2025-08-09 15:30:31Charles would be joking if he said that didn’t catch him slightly off guard. Two days with this man was too many. All he could hope for now was that they both made it back to New York in one piece—and preferably without him committing homicide.
Ten minutes later, they were still in a cab that had been “driving to a restaurant nearby,” according to August. Charles suspected that “nearby” was just August’s polite way of saying on the other side of the planet.“Excuse me, I don’t know if you are familiar with this place,” August broke the silence, putting on the exaggerated tone of a clueless foreigner.“Familiar?” The cabman chuckled, his voice thick with a local accent. “My grandmother…born here. My mother too. Me as well. My father… Canadian, but he moved here after marrying my mother. I lived here all my life, and maybe I…die here too.”“Wow,” August said with the full, wide-eyed enthusiasm of a tourist who’d just “found a local guide to the exot
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Outside, Charles scanned the area for Ramiro. The boy’s voice was gone, so the call must’ve ended. But he wasn’t in sight.“Over here,” Ramiro called from a little ways off, walking back toward him.“You’re scared I might knock you down if we go another round?” Charles asked.Ramiro gave a short chuckle. “I’m really sorry about earlier. You don’t have to pay us. I can do this much for you for free.”“About that,” Charles said, ignoring the ‘free’ part like it was background noise, “you want cash, or should I wire it?”“I just said—”“Bro, I’ve only been scared of one woman my whole life. Your girlfriend’s the second,” Charles cut in. “If I promised her something and went back on it, what do you think she’d do to me?”Ramiro chuckled again. “People say she’s scary, but I’m not scared of her. Not a bit.”“You’re my new role model, man.”Another quiet chuckle from Ramiro.“You're in college or som
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“What time? It’s not even been two hours since I met you and you’ve already had about a thousand things to apologize to me for,” Charles said. “I find it… kind of funny.”Ramiro smiled.The first time Charles had seen him smile. The kid actually looked like the type to make a group of girls stop mid-conversation.“I meant—running off with your meal. I saw someone that I didn't want to see me in that state but she still ended up seeing me. I'm really sorry,” Ramiro said.“It’s okay,” Charles replied. “Thanks to that, I’ll have nothing to eat tonight, and that works pretty well for weight loss.”Ramiro smiled again. “I’m sorry you had to see Luzia that way. She’s not usually the type to make a scene in public. I… got on her nerves, somehow.”“Yeah. I figured that out too. You’ve got a talent for getting on people’s nerves,” Charles said.Ramiro laughed. First time in five months someone hadn’t immediately called him stupid
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August was standing there, breathing like he’d just sprinted a marathon in Bogotá’s altitude, one fist still frozen mid-air. “Sir…” His eyes went wide when he saw Charles. “How—how did you get here?” He looked genuinely baffled, like Charles had just teleported in from New York. “I didn’t share my location with you. How did you even—” He stopped mid-sentence, suspicion dawning. “No way you’d be inside if—” “She brought me here,” Charles said lightly, rescuing August before his brain short-circuited completely. Every head swiveled toward the girl. “Who are you?” August demanded. Then, flicking his eyes to the boy, “Are you two siblings?” The girl nodded far too quickly. “Yes. He’s my elder brother.” The boy—still looking like his face had been run over by a bus—got to his feet and strode toward her. Strangely fast for someone whose body had just declared war on itself.
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“Oh, shit,” August stopped walking. “I should’ve told you earlier, sir. That guy I introduced you to earlier, that silver guy, he’s her boyfriend. Found out like… thirty seconds ago. Unless you’re cool with us staying there—”“Let’s just look for another place,” Charles cut in before his brain could even register the rest. The last thing he needed was to be that stranger in some messy lovers’ drama.“Hey, where’s your house?” August asked the boy.The kid froze for half a second, eyes darting. “I… I don’t… ha… have a house.”“Who you kidding? You think you’d still be breathing if I’d left you back there?”What a pain in the ass August was. Did he ever stop to think how terrifying a man his size looked when he leaned in on someone?“You’ve been here a couple of times,” Charles said, facing August. “Haven’t got any friends?”“Those two are the only friends I—wow. Shit.” He grinned in a pained way that made Charles not want
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The man glanced at Charles with a smile. “His name is Raymond,” August quickly added. “You care for a smoke before the food come, Raymond?” the man asked. “I think the meal… eh… gonna take a few more seconds.”Charles shot a glance at August. If he’d actually been hungry when they got here, he’d be dead by now. Add in the fact that they’d driven what felt like a million miles to get here—alright, exaggeration, but still—it was a colossal waste of patience.The man leaned closer to August. “Oye… why your guy look at you like that? He got scary eyes, hermano.”August flicked his gaze toward Charles, trying to ask a silent ‘What’s your problem?’ Either Charles caught the message and ignored it, or he just didn’t care enough to reply.“I think you got a cop for a personal assistant, man,” the man muttered again.“Can I have the cigarettes?” Charles asked flatly.“Of… of course,” August quickly grabbed one from the
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Charles would be joking if he said that didn’t catch him slightly off guard. Two days with this man was too many. All he could hope for now was that they both made it back to New York in one piece—and preferably without him committing homicide.Ten minutes later, they were still in a cab that had been “driving to a restaurant nearby,” according to August. Charles suspected that “nearby” was just August’s polite way of saying on the other side of the planet.“Excuse me, I don’t know if you are familiar with this place,” August broke the silence, putting on the exaggerated tone of a clueless foreigner.“Familiar?” The cabman chuckled, his voice thick with a local accent. “My grandmother…born here. My mother too. Me as well. My father… Canadian, but he moved here after marrying my mother. I lived here all my life, and maybe I…die here too.”“Wow,” August said with the full, wide-eyed enthusiasm of a tourist who’d just “found a local guide to the exot
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