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Suddenly, there was a knock on the bedroom door that was so loud and unexpected that it shocked me, causing me to fall out of the bed.
“Schijt!” I screamed, the floor coming up to meet me.
Stifling another scream, I limped toward the knocking door, praying to bring an end to the madness.
“What happened?” Adam asked, looking somewhat strange.
“What do you mean?”
The trickle of blood was light but present, running down the left side of my face, from eyebrow to chin. Pain shot like a spike through my skull from the lightest touch. My fingers were crimson on the withdrawal.
“Did you hurt yourself?” he asked, checking the wound.
“No, not on purpose; there was just an incident with the floor.”
“Did you slip?”
“No.”
It wasn’t really a lie. There was certainly gravity involved, but the specifics would just be splitting hairs.
“Are you dizzy?”
“No. Well, just a little.”
“Come on.”
Getting my arm over his shoulder and his arm around my waist, he took me to the bathroom, for a seat on the throne. Usually euphemistic, this toilet was literally made out of solid gold.
“This might sting a bit,” he warned, dabbing a cotton ball.
“Ow!” I cried, as he placed it on my face and rubbed lightly.
“Sorry.”
The second touch was lighter, only hurting a bit. Everything was sparkling clean soon, and the injury was bandaged.
“It should still be warm,” he said, stomping off once again.
“What should be?” I asked.
But he didn’t answer me.
Braced against the wall, I made my own way, refusing many more invitations from the floor, no matter how pretty it might have been.
“Wow!”
The sight that greeted me in the kitchen was like something from a Regency novel: long table, high-back chairs, stained glass arched windows, the whole nine yards. Not to mention the huge spread of food.
“Dutch?” he asked.
“We have to pay?” I asked him back.
“No, I mean what you said when I knocked on the door. It’s Dutch, right?”
“Yes, as am I. Let me guess, you thought I was German?”
“Or Swedish, possibly Austrian. Somewhere within the Germanic family for sure.”
The ache in my head started to pound a bit harder.
“Are you feeling okay?” he asked, pushing in my chair.
“Yes, thank you. Bit of a dull ache but nothing I can’t handle.”
“Feeling sick at all?”
“No.”
“Good. You probably don’t have a concussion.”
It was an odd sort of dinner-time conversation, but at least it was brief, the silence falling on the room like a grand piano. I actually wouldn’t put it past him to have such a thing hanging from the ceiling.
It seemed just oddly elegant enough to strike his fancy. Much like the meal he’d made. Cheese-stuffed mushrooms were one of humanity’s greatest inventions, despite coming out of left field.
“What is this?” I asked, lifting the glass in front of me upwards as if in a toast.
“Virgin mango margarita.”
“How did you know?”
“That you don’t drink?”
“Um, yeah, that,” I said, blushing.
“Well, I don’t think you’re old enough, for starters,” he said, but then finished before saying anything further, because the euphemisms were just getting to be a bit much.
After we were done amusing ourselves in our own way, silence reigned in the massive dining room. My face felt like it was on fire.
What else could I unwittingly reveal to my new house mate now that he knew the status of my sexuality?
“How do you like your room?” he asked, and I was thankful he’d found a way to break the awkward silence.
“It’s lovely. A bit limited in terms of entertainment, but great. I found amazing fun counting the gold flecks in the ceiling.”
“I didn’t lock the door, you know. You were able to come out and explore. Just the first floor. But that’s really big.”
“Weren’t you on this floor, cooking?”
“Well, yes, but I don’t bite.”
“Promise?”
Strange as it was, his expression couldn’t be easily read. The wheels in his head were most definitely turning.
“Yes.”
“Yes what?”
“I promise I won’t bite.”
He was dead serious, barely a muscle moving in his face, looking like stone. I could only assume he had taken me seriously, as opposed to the mirthful good humor in which my comment was meant.
I made a note of that, so there wouldn’t be any further misunderstandings. If we were stuck together, the least we could do was try and get along.
“Is there anything I can do to help you feel more at home?” he asked me.
I searched his eyes, finding no trace of dishonesty or angling within them. He was too serious for any such games.
“I’d like to go outside,” I confessed.
“Not a good idea at night,” he reminded me.
“Even inside the wall?”
“Point taken, but we’d better not risk it.”
“Okay,” I said, my heart sinking down into my feet.
“There’s the hot tub, though,” he commented, as if it was an after-thought.
That got my attention. He wasn’t playing with me, or if he was, he was a very good actor. I just had to follow up on what he’d mentioned, even at the risk of crushing disappointment.
