“No, I’m good. I can just catch a nap with Skya later.”
He frowned and hesitated for a moment before saying, “If…you are sure…”
“Completely sure. I’ll be more awake once I shower. Oh! I know, I’ll make chocolate chip waffles, from scratch. You’ll love them. Now shoo!” Severo laughed, shooing him away with his hands.
He went, even if he wasn’t sure how Severo could look so tired and yet manage to sound so peppy. Thinking on it, the man had been offering to nap with Skya more often lately… Was he having sleep issues?
Shaking his head, he got Skya set up in her high chair and quickly made her bottle before handing it to her. She grabbed it and started drinking away. While she could have held it on her own last month, he hadn't let her do it much until she was exactly four months old. Mainly, as he concluded after researching, that while his little girl had been strong enough to hold it as early as two months, it wasn’t good to force her muscles to overwork when she was still so young, even if she could do it.
He stood there, staring at the blackout curtains in the living room while Skya continued to drink her milk. June already, it was still daylight out twenty-four seven…and would be until mid-august. Not that Seri had been outside since that first shopping trip.
He sighed, it was funny how he used to hate going out. Seri had always had a hatred for being in public. His hatred for shopping, and each simple interaction he’d been forced to have with others, not to mention the general hatred he had for nature when it came to anything that was on land, meant he’d avoided going out like the plague.
Bodies of water though… that he undeniably yearned for. Oceans, lakes, rivers, and all that…he had always loved, minus the other people that were there. Though, that was to be expected, since he was a Water Nymph. Hatred for the rest of nature aside, he could never hate water.
Before his abduction, besides visiting a small pond he found secluded on a small property he likely hadn’t been allowed on, he’d never gone anywhere beyond the stores he needed for supplies, the lab he worked in, school, and home. Even before going to college, he hadn’t gone places. Just work and home. Well, when he’d been getting his Bachelors, he’d usually had multiple jobs going on.
Even with more than one job…he’d had times where he could have gone out and done things. It wasn’t as if the things in his life were all consuming. Seri had always just chosen to stay home, hidden in his room.
He barely knew his roommates, only seeing them in passing, and ignoring them pretty much the rest of the time. So why did he want to go outside now, when he hadn’t when he actually could? He hated people, found being around a crowd overwhelming, yet… Seri sighed again.
“That was a big sigh.” He jumped as Severo's voice cut into his thoughts.
He glanced over at the man, who was looking more awake now, even if the bags remained. The Dweller stood there in a fitted green sweater that showed off his muscular and wide shoulders…and a pair of jeans that seemed to fit him like a glove. Severo’s beard and mustache were back to the ‘just past a five o’clock shadow’ stage, and his long black hair was back in its usual messy bun.
Bags or no bags, the man looked sexy as all hell. It was annoying. Seri didn’t want to notice how attractive Severo was. He was literally in hiding, and had a child, this was not the time, nor the place for him to be interested in anyone. Not to mention, anytime his brain decided to focus on Severo’s hotness, it was like he instantly channeled his past teenage self, who was not only awkward but shy. At least the shyness was fading a bit, since he was used to the man by now. The awkwardness was probably more of a permanent personality trait than anything.
Seri batted away the wayward thoughts on how attractive the man was.
“Skya, throwing that won’t get you more,” Severo drawled with a laugh before he moved to the cabinet and started pulling things out.
He blinked, looking down to find Skya frowning and about to toss the empty bottle away. “Ah!” he said, grabbing it from her before she could. She huffed, face pinching as she glared.
“So, what had you so distracted?” Severo asked. The man turned around with a bowl in hand, moving towards the fridge.
“Well…” Seri grimaced. “Nothing important.”
As much as he wanted to go outside, it would be stupid to risk their safety on, at best, a whim of stubbornness. Because that was what it was. He wasn’t allowed to go outside, so of course he wanted to, in some childish defiance. Seri had always had issues with people telling him he couldn’t do something. Because even if he didn’t want to do it, the fact that they told him no, made him want to so much more. It had gotten him into a lot of trouble at the orphanage. Not to mention with Preston…then again, he’d done most of that on purpose so…
“Important enough for distraction,” the man drawled as he set some eggs, milk, and butter on the counter.
He sighed. “I was staring at the shuttered window…”
“Ah…” Severo paused what he was doing and leaned his hip against the counter.
“Yeah…”
“How about…after Skya’s afternoon nap, we head out to the park? There is an outdoor one nearby. It won’t be warm, but if we bundle up enough, it should be fun. I’d say we could go to an indoor park, but…I’d worry about the number of people there.”
The idea sent a flutter of elation in his stomach. Which was stupid… Because again, Seri not only didn’t like leaving his house, he hated the outdoors. If he went outside, he would much rather be going to someplace with walls than…nature… He really was losing it being cooped up if the idea of going out in, no doubt, the freezing cold sounded like fun to him.
“What happened?” Severo asked, brows raised. “You looked happy for a moment, and then you got this look of disgust on your face barely a second later.”
Seri shrugged. “I hate the outdoors.”
The Dweller barked out a laugh. “I see. Forgot?”
“For a moment. But the fact that I’m still thinking about it tells you how desperate I am to get out of this apartment.”
