The look that thoughtless answer earned me was anything but calm and thoughtful anymore. Her eyes had turned hard as she pressed her lips together so they formed a thin line. Then she just wordlessly left the car and walked into the school.
I repeated the pattern from the previous day by spending the whole day sitting in the library. I had now officially completed all the assignments available to me, and was already asking myself what I would do the next day,
When Mia finally came out of class and we walked to the car, she was her old self again: More or less silently suffering from some form of injustice the universe had subjected her to. When we had sat in the car and closed the doors, however, she suddenly spoke loudly.
“Are you serious!?” she burst out, startling me for a second.
“What?”
“You’d rather be with my MOTHER than me!?” she asked like I had declared I could fly, and she was now worried about my sanity.
“Have you spent the entire day sitting in class, brooding over the fact that I might prefer your Mom over you!?”
“Answer my question!”
“Then ... Yes. Sorry?”
I think it somehow broke her. This was probably the very first time someone had so openly and nonchalantly rejected her in favor of someone else. And not only was she being rejected by someone she didn’t even try to get with, she was also rejected in favor of someone she’d never even considered competition.
She shook her head and silently looked out the window until we reached her home. Once I had greeted Michael and was about to leave, Nora stopped me like the day before. She was wearing a skirt suit that made her look like a CEO of some big company, while being anything but cagey. Once again, I had a hard time maintaining eye contact. It emphasized her curvy figure in a different way than the yoga outfit I saw her in earlier. She was simply sexy. Not slutty in any way, but sexy with class, if that makes sense.
“Timothy. I was hoping I could ask you to drive me to a few stores. Mia, Honey, you won’t need him today anymore, right?”
“Oh please, he’s all yours!” Mia puffed before stomping up the stairs. “I’m sure he prefers driving you around more than me, anyway!”
When Nora gave me a questioning look, I just shrugged my shoulders, acting as innocent and clueless as I could.
“I’d be happy to drive you. But I’ll have to be home for a delivery real quick. If you could give me an hour, I’d come right back.” I offered, remembering the Safe that was supposed to be delivered today.
“Oh.” she said, looking a little uncertain. “Would you ... if it’s not too brazen ... would it be alright for me to accompany you, so we can leave right now?”
The expression she had confused me. I was sure she really wanted to leave the house, though I had no idea as to why, since she didn’t seem scared or nervous. She was just eager to get out of there. In the end I decided that, if there was any danger, she wouldn’t leave her daughter behind, so I could simply humor her.
“Well ... if you’re Okay with it, let’s go.”
And with that, we moved to the car and I drove us to my apartment. After I had opened the door for her, and she got a good first look at my living room, she regarded me with a mirthful smile and a single raised eyebrow.
“Timothy. Did you just bring me to some kind of motel room?” she chuckled.
“No. That’s my apartment.” I answered, not immediately understanding her question. “I know it looks sterile, but I kinda prefer to call it futuristic.”
“Apartment?” she asked, the amusement gone from her voice. “I’m sure, the last time we gave Ava a lift home, we dropped her off at a house in Grand Harbor. Right near that lovely ballet school.”
“Yes, Ava and the family live in the house. I live in my apartment.” I clarified, as I hung my jacket on the coat rack in the hallway.
“You live here alone? By yourself? Didn’t you say you were seventeen?” she asked, her eyebrows knitted in obvious confusion, while taking the seat I offered her on the sofa.
“Yes.”
“Why?” she asked, completely disregarding the possibility that this might be a topic some people rather not talk about.
“Well ... you’ve heard the stories about my sister spreading those rumors?” I asked, and she nodded. “My family is perfectly happy without me around.”
“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.” she just said, as I moved to the kitchen.
“Can I offer you something to drink? I have one of those Coffee Makers with a big capsule assortment, if you’d like one.” I called into the living room.
“Oh, that would be lovely, thank you.”
Three minutes later, I entered the living room with her beverage.
“This is nice. What is it?” she asked after taking a first sip.
“They call it a ‘Gingerbread Latte’. It was mixed in with all the other Christmas stuff when I was grocery shopping, and I picked it up on a whim.”
“Good decision! So, tell me,...”
I never learned what she wanted me to tell her, because at that moment the doorbell rang and the delivery guys from the safe manufacturer showed up. I had cleaned out the walk-in closet in my bedroom, so they could place it in the back of it. I would rather have built it into a fake-wall or something, but my landlord was not happy about that idea. As a compromise I chose the place with the most doors to pass to get to it, and the least space for burglars to operate when trying to open it. Secretly, I was fully set on just putting the fake wall up anyway as soon as my temporary lease had become an actual one with my eighteenth birthday. The landlord surely wouldn’t notice the walk-in closet being two feet shorter than it was supposed to be. When the delivery guys were gone and I had set the new lock combination, I started moving the cash into it.
“Holy!” I heard Nora gasp and whipped my head around to see her standing in the doorway, looking at the pile of cash with her hand covering her mouth.
“Are you secretly some kind of drug dealer?” she asked in a breathy voice.
That actually caused me to laugh. For the very first time since Logan’s exposure over a month ago, I laughed.
“No, Nora. Quite the opposite. Though, I’d still like you to keep that to yourself, please.”
For some reason, that caused her to look at me with almost hunger in her eyes, while she watched me store the rest of the cash away. When we moved out of the closet she spoke again.
“My daughter told me something interesting this morning.”
“And what was that?” I asked, as I moved my clothes from the bed back into the closet.
“Did you really get stabbed protecting your sister and your mother from three men you knew were armed?”
“Kinda just happened. Yeah.”
“That was brave of you.”
“Really? My family called it either stupid or reckless, depending on who you asked.”
“Can I ... see it?” she asked after stepping in front of me and placing her hand on my chest to stop me from moving in and out of my closet.
I blinked at her confused for a moment, but quickly decided not to think too much about it. I took my shirt off, followed by the IIA vest I was wearing while watching Mia, and showed her the two thick scars on my stomach and chest. She stretched out her hand and, surprising me, started lightly tracing them with her fingers.
“My daughter also told me something else that was quite interesting.” she basically breathed. “That you like to ... use your mouth. Is that also true?”
Once again, I blinked at her for a moment. And once again, I quickly decided that, if this was an opportunity, I just absolutely had to take it.
“Would you like me to show you that as well?” I asked casually, but with a slight smile on my lips, causing her to take a deep breath.