Josiah
(After leaving Camille with Charlie)
"Stay here and wait for Charlie okay? We'll talk when my meeting is actually over alright?" I tell her. I don't wait for her reply as Charlie walks in and I walk out. I enter the secret hallway that leads back to my office and open the door and come face to face with Lancing.
"Where's the girl?" He asks immediately. "What girl?"
He scoffs, "Don't act stupid now, where is she?"
"I haven't seen her since the galleria. What do you want with her anyway? She's just an escort." He frowns, "You and I both know that's not true. She interests me, and now I know you have an interest in her too."
"Why would you say that? I have no care for the girl." He shakes his head and pulls out a picture, "Then what is this?"
It's a picture of Camille and I kissing, I give him the photo back showing no emotion. "You're really good at photoshopping."
He chuckles, "And you hired her bodyguards. Who is she to you? A new girlfriend?"
"Lancing I'm tired of answering the same questions, she is not my girlfriend and I don't care about her."
"Then let me have her." I shrug, "Fine, she's in my back room." He frowns, "And where exactly would that be?"
I snap my finger and Toby enters the room, "Escort Lancing and his men to the back room." Lancing shakes his head, "I want you to lead us there."
"Fine then." I stand up and lead them to the room, before I go I give Toby a look and he immediately knows what to do. He stays in the room as we walk out, I lead Lancing to a random room. "Don't be surprised if she's not in there, she does hate me after all."
He scoffs and turns the door knob, when he opens it it's filled with a room full of my men with guns pointed at him. "Now get out of my building." I tell him before proceeding to walk off. Suddenly I feel a gun behind my head and I begin to chuckle, "Go ahead shoot me."
A shot goes off and the man with his gun to my head falls to the floor. Bullets begin to fly everywhere and I get myself out of the commotion untouched. I get into my car and pull out my phone, "Where'd you take her?" I ask Charlie.
"Safe house #3, but we're having some difficulty getting there." He says, I hear gunshots in the background. "Shit how'd they find you?"
"I don't know they've been chasing us for like 30 minutes now. I think they're Lancing's men."
I groan, "Tell me what freeway you're on, I'll take the girl, you lead them on."
"Yes sir, we're on Aberdeen."
"Okay good, when I get on the freeway I want you to get far ahead of them and that's where we'll make the switch got it?"
"Yes sir." I hang up and speed down the street onto the abandoned highway taking a short cut so I was ahead of them. I notice Charlie zooming up towards me and I open the car door, "I am not jumping out of a moving car into another moving car!" Camille exclaims. "Hurry the fuck up before they catch up."
She looks terrified but she reaches a foot over to my car with one still on Charlie's. Her other leg quickly moves over and she gets into the car. I shut the door quickly and he speed down the highway. Camille grips onto the side of the seats for dear life as I race down the street.
When we're finally ahead I slow down a bit and drive us to the safe house. "Is Charlie going to be okay?" She asks quietly.
"Probably." She doesn't say anything as we drive, I think she's still freaked out by this little episode. We arrive at the safe house about an hour later. I park the car in the garage and we enter the house. Camille still says nothing as we enter the house. I leave her in the living room to make a phone call, "The girl is with me, the two of you watch over her roommates." I tell the bodyguards over the phone.
I turn back to Camille and she's just sitting on the couch staring at the ground. "Call your friends, you're going to be here for a bit."
She nods her head and pulls out her phone to make some phone calls. I take off my suit jacket and loosen my tie. The house was small, one bedroom, one bathroom, a kitchen and a living room. Because that's all I usually needed, but now I have company.
Camille walks back into the room still quiet. "Why aren't you saying anything?" I ask getting irritated by the silence. She frowns, "What do you want me to say?"
"I don't know, just stop with the silence it's freaking me out." She raises an eyebrow, "Freaking you out? Freaking you out?! I was just in a high speed chase with some wackos shooting at me!"
I shrug, "I told you to go home, it's your fault for never fucking listening."
"Enough with the freaking blaming game, how long do I have to stay here now?" She asks.
"Hopefully not too long."
She takes a seat on the couch and pouts, "I'm hungry."
I groan, "Then get some food from the fridge." She gives me an irritated look before walking toward the small kitchen. She comes back with a bowl of cereal in her hand.
I decide to enter the kitchen myself to grab some food. I sigh when I notice there isn't much to eat, I hadn't used this place in months.
When I came back from the kitchen, Camille was watching tv. I took a seat on the couch near her and watched as well. It was kind of awkward, until Camille spoke up. "What if that guy goes back to my apartment to look for me and attacks my friends?"
"Your friends are being protected."
"Wow so you protect my friends without me even asking but when I ask you to help protect me you say no?"
I sigh, "I'm protecting you now aren't I?"
"We wouldn't have to be here if you would've just helped me the first time I asked." She says calmly.
"I did okay? I had people watching over you I just didn't want you knowing." She mocks a surprised expression, "No really?"
I frown, "If you knew why'd you keep coming to me?"
"I didn't know, I just found out today."
"How?" She shrugs, "I just put the pieces together, random men don't just move in next to you completely strapped with weapons and come rescue you the moment you're attacked."
"Well they're protecting your friends now." She nods, "Thank you."
I ignore her and continue watching tv. "You never answered my question."
"What question?" I ask. "Do you run a mafia?"
"Do I look Italian to you?" She shrugs, "There's Mexican mafias too."
"Do I look Mexican?" She shrugs again, "You could be."
"I don't run a mafia, I advise you don't ask too many questions about what I do before you get even more involved then you already are."
"But I'm already pretty involved."
"Yeah and you shouldn't be. Stop asking questions."
"Stop answering them."
"I will."
"Good."
"Good."
We sit there in silence just watching tv again, I wasn't really watching and I don't think she was either. I was lost in my own thoughts and I'm pretty sure she was too. She wasn't even staring in the direction of the tv. I watched her stare at nothing, completely absorbed in her own thoughts.
"What are you staring at?" She asks. "You obviously."
"Yeah but why?"
"Because you're so annoying." She frowns at me. "Where's the bedroom, I'm tired." I point down the hallway and she walks toward it. She come back out a moment later, "But there's only one bedroom, where will you sleep?"
"The couch, unless you're too scared to sleep alone and need a buddy." I tease. She flips me off, "Good night."
"Night."
-
The next morning I woke up earlier than Camille. She slept for two hours after I had woken up. She walked into the kitchen around 11 am in a big t-shirt and a huge bun on her head while rubbing her eyes like a little kid. "You look like crap." She looked gorgeous.
"Good morning to you too ass wipe."
"It's barely morning." She frowns, "Can't you just say good morning? Why are you so mean?"
"Why should I be nice?"
She shrugs, "I don't know, it's better than being the dick head you are."
"That's an opinion. I enjoy being a dick head." She quirks an eyebrow, "Oh really? Are you a dick head to everyone? Or am I special?"
"There's nothing special about you." I say coldly. She ignores me, "So does that mean you don't have any friends?"
"I don't need friends." She gasps, "Of course you need friends. That's so sad. Do you have any family?"
"My family is dead."
She frowns, "So you have no one?" I shrug. "We could be friends if you'd just stop being a dick head."
I scoff, "You are the last person I'd want as a friend."
"Well shit fine then, fuck you too."
I ignore her and continue making breakfast. "What are you making?" She asks again coming up from behind me. I let out an irritated sigh and continue cooking. She pops up again on the other side, "Do you need help?"
"No."
She pouts, "I'm trying to be nice here."
"Well don't." She frowns, "Well then fine." She walks out of the room angrily and I sigh. I hate how that girl makes me feel, the fact that she makes me feel anything at all makes me even angrier. I don't want to make her feel bad but at the same time I can't get too close to her, it'd be bad for the both of us. I mean look at the situation we're in right now.
She walks back into the room with a frown on her face and she avoids eye contact with me. I hand her a plate and she mumbles a thank you before beginning to eat. She didn't talk the whole meal, and usually that's what I want. But I kind of wanted to hear her talk, I let out a frustrated sigh and look at her. "I'm sorry okay?"
She looks up, "What?"
"I said I'm fucking sorry." I grumbled.
"Wow you're great at apologizing." She says with an eye roll.
"I said I was sorry okay? Just stop being so quiet."
"You know, you're really weird."
"Why do you say that?" I ask.
"You're like always telling me to shut up and when I don't talk you get mad at me."
"Because you're always talking, and when you don't talk I feel like something's wrong with you." She twirls the piece of pancake on her fork into a puddle of syrup on her plate. "Nothings wrong with me, I just don't feel like talking."
"And why not?"
She looks up at me and scoffs, "Every time I say something you shoot me down so I'm kind of tired of talking."
I begin to feel a bit bad about always pushing her away, but it had to be that way. "Oh." Is all I say before continuing to eat. We both don't talk till our meal is over. She's at the sink washing dishes and I walk over and put my plate in from behind her, startling her a bit. It was like she looked cute doing everything, she was very small compared to me, probably only stood around 5'3.
They way her bun bounced as she scrubbed the dishes, the way she had too struggle to put the dishes on the top shelf, I found myself just watching her for a full three minutes. I snapped myself out of it and cleared the dining table. I brought some more plates and put them in the sink again. She looks up at me to glare at me. I give her a small smirk and she splashes me with water as I walk away.
I turn around to face her to see her smiling mischievously at me. "You shouldn't have done that." I say in a serious tone. Her facial expression changes slightly and she looks scared. I walk slowly toward her and she doesn't take the chance, she runs in the opposite direction and I chase behind her. She runs into the bedroom and before she can shut the door behind her a push it open.
"Hey it was a joke, I was kidding." She chuckles nervously as she backs away from me. She actually looks scared, I shake my head at her. "My shirt is wet Camille. That's no joke."
"You could always just change it right?"
I shake my head again, "I really liked this shirt."
"You could just take it off and put it in the dryer." She suggests. "Good idea." I take off the shirt and toss it across the room. "Much better."
Her eyes widen as she finally hits the edge of the bed and sits on it. "Josiah what are you doing?" I bend down to her at eye level, staring at each other face to face. "I don't know." We just keep staring at each other, her eyes flicker down to my lips and mine to hers occasionally. She finally goes right in for it and kisses me. My hands immediately go to her face, bringing us closer. She still tasted of maple syrup as she softly moaned into the kiss. My hands move down to her thighs, I pull her toward me and lay her on the bed.
She wraps her legs around my waist and tousles my hair. The whole time we were kissing I wasn't thinking. The only thing I was focused on was her sweet scent, soft skin, and how she tasted of maple syrup. I wasn't thinking about how this could ruin absolutely everything, and how it could get her attached to me. Or worse me attached to her.
I finally snapped out of it and came back to me senses. I quickly pulled away and sat up. "Stop kissing me!"
She sits up as well, "You kissed me the first time!"
"Yeah but you kissed me this time!" I exclaim back. She frowns, "You seduced me this time!"
I scoff, "How?"
"Hello? You were all like, 'my shirt is wet so I have to take it off and do laundry lalalala." She says in a mimicking deep voice. "Do you hear yourself?" I ask.
She frowns, "This is not my fault!"
"But you kissed me!"
She points at me angrily, "You made me do it!"
"You make no sense." I say before walking out of the room. I hear her say something before following me, "Oh no you don't. You are not just going to run off again like last time."
"Last time never happened." I say calmly.
"It did, and I want to know why."
I turn around and face her, "Because you make me so fucking mad!"
She quirks an eyebrow, "So you just kiss people that make you mad or just me?"
"I told you you're not special."
"I never said I was asshole! You know what? Never mind." I could tell she was fed up with me but I didn't care. As she attempted to storm away from me I grabbed her wrist and pulled her toward me again, bring my lips to hers. She didn't fight me off, she just went with it. I kissed her aggressively and she kissed me the same way back.
I groaned and pulled her up by her legs, wrapping them around my waist and leading her back to the bedroom. At that very moment I knew I fucked up.