The drive back to the house was better than he one we had this morning. We didn’t speak too much but there wasn’t any awkward silence.
There was light traffic and beside our car, was a red SUV filled with teens shouting their lungs in attempt to follow the lyrics to a song. When their eyes caught Christian’s car, they all whipped out their phones and started recording.
We reached the house. The first person I sighted was Merritt holding a small sack over her shoulder like a hunter.
She looked over at our car and she hurried inside. Christian pulled up in the driveway and climbed out to open the door of the car for me.
“Go in, I’d like to speak to someone” he said with a ghost of smile.
“I’d like to devour the fruits soon, so be quick, I feel like I might be loosing my appetite” he laughed genuinely and I left him.
I entered into the living room and out of curiosity, I walked to the side of the window and listened to his conversation.
He was talking to a private security guard and he told man to be at the house by four. He was hiring the security guard for me, even after giving me that bat.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
I jerked as heard my mother’s scolding voice behind me.
“What?” I asked her turning to face her.
She walked to the window and looked out.
“You were spying on Christian?” She asked too loudly.
“Ugh, keep your voice down” I said trying to shoosh her but the expression that forged on her face was a kind I didn’t understand.
Christian walked in and I heard his footsteps stop, I thought he had frozen in the spot but I felt his hand on the small of my back.
He raised a single brow at me very slightly, asking if everything was alright. I smiled faintly and turned to my mother, who was now smiling at my fiance as she always do. With adoration.
“What are you holding?” She asked and pushed me aside so she could get more space to stand beside him.
I needed to see how Kylee was doing and I didn’t bother to tell Christian where I was going, I only expected that he would follow me.
I went into Kylee’s room. Her laptop was plopped on a pillow in front of her and she was laying on her belly.
“Don’t tell me you’re working” I said as I climbed the bed.
She rolled her eyes.
“I am. It gets me out of my skin and also, Christian has been absent minded these past few weeks, he has handed most of the work to Molly, I’m sure you’ve never met her and probably never will never because by the time she is finished with her errands, she’d be eighty nine”
I laughed and laid on the bed.
“You’re beginning to show, a little ” Kylee said in sudden realisation.
“I know, I saw it this morning in the mirror ” I told her.
“Does Christian know?”
I shrugged.
“Are you two having a fight?”
“Not really, ask him why I was in the ER, I’m sure he’ll be happy to tell you”
“Why were you in the ER?” She asked with concern.
Christian walked into the room.
“Speaking of the devil ” Kylee mumbled.
Christian dropped a bowl of diced fruit on the table. How the hell did he chop it so fast?
“Your mum thinks it’s a good time to go” he told me.
I couldn’t help the smile that followed, he leaned in and kissed me.
“Finish the paper work before I get back and you get a raise” he told Kylee.
“You’re just trying to bribe me” Kylee shot after him but he was already gone.
CHRISTIAN
I stood in front of the car, waiting for Elisa to finish getting dressed. I heard the sound of a motor bike and I looked up to see the security guard I hired.
“You’re early ” I told him.
He looked confused.
“Weren’t you the guy I called to watch over someone?” I asked him.
He opened his mouth to say sometimes, Elisa bursted through the door and his eyes fell over my shoulders to where she was coming from.
I looked over her to see her pale faced but walking towards me without stopping.
“I hired a security guard for Jenna” I told her and she looked between the both of us.
I didn’t care if she was uncomfortable with the decision.
“He seems like a tough guy” she said instead.
I gave him the details of everything and gave him his instructions, he nodded and I watched him enter into the house. I wanted to ask for his ID to show that he worked for the company I had called but Elisa was urging me into the car.
I quickly texted Jenna and Kylee and told them about him. After Jenna replie, I drove Elisa to the gift shop.
Elisa kept talking for the longest time without any signs of being interested in any item.. it was getting late already.
“I know o don’t say this enough but thank you. I am too ashamed to confront this matter but what I did with the Russian mob, I hope Jenna never finds out”
There again, she reminded me of why it would be a good idea to straggle her here and now.
She tried to touch my chest and I jerked away from her reach, her eyes that was glowing with a pity-me look now dimmed with rejection.
“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry” he said nervously.
“Why are you apologizing?”
“The moment just felt… I should be ashamed of myself. I was telling you of how ruined I am and you were such a good listener I thought that we had a moment”
I should have known, or I should have at least suspected.
The slight touches here and there, the look in her eyes, the way she holds me too long in an embrace, it should have given me clues that she was attracted to me but I had never even thought twice about it. Until she physically tried to touch me. How could I have been to stupid not to have noticed.
“Please say something” she said.
“Forget this ever happened. Let’s find something for Jenna”
“Christian, I feel like my stupid decision has ruined our chances…”
I was beginning to see her in a new light and she was disgusting.
“What chances?”
“Oh Christian, don’t pretend that you don’t know ” she reached out and touched my abdomen just where I had been shot.
The wound was still as new as if I was shot this morning and the pain was bearable until Elisa’s hard grip.
I winced.
“Oh my god, I’m so sorry ” she yelled and she backed away from me.
I looked down to see my grey top was now stained with red.
Her hands clasped her mouth trying to cover a shout that was still escaping through the cracks between her fingers.
“What have I done?”