Chapter 12
I’m an expert at having only one shot at getting something important.
I fled a war-torn country, and got out with a series of one-in-a-million chances.
One of those shots was actually a one-in-twenty-four-million.
Not to mention Sivishni adopting me and Sofie.
Ending up with Austen would be one in seven billion, so every move I make is crucial.
The moment we start walking to the patio, time slows down.
The thoughts going through my head start with how to win him over, but soon become close to marriage vows.
We are at the start of a beautiful adventure.
We can figure it all out together. I will do everything to make him love me.
I will do everything to deserve his love.
I will never hurt him. I’m his bodyguard now.
I’ll always protect him. I want to lick his chest, his navel, his inner thigh.
Okay, maybe that last one wouldn’t sound good at an altar.
Austen’s clothes are still wet from the shower, but they’re drying quickly in the arid heat. His spirit remains dampened. He drinks a little vodka from my hipflask and sits awkwardly in the peacock-shaped wicker chair. I roll the joint on the coffee table.
“I like your t-shirt,” he says. “As a drummer, I mean. Laibach, right? They’re good.”
I look down. It’s a tight black shirt with a wide square grey cross in the middle of it. Nobody’s ever recognized the symbol before.
“Thanks,” I nod. “They saved my life.”
I put the joint to my lips.
“How did you even get that?” Austen asks.
“You know that British girl Amelia? Sort of blonde and funny?”
“Not really.”
I light the joint and inhale. “Well, she bought some in Melbourne and convinced some of the girlies to put it up their asses to bring it here for New Year’s Eve.”
I pass it to him.
Austen looks at it. “This has been in Amelia’s butthole?”
“Yep,” I laugh. “I would have done it too but she didn’t ask me.”
Austen smokes it and looks at me looking at him. I just noticed his medical bracelet and weird plastic dongle.
“You clearly want to ask me something,” he says after handing the joint back.
“What is that?” I grab his wrist and read it. “You have hypoglycemia and epilepsy?”
“That’s what it says,” he looks away.
Austen does not have epilepsy, and definitely not hypoglycemia. Hmm.
“Can I ask another question?”
“Sure,” he says.
“Favorite food?”
He lights up. “Anything Italian.”
“Favorite book, movie, band?”
He squints his eyes. “I read a lot, so my favorite book is a hard one.” He thinks about it. “There are too many books, but my favorite Russian novel is Doctor Zhivago.”
“What a hopeless romantic.”
He smiles. “Runner up is Master and Margarita, my favorite film is Withnail and I, and I have at least ten favorite bands. My favorite play is Under Milk Wood, by the way.”
“You want to know mine?”
“I really don’t care, don’t want to get to know you, or anything about you, but I’d wager The Art of War, The Matrix, and... Laibach?”
I chuckle. “You think I’m so obvious. You got Laibach right, but it’s The Leopard and Queen Margot.”
“Shit; my brother’s is Queen Margot too, film and book, but his other favorite is the Gadfly.”
“I’m shocked he reads books. Especially those ones.”
“I don’t know if you like plays.”
“I’m training to become a ballet étoile, so I guess it could be the ballet of Romeo and Juliet.”
“Ballet? Really?”
“Yeah, my birth mother was a ballerina. My adoptive sister is going pro and I’ve been her dance partner for every style since I was young. I’m really good, I kind of like it, and she wants me to join her. She usually gets what she wants.”
“What do you want?”
“What do I want?” I think about it. “I just want to spend the rest of my life with you.”
Austen scoffs. “That’s an unpaid kind of gig.”
The New Year’s Eve revelry has started. He takes another toke and we listen to the night sounds coming in from outside.
“About earlier,” I say, and hear him huff. “I’m sorry, but I have to ask; it’s not just fights, is it? William doesn’t like people touching you at all, does he?”
“He does not.”
“Would he react badly if I touched you in front of him?”
“It depends, but maybe. The bodyguards are not here for his protection, they’re here for yours.
And I don’t like being touched either, and he hates seeing me agitated.
It doesn’t always happen, and it never used to, but it’s been happening more often lately, especially when we’re tired or stressed.
I seem to be at my worst around very tall men too, ironically.
It flared up when we moved away from our foster-parents last year.
It was a real shock to realize that we were in a negative spiral because of each other.
I’ve been getting worse, so he’s getting worse too.
I can’t fix it, and I’ve sort of given up trying to. ”
“Foster-parents? What about your real parents?”
He shakes his head. “They aren’t around. They kinda... lost custody.”
“But they’re rich?”
“And they’re unfit too.”
“How long?”
“Eleven was the last time I saw my father.”
“Damn. Me too. That’s crazy.”
“But we love our foster parents.”
“Do you still have money?” I ask.
“Some,” he shrugs. “Our grandma left us enough to get by, but it wasn’t easy to access.
Getting cash injections always meant coming out into the open.
We wanted to stay hidden, so we got jobs mopping floors at restaurants and working on vineyards and stuff.
Our dad’s child support stopped two years ago.
As long as we had food and shelter we didn’t worry. ”
“And Will’s been in a firefight?”
“I said I wasn’t going to talk about it.”
“Well, if you ever want to...”
“Nope.”
“Okay.”
“I want to trust you,” he says, running his fingers through his hair. “But the wise thing to do is probably beat your head in with a crowbar and burn your body in the desert.”
“Jesus,” I say. “You’d sooner kill me than take a walk on the wild side?”
“It’s nothing personal. My mother said stalking is murder in slow motion. That’s why she killed her stalker.”
“I’m not a stalker,” I insist. “People fall over themselves to be with me. I’m honestly surprised my charms aren’t working on you, I don’t see why that’s a death sentence.”
Austen shrugs. “For one, I’m taken, also I don’t like being touched, I don’t like sudden movements, and I don’t like yelling, and I can’t upset Billy for obvious reasons.”
I roll my eyes, “Oh yeah, taken. We are still running with that lie?”
“I need you to understand this Mischa; you cannot get attached to me. You will get hurt.”
“Too late. I knew I loved you the moment I met you, maybe before.”
Austen casts a look that is hard to interpret.
“Mischa, I don’t want to hurt you. It’s not a lie that I am taken, but it is complicated, and you know if we ever had anything, you know, physical, that would be all it was.
It could never be anything more, you know?
It’d be wiser if we didn’t. If we did, you won’t get to have me for more than a week or two, and the end would be very abrupt, very painful, and very final.
You’ll need to get over this sooner or later, the easy way or the hard way. ”
“Noted. I’ll take whatever scraps you want to give me. You want to ask me anything?”
“Why did you ask me who I was, when you already knew William?”
“Because I had never seen you before and didn’t know who you were.”
“But you’d seen William before?”
“Of course, but you two are nothing alike.”
The ugly sounds of fighting and banging from the street below interrupt our conversation. We watch over the scene. Two staggering groups of drunk men start a scuffle.
“This town is bad,” I say.
“Dystopian,” Austen agrees.
The rabble moves off down the road and a man starts harassing a woman at the crosswalk. He has a beard and a biker jacket and I’m pretty sure he attacked us and I gave him his black eye at the bar earlier.
“Didn’t he steal the wallet?” Austen asks.
“Yeah,” I agree.
Then he lunges to grab the woman and she shrieks.
“Hey!” Austen barks at the man below. “Back off her.”
“Mind your own fucking business!” he yells back.
The woman, now free from his grip, runs off down the road.
I pick up a stone from the planter and present it to Austen.
“Do you think I can hit him?” I ask.
“No,” he shakes his head. “We can’t get away with anything tonight, remember?”
The man is still standing in the middle of the street, staring up at us.
“Aren’t you the fuckers from this afternoon?” he asks.
“Huh?” Mischa shrugs. “Not us!”
“Yeah ya are, ya stupid fucken wogs.”
I look at Austen. “What the hell does that mean?”
“I think it’s a rude name for Italians,” he says.
“Italian? Okay, I am offended.”
I hurl the pebble and hit him in his already black eye and he recoils. Austen gasps, drops out of sight below the railing, and then doubles over with laughter.
“We’re gonna fucking get ya!” the man screams.
He limps off, holding his eye.
Austen and I are both breathless laughter, until he catches his breath and says, “I’m really hungry.”
“You have the munchies,” I tell him. “Let’s get refreshments.”
???
Austen gets one of everything from the vending machine on the next floor.
His red eyes stare intently to concentrate on purchasing it all correctly.
He puts the money in for the first item, a candy bar, and watches it fall to the bottom.
Then he buys the next and watches the wire turning to push it out, then the next, and the next, and the next.
Soon the bottom of the machine is full of snacks and I’m howling with laughter.
He realizes he’s being ridiculous and laughs too.
He reaches down and grabs two packets of potato chips for us to eat in the stairwell nearby.
I watch him savor the first bite and lick the salt off his lips.
His glazed eyes turn to me. “Are you watching me eat?”
I laugh. “Maybe.”