by Amy Star
She had been worried about admitting it, but Malik didn’t look upset or annoyed. He looked as if he was at least putting some real thought into the idea.
Putting some real thought into it, though, was not actually going to fix the problem.
“Could you give me her address?” Ainslie asked slowly, interrupting his train of thought. “Whatever her problem with me is, I’d like to get a chance to hash it out before it turns serious.”
“Alright,” Malik sighed, running a hand over his hair. “I’ll give it to you tomorrow, and I’ll help you make sure she didn’t take anything or leave anything in your room.”
Ainslie offered him a small smile in return. “Thanks, Malik. I’ll see you in the morning.” She turned towards the door again, but just before she stepped out, she looked over her shoulder at him. “You should head to bed, too,” she pointed out, before she turned back around and left.
They still needed to talk about that kiss, but they could do that tomorrow, after they had both had a chance to get a real, full night’s sleep. When they could both think through a full sentence, and when the surprise of someone invading Ainslie’s room was a little less immediate.
It seemed like a good plan.
Slowly, she headed back up the stairs and to her room, and she got as comfortable as she could in her bed. Christopher still wasn’t there, which was a bit of a disappointment.
When she heard a door close downstairs and footsteps coming up the stairs, she tried not to feel a little thrum of victory, before she decided that feeling it was pretty harmless in the long run.
She didn’t sleep well that night. She couldn’t say that she was surprised by that.
CHAPTER TEN
True to his word, Malik helped Ainslie search through her room. In Ainslie’s case, to make sure none of her things were missing. In Malik’s case, to make sure he didn’t see anything that he knew shouldn’t have been there.
It meant he was using a third day to work at the house. Ainslie was gob-smacked. She didn’t mention it, other than a brief, teasing, “I get to pull you away from your work?” but quietly, it left a warm feeling in her chest, and a little thrum of victory. She had been trying to convince him to work a bit less, after all. The circumstances weren’t ideal, but she would take success wherever she could find it.
Lily and Andy were at school. Paisley was content to migrate back and forth between her bedroom and Ainslie’s bedroom; it was officially too chilly to spend all day outside, after all, and she was happy as long as she was still getting attention (especially if she was getting her dad’s attention on a day when she hadn’t expected it). On the whole, everything fell into place far more easily than expected, if one ignored the matter of ‘possible theft and/or possible framing for theft.’
Ainslie and Malik meandered as they worked. By the time lunchtime was approaching, Paisley was curled up asleep on Ainslie’s bed and both Ainslie and Malik were sitting on the rug, sipping coffee and absentmindedly trading stories from high school.
Soon enough it became apparent that they weren’t going to find anything out of place and they weren’t going to scrounge up any motivation to keep looking.
Leaving Paisley to nap, instead they headed down to the den.
It was about time to have a chat, after all.
Ainslie sat on the edge of Malik’s desk, guaranteeing that he couldn’t get distracted by anything on it, at least for the time being.
“So,” she began slowly, circling the tip of one finger around the rim of her mug. “You kissed me.”
“I did,” Malik agreed, impressively blasé about it. Or at least he sounded impressively blasé, though there was something playful in the glint in his eyes. “You didn’t seem to object at the time.”
Ainslie held one hand up. “Definitely no objecting,” she agreed quickly. “You can kiss me as often as you want.”
“Duly noted,” he drawled in return. “But…?”
Ainslie was quiet for a moment, her brows furrowing together in thought as she tried to put the words together. She wanted them to come out right. She didn’t want to start tripping over herself like a high school student with a crush (been there, done that, and she had no desire to repeat the process).
“I guess I’m just wondering what it means,” she answered eventually. “Or if it means anything.” One shoulder rose in a shrug and she looked down at her mug, once again tracing one finger around it. “I mean, if I’m just a pretty face that you like, that’s fine. But if it’s more than that then I’d appreciate knowing.”
“You’re not just a pretty face,” Malik returned quickly. “I’m… not entirely sure where we stand at the moment, but it’s more than that.”
He sounded so sure as he said it, even as he admitted that he wasn’t sure what he felt about her. It was comforting, in a strange way. It was nice to know that between the two of them, Ainslie wasn’t the only one who felt like she had unstable footing.
“I can live with that,” she agreed, and slowly she smiled, sly and playful. She set her mug down on the desk and her hands fell to her sides, fingers curling idly along the edge of the desk. “But it wouldn’t hurt for you to prove that you like me,” she added, not even trying to sound innocent as she said it.
Malik huffed out a laugh and set his mug down on the edge of a bookshelf. “You don’t say,” he mused wryly as he closed the distance between them, moving towards the desk to stand between her knees.
Ainslie tipped her chin up as he cupped her face in both hands, and her eyes slowly drifted closed as Malik dipped his head and their lips met. It was a slow, leisurely kiss, even when the tip of his tongue traced along the seam of her lips and she granted it entrance. It was relaxed. Comfortable, even.
It was only when they heard small feet thumping down the stairs that they separated. Only slightly at first, still nose-to-nose with each other as Malik’s hands drifted down to settle on Ainslie’s hips. At least until Paisley shouted, “I’m hungry!” from out in the hallway and they finally conceded that it was time to separate.
Malik stepped back and Ainslie stood up and dusted herself off. As she headed towards the door to meet Paisley in the hallway, she expected Malik to head to his desk and start working. To her surprise, that wasn’t what happened, as he followed her out of the den to join her and Paisley for lunch.
*
The day passed surprisingly normal after that, though Ainslie and Malik did steal a few more kisses throughout the day whenever the girls weren’t looking. Even so, Andy kept eying them suspiciously, as if she knew something was up and had her own ideas about what it was. She didn’t actually bring it up, though. Either she didn’t care or she didn’t want to know, and frankly, Ainslie was alright with either decision.
By the time night rolled around and Ainslie headed into her room, her mood was high, life was looking good, and she needed someone to share it with. She knew just the person.
The phone rang three times before Carrie picked up, answering with a cheerful, “I knew you didn’t forget about me!”
“I called you three days ago,” Ainslie deadpanned in reply, not taking the bait.
“And what a lonely three days they were,” Carrie sighed, and Ainslie could just imagine her draping herself melodramatically across the couch.
“I’m sure you’ll live,” Ainslie assured her. “How goes the roommate hunt?”
“I have two contenders that I need to pick between,” Carrie answered, evidently not too broken up about Ainslie cutting her fun short. “One actually has steady work but has the potential to be sort of a “ehhhh” roommate. One promises to be a model roommate but her source of income is sort of wibbly-wobbly. I haven’t found any unicorns that have steady income and good personal habits.”
Ainslie clicked her tongue. “I’m sure you’ll make the right choice, for you, your sanity, and your wallet.”
“What about you?” Carrie asked, her tone lilting into something sly, as if she was expecting to get some sort
of miraculous response. “Do you have anything interesting going on? Anything amazing that kept you away from me for those three long days?”
For a moment, Ainslie contemplated not saying anything, just because she knew that being kept out of the loop would drive Carrie insane and send her off the deep end once she actually realized. But that seemed a little more vindictive than Ainslie really wanted to be to someone she liked, especially just for the sake of a joke.
“My boss kissed me,” Ainslie informed her, keeping her tone bland and mild, as if it happened every day and was really nothing to write home about.
For a moment, there was no reply. And then Carrie squealed as if someone had promised her the job of her dreams and a guaranteed promotion. It was so loud and high-pitched, in fact, that Ainslie had to jerk her phone away from her ear. She only returned it to her ear when the squealing began to turn into discernible words. Even so, Ainslie wasn’t quite sure what most of those words were at first, though she was pretty sure Carrie was asking her how it happened.
“They have monthly trips to his in-laws’ house,” Ainslie explained, because that was plausible and just vague enough to be harmless at the same time. And it was true, in a technical sense. “One of the girls wasn’t quite getting along with them, though. So, I broke her out of her shell a bit and convinced her to go this time around if I went, too. And I guess he’s glad I’ve gotten close to his kids, and we’ve become friends over the last month, I guess. It just sort of… happened.” There was a beat. “And then it happened again once we were back at his house and the girls weren’t watching. And I guess he likes me.”
“You guess he likes you,” Carrie parroted back at her blandly, and Ainslie could just imagine her rolling her eyes in long-suffering exasperation. “Yeah, I’d say so. Sounds like you’ve had an exciting few days.”
“You don’t even know the half of it.” Ainslie dragged a hand down her face. “Turns out you were right about the PA having it out for me! She invaded my room while we were gone when she didn’t even have a reason to be in the house.”
With a low, impressed whistle, Carrie wondered, “How did you figure out she was in there?”
Well, shit. Time to think fast.
Ainslie cleared her throat. “A few of my things were moved around and everything smelled like her perfume.”
Carrie made a low, sympathetic noise. “Did you tell the boss man?” she wondered. “Will he hear anything bad about his PA or are you going to need to go all guerrilla and handle things on your own?”
“I already told him and he believed me pretty quickly,” Ainslie sighed. “He agrees it’s fucked up and he gave me her address to go have a chat with her at some point and try to get everything sorted out before it turns serious.”
“You mean more serious than her being in your room uninvited?” Carrie asked flatly, sounding about as unimpressed as Ainslie had ever heard her sound. “That sounds kind of bad to me.”
“Before it turns more serious,” Ainslie corrected, her tone placating. “Are you happy now?”
“I guess,” Carrie sighed. “Just let me know if anything weird happens. You know you can still call me in like cavalry.” She said it very matter-of-factly, as if it was just a simple fact of life that Carrie would have her back, regardless of whatever was going on or what the situation was.
For a moment, Ainslie felt a well of fondness in her chest, heavy and warm. “Yeah, I know,” she assured her. “But I don’t think it’s anything I can’t handle.”
“Well duh,” Carrie scoffed. “You’ve always known how to kick ass.”
Ainslie was a little skeptical on that point, but she didn’t say anything. If Carrie wanted to think she was badass, then Ainslie wasn’t going to argue the point.
Their conversation lasted only a few more minutes before they said their goodbyes and hung up.
There wasn’t much left of the night after that before Ainslie fell asleep. She slept better than she had in days and dreamed of nothing. It seemed as if no time had passed at all before her alarm was going off in the morning, signaling that it was time for her to get up and shower.
*
To Ainslie’s mild displeasure, the status quo was reasserting itself. Malik was at work once again. Lily and Andy were at school. Ainslie saw Maria only briefly in the morning. If Malik said anything to her about her unexpected adventure into Ainslie’s room, he made no mention of it and Maria seemed no different than she typically did. Ainslie supposed it was possible that Malik was simply leaving the confrontation up to her, considering it was her space that had been invaded.
When it came to the status quo itself, though, Ainslie was rather against letting it settle back over everything completely. The idea of Malik taking time off was still new, and she didn’t want him to immediately revert right back to being such a total and complete workaholic. And whatever was growing between them was also still new. They still needed to put work into letting it grow. Which meant she couldn’t just let everything go back to the way it had been, as comfortable as it was.
It started that evening. She met him at the door as he returned home, and she pulled him close for a kiss. It was brief and chaste, as she stepped aside so she was well out of the way once Paisley flung herself at him like an overly excited monkey. But even so, the look of surprise on his face was worth it, and it was a routine that she knew she would look forward to establishing.
(Maybe that should have been a sign that whatever was going on between them was a bit more than just a bit of fun, but Ainslie wasn’t going to think about that just then. She was very good at willfully not thinking about things. It was something of a special talent of hers.)
It continued into the evening as she wandered into the den periodically, stealing bits and pieces of his time and attention. She paid attention to make sure it didn’t seem like he objected, of course—she didn’t want to annoy him—but that never seemed to be the case. In fact, he seemed to welcome her interruptions each time, whether it was for a kiss, for a coffee break, or simply to chat for a few minutes.
By the time he left the den to start making dinner, he almost seemed relaxed, and he was definitely in a lighter mood than Ainslie was accustomed to seeing him in at that time of the evening.
The girls seemed to take notice as well, as even Andy was chattier during the meal. It was a relief, in a strange sort of way, to watch the four of them bond, and it was almost sort of touching whenever she would be pulled into the conversation as if she was truly part of the family. It wasn’t even a one-time occurrence, as all four of them turned to her to get her input or to back them up at different times.
All things considered, it was a good day, and she was looking forward to making sure it was just one of many. After all, if the daily routine was a good day then Ainslie knew she would be doing a lot better than so many other people in the world.
*
For a few days, everything was calm. Life proceeded as normal, at a leisurely pace. Paisley progressed at a decent pace through her lessons, Andy brought home a report card with straight As, and Lily brought home a report card of As and Bs.
The girls were thriving and things with Malik were progressing at a comfortable pace, regardless of whether or not they knew what to call their relationship or what they felt for each other. The details could be ironed out later; there was plenty of time.
Ainslie was content. More than that, she was happy.
*
Ainslie was in the middle of cleaning the bathroom one weekend afternoon when Andy poked her head into the room. She had Christopher cradled over one of her shoulders in one arm, as if she was carrying him along with her for moral support. In an instant, Ainslie had a feeling it was going to be a serious conversation.
“You need me for something?” Ainslie asked, wiping down the main mirror.
Andy opened her mouth to reply, only to pause almost immediately, her mouth closing with a dissatisfied click. Her nose wrinkled for a moment as she thought over whatev
er it was she wanted to say.
Finally, after bumping her cheek against the top of Christopher’s head, she stated, “I know there’s something going on with you and my dad.”
For a split second, Ainslie felt a moment of panic, as if she had been caught out at something she wasn’t supposed to be doing. It was a short-lived moment, though; it wasn’t as if Andy could get her in trouble. Malik was not only fully aware of what was going on but also fully complicit in it.
Which meant honesty was probably the best policy.
Setting her cleaning rag down, Ainslie nodded once. “There is, yeah,” she confirmed. “Since the last full moon, actually,” she added, sliding her hands into her pockets. “We’ve… gotten to like each other a lot since I got here,” she explained carefully, both because she wasn’t entirely sure herself of how far her feelings went and because, truthfully, she was pretty sure a twelve-year-old girl didn’t need to know all the details in that regard.