His fingers trembled over the rubber numbers. Kitty. Her name was honey upon his lips, sweet and warm. His hands shook. He shut his eyes, her image seemingly imprinted on the inside of his eyelids, drinking her in. The phone rang, once, twice.
"Hello?"
Hiro's voice caught in his throat. Kitty stared at her phone for a moment, and repeated.
"Hello?" Hiro hurriedly hung up. He heaved a long sigh. Sleep in the car, tonight. He laid the top back and tilted his seat back, lighting a cigarette. He shut his eyes, taking a puff and falling into blissful sleep.
* * * * * * * * * *
"I don't know what it is," Kitty mused over the phone. It was the next morning, late, perhaps eleven. She was speaking with Michael, close friend and instructor. "Someone keeps calling my house at all hours of the night, Michael. Do you think its Rumiko?"
Michael, on the other end of the line, twisted the phone cord around his finger, his television blaring in the background.
"Honey, they put her away long ago. No way she'd be able to call you now."
Kitty bit her lip and maneuvered around her counter to lie down on her couch. She laid her head back and sighed with frustration.
"Well, there's simply no other explanation. Who would just hang up on me like that? It happens way too often for it just to be a prank caller, and my caller ID doesn't pick it up." She put one hand on her forehead. "It's driving me nuts, Michael, it really is."
Michael glanced at his watch.
"Look girly, I'd love to chat but I simply do *not* have the time. I'll talk to you later, alright? See you tonight at seven pm sharp, as usual. Bye Kitty!" He hung up before she had the chance to say her goodbyes to him. Unphased, she hung up her phone and stood, unplugging it from the phone jack. No more calls. She grabbed a towel and walked to shower.
Meanwhile.
Hiro had just begun to wake up. To his horror, the sun had risen, and his hair was ::gasp:: undone. He sat up barely enough to see over his car door and outside, to make sure no one was in the parking lot, and then ran like mad up the fire escape and back into his room. Kelly was making slow progress towards the bathroom when a peach and blue blur cut her off, the door slamming in her face. It took a moment to register.
"… Heeeeeyyyy…" She rubbed her eyes, and thumped her fist on the door. "HEY!" Hiro opened the door just a crack, a brown pupil glimmering.
".. What." Kelly growled.
"Lemme in. I need to shower."
"No, busy. Hair."
Kelly crossed her arms over, or rather, under, her massive chest.
"Fine. But BE QUICK."
There was a smatter of mumblings from within the bathroom, and she heard the water running. She retired onto the futon, flipping on the television. She had gone through two made-for-tv movies before he emerged from the bathroom, every hair in place. She looked up. "Holy god, he emerges."
"Beauty takes time," he sassed, and he squeezed past her to get to his closet. She rolled her eyes and disappeared into the bathroom. He made and folded up his futon, in turn unfolding an ironing board from the wall. He randomly grabbed a pair of white slacks from his closet and proceeded to iron creases into them. Kelly was singing some indiscriminate eighties song in ugly falsetto. Hiro turned on his stereo, but could not drown her out.. He shrugged and slid out of his dank jeans and into nice, white, freshly ironed slacks. Kelly was just stepping out of the shower as there was a knock at the door. Hiro checked his clothes for tiny imperfections, found none, and opened the door.
"Hello..?"
Strike's wide frame filled the door. His voice was a deep rumbling baritone, slick with intravenous threat.
"I heard Kelly crashed here."
Hiro's blood pressure leaped. Sun danced off of Strike's two, fully exposed automatics. He loosened his collar and gave a sleazy nervous smile.
"I wouldn't know, Strike, I was out."
Strike's eyes danced behind big, obnoxious sunglasses. Kelly had just freshly emerged from the shower, donning one of Hiro's undershirts. He lifted his glasses to show Hiro that Kelly was there, and he knew it. Kelly glanced up.
"Oh," she tried to hide the fact that she was extremely happy to see that he cared. "It's YOU."
Strike tossed Hiro out of the way like a rag doll. The once primped disco-er landed in a heap in the sink. He thundered over to Kelly and slung an arm around her, mumbling something heartfelt and incoherent. They left together. Hiro tried to pry himself out of the sink, to no avail.
"Ugghhhhh…."