the front where the kitchen and living rooms are he asks me "So what do you think?" I respond," It is very spacious, really clean considering the renovations are in progress, and I can already see how great it will be when it is finished!" Darius and his friends let out a holler and started laughing uncontrollably as if I just completed a standup comedy skit. After getting over the first initial wave of confusion, I started to sense that some type of inside joke was going on.Then one of his friends finally stopped laughing and spoke up." Darius does not live here. This is not his house. We are proud to say that you must be the right one. Your reaction and responses that you gave show that you are with him for all of the right reasons." I look over at Darius and he says, "Well now you have met my best friends. I was hanging out with them last night and we had this bright idea. Let's get out of here. I am ready to take you to my real house." I start putting my coat back on and grabbing my luggage handle. "So we have to go back out in the cold?" I ask "Yes, but just about a half block further up the street though," he replied. We say goodbye and leave out.

I follow Darius a little further up the street until he stops in front of another brownstone. We walk up the steps and he unlocks the door. We step inside a foyer, he locks the door and says," My parents and siblings live in the building next door. My parents bought the building and fully renovated it into apartments. There are four apartments and each one has 3 bedrooms. My parent's apartment is on the main level and they also have the basement level and the garage. My siblings live in the upper level apartments. Once they moved next door, they decided that I could have this house." He then put in a code and a thick security door opened and revealed the most beautiful house that I have ever stepped foot in. We were now stepping into the living room. It had hardwood floors and there were two steps down from the door. After stepping down, Darius pulled the steps open to reveal that our shoes go inside. Next we went to the left side of the room where a door was and he opened it to reveal a coat closet and hung up our coats. I turn back around to finish admiring the living room. I loved the furniture and decor. It was my style and I wouldn't change a thing. The colors where light gray, cream, and gold. There was a fireplace with a tv hung above it and shelves lined the wall on each side. The whole room was picture perfect. I started walking ahead and discovered there was a door on the right. It was open, so looked inside. It was an informal living room, with tan colored leather sectional sofa and tv. Next there was an elevator door and a huge staircase next to it. After the staircase there was another door, which turned out to be a half bathroom. I walk a few more steps over to another entrance way and look inside and I see a large formal dining room. The decor is elegant and pretty with mostly the same colors as the formal living room. It has a long glass table with gray tufted dining chairs all around it. The table decor, wall art and mirror all compliment the room perfectly. There is a glass minibar with silver trim tucked away in the left back corner area. Next, in front of me is a huge kitchen that takes up the remaining rear of this level. It has a table and chair set similar to the formal dining room, except the table is smaller and round. The counters are white quartz with shiny silver flecks. There is a huge walk in pantry, oversized refrigerator, deep freezer, and stove. All of the appliances

are stainless steel. There are three other doors, which lead to the garage, basement, and backyard. I sit down at the massive island and continue to process everything that I have seen so far while Darius starts to heat up our breakfast. " While the food is heating up I have to take you to meet my parents because they heard us come in and they are texting me to death about meeting you," he says." Ok, I don't mind. I would love to meet them. I am just dreading going back outside," I sighed. He broke out in a mischievious grin. "No need to go outside, follow me," he says.