by Amber Lynn
The next morning I was thankful the bed was occupied by the same amount of people I remembered being there when I fell asleep. That would be only me. Over on the couch I saw Nate was still fast asleep.
I woke up in such a good mood that I thought pulling a prank on him was necessary. I decided to go old school and rushed to the bathroom to get his can of shaving cream.
During the trek back to the couch, I shook the can up. I was happy to see Nate cooperating by lying on his back with both of his hands in a position where I could fill them with the shaving cream. I had to ask myself why he couldn't be that cooperative when he was awake.
Just to be on the safe side, I filled both his hands with a good dollop of shaving cream. I forgot to pack a feather, so I decided to just blow gently on his cheek. With all the Italian food from the previous night, and me being too exhausted to brush my teeth before bed, my morning breath had to be killer. It just added to my wicked prank.
After at least two minutes of trying to get him to scratch his face, my options were he was either dead or some kind of evil robot. Seeing his chest moving, I was leaning towards the evil robot. My next move was to search the room for something better to tickle him with. Before I could do that, my face was surrounded on each side with Nate's hands.
"What ya doing?" he asked as he smeared the shaving cream all over my face.
"Yuck. That shaving cream is supposed to be covering your face, not mine." I wiggled back out of his reach.
"But it looks so much cuter on you," he said as he sat up.
"You were awake the whole time weren't you?"
"From the moment you got out of bed. A little note for future reference, I'm a very light sleeper."
He got up and walked to the bathroom to take care of his morning business and washed his hands. Another thing to be thankful for that morning was he slept in sweat pants and a tank top. Just knowing his personality, I imagined without me around he wore a lot less.
When he emerged from the bathroom, drying his hands on a towel, he said, "The hotel has a continental breakfast, do you want me to run down while you get cleaned up and grab us some food?"
Looking in the mirror on the wall, I took in my disheveled hair and face and said, "Well, I sure as heck ain't leaving this room looking like this. I need a shower immediately, so yeah why don't you run down and get us something to eat."
Still looking in the mirror, I decided the white shaving cream had made my usual morning mess of hair look like Albert Einstein's. Eek. I took off towards the bathroom, then shut and locked the door behind me, leaving him to do whatever he decided.
After I was done in the shower, I wrapped up in a towel, only to remember my clothes for the day were on the other side of the door. Unsure if Nate was back or not, I softly knocked on the door and called, "Hey, Nate, are you out there?"
"I'm guessing you've realized your clothes are with me and I'm holding them hostage."
Dang it. Sneaking out to grab them was off the list of options.
"You say they're hostages, do I assume you have some demands to make for them?" I asked, getting a little chilled just standing in my towel.
"Good question. What do you think they're worth? I'm thinking you have to be nice to me for the rest of the day and even hold my hand if I want while we're touring the city with your parents."
"Doesn't that counteract my 'don't let my mom think we're more than just friends' mandate?"
I couldn't believe his idea of payment for some clothes was hand holding. Why did I always get stuck with the people in need of mental help?
"It's a new day and any previous mandates are null and void. Especially since I'm the one out here holding the clothes you so desperately want."
If the clothes I'd recently taken off weren't slept in and didn't have shaving cream all over them, I would've thrown them back on. The dang prank that should've been so funny was ruining my day.
"Fine. We have a deal, clothes for niceness and a little PDA, if you deem it necessary. Don't get too crazy with your displays of affection though. I may end up vomiting on your shoes."
"Great we have a deal. How do you want to do this exchange?"
"I'm going unlock the door and hide behind the shower curtain. Once, I'm sure you won't see anything, you can open the door and place the clothing on the vanity. When the clothes are in place, you're to immediately exit the room and respond from the other side of the door so I know for sure you're gone. Do you think you can handle that?"
"Seems simple enough. Let's do it."
No drama occurred during the clothing exchange and I hurried to slip into my new clothes. I walked out and witnessed the smorgasbord of food Nate had brought back.
"Are you really hungry this morning?" I asked, grabbing a strawberry.
"I thought we should have a good breakfast with all the walking we'll end up doing today. Don't want you to tucker out too early. While you eat, I'm going to jump in the shower real quick." He grabbed some jeans and a t-shirt and left me to eat my breakfast in peace.
I dove into some pancakes with tons of butter and syrup. The massive amounts of carbs really hit the spot. By the time I was done eating Nate had finished and snatched a few pieces of bacon as he worked on getting his socks and shoes on.
"Where did you decide to take us today on our grand tour of the city?" I asked, slipping into my sandals.
"I figured we'd be the ultimate tourists. Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty slash Ellis Island, Times Square, MoMA, and at some point stop for dinner at my favorite pizzeria that just happens to be under the Brooklyn Bridge. Somewhere in there I think we should take them on the Staten Island Ferry, so they can see the city lit up at night, and maybe tomorrow we can take them to Coney Island for some fun and games."
"Are you sure you're an FBI agent and not a tour guide?"
"Pretty certain. Either that or someone sold me a pretty convincing knock off badge. Let's get out of here. We're meeting your folks early at the Empire State Building to try to fight some of the crowds that will be there later today."
There was no need for me to reply, so I followed behind dutifully as we made our way to visit the city I'd been living in for years. I was a little afraid that I'd end up enjoying myself. I didn't want to spend my weekends walking around like a tourist.
When we made it to our location, my parents were waiting out front. My mother instantly came over and gave me a hug. It was too early in the morning for hugs.
"Good morning, you two. I hope you both slept well," she said, moving back to take in my attire.
She didn't look pleased. I took it she didn't get the joke on the shirt. With the slim pickings the night before, I settled on a shirt that said?Hedgehogs ? why don't they just share the hedge??In the center of the shirt there is a hedgehog saying?NO.?
My mother, of course, was wearing another sundress; that particular one was white with pink flowers. I wasn't sure she'd ever worn pants. Daddy was dressed in slacks and a short-sleeved button-up shirt. Mom was evidently not hiding the fact that she was a tourist, because she had a camera attached to her wrist.
Nate took my mother's hand and lightly kissed it as he said, "We did sleep well, as I assume both of you did. Why don't we head in? I think we'll hit the eightieth floor exhibit and the one hundred and second floor observation deck."
After getting our tickets we worked our way up to the first exhibit. I enjoyed looking around at all the old pictures, sketches and other memorabilia. It took almost an hour for my mother to get through it all. When she was finally done, we went up to the highest public point in New York City.
We took in the breathtaking views of the city, while Mom took at least two thousand pictures, and that wasn't an exaggeration. When her camera started to smoke, we decided to call it good and went back to ground level. I may have embellished the camera smoking a little.
"That was simply amazing," my mother said once we got outside. "What do you have planned for us next?"
"I think we'll head down to
Times Square, so you can see all the attractions that make it famous," Nate replied.
"That's great. I have tickets for?Wicked?at the Gershwin Theater for next Thursday. I'd love to take some photos of all the buildings for my scrapbook."?
We made our way over to Times Square and started walking up and down the streets, looking at the different attractions while Mom snapped away with her camera. I hadn't seen her switch out memory cards, but I expected she had a few backups.
After a little while my stomach rumbled, alerting the world my pancakes had stopped fueling me. Hearing it, Nate grabbed my hand and directed us across the street to City Chow. We ordered and took a break from our little tour to refuel.
While we were eating, Mom went on about how exciting the city was and how upset she was I never told her what city life was really like. I just ignored her and kept eating my panini. It would be rude to talk with my mouth full.
When the food was cleared away, Nate decided we should go to the Museum of Modern Arts. On the walk over, Nate reached down and casually wrapped his fingers around mine. Not expecting it, I jumped a little.
"Time to pay the piper, I guess," I said to him and allowed my hand to remain in his.
"Come on, you know you love it," he said as he smirked back at me.
We continued hand-in-hand on our way through the museum. I'd never been a huge fan of art; you'd find my apartment sports plain white walls. Some of the pieces on display made me stop and stare, trying to make sense of what they were. My favorite was the word OOF in yellow on a blue background. That was something I could understand.
After spending a couple of hours viewing all the different works of art, and Mom buying a couple prints, we moved on to our next stop.
"Time to go see the Statue of Liberty," Nate said. "Let's take the subway down to the ferry. It'll be a lot easier than trying to catch a cab or drive down."
"Oh the subway. That sounds exciting," my father said.
He hadn't been as flamboyant as my mother and all her picture taking, but it was obvious he was having a good time. It made me feel kind of bad that I hadn't invited them before. Technically, I still hadn't. They just decided to finally come for a visit.
We encountered no problems getting on the subway or figuring out where to get off closest to the ferry. We went into full tourist mode on the ferry ride over, pointing out pretty much everything we saw. The statue itself was undergoing renovations, so we had to stick to exploring the outside. When Mom had her fill of pictures, we headed over to Ellis Island.
There, we took a forty-five minute tour and learned a lot of history. When the tour was over, we spent another hour upstairs checking out the exhibits. By the time we were all done, we were in need of food again, so we hopped on the ferry and made our way back to mainland.
"Okay, we have a few options to getting over to the pizzeria I wanted to eat at," Nate announced once we were back on dry land. "We can either take the pedestrian walkway across the Brooklyn Bridge, jump on the subway or get a water taxi that will take us pretty much right to our destination."
"How long a walk are we talking?" my father asked.
"Probably about five miles," Nate answered.
"As hungry as I am, I don't think I could wait the hour it would take to get there. I say we try the water taxi, since we've already taken the subway once today."
"That sounds like a good plan to me," I said, ready to get moving. I was ready to have the day over with, even though I'd enjoyed myself.
We walked over to the pickup spot in Battery Park. Thankfully, there was a taxi just unloading some passengers. After buying our tickets, we climbed on board. On the way, Mom kept her camera out and took enough pictures to have to change her memory card. Two stops later we were in Brooklyn, so we departed the taxi and Nate led us to the food.
We ended up at Grimaldi's Pizzeria, where surprise, surprise they served pizza. We ordered two large pizzas, one with every kind of meat on the menu, except anchovies, and the other with mushroom and onion.
While we waited, Mom decided to finally break out of her shell, a move that made me want to go find a shell to hide in.
"So Avery, how long have you and Nate been dating?"
"Well, Mother, technically we aren't dating. We're coworkers who happen to be friendly to each other every other day. You're lucky we've managed to make it two days in a row."
"He doesn't look like someone who works at a library, Avery." Turning to Nate she asked, "Nate what exactly do you do there?"
"Well, Mrs. Clavens, you're right to think that. I don't belong in the library. I'm currently only working there undercover. I'm actually an FBI agent working to catch some very bad men."
I had to give it to him, with his looks, passing for a librarian would've been difficult, but telling the truth that he was with the FBI? The man was insane. I could see the Twitterverse exploding with "My daughter is dating an FBI agent." Why did he have to give her the ammunition?
"Now, Nate, it isn't very nice to joke around like that with your elders. If you're too embarrassed by your real occupation, just tell me you'd rather not say what you did. As long as you can provide for Avery, we really don't care what you do."
"Elders, really Roxanna?" Nate said, giving my mother an odd look. Even odder was the fact he used my mother's first name. "Rest assured, if Avery ever decided she wanted to be with me, she'd be well provided for."
"That's all I want to hear." Mom took a sip of her tea and I celebrated our pizzas arriving.
When we ran out of pizza, Mom dragged Dad over to take some more pictures of the Brooklyn Bridge, since it was darker. I thought she probably had enough pictures, but I wasn't going to complain about her leaving for a few minutes. Shortly after they left, Nate decided he had to use the bathroom, leaving me sipping my lemonade.
Not long after he left, the phone that he'd left on the table started ringing. I looked and saw it was Liz, so I picked it up.
"Hey Liz, what's up?" I asked.
"Avery? What are you doing answering Nate's phone?"
"He left it on the table, so I decided it was okay to answer."
"Well, I wanted to talk to you anyway. You can come pick up your phone tomorrow. It seems this guy was better than even me, because I traced it until there were no other paths and it ended up coming from Carl's phone. The guy must've seen you with Carl at some point and hijacked his signal to send the text. I've been stuck chasing ghosts for days now."
"That bites. I haven't heard from the creep in days, so maybe it doesn't matter anymore. I'll make sure to pick it up tomorrow. The disposable I bought to temporarily replace it hasn't been the same."
We said good-bye and hung up, right as a man walked over to the table.
"Excuse me, miss, but your party asked me to have you meet them outside."
I figured Mom wanted to get some pictures of me, so I thanked the man and left him behind as I made my way outside.
Once outside, I looked around, but I didn't see my parents anywhere. I continued searching for them and all of a sudden I felt something pressed into my back.
"Hello, my sweet, I'd like you to come with me quickly and quietly, so I don't have to use this gun on you."
I recognized the voice and it seemed I was finally going to come face-to-face with my stalker.
CHAPTER 28
Only the good die young