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“Would you have preferred I didn’t?” She froze with a pot in one hand and a scoop of pasta in the other, staring back at him like she’d done something wrong.
“No-no. Are you kidding me? I was about to take down the door to the bedroom to see more of you.” He laughed awkwardly, realizing how creepy that sounded. Jesus Christ, where did his good sense of humor go? Was he nervous? “That was a joke. A pathetic one.” Placing a palm of his hand in front of her. “I wouldn’t do that of course.” Isabella smiled to set him at ease.
Liam took his coat and shoes off and they both sat down at the table. She stared at him with eager eyes as Liam grabbed the fork, taking a glimpse of her with a smile before taking a bite of the pasta. He froze… By God—this was the absolute worst food he had ever tasted! A sharp tingle of cayenne pepper and tabasco overpowered his sense of taste. It felt like somebody had struck his tongue with a whip with nails attached to it. His eyes filled with tears as he noticed Isabella waiting with big deer eyes.Get it together, bro, get it together, you survived war, swallow it, you will survive this!Eyes twitching, he swallowed it down without chewing it. God, he could feel it slowly burning its way down his throat, leaving a fire trail into his stomach.
“It’s…OUGH…” tears were running down his red face, “It’s deli—ough-cious—” he choked, grabbing the glass of water, chugging it down in one move as if it was a life-and-death situation—which it maybe was.God help me! Help me, Lord!He took another big bite under the watchful, proud and satisfied eyes of Isabella. “Thank you. This is the first meal I have ever prepared.”
“You—ough—kidding. I—ough—would have never guessed.” He gasped for air. Satisfied, she now took a scoop of the pasta about to bite, when Liam instantly held her hand. It was too late; the damage had been done, to herself he might add. She coughed up a storm, struggling to swallow that little bit of hell-fire she’d just placed in her mouth. Begging for air, she spat it back out into a napkin before she grew as silent as a graveyard. But before Liam could gather himself to make her feel better, all of the sudden, she burst into loud laughter. Liam wasn’t sure if it was okay to join her as he didn’t want to hurt her feelings, so he mentally prepared himself to eat the whole God damn plate, even if it was the last thing he would do. But when he looked back at Isabella, throwing her head back, slapping her leg in out-of-control laughter, he couldn’t help but burst into laughter too.
“It’s absolutely insufferable!” Isabella howled, grasping for air. “I was worried it might kill me!” Liam slapped a hand on the table, trembling with laughter. It took both of them forever to calm down again. “I can’t believe you actually tried to eat this. I don’t think there’s a kinder soul out there than you, Liam,” she chuckled, wiping a tear from her cheek. “This would have made it on the news,” he grinned back, holding his stomach from the pain of laughing too hard. “A veteran soldier of five years was found dead after eating a plate of home-made pasta. He survived war, but not this…” Isabella giggled, grabbing both of their glasses to get some more water. “I’ll order us some pizza, how does that sound?”
“Like a better plan than the one I had.” Controlling her laughter.
Liam got up and walked into the bedroom to grab his laptop. He usually left it for Isabella during the day when he had no work to do so that she had something to do besides staring out the window. Jerry still wouldn’t let her leave the flat unless absolutely necessary, as the perv was still out there somewhere. And none of them were taking any chances.
Liam opened the laptop, ready to Google the pizza delivery’s number, when he was greeted by dozens of open search windows and tabs. Isabella must’ve not known how to close them. It was bizarre trying to teach her how to use the laptop. She had absolutely no clue. Even simply moving the cursor was a struggle let alone using the keyboard itself. But somehow, she knew what Google was, so maybe she’d just never held a MacBook before, was a Windows kinda girl.
He closed the first page to see that there was another right behind it. And another, and another, it never stopped. After closing twenty or so, he changed strategy and opened the browsing history tab to delete all pages at once. Moving the cursor over the “clear all’ command, his brows slowly furrowed as he noticed some of the search terms displayed in front of him.Time travel, how to get back in time, lost in different century, magical coins, witches, spells, alien abduction…It was endless. His heart plummeted and he felt a wave of panic and sadness overcome him. Isabella was acting so normally, he thought her head injury had been resolved by now. But it was more than obvious now that this clearly wasn’t the case! Was it all an act? Did she still fear being admitted to a mental institution? Or seriously believe all of this?
Liam almost dropped the laptop. What had he done? All of this was his fault. He was the one who’d hit her with his car. What was he supposed to do now? He took another glimpse of the search history, hoping it was all a mistake, that somehow he’d misread it all. But the same words presented themselves in front of him again and again, no matter how often he read them.
Her search history also included a George Astley, Duke of Aberdeen, and an address of a coin specialist in Philly. Liam threw his head back in despair and contemplated. She needed to be seen by a doctor asap, but how was he supposed to pull this off? Last time he dropped her at a hospital she ran away, living on the streets out of a tent and had ended up being attacked.
Coming home to her, cooking for him, and making him laugh, was the most wonderful feeling his heart had ever produced. He barely knew her but with her by his side, everything became more bearable. He would do everything in his powers to help her. Whatever it would take, he would make things right again. Help her. Protect her. He just had to be careful how to approach it. Be kind about it, understanding, tell her that he cared about her, which he truly did—a lot. Taking a deep breath, Liam walked back into the living room, placing the laptop on the table as he watched Isabella putting the plates away. He gathered his courage. “I was wondering…do you have a minute?” She turned around, looking first at the laptop and then at him. Her hands clenched together, pressed to her chest as she took a step closer. Did she know what was coming? For a second she looked frightened, but then she nodded her head as if she had just made peace with something.
“Just promise me that I won’t end up in a mental institution,” her gaze held steady on the floor.
