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He just exhaled loudly, running his hand through his hair.
“Come on, let’s go for a walk. You can tell me about it,” I said, hopping off the counter.
“You want to walk? You don’t want a ride?”
“Bubba. You’re already in trouble. I don’t think we should add to it. Come on, let’s go,” I said, hooking my arm through his and pulling him toward the back door.
Once we were outside and a safe enough distance away that she wouldn’t be able to overhear our conversation, I asked, “So she’s mad because you were having fun with me?”
He just looked at me, somewhat surprised. “Da. She said we’re all acting so different now that you’re here.” He paused and then added, “She’s right about that. We are acting different, but I thought she liked the change? I’m so confused. Now it seems like she doesn’t.”
I thought as we walked slowly past the gardens. The sweet floral aroma was heavy in the air as it was warm today with very little breeze. I replayed the conversation Tori and I had in the kitchen the day before, when she asked me what my secret was for getting them to all come out of their shells.
I sighed. “I don’t know, Andrei. Maybe she’s jealous? Maybe she wanted you all to act differently for her? Maybe she thought we were laughing at her? Maybe it doesn’t have anything to do with us and she’s just having a bad day? Women are complicated.”
He rolled his eyes. “You are so right. She has nothing to be jealous of and I told her that we weren’t laughing at her. Maybe she’s just having a bad day. It has nothing to do with us because we’re perfect in every way.” He nodded his head like he was confirming his last statement.
I grinned at him. “I mean, that explanation is good for me. Will it be good for her, though?”
“Ugh. This is why I don’t want a woman sometimes. They’re too stressful.”
“You’ll hear no arguments from me on that one. This is why the only female friend I have is fifty years older than I am. Ohhh, you can have Ms. Jackson. She’s got a good sense of humor!”
He had to stop walking because he was laughing so hard. “Can you…imagine…I would break her. This is a bad plan.”
I thought for a moment. “That is not the visual I was planning to have in my head this afternoon, but you make a solid argument. I’ll concede. It was a bad plan. Looks like you’re stuck trying to make up for whatever it was that we did wrong.”
He hooked his arm through mine this time. “Let’s keep walking for a little longer first.”
“Procrastination for the win!” I said, happily walking farther away from the house with him.
We stayed gone for close to two hours. We walked to the lake where we sat and talked for a while, then decided we should probably return to the house. When we got closer to the house, he turned to ask me, “You miss your friend, Max?”
I nodded. Max and I had been friends for a few years. We both started at the restaurant around the same time and quickly discovered that we could make the time pass faster by clowning around with each other. The regular bartender had quit, so we covered the bar until they found a replacement. We ended up making the restaurant more money than the other bartender ever did in one weekend. Women were flocking to watch Max pour their drinks and give them his best million-dollar smile. I always thought he was handsome, but I didn’t quite understand the obsession with him. Maybe that’s why we were always friends. I was immune to his charms.
“I do miss him. I miss my life. It seems crazy to complain about being here—and I’m not complaining. I’m really grateful to all of you for keeping me safe. But I miss being able to do what I want when I want. With no babysitter. Not that I don’t love you guys, I mean.”
He walked a few steps in silence. He just stopped in front of me and got in his usual stance for me to jump on his back. “Come, we must make the best of it while you’re here then.”
“You’re going to get in so much more trouble with Tori if I do that,” I said, trying to walk past him.
He grabbed my arm and pulled me back toward him. “I don’t want to date a woman that has a problem with my friends. She will have to get used to it. Or she can date someone else.”
I looked at him, somewhat wide-eyed. This was a change. Max usually put distance between us when he would date a girl that didn’t like me. It only ever lasted a few weeks and then he’d be back to wanting to hang out with me. “You’re sure, Bubba?”
He smiled at me, “Sure, spider monkey. Now get on.”
“You ain’t gotta ask me twice,” I said in my best redneck voice as I jumped on his back. He walked us toward the house. I thought about everything as we got closer and hugged his neck a little tighter. “I hope she deserves you, Andrei.”
We couldn’t find anyone when we got back inside. I told Andrei to drop me at the piano and he could go find Tori. He’d be able to hear me that way and know I was fine. He reluctantly dropped me off and rushed to find her. I sat looking at the keys for a few minutes, but eventually started to play one of my mom’s favorite songs. I had made up most of the song one night, just goofing around. She said she loved it so much she made me write it down and finish it. She would ask me to play it often. It reminded her of my father and a song he would hum to her when they were around the house. She was convinced I had remembered the song from when I was a baby. She said he used to hum it to me to get me to go to sleep.
I barely had any memories of my father as he died when I was still so young. I had a few pictures of him, but it was almost like looking at a stranger. My mom told me I had his eyes, but my eye color was different than his. It was different from hers too. And neither of my parents had red hair, so I was somewhat of a mystery to them both. My mom used to laugh, especially when I was mad about something as a child and tell me that I had come out right as the biggest streak of lightning lit up the sky and it burned my hair and gave me a temper.
I smiled as I played her song, remembering the good times with her. A single tear fell as I looked down at my hands, remembering what her hands looked like when she would play. When I was small, I used to sit beside her and watch her as she played. I was completely mesmerized by the piano from a young age. She was so hopeful that I would be a concert pianist one day. That didn’t exactly happen. More tears threatened to fall as I contemplated whether I was a disappointment to my mom. I was definitely not a concert pianist. I was a waitress that wasn’t even allowed to work at the moment because some insane man wanted to have me killed to get to my boyfriend. Yeah, seems like the fairy tale she always wanted for me.
The song ended and I rested my head on the music rack, fighting back tears. I chewed on my bottom lip to calm myself. Just one more day and I can leave. Maybe I can go see Max. I exhaled, trying to keep the tears from falling freely. I wiped my eyes just as a giant Russian sat down beside me on the piano bench. Andrei didn’t say anything, he just pulled me into his side, hugging my shoulders. The tears started to fall, and he hugged me tighter.
I finally got control and looked at him. “How did it go with Tori? Did you blame everything on me like you should have?”
