They were wearing matching shoes, he observed, more than the rest of her clothing. Even if he had been looking, he wouldn’t have judged. Sure, Eisley was a pretty lady, but his eyes were seemingly locked and fixated upon someone else in the midst of attempting to get his shit together. He didn’t even know what said they were, and he wouldn’t give himself a quarter-life crisis thinking about what’s next. Instead, his focus landed upon the fellow musician, breaking his gaze briefly to glance around the neighborhood and offer a nonchalant shrug. “Yeah… it’s safe. Not my type of place, but… I picked it for my kids.” He had never pictured himself in a place like this– Hell, he’d never pictured himself not living on his tour bus, and here he was. Stripped of his dignity, perhaps, and still standing, ever-evolving. Not entirely into the direction he had wanted, incapable of staying on the path that he had originally sought to create for himself. Likewise, he expected the change may have been necessary. Crammed into a dank apartment starting to clutter, filled with the reminders of the atrocity that had happened in it while his kids were away, it had started to fester in his mind and taint him. If he hadn’t moved out, he wasn’t sure how far downhill he would’ve gone, grief eating away at him like a pack of rats. Chuckling when she spoke to his daughter, Amaris babbled in response, trying to mimic her– ultimately, she wasn’t able to formulate the syllables of anything Eisley was saying.
“Oh, yeah. Babies like color tatts… Eugenia likes to color in my tattoos ‘cause they’re all black. Amaris is startin’ to pick shit up so she… yanks on anythin’ I have stickin’ out of my face right now.” Namely his nose ring, and if he was in closer proximity, the tiny brunette baby would’ve done it, no doubt, slanted mocha hues facing him when he spoke. She was developing an olive pigment, like his own, but on the lighter side– closer to her Korean mother than the Brazilian roots. Leading them back into the house, he listened to Eisley’s explanation about her living situation. Recognition clicked in the rusted cogs of his mind what she was talking about, setting the box down on the kitchen counter and motioning for her to do the same, humming out, “Ah, the… El Patio Inn, right? Every strugglin’ musician’s favorite fuckin’ motel. I stayed there once when my bus broke down. Room numero oito. Eight,” Cyrek said with a chuckle, letting his baby toy with one of his bracelets secured, tightly, around his wrist. Dipping his head, the raven-haired male clasped his hands together, smoky grey eyeshadow darkening the shades of his heterochromatic gaze. “Sure… Company’s fine. Let me grab the last fuckin’ box and I’ll start on somethin’… Would you mind… takin’ Amaris for a second so I can go get it? I don’t wanna freak you the fuck out by handin’ you a baby,” he asked, tilting his head with a polite smile.
Eisley smiled at his answer, shook her head at just how expected it was. “The things you do for your kids, right?” She sympathised, although she didn’t have any and didn’t actually plan on it. It was all kind of a blur lately although at one point it had obviously been clear for her to wind up here. “I’m sure you’ll be okay, you don’t have to hang out where you live anyway so who cares, right?” She tried to be reassuring, although it was clear that Cyrek knew what he was doing already.
“Oh yeah, that’s handy. I mostly have full colour, so I’m boring in comparison.” She joked, shrugged nonchalantly as she glanced back where she’d come from. There was at least one other person who was in music in the area, but Eisley was pretty sure he wasn’t looking to make a new best friend. “That’s gotta suck, time to swap to a stud for a while.” Eisley suggested, dark eyes fell back to him and his children. Two children who were so young must have been hard on him, she reasoned, set the box down on the counter beside his and wiped her hands off on her jeans. “That’s the one. I’m hoping that’s sarcasm, because it’s really not great. She laughed at herself bitterly, lips curled into a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. Being displaced had been hard on her, all she wanted now was something stable. Hands buried in the pockets of her jeans and dark eyes wandered the new house, admiring the bones of it. “No, I can totally take her.” She agreed, almost jumped into action as she took her hands back out of her pockets and stepped closer to make the swap.
