Chapter 13: 11

Sixty minutes later I floated out of the room.

My feet were those of a graceful Geisha, gliding across the floor.

My arms were like a ballerina, thin, and wispy and delicate.

My hair was in a L’Oreal, commercial blowing rhythmically in the sea breeze.

I was as light as a feather, as soft as silk and as warm and content as a baby wrapped in its mother’s arms.

I was in such a massage-induced daze that I barely noticed T squared (Trev and Tess) as I waltzed out of the Spa, gliding on the breath of a newborn baby.

I got to the room in a state of warm liquidity and melted into the bed. I’m not sure if I even spoke to Chris, or acknowledged his existence. I closed my eyes happily and then everything went black.

***

When I finally woke up, the sky was full of the tell tale signs of dusk. The temperature was cooler and the sky was tinged with a mauve that seemed to melt into pale yellow. I must have slept the entire day away. I jumped out of the bed- my body parts were back to being my own- and I felt energized.

I could hear a frantic ‘tick, tick, tick, ticking’ coming from downstairs and I immediately went to investigate. I’d almost forgotten that Chris and I were now roomies, because when I saw him, my brain took a moment to compute.

He was seated at a table, three big, empty coffee cups in front of him, and wearing a large pair of reading glasses. His laptop was open, his Ipad was lit up like a Christmas tree and he was typing faster than I’d ever seen anyone type before.

I watched him silently; he was chuckling to himself from time to time, every now and again he would pause for a moment or two, before whispering something to himself. He was doing a lot of nodding and it looked like his whole body was involved in the process of writing. He was so wrapped up in his own world, that it felt like a sin to break it.

But as my foot reached the bottom stair and it creaked, he turned around. The bubble was burst. He looked up at me with a kind of manic intensity and  immediately shut his laptop.

“I see you got inspired?” I said indicating the now closed computer.

He looked at me for a moment or two and then his face did something strange, it scrunched up into a look that can only be described as sheepish. For a second he looked shy, he was probably one of these creative types that got bashful about his work.

“Yes, I got inspired.” His tone was dismissive.

“So what do you want to do now… fiancé?” I said playfully, as I collapsed into the most ludicrously comfortable couch my derrière had ever had the pleasure of sitting on.

Chris joined me in the lounge, “Personally’ he said, “I could quite happily get room service and watch movies tonight.”

Room service and movies? It sounded so pedestrian, so not tropical- island paradise- holiday. Like dry toast and bland, milky tea. I could do that any day of the week. But the more I sat there and felt the undeniable tug of the couches gravity, and the further I sunk into it- the more the idea started to appeal to me.

“I guess we could eat dinner on the roof and look out over the sea.” I added, more to quell the slight twinge of guilt I was feeling towards the terribly unimaginative idea of movies and a couch while on an exotic holiday.

“We could do that.” Chris said reaching for the room service menu.

The view from the roof was spectacular. By the time we were up there with our food, the sun was already setting. Shafts of light from the setting sun, which was now nestled behind large clouds, cut through the sky like those beams you find outside nightclubs. The sea had changed to a pale violet color, it was as if the two colors- amber and blue- had mixed to create the iridescent color that was now rippling across the surface of the water. The palms and trees were tinged with a soft orange and one small, faint star was pocking its way into the sky.

We both sat at the table in silent appreciation.

“That’s a pretty crappy view.” Funny man Chris never let an opportunity for sarcasm and razor sharp wit pass him by. “Disguising in fact.” He added with a repulsed cringe.

And again I found myself laughing. The way he seemed to find the funny side to everything was refreshing.  It was interesting, and entertaining and unique and he was just so-

I stopped laughing and found myself staring at him, thinking about all the wonderful things that he was. He met my look, and my stomach instantly tightened. We looked at each other, with something other than just, “a look”. There was nothing friendly, casual or mundane about this look.

No, there was definitely something very “other” about it.

I had enough self-awareness to know that I found him attractive, but I found lots of guys attractive and I didn’t get a boot in the stomach feeling when I looked at them.

I cleared my throat.

Why is the solution for putting an end to an awkward situation always the clearing of ones throat? When do you ever clear your throat in real life, other than when you’re trying to diffuse an uncomfortable moment?

The moment looked like it had gotten uncomfortable for him too, because his hands were doing that thing again, unnecessarily moving through his hair, and letting it fall back in his face.

“So perhaps we should get to know each other a bit now that we’re engaged and all?” He said putting his feet up on the chair in front of him.  I could see he was trying to act cool and casual again. It was only half working.

“Okay. I suppose we should. Lets play a game of twenty questions then. I’ll go first.”

“Oh God NO.” Chris slapped his hand on the table, “Please, that’s so Cosmopolitan, ‘How to know your boyfriend better, is your boyfriend a moron or a keeper, is he willing to let you pick out his clothes and does he love his mother more than you”

“You sound like you read the Cosmo.”

Chris flinched a little in his chair.

“Oh My God you read the Cosmo!”

“I have to read it for my job, okay! I need to understand the truly un-understandable complexities of the female psyche okay!”

I burst out laughing, “You read the Cosmo!”

Chris smiled with such coyness, that I almost felt compelled to jump across the table and hug him.

“Okay fine… twenty questions it is!” He folded his arms in mock defeat.

I sat back in my chair for a moment and contemplated the questions I might ask him.  There were a million things I wanted to know about him. I decided to start with the fundamentals first…

“Where do you live?”

“LA”

“Where did you grow up?”

“LA”

“Brothers? Sisters?”

“Two.”

“Favorite color?”

“Mmmm, blue”

“Favorite Food?”

“Pizza”

“Favorite car?”

“Porsche.”

“Do you have one?”

“Two.”

“Are you rich?”

“I do okay.”

“Hobbies?”

“Watching movies.”

“Favorite Movie of all time.”

“Too many to chose from.”

“Favorite holiday spot?”

“Mexico”

“Tattoos or piecing’s?”

“No.”

“Facebook or Twitter.”

“Neither. Social media repulses me.’

“Um…?” I was running out of questions, “Okay, describe yourself in five words.”

He flashed that mischievous smile again. “Funny. Devilishly good -looking. Sexy as hell and-“

“That’s more than five words.”

We looked at each other for a few amused seconds before both laughing again.

“Okay I have one more,” I said, “How did you become a comedy guy?”  As soon as I’d asked the question though something changed. His mood became slightly more serious, it shocked me. I hadn’t expected the question to illicit this kind of response.

“Honestly…?” He said leaning forward and looking directly at me.

"Yes honestly."

“Okay, honestly… when I was at school I was the fat nerdy kid-“

“No.” I gasped looking him up and down. There was no way this guy had been fat a day in his life.

“I’m serious. I was this big, fat nerdy kid with glasses and braces and the only way I could deal with the teasing, or get people to like me, was to become funny. So I became the funny guy. The funny fat guy.”

“Wow!” I didn’t really know what to say. I felt my heart break a bit, imagining that little kid getting teased on the playground. Over the years I’d been called ginger a few times, but that was nothing compared to this.

“But now you’re thin and good-looking and successful” I offered enthusiastically.

“Yes, and it’s funny how all the girls only liked me then.”

Something flickered in my mind, a little thought at first that started forming itself into a full-blown realization about Chris and this non-belief in love. Of course he didn’t believe in real love, if he’d only experienced it as being conditional; more specifically, conditional to how he looked.

“So that’s me and my traumatic story Annie Anne. Tell me about you.”

But before I could open my mouth to reciprocate, I heard a strange rustling sound in the palm trees next to us. There were huge palm trees just past the balcony and through some of the tiny cracks, you could just make out another roof of the suit next to us. The palm trees were huge though, so they did an excellent job of separating the two rooms, and giving privacy.

We turned to investigate the source of the sound as a little hand appeared.

I jumped.

What the hell was a hand doing all the way up there in the palm tree?

And then another hand appeared, and the two hands pushed the palm fronds apart to reveal a face.

It was Trev.

And he was beaming at us.

“Howdy neighbors!” He called out in a terrible cheesy attempt at an American wild west accent.

Chris and I exchanged shocked looks.

There seemed to be no way of shaking the TSquared scourge. They were like an irritating rash that wouldn’t go away. That itch that was impossible to scratch. Or that big, painful pimple in the place you couldn’t reach to pop. And God I wished I could pop his little head right now.

Trev had obviously gone to a lot of trouble to get this room. He must have requested the other presidential suit, just to be next to us.

But why?

To get one up on us again?

Was he really so egotistical that he couldn’t bare the idea that our room was bigger and better than his? (Swinging his dick in the wind again)

“Heya guys,” Then Tess’ face appeared, sandwiched between a big green palm leaf that looked like it was poking her in the eye, and Trev.

They looked  absurd.

Two little heads completely surrounded by green foliage.

Looking at us.

Blinking and smiling.