Damn, I hate that thought right now mostly because I know it’s true.
The question is are his feelings true, or is this all just some age play game to him?
If there’s one thing about introverts who love to read they’re usually very observant because they don’t waste any unnecessary time talking or trying to show off, unlike a certain someone I know who has his name in big letters on the building that he owns downtown. Yeah, I’m thinking of you Carter Cross.
But Mr. Cross, you’ve crossed me this time. Now let’s see if your love was the “cross your heart hope to die” kind or this housekeeper is going to be looking for a needle to stick in your eye since your eyes don’t seem to know what it looks like when you hurt someone you claim means more to you than anything.
10
Carter
Early the next morning
I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand and pull away from the curb next to Camila’s apartment where I stayed parked all night. I wasn’t about to intrude after what she said about kidnapping, but I wasn’t going to let her do anything drastic either…including running away from me. I can’t lose her. I won’t.
But she’s made it clear I made a mistake and I have to get to the bottom of it, figure out what it is, so I can correct it and make our relationship whole again. Maybe I took things too fast. How can you blame me? I just get so damn excited around her and all I want to do is spoil her and give her the world on a silver platter.
I look in my rearview mirror, catching a glimpse of my bloodshot eyes and my messed up hair. My five o’clock shadow is now a twenty-four hour shadow and I need to get some sleep, and check and see if what I asked for on the phone call last night to a longtime associate was taken care of.
Not only that I need to get home, to be prepared when Camila shows up today…if she shows up. As improbable as that sounds right now, something tells me she will. She’s not the type to quit what she started and neither am I. Being someone who sticks things through is also why I want my woman so damn bad. In this day and age of constant choices and options, often at the tap of a finger on a cell phone, the idea that two people can remain together forever, committed, is a feeling I want to experience. I already know I’m not giving her up, no matter what obstacles or misunderstandings come our way in life, and I’m pretty sure she feels the same way.
Or I’m just delusional from a lack of sleep.
I stop at my associate’s house and he shakes his head, lifts his eyebrows, and exhales hard. “Somehow I managed to finish.”
Taking a look at his work all I can do is thank him, shake his hand, and give him a generous tip before I’m on
my way. I don’t have time for anything else right now. Today is all about keeping what’s mine. Her. And I need to be ready.
Ready for what exactly? I know deep down inside there’s no point in even trying to act like a tough guy about it. I love her, and I have since the moment I laid eyes on her.
Now I need her eyes to see the lengths I’ll go to to make her mine. Forever.
11
Camila
I throw on the single baseball hat I own and leave my front door and the sunlight from the day almost blinds me. I’ve barely slept and I need to be back inside my tiny cave of an apartment, with the blinds drawn, but that’s not the type of girl I am.
I signed a contract that said I was his housekeeper, and I’m going to honor that contract until its expiration. After that is anybody’s guess.
And I can only guess how today is going to shape up.
After a bus ride that seems quicker than normal, probably due to my anxiety, I arrive close to his home, walking the final half a mile to his gate where the same security guy I yelled at yesterday looks at me as if nothing happened. I apologize but he just grunts something and motions with his hand toward the house.
I’m a bit thrown off by his behavior but continue forward anyway. Maybe Carter told him to just act like it didn’t happen, even though I was out of line…kinda.
Moving into the house I see Sandy who also greets me as if everything is completely normal. Now things are feeling surreal.
“You came,” a deep voice cloaks me from behind.
I steel myself before slowly turning on a heel to face him. “I signed a contract to be your housekeeper and I’m here to be exactly that.”
“About that contract,” he says, his clasped hands behind his back come forward to reveal that exact piece of paper, which he tears to shreds. “You’re not my housekeeper anymore. You’re free of those responsibilities.”
I freeze in my tracks. “What does that mean then?” My thoughts rush to what it means to not have a job right now. No money coming in is a death sentence, but Carter seems to have already anticipated all of that.
“I’ll give you a year’s salary, today if you no longer feel comfortable here,” he continues.