Unsung Requiem by C.L. Stone

Ma Non Troppo

(But not too much)

Victor

A phone was buzzing on a table nearby. Victor turned over…

And fell face first into carpet.

The fall shook the bunkbed he’d dropped from. His body ached. His muscles hurt.

Life was too hard right now. Maybe he could ignore the phone.

“Are you okay?” Nathan’s tired voice floated to him.

Victor twisted his head, finding Nathan looking down at him from the top bunk, pressing his cheek to the edge of the bed, dark circles under his eyes.

At least Victor had been on the bottom bunk. The fall hadn’t been too bad.

He grunted shortly. “You get it. I don’t want to.”

The phone was still ringing, but then silenced as it switched to voicemail.

There was a soft moan from the other bunkbed in Mr. Buble’s house. Sang threw the blanket over her head.

No one was in the mood to wake up yet.

Nathan smacked his lips like his mouth was dry. “If it’s Academy, they’d call me next.”

Yet the phone on the dresser across the room started vibrating again, the case making a loud reverberating echo.

“It’s yours again,” Nathan said to Victor.

“Tell them we don’t want any!” Sang’s sleepy cry came muffled from underneath the blanket.

It was tempting just to ignore it, but two calls so quickly to just his phone had him worried. He got up on all fours, crawled across the carpet on his hands and knees, reaching up for the phone. Why did he leave it so far away from the bed anyway?

The screen of the phone flashed.

His mom.

She was calling.

Victor rolled his eyes, putting the phone aside, flopping back on the carpet. His bare legs itched a bit, the boxer shorts he wore became cold against his body. The room had a slight chill. “I really don’t want to.”

“What does she want you to do now?” Nathan asked. “Besides getting you to kiss her ass and beg to get taken back?”

Victor, despite not wanting to, answered the phone, wanting to get it out of the way and done with. “Yes?” he said when he answered. “Also, how’d you get this number?”

“Young man,” she said in a tone he had not heard from her in years but could tell was serious. “You are to get here right now.”

“I’m a little far away at the moment.”

“I have our lawyer here. And a guest.” The way she said the last part was very clear she didn’t want this particular guest.

Victor sat up sharply. “What?”

“Someone is suing this family. Very publicly.”

Victor pressed a thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose. He wasn’t totally sure this wasn’t some panic that didn’t even involve him, just her precious reputation. “Why me? I don’t…”

“Did you get someone fired from their job last night?” She paused. “Don’t answer that on the phone. In fact, don’t say anything. Just get here. Right now.”

Victor was now wide awake, blinking as she hung up on him. He dropped the phone onto the carpet.

Suing… Mitch.

Mitch knew his name. His family. That they had a lot of money.

Of course. And he didn’t have to drag it into court because his parents would want to keep their reputation intact and they’d want to settle. He was mostly surprised Mitch had pieced this together so quickly and talked to his parents. Did he go without a lawyer?

Victor groaned and faceplanted himself into the carpet, and starfished his limbs out.

“What up, bud?” Nathan asked from across the room.

Victor didn’t answer. He didn’t want to. Tired. Not in the mood. They had stuff to do today, and he totally didn’t feel like dealing with this right now.

There was a noise of Nathan moving and Victor turned his head in time to see Nathan nearly falling out of the top bunk, catching himself and slowly lowering himself down until his feet were on the floor. He wore only his boxer briefs. Once he landed, he shifted over to the bed Sang was in and poked at her through the blanket.

“Get up. Get Victor up,” he told her. “Find out what’s going on.” He left to go to the bathroom first.

This room was eerily like Kota’s bedroom. It was almost like they were at his house.

Sang moaned from under her blanket. “I’m getting up. I just don’t want to.”

“You don’t have to get up,” Victor said from the floor.

“Yes, she does!” Nathan called from the bathroom.

Victor was amused at the back and forth of Nathan getting on Sang’s case. They’d lived together for a while. He was sure this is what the term ‘acting like an old married couple’ was.

Sang rolled herself up for just a second, enough so she could get momentum to slide to the floor and crash onto the carpet, half sprawled out, legs still hanging onto the bed. She gazed up at the ceiling. “I know Mr. Buble said no coffee, but I need some.”

“You can have some coffee, princess,” Victor said in a half-deflated tone.

“No coffee!” Nathan’s voice echoed this time. A minute later, the shower turned on.

Victor flipped over and army crawled on his elbows with legs sprawled behind him, until he reached Sang, and hovered over her upside down, super close.

“I’ll go get coffee,” he said in a whisper.

“Don’t…” she said, and her cheeks turned red.

He gently kissed her forehead. She tried so hard to do what they wanted her to do. “You can have coffee. You don’t have to do anything, just sit in the car with Nathan while I go figure out what my parents want from me. You can sleep the whole way.”

“You can’t go alone,” she said. Her eyes fluttered open. He was still close enough that he could feel her lashes tickling his forehead. “We have to stay together.”

The way she said it made his heart light up in such a way. It was like she was saying they, him and her, had to stay together.

He wanted that. Forever.

“We’ll go together,” he said. “But… I have to go in alone. They won’t allow anyone else in on this.”

“Does she want you to go with Brie?” she asked in a cracked voice.

Victor half choked on a laugh. “That’s not what this is about.” He rolled over until he was laying on his back again and could simply turn his head to look at her face.

She turned to look at him, eyebrows crinkling in confusion. “What is it?”

“Mitch,” Victor said. “Apparently, he’s there threatening to sue. Or something like that.”

Her eyes widened. “Right now?”

“I’m sure it’s a bluff,” he said. “He just wants to extort money. And it’s his lucky day, my parents would pay him off to keep silent, despite him not deserving it.”

She pressed her lips together and her eyes narrowed. She wasn’t happy, but she wasn’t going to say so.

He turned his head until he was looking at the ceiling. “I don’t like it either.”