by Mia Wolf
“You don’t have to say anything right now,” I reassure her. She seems to be having a hard time with something.
She places a hand over mine and comes a little closer. Her expressionless face becomes a mess of wrinkles as she begins to cry. “I don’t want to get hurt again, Andrew.”
I don’t know what she means, but I envelop her in a hug and place her head on my shoulder. Her low sobs quickly transform into a staccato burst of whimpers.
Once her tears have run dry, she lifts her head up; her eyes and nose are completely red. I wipe away the last of her teardrops from her swollen eyelids.
“I think I should tell you about Michael,” she says then searches for something on my face. “About what happened.”
I brace myself for what Rose is about to say, but at the same time, I feel a calm coming over me. There’s a moment in life when you realize, and it’s a scary thought, that it doesn’t matter what a person will say because nothing is going to change your feelings for them.
“Michael is my ex-boyfriend,” Rose begins. “I was fresh out of college and breaking into an industry I wanted to start a career in. I managed to get a job, and around the same time, I started going out with Michael. Things were fine in the beginning until they suddenly started going horribly wrong. I was no longer in touch with any of my friends, my parents had recently passed away, and my brother had left me alone. He completely incapacitated me. I had no one else in the whole wide world that I could go to except Michael. So I stayed with him even if he hurt me. I slowly lost everything I had, my friends, my job. It was only when I began to lose myself that it occurred to me that I had to put an end to it,” she pauses and snivels. “I was in a dark place for a long time, and I didn’t want to make the same mistake again.”
She sounds apologetic like a kitten whimpering in the night. Everything makes a lot more sense now including why I have a soft spot for Rose.
There is something about rebuilding yourself, the hardship of rebirth that makes one indestructible. I would know because I’ve been there.
There are no words I can say that will make her believe that I am not another Michael in her life. She will believe it only when she sees reasons to, in the tiny gestures, in the small things.
“I can drive you to work and pick you up,” I say, scratching my chin. “I can model for you sometimes if you’d like me to even though I absolutely hate it.”
Confusion is evident on Rose’s face; she doesn’t know where I’m going with this, but there is a hint of a smile on her face which encourages me to go on.
“I can design clothes for you,” I say in a manner of offering an irrefutable bargain. Rose laughs out loud at my silliness.
“I will not take your time for granted.” My tone becomes serious, and I need Rose to understand that I mean every word of what I’m saying. “I’m not Michael, Rose.”
There is a shift in her gaze from distrust to defeat as if she has no other option left.
“I don’t want to get hurt again,” she repeats with a fear so deeply ingrained in her confession that it makes me want to shield her from the world.
“Good then because I have no intentions of hurting you,” I say and tackle her into a bear hug. There is the distant sound of an ambulance siren as we sit entangled together, bruised and hurting in each other’s arms.
“Be with me,” I whisper into her ears in a deep, sensuous way, but it comes out like a plea which is not far from the truth.
Rose tightens her grip on me in response and shoves her head into my chest. I don’t need more approval than that.
Chapter 24 – Rose
I open my eyes in the morning and wake up to the sun on my face. The window to the busy New York world outside seems to be cooing my name, calling me to seize the day, to accept the warm cradle of the life waiting for me out there. I cannot believe my reality.
Shaking the sleep away, I realize that I’m alone in bed. Andrew is already up and away.
I reach for my phone out of habit because usually when Andrew leaves for work earlier than I do, he sends me a good morning text instead of wishing me good morning with a kiss to my forehead.
It has been a week since I moved in with Andrew. Thankfully, I had not paid the money on the apartment I was going to shift into, so I could move out without incurring a loss. Though, the deposit money is as good as gone. The owner of the house was not pleased to find that I was moving out already, but Andrew handled the situation well.
It’s Saturday, and so I won’t have to go in for work, in contrast to Andrew who works seven days a week. I look forward to having Andrew’s gorgeous penthouse all to myself.
I lazily slip out of bed and go to the bathroom. Andrew’s bathroom is a spectacle to behold.
The walls are lined with black marble tiles, the ceiling is fitted with mood lighting, and the wall where the bathtub sits has a rugged granite finish. The entire front side of the bathroom is made up of a large glass window from where one can enjoy a splendid view of New York City. For privacy, the window can be covered with blinds.
I walk barefoot on the cool marble floor and twirl once in a sudden rush of joy.
My phone is ringing when I come back to the bedroom. When I retrieve it, I see it’s Jessica on Facetime.
I answer the call, and the new window that opens up shows me a tiny baby, snoring in the center of my screen. Then Jessica pulls the phone away, and I get to see her tired, exhausted, post-pregnancy face. She holds the baby with one hand and places a finger on her lips to instruct me to keep quiet.
I notice Joshua in the background who takes the baby away from Jessica and goes into the bedroom. Seeing them in their house suddenly makes me miss the village terribly. The cave houses, the quiet neighborhood, the woods in the back; it will be months before I’ll get to see any of it again. I remined myself that Jessica doesn’t know yet that I won’t be back anytime soon.
Jessica walks into the kitchen so she can speak.
“Hi Rose, did you see his face? He’s the most beautiful thing I have ever seen in the world.” Jessica nearly has tears in her eyes as she tries to keep her voice down and hold her emotions in control at the same time. I hear scuffing in the background and realize it’s Jessica eating chocolate out of a packet. The cravings must be real.
“You look tired, hun,” I tell her. “Not getting enough sleep?”
She violently shakes her head, and her eyes widen at first then tiredly close.
“We’re up all night, Rose. There is a lot of crying and pooping and barfing.” She exhales as if she has to take care of all three things right now. “But then he stupidly smiles or holds the tip of my finger with his entire hand, and it makes all the exhaustion worth it.” Jessica stretches her back as she speaks and I hear a crack which does not sound comfortable.
“I’m glad to see that both of you are okay,” I add. “And you are right, he’s the most beautiful thing I have ever seen in the world, too.” I mean it, even now I’m gushing with love. I want to scoop him up in my arms and nudge his face with my nose.
“How are things in New York?” Jessica asks slipping into a chair, supporting her back with her hand from the habit of carrying a swollen belly around for months.
“About that,” I pause and press my lips as if I’ve been caught red-handed. “I have something to tell you.” Jessica raises her eyebrows in anticipation.
“Steve Parera asked me to work for him. I joined a few days ago, and I’m already working on his fashion show for Milan this coming summer.” I chew my lower lip like a child getting uncontrollably excited about something, but I can feel the excitement fading from my face at the next moment. “That means I won’t be coming back to the village for a few months.”
Jessica’s face, too, goes from happy to bummed out.
“Don’t worry about that,” she says when she sees me getting sad. “You go for the world, girl. We’ll be here whenever you wish to come back home.”
“You have no idea how much those w
ords mean to me,” I say to Jessica, but she’s not paying attention me. She’s tilting her head trying to look at the apartment behind me that my head is concealing from view.
“Is that your apartment?” she asks, curiosity filling up her head. “It looks fancy!”
“About that,” I repeat, “I have something else to tell you.”
This time she looks actually confused like she has no idea what’s coming.
“I moved in with Andrew,” I blurt out and shrink as if bracing for an explosion, fisting my hands and bringing them closer to my chest.
“Whoa,” is all that Jessica says.
I nod to reassure her as if saying, “me neither, girl.”
“That’s amazing.” She’s still a little dumb-founded and out of words. “You guys would look so good together.” She stretches the word “so” for a good five seconds.
“I don’t know about that,” I brush her off because I do not consider myself in the league of Andrew Brehm.
“Are you kidding me? You both look like models.” Jessica pauses in a manner of correcting herself. “Both of you are basically models.” The statement is absolute.
I don’t know what to say to that. I’d much rather be a designer, I’m thinking, but I don’t tell Jessica that.
My phone buzzes; it’s Andrew. It might be important, so I tell Jessica I’m getting a call from him to which she responds with an annoying smirk that makes me blush. What’s wrong with me?
“I’m in the hospital with Zack and Olivia. They’re about to have a baby. I’ll be late today if I come home at all,” Andrew tells me after I pick up. There is unadulterated excitement in his words and a tinge of nervousness. “I’m going to be an uncle, Rose.”
The pure joy in his voice makes me happy. “Will you be okay? If you need me to come over, let me know.”
“No, I’ll be fine,” he says. “Love you.” The line goes dead.
My heart drops from its place. Did he just say “love you” to me? Even though I know it was because he’s happy right now, I’m fanning my face to keep the blood from rising to my cheeks.
He has already made my day.
Chapter 25 – Andrew
I’m pacing outside the hospital room waiting for Olivia’s delivery to be done. The screams every time a doctor or a nurse opens the door to go in or out freak me out more than I’d like to admit. We’ve been here for hours, and I’ve been stuck sitting with Olivia’s parents who seem to be quite calm for the situation. Their concerned looks tell me they’re worried about my well-being.
There is a receptionist who swats away the flock of girls that accumulate every hour or so. I join my hands in prayer and bow to her every time she does. The glares from Liv’s family, though, are inescapable. Something makes me think that they don’t approve of me.
I remember having the same feeling at Liv and Zack’s wedding when I was his best man. There are some who despise me without any apparent reason; my conjecture is that they can somehow tell I’m not completely human.
Needless to say, I’ve kept the little detail of me being a bear shifter a secret from Zack. Though, if there’s anyone in the world who would still accept me if they knew, it would be him. Bear or not, I’m in no mood to test the faith of our friendship any time soon.
The doctor that I noticed going in first finally comes out of the room looking exhausted, with sweat on his brow. Following after him is Zack with a baby on his arm.
“I’m a dad, Andrew!” he says, presenting the baby to me. “I’m a dad.”
I notice more daggers coming from Liv’s parents who seem to dislike Zack’s preference for me over them. I gesture towards them with my head quietly.
“What?” Zack asks not taking the hint. I vigorously nod my head towards them until it dawns on Zack that his in-laws have been waiting to see their grandchild for a long time, too.
He opens his mouth in an ah-hah moment and takes the baby to them.
“Is it a boy or a girl?” I ask.
“It’s a boy; we have little Ouran in the house,” he answers while his mother-in-law takes the baby from his hands.
We collectively say “little Ouran” in baby voices until he smiles then immediately starts to cry. Zack takes the baby back to Liv, who needs to feed him, and tells me that I can go home and get some sleep.
I take my leave once I’ve made sure they don’t need anything else and drive home with a smile permanently plastered on my face.
That’s when I think about Rose. We didn’t get any time this week to spend with each other. I’ve been meaning to ask her to go out on a date with me. I’d love to get to know her better. We haven’t known each other for longer than a month; it’s kind of weird that we already live together even though it doesn’t feel that way.
I ring the doorbell to my house for the first time in ten years, and the action feels so unnatural that I don’t know what to do with myself. I awkwardly shove my hands into the pockets of my jeans, waiting at the door. An involuntary smile comes to my face when Rose opens the door and stands in the doorway. She knows that it delights me to have her with me and she leans on the door making eye contact with me. We stand in the doorway like two weirdos, digging into each other’s eyes trying to prolong the moment.
“Can I come in?” I ask, and my groggy throat hurts faintly.
Rose narrows her eyes at me and pouts with a devilish grin as if evaluating my request.
“You may, Mr. Brehm,” she says, and I can’t help but laugh at her schoolgirl sense of humor.
I walk to the couch and slump into it; it digs inward under my weight. I take my socks and shoes off while Rose fetches me a glass of juice and hands it to me. I take a sip and let my head fall on the backrest of the sofa.
“The bath is almost ready,” she tells me promptly and sits next to me.
She kisses me before my head can make sense of how absolutely incredible this all is. Her hand gently holds my neck, her hair caress the sides of my face, and the fruity scent of her perfume makes me want to fall asleep in her arms.
“You smell so good.” My eyes widen in disbelief over my corny line. “I can’t believe I said that out loud. Alright, I’m sufficiently sleep-deprived, and a bath will help.”
“How are Zack and Olivia?” Rose asks with genuine curiosity.
“They have a baby now,” I say feeling joy spreading to my limbs. “His name is Ouran.”
“Ouran. What a cute name,” Rose says. “I saw Jessica and Joshua’s baby today on Facetime. He’s too cute.”
“So is Ouran,” I reply. We both gush over newborn babies until I have no more energy to spare. “Thanks for readying the bath.”
“You’re welcome.” Rose winks at me then goes back to the bedroom. I had to convince her, had to nearly beg her to come and stay with me because I was tired of living alone in a five bedroom apartment.
I waited ten years for this: coming home to someone like I did today. This is why I spent so many days at Zack and Liv’s place whenever I felt lonely.
I call out Rose’s name once I’m out of the bath. She comes out running, but I tell her it’s nothing serious. She then waits for me to get to business.
“Go on a date with me.”
Chapter 26 – Rose
Our date is at a beautiful rooftop restaurant covered with a crisscross of yellow lights overhead. The night sky spreads endlessly like a stretched sheet of black with a splatter of the white dust of stars. Dim blue lamps glow from under all the seats that are scattered across the concrete.
Then there is the view of the New York skyline with some of the tallest buildings in the world marking the horizon, a concrete jungle indeed. The restaurant is so far outside the city that the stars up above are much brighter than they are from within the city.
“It’s beautiful here,” I say in a breathy whisper the moment my eyes take in the entire scene. The view literally takes my breath away.
“Not more than you,” Andrew replies far too sincerely for me to brush it o
ff as a joke.
“You’re not looking at the view,” I tell him looking him in the eye to see that his gaze is fixated only on me.
“I have,” he says. “Still not more beautiful than you.”
Geez, why does he have to be so cheesy? He’s making my knees turn into jelly. If he continues to pierce a hole through me with those silver eyes, I’ll be leaving this place in a paramedic van.
His silver hair is swept back and looks like this delicious arrangement of a perfectly unmade mess. There is a moon-like sheen to his face, and of course, the depths of his silver eyes help me get lost in them without any effort from him. I don’t tell him any of this. He could use this information to get whatever he wants out of me, and he already holds far too much power over me.
I’m not the one to blame; there’s a reason why girls swoon over him. The gray V-neck he’s wearing this evening fits his form well, touching every muscle on his body just the way I like it to. I realize I’m biting my lip, dreaming about my hands on Andrew’s well-built chest. He’s always in good shape, a fitness trainer indeed.
“Table for two,” he says to the maître d’ who is a stout, pot-bellied man dressed from head to toe in a spick and span managerial uniform. His clothes don’t match his looks; he seems more like a high-spirit grandfather of a fleet of children.
Andrew has reserved a table for us near the glass ledge; he told me as much on our drive here. He got me excited by insisting that the place has the best food, the best view, and the best service. He only stopped when I told him I’m going to like any place where I get to be in his company.
“This way, sir.” The maître d’ guides us across the restaurant to the front of the building.
We sit opposite each other breathing in the aroma wafting off from the kitchens and mixing in with the breeze. I’m glad I tied my hair in a top bun since the wind is actually pretty strong up here. It makes Andrew’s hair flow in the wind, this way then that. He looks like he stepped straight out of a movie scene.