23 Chapter 22

Daru fidgeted a bit in place in front of Gloria's house.

He didn't really know how to go about this.

Daru knocked on the door and waited.

It was dark outside now, with the sun having set two hours ago. Daru rang the bell.

It took Daru only a few minutes to reach Gloria's house after the 'altercation' in the alley.

In front of the door, Daru waited.

Not soon after, Gloria opened the door for him.

She had on her a bowl of salad and was dressed in a skin-tight tee and jeans that hugged her nicely at her curves.

He really could never get enough of her. It really begs the question of why did he ever leave.

"Come in, I don't want to miss my show."

Sighing internally, Daru just smiled.

As Daru followed a hurrying Gloria, he saw Jay sitting on the single couch with a beer in hand.

'I have only seen him sit there.'

By the expression he had, he looked annoyed.

'I mean, when is he not, for the most part I have seen him just get angry or sulk. Is it the age?'

"Oh, oh, the ad is finished, it's starting." Gloria was excited as she looked at the TV.

And Jay's face seemed to morph into more annoyance.

Daru shrugged his shoulders.

Daru reached his hands towards the beer case next to Jay and nodded slightly towards him. When Jay nodded back, Daru took a beer.

"What happened to your knuckles?" Jay asked.

Gloria snapped to look towards Daru and looked closely at his hands.

"Ahh, Daru, what happened?" Gloria left her salad and came to his side in urgency.

"Calm down, Gloria, it doesn't look like much, maybe he fell on the way and scraped his knuckles…"

"What do you know…" Gloria didn't even look at Jay, inspecting Daru's knuckles, "does it hurt, let me get the lotion."

Jay just rolled his eyes.

Daru smiled at Gloria's worry for him,

"Jay is right, it's nothing much… I just beat your ex, Javier."

Jay spits his beer.

Cough

"Easy there, old man."

Jay snaps his head towards Daru.

"Tell me it's true, and I will let go of the old man comment."

The expectancy in his tone raised Gloria's eyebrow.

"Would you have liked I took some pictures…"

"Ha ha ha…" Jay laughs out loud, like he just won the lottery.

"Jay, don't laugh," said Gloria as more of her accent seeped with her anger.

"And Daru, what am I gonna do with you, not two days and start a fight."

Gloria poked his chest with her finger on the beat of her words.

"Hey, you would not be getting angry at me if you know what he was talking about." Daru held Gloria's hand.

'Why does one finger poke even hurt? It's not even the 1000 years pain of death.'

"You know the pub near the supermarket, right?" Both Gloria and Jay nodded, interested to know what went down that warranted a beating.

Daru then went on to explain the course of events to them.

Now gone was the laughter from Jay; he looked pretty seething now.

As for Gloria, she didn't really show much but squinted her eyes real hard as he mentioned about the bunch of girls.

While the emotions were getting high, a voice interrupted this for better or worse.

"Mom, Jay… Mom, Jay…" came in with the feminine voice a mismatched mix of fat.

"Manny, stop screaming and take a breath and calm down."

Gloria sighed to herself as she talked to Manny.

Manny took a few deep breaths to calm down.

He seemed to be in a hurry to say something that he didn't even ask about seeing someone he has never seen sitting among them.

He just gave him a glance and then looked between Jay and Gloria.

"It's dad; he fought with some gangster trying to save a woman getting robbed. He is injured; I have called him home."

Jay looked almost at the end point, his face is as red as the traffic light. But he holds back himself from saying anything.

And neither does Gloria know what to say.

"He was insisting he didn't want to disturb us; he only called me to be careful because of the crimes around our area. Jay, you should really have looked before buying a house near this dangerous place. Anyway, how can I let him go when he might be injured, so I called him home, and Jay, you should get the car ready; we might have to go to hos…"

"Manny," Gloria stops him as she saw Jay clench teeth almost weld themself with the heat of his own anger.

Gloria then glares at Daru as he seemed to be holding in a bellow full of laughter.

'This is not funny.' Gloria transmitted.

'I mean, what do you want me to do.' Daru replied through the eye contact.

Gloria glared at him harder.

Ahem Daru clears his throat loudly and does the job of getting all the attention of the room.

"Oh, he must be pretty heroic, your dad, to do that… I would love to meet such a man…"

Manny seemed to puff his man boobs up on that.

Jay and Gloria have different expressions though…

While Gloria was furiously trying to say through the link 'that's not what I was asking you to do.' But Daru didn't even look towards her; maybe he knew how she would react.

Jay, though, shared a glint with Daru.

"Absolutely, you should… let me just grab my camera for a sec…" Jay got up with surprising vitality and ran to God knows where.

Gloria sighed with a resigned expression.

While Manny was still clueless about what was going to happen.

'His dad should be very proud of his son.'

And right then,

Ding Dong

"Don't open yet, don't open; wait for me."

Jay's voice came from the top, with Manny confused, Daru ticklish, and Gloria worried that she might develop wrinkles from how much she is sighing.

AN: I swear this was the last yoga session… I think. And I am gonna speed run this whole novel. I am not gonna spoil it; I am just gonna write this faster and finish the novel.

This month I will finish and post the excess on Patreon or something, and the rest will go with the same schedule, maybe with 2 chapters every Mon, Wed, and Friday.