Mafially Yours

39

I woke up that day because of the air knocking on the windows of my room and the bright sun finding its way to my closed eyes. When I opened my eyes I saw the color of the tree started to change and some of the leaves were falling. I smiled. Fall was my favorite season. The colors and the weather are all magical. It was a time of warmness and quietness, as if the universe is warning us to appreciate it before it's gone. Or maybe my happiness created by yesterday reflected on my overjoy of fall.

I got out of bed, wanting to find Huncho, wishing that he doesn't repeat the awkwardness after the kiss again. When I saw his room door still closed, I knocked on it.

"Come in," I heard him yell.

I opened the door to face his bare back. I gasped as soon as my eyes met his bare skin, realizing that it wasn't only his back that was naked. I quickly turned my eyes away but the image was stuck in my head. I bit my lip to not show my smile,Hearing him laugh.

"What? You haven't seen boys naked before or what?"

I could hear him walk around the room, slow and steady.

"Sorry, I didn't know you're – uh," my voice became my enemy and showed exactly how the view affected me. "Why did you tell me to come in if you're..." I sighed.

"You can enjoy the view, love, I will pretend I don't notice you looking."

My heart skipped a beat and my throat got clogged. I wasn't sure what to say or do. I shook my head and got out. I went back to my room and sat in bed, trying to ease the embarrassment I just caused myself and ease the image that my brain can't let go of.

"I will wait for you downstairs, Huncho." I shook my head and closed the door behind me. I stood there for a couple of seconds, trying to collect my thoughts on what had happened. I blinked a couple of times, shook my head and walked downstairs. The image of him standing there spinned my head.

"Are you okay? You look like you've seen a ghost, you know." Fred's voice brought me back on earth.

I chuckled, "I've seen worse." He took a seat next to me. "Huncho is such a weird mix."

"What do you mean?"

I looked around making sure no one was listening, "we kissed yesterday."

He raised his eyebrows and gave me a yellow smile and shook his head.

"What? What is that smile?"

"No, nothing, it's just that it's weird, you know."

"What's weird? That we kissed?"

"Whatever he is doing."

"You don't think he wanted to kiss me, right?"

He stayed silent so I looked away.

"It's not that he didn't want to kiss you, but he isn't thinking the same way you are, you know? Like the kiss that you are so happy about is something he does on a daily basis."

I turned to Fred, angry at him but unable to say anything. Maybe because I was scared that he would prove it to me or maybe because I couldn't say anything because I knew the reality but didn't want to admit it.

"Elena," Huncho called, "come to my office."

Fred looked back at me, shook his head, got up and walked away. I went to Huncho's office and shut the door behind me. He was standing in front of his desk, putting some papers together. He didn't even look up at me.

"Didn't you want a job?"

I smiled, "you found me a job?"

"Sort of," he started to put the papers inside a document, ordering them, "I'm starting to get busy and sometimes, I can't keep up with what I have to do." He finally shut the document and looked up at me, killing every drop of excitement I had.

"You want me to be your calendar?" I raised my eyebrows.

He let out a sigh and tilted his head, "I want you to be my assistant."

"Why can't you take one of the boys?" I walked forward and sat on one of the chairs in front of his desk.

"On the top of my head I'd rather have someone who has nothing else to do to be concentrated and organized," he started and sat down too, "besides, since when assistants are boys?"

I looked away, unsure of what to say or do.

"Take this," I looked back at him and took the document he was putting together a few minutes ago, "I will give you my agenda too, make me a list of what I have to do and who I have to meet for this week and when you're done start on next week. Also, squeeze a meeting with Al tomorrow or after tomorrow."

I opened the document and I found small sticky notes with empty papers with one or two words in it and phone numbers with unfamiliar names.

"There is the agenda with all the numbers that are not in the document." He handed me a small agenda. "Good? Let's go."

He got up and started opening the lab behind his long portrait.

"Huncho?" I called, wanted to talk to him about what I thought he called me for but again, he was ignoring me.

"Elena, I have so much to do, please go get started." And he disappeared behind the door, shutting it behind him.

I looked down at the document in my hands and sighed. I got up and went to my room.

Hours later, I was still sitting in the same spot, pulling my hair for my lack of understanding anything that was happening.

I learned many things I didn't know before and they all lead to a worse image of who I saw Huncho to be. He wasn't only doing SP, selling them which makes him a dealer, he also had many buildings that he was renting but it wasn't clear for what. He also had a company of import and export things I wasn't sure of, which made me wonder if that had anything to do with the SP. I sort of understand the reason why he built, or maybe my father built, many things to bring income so they don't seem like they are having illegal money, a company and buildings were enough camouflage for the drugs they were dealing.

On the other hand, I ran through many names that I wasn't able to understand who they were. I didn't even know who Al, the person he told me to set a meeting with, is. What I understood was that Al's real name is Gabzy who is important to Huncho. Dante was also important but that was all I understood. I organized all the names in proper papers and filled the agenda with everyone's numbers and who I understood they were. Then I put a small circle on the people I wasn't sure who they were. I put together the meetings that were already planned and wrote them on a paper that I put in the document, deciding that this will be the document where I will plan the meetings and important dates so I know when is when.

I got up with the agenda and the document and searched for Huncho to ask him about who these people were and to show him what he had planned for the week. He was sitting with the boys downstairs in the living room, drinking, as usual and joking with loud music.

"Huncho," I called. I saw Fred staring at me with his narrow and piercing eyes, full of disappointment. His smile quickly vanished when our eyes met which grew the confusion in me. I tore my eyes from his and turned them to Huncho's. A contrast I knew will always be glued in the back of my head; Fred who's eyes hold forbidden emotions, hold veiled words he couldn't say, hold feelings he couldn't free, and Huncho who is an empty shell, who's eyes know exactly how to stay numb and hide well what he is feeling. "Can I talk to you?"

He got up and walked past me to his office. He sat down on one of the chairs beside his desk and I sat on the one right in front of it. His eyes quickly saw the papers in my hand.

"You have questions, don't you?"

"Yes,"

He scoffed, putting his head in his hand.

"What?"

"What are your questions?" His smile was not able to leave his lips.

"Why are you laughing?"

"You ask a lot of questions."