The Clumsy Designer

Chapter 6

I could hear the usual Saturday morning sound around me, it was New York's honking cars as they fought their way through the traffic.

Groaning, I hid myself in the comfort of my blanket and snugged in trying to sleep.

I have been awake all night.

Thinking of Max' drunk words.

"I don't know if it's me just having too much to drink or if it's true." He was pausing each word, considering how drunk he really was right now.

I didn't pay any attention to him, I was used to Max uttering bullshit when he's drunk.

"But I heard that George guy talk about 'ya."

Then he chuckles again and begins drawing figures in the air.

I looked in the rearview mirror, trying to see who was awake other than Max, so I could find out who he was talking to. When I saw no one but him, I confusedly thought that maybe it was for me?

"Some words were like, you're so blind to not see it. I wanted to punch his face, l-like you're my friend Blue."

When he stated my name, I then finally turned to him and saw his closed eyes as he made bubble sounds and played with his lips.

I stood silent, wanting to know what he was saying while being drunk as f**k.

"They said, oh I'm assuming they're a gazillion s-so many considering how many voices I heard."

I was getting irritated at him, I just wanted him to say it in one full sentence because, f**k, I'm so curious.

"They said, you're blind again," Max pauses to laugh and then his voice suddenly turns serious. "You're a fool to not realize that you've been played-"

Snapping my gaze at his, I groaned, seeing him pass out and snoring.

Played?

Played by whom?

What the f**k?

Scratching my head in annoyance, I tried to shake him awake. f**k, I can not sleep if he leaves me hanging this time.

"Here it is, sorry I took a long time. I forgot where I left it." Jeremy's voice rang in my head.

But the only thing plastered on my mind were Max' words.

I was digging up my head trying to think of whom they were referring to that played me.

"Are you okay Blue?" Jem places a hand on top of my shoulder, looking at me with concern.

Giving him a small smile, I nodded.

"If you say so..."

And as he started the engine, my mind wandered off to one person.

Looking at the backseat...

I stared at Lucifer's innocent face while he slept soundly.

Is it you that Max is referring to?

Trying to erase it in my mind, I felt bothered as I heard the engines start and leave Jazz' property. I looked out the window and noticed that the sky started dropping droplets of water.

Indicating that it would rain.

Shivering, I wrapped my arms around myself.

"Here, you're cold."

Jem passes me his gray hoodie with a small smile on his face.

Deciding not to reject it, I grabbed it from him, offering my thanks.

I looked from the road and then at Jeremy, concentrating on driving, and that's when I remembered that some of Lucifer's friends were his also.

"Hey Jem, I want to ask you about something."

"Go ahead, I think I can answer that well depending on the question," he says, though his eyes still remain on the road.

Accepting his half attention, I thought of what right words to use.

"Are you familiar with Jordan? I mean, George?"

"Hmm... yeah," He hummed, turning left on the road, making us silent again as I thought of another question.

"Do you know, you know?" I asked, trying to trick him.

He looked at me for a second with furrowed eyebrows and a genuine confused look on his face.

And that's when I realized that he didn't know about it.

I will probably ask Max tomorrow if he remembers it.

And I pray to God to let him remember it.

Sitting up from my bed, I stretched my body, hearing some of my bones crack. Deciding to drop by a nearby gym, I changed into my workout clothes and tied my hair to a tight ponytail.

With my water bottle, towel phone and ear pods with me, I locked my room and went to the gym.

Arriving, only six or seven people were there, including the bulky counter guy who had tattoos all over his arms.

"Blue, it's been a while. Nice to see you," Hulk greeted me. I greeted him back with a good morning and asked if Janette was available today.

I rarely go to this gym, but I have my own personal trainer.

"You know she always is."

He winks, then uses the intercom of the gym, calling up Janette.

I love Janette. She's twenty years older than me and has given birth to six boys and one girl. After those fertile years of hers, she froze her eggs and her husband got a vasectomy to prevent more children coming in to knock and say hi.

She was really overweight, I remember. I didn't see her while she was overweight, she just showed me in the pictures. And that's why she got so obsessed with the gym, wanting her old figure back, and after five years, she finally got it.

With the right amount of muscles in her arms, biceps and abs, she walks towards me with a grin.

"It's glad to see you here again Blue, feeling fat as a cow?" She jokingly asks, winking at me.

I gently laughed back at her joke and shook my head 'no'.

"Just wanted to release some stress from me."

"You went to the right place then. Come on, let's get you some warm up before you start with those bikes and treadmills over there," She says, turning to lead me to where there was space for us to do warm ups.

===

Stepping inside my room, my body felt sore everywhere as I pulled myself to the extent this morning. Only resting for a minute or so, and exercise with Janette helped me to erase some of my stress, but it was still there.

She warned me not to push myself as it was two weeks since I last went to the gym.

Stretching on the floor of my room, I made sure to stretch my limbs to relax my tensed muscles.

Grabbing a granola bar and my lemon water from the fridge, I took it as my pre-workout snack.

Turning my neck to both sides, I stripped myself off of my clothes and turned the water to a cold temperature, making sure that it was ice cold as f**k.

Removing my hair tie, I dipped in the bath blissfully sighing as my aching body hit the cold water.

Leaning back into the tub, I closed my eyes trying to think of happy memories. And most of that included my childhood. It was either pulling pranks on Ametrine by me and Lian.

Deciding to facetime them later, I remained in my position.

After a rough five minutes, I stepped out of the tub and wrapped a towel around me, then proceeded to wear some comfortable homey clothes.

And that meant an oversized t-shirt and panties. Laying down on my bed after drying my hair, I was about to switch on the TV when my phone continuously beeped.

It must be Lucifer.

Taking my phone, I lazily opened it and sure enough it was from him.

Fr: Baby

Good morning buttercup, how's ur sleep? Mine's a nightmare xx

Eat ur breakfast

You probably r still sleeping, continue dreaming my love

It's nine, and u usually wake up by this time.

R u ignoring me?

Did I do smthng last night?

Buttercup...

Not texting back, I just turned my phone off. He must have some massive headache considering how really drunk he was last night.

Looking at the calendar, I was surprised to see how fast time really is when you're having fun. It's the middle of September, and I remembered that on the eighteenth day was Nite's birthday.

It is tomorrow, his birthday is tomorrow.

Getting up from my comfortable bed, I take my laptop and open it to Skype. It's probably around four-ish over there in Athens, since Greece is seven hours ahead of New York.

Seeing Opal online, I called her.

And instantly her oval-shaped and angelic face came into view with that beautiful smile of hers.

"Hi ate! (Older sister)." She excitedly waves her hand at me for the camera.

"Hello kapatid (sibling). Kamusta ka? (How are you?)" I spoke to her in basic Tagalog language. It was one of the few sentences I knew in Tagalog.

"Ayos lang (Just fine), you?"

"I miss you and our other siblings as well." We both laughed when she noticed I stopped speaking Tagalog, meaning that I don't remember what ayos lang means.

"And we miss you too. Do you want to talk with them?" She asks, and then her screen moves, indicating that she was moving and probably trying to look for our family inside that damn mansion.

"Why are you carrying your laptop in the middle of the hallway?" I heard Lian's sleepy voice from the background, probably just woken up from her afternoon nap.

"It's ate Blue. You want to talk to her?" Then Opal faced the laptop for me to see a certain Carnelian Letizia Salazar Holmstrom with both eyes still half-asleep.

Laughing at her, she then opens one of her eyes and sees me.

Instantly smirking at me, she took the laptop from Opal's hands and went so f*****g near the camera I could almost see her booger.

"What's up, the color blue? Parece que te volviste más gorda. (You look like you have become more fat)," She teases and gives a mischievous smile, knowing so well that I don't understand her Spanish.

Unlike Ametrine, who knows Greek, Italian, Tagalog, Spanish and Chinese Mandarin fluently... I was a sucker for languages. Lian tries to explain to me that Tagalog and Spanish have some similar words, cue in the fact that Spain colonized the Philippines for three hundred thirty-three years.

"I'm fine, and kindly translate it to English, thanks," I smugly say.

"I don't do kindly, sister, and you know it."

"And how is your Warren over there?" I asked, interest lacing my tone.

Her Warren was different from the Warren I dated here. Her other Warren was more of the perfect kind of guy, but sadly not her type.

"Still perfect as ever. Did you know I didn't reply to any of his texts for two days and I didn't even f*****g apologize for it! Yet he was still glad to see me and was comforted knowing I was fine," She mumbled at the end, not wanting to let someone else hear her love life other than Opal beside her.

"What, you're dating?" Opal asks, surprised written all over her face.

She already knew that Lian never followed Patri's rules over us, since we were mostly girls, and his only son was still a toddler.

"Shut up, Opal." Lian shushed our sister.

"Okay okay, but you do know that Patri said that we're not allowed to have any boyfriend, not until we're twenty years old plus," Opal pointed out and frowned, with pure innocence in her face, wondering why the hell on Earth was her seventeen-year-old sister already dating even though she knew the rules.

"You keep track of those Goddamn ridiculous rules?" Lian asks, arching a brow.

"Of course, I'm afraid that I will forget them," Opal admits, rubbing the back of her head as if memorizing Patri's rules was a crime.

It was kind of silly, but it only showed how much she value dad's trust.

Obedient as ever, Opal.

"Stop it you two, and Opal, don't be like Lian. She's bad news," I said, rolling my eyes. The thought of Lian tainting Opal was like a bomb waiting to explode, especially once Ametrine learns of this.

"Yeah yeah, and as I was saying, he's still perfect as s**t," she says, with a frown on her face.

Observing her, though she had a frown on her face, I detected a look of admiration in her eyes.

Warren Lagura was exactly the opposite of her type.

"Why don't you leave him then?" I asked, knowing fully well that she also had feelings for that guy even though she tried to hide it a lot.

"No me preguntes ese color Azul, ya sabes por qué. (Do not ask me that color Blue, you know why)," She grunts in her mother tongue.

As if I understand her.

"Well, it's nice to talk with you guys. I'll talk to you soon, and I want to talk to Nite this time!"

Bidding goodbye to both of them, I told them to be safe, then ended the Skype call.

Looking at the time, I wondered if Max was available right now so I could come over to his house.

Fishing out my phone, I notice my messages being bombarded by Lucifer himself. He even had seven miscalls, and left voice messages.

"Hey buttercup, did I do something wrong? I'll come later, after I'm done here in training. We have the game in two weeks. I hope we're fine. See you later, beautiful."

And then the line beeped.

My heart tightened at not talking to him. I suddenly felt upset. I just couldn't go directly at him and ask him about what Max had said last night about his friend George because I'm still not sure if they were indicating to him or not.

To: Baby

Okay then, I will see you soon. Good luck on practice xx

From: Baby

Oh f**k, baby. I thought I would not hear from u, I will go to your dorm later. ok??

To: Baby

Okay, focus on that first. xx

With that, I then left a text for Max. Not bothering to ask him if he was busy, and just got direct on telling him that I would be dropping by his house.

Changing into a set of fresh outdoor clothes, I then made my way.

===

Knocking three times, I waited until Max opened the door with a small smile on his face.

"Blue, nice for you to come and see me." We hugged briefly before he led me to his living room.

"Any drinks you would like?" He asks, making his steps towards his kitchen.

"No, I'm fine. Don't be so formal, Max," I chuckled.

He gave me a goofy smile and sat on the love seat which was in front of me. I noticed his fingers tapping his knees while looking so nervous.

"Are you alright?" I asked, my words trailing off as I looked at him weirdly.

"Yes, very much so. So what have you come here for?" He asks, changing the subject to my sole purpose.

"I wanted to ask you about last night, about what you said."

And he looked more nervous than ever, his fingers still continuously tapping on his knee as he searched his mind to give me a sensible answer.

Giving him a suspicious look, I tucked my arms and sat back, waiting for him to answer.

"W-what did I say? Nothing silly, right?" He let out a short laugh, but his eyes still didn't meet mine.

Okay, that's it.

He looks like he knows the truth, he should blurt it out now.

"Seriously Max, don't hide it from me."

"Tell me the truth." I reprimanded, looking at him straight in the eyes. He should know that I am dead serious about learning the truth.

"f**k, okay I admit it!" Then he stands up, with an exasperated look in his face and placing both of his hands on the sides of his waist.

"I'm gay damn it, and I'm dating Bullet!" He exclaims, and that actually f*****g made me speechless.

And at that exact time, Bullet walks out of his room giving me an apologetic smile.

W-what?

Does he think that he blurted something about him being gay last night and not the other thing about George?

What the f**k is going on here? I didn't even know about this. I was sure I sensed that Andrea, Max and Bullet were having some kind of personal issue. But I seriously didn't think about this one.

"Sorry for hiding it," Bullet says, taking my hand in his and looking at me with a regretful smile.

My eyebrows only furrowed more, "What the hell are you two talking about?"

"This Blue, I'm coming out of the closet to you. Right at this moment, sorry for hiding it from you and our other friends. I didn't want you to feel upset and left out," Max says, apologizing again while rubbing the back of his neck.

"No, no, no. This isn't what I'm asking you about, but seriously, though I don't mind that you kept this a secret from me."

Giving them a small smile, I decided to talk about their relationship later and just ask Max first about what he had drunk-said last night.

"So what is it, that you said I blurted out while being drunk as f**k?" Max asks.

I didn't feel weird when Bullet sat beside him in the loveseat and holding hands.

I thought they looked cute, but later. We could talk about them later.

"About what you said: you heard George talking to someone, and they mentioned my name," I pointed out.

Observing him, his face crunches, trying to recollect his memories from last night. f**k, I really wish that he still remembered it.

"Before I lost control of myself, George and I greeted each other. I didn't give too much attention to it since I was loving my alcohol, and a few moments later I heard him talking to maybe two or three guys. I'm sure they were just guys, since I didn't hear any female voices. I was on my tenth drink when I heard your name. They were snickering about you. I'm still not passed out but..." He trails off again, and closes his eyes, showing me that he badly wants to remember it for me.

"Damn it, I can't remember. I'm sorry Blue." He looks genuine. Bullet places a hand over his, then looks at me.

"Do you think it's Lucifer?"