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Once he’s satisfied my hair is done, he has me wrap it in a towel and joins me in the tub, making me promise to show him how I dry it after.
Our food has stayed piping hot on the heated serving trolley from room service and apart from never seeing so much food, I still don’t even know what half of it is but it still tastes amazing.
Blake has me try little pieces of things I’m not sure of from his own servings, feeding me little forkfuls and eagerly waiting for my reaction.
I have to admit there are a couple of things I’m not over the moon about, but we don’t have to eat like this every meal.
“Do we?” I ask, suddenly worried I’ll be as big as a house in three months if he keeps feeding me like this.
All the horizontal workouts in the world could never burn off these calories.
But my concern only makes Blake laugh heartily.
“We don’t have to, no. But I like to eat a lot. What I want and when I want,” he explains, eyeing my curves through the bubbles, commenting that I should do the same.
“Uh. I think I’m big enough, thank you,” I clip, knowing he’s not teasing me but a man of his size really does make even a girl of my size look tiny by comparison.
“So how long did your dad give us?” he asks, finally bringing up the subject I know he’s pushed to the back of his mind while we spend time together.
But I think he’s asking this one thing for a reason somehow.
“Two weeks,” I tell him, taking a big bite of perfectly cooked steak from his fork. The one thing I know is what I like as well as what it is I’m eating.
“We should have him over sometime, sooner than that though,” Blake says to himself before resuming our feast, not mentioning it or my dad again for a long time.
Our neighbor on the other hand. Our real neighbor, Nate Macy. We’re both still thinking about that, I can tell and after eating more than I know is sensible I ask Blake about it.
“What’s bugging you about the guy disappearing?” I ask, full of curiosity. Not for myself, I only wonder for my dad’s sake.
I’ve never met the man, so can’t say I miss what I don’t even know.
“I’d like to shake his hand is what’s bugging me,” Blake announces loudly after thinking it over for a moment, his thumb and forefinger on his chin.
I feel my face twist into a question, raising my brow and wondering if Blake might need a little lie down as much as I do right now, even though we’re practically laying down in the bath together.
“I mean,” he goes on to explain once he catches my puzzled look. “That if it wasn’t for your neighbor. If it wasn’t for him not showing up, then we might never have even met,” he says, shaking his head slightly as he studies me again.
As if the idea is unthinkable, which to me it is.
If I hadn’t met Blake. If we hadn’t...
If things hadn’t worked out the way they have, I really don’t know where I’d be or what direction my life would have taken me.
The thought terrifies me as much as I can see it disturbs Blake too.
“Then we need to find him,” I decide aloud. Figuring I’d like to meet him at least once myself, shake his hand too, and give thanks for the providence of his mysterious disappearance.
“Oh, he’ll turn up,” Blake says knowingly. And I wonder, I just wonder for a split second if Blake himself has somehow had a hand in the guy going missing.
He chuckles, reading my thought and shaking his head again.
“No, Krystal. He’s disappeared on his own steam and he’ll come back by the same method,” he educates me.
“A guy like that has no real reason to disappear. Not that we know of,” he says, again, saying things out loud as if he’s also reasoning the scenario in his mind using me as a sounding board.
“No, he’s got the dream job. A dream house being built somewhere. He’s not missing at all,” he concludes, making me question everything he’s just told me.
“Other people, including us have decided he’s missing because he’s not where we thought he should be,” Blake finishes with a cryptic smile.
“He’ll be back. And I’ll wager he has a story of his own to tell when he does,” he says, so confident that I can’t help but believe him.
We soak in the tub until the water’s lukewarm and we’re both wrinkled.
“Now, how about showing me how you get that hair so damned perfect.” He grins. Letting me know his spoiling has really only just started.
“You’ll get pretty sick of it after a while,” I try to assure him, shivering and stifling a groan as he runs his huge fingers through my still wet hair once I’m sitting at the dressing table in our bedroom.
