Page 15 of Heart Strings

Chapter Seven

Abigail

“Uh…Al?”

He shifted the handle of my rolling suitcase to his other hand to avoid a large family and all their luggage, briefly holding both the handle and my other heavy bag in the same hand like they were completely empty. “Yeah?”

“Didn’t you say that you lived with your girlfriend?” I asked, wondering how it was possible I hadn’t thought of this before now.

“Yep.”

“So, am I staying in a hotel?” He couldn’t actually expect me to stay in the same house with a girl who was apparently so clingy he couldn’t break up with her. No one could possibly expect that.

“Nope.”

And how was he walking so fast even with so much to carry? I could barely keep up with Al’s long, confident strides as he parted the press of people navigating the airport, and I only had a backpack. “So then, where am I staying?”

“Don’t worry,” he said soothingly as he paused for one of those golf cart sort of things that drive inside on the large open halls between the gates. “I told you I would handle everything but packing, remember?”

Oh, I remembered, but the memory didn’t exactly comfort me. Surprises could be nice, but I didn’t understand why where I was staying needed to be a surprise. But Al wasn’t talking, and I needed my breath to keep up with him, so I guessed I would just have to let my living situation remain a mystery for the moment.

I didn’t have to wait long. It felt like we had just loaded my luggage into Al’s car, and now we were pulling into the parking garage of one of the many high rises lining the lamp-lit streets.

So far, Miami felt a lot like downtown New Orleans - looming skyscrapers, bustling pedestrians, and city traffic. But it was dark, and we had driven through the midst of the city. And I couldn’t get an idea of what was beyond the buildings just around me.

“We’re here,” Al told me, grinning cheerfully.

“Great! Where’s here?”

But Al didn’t seem inclined to give up the game just yet. He took my suitcase and bag again and led the way to an elevator. The elevator took us up, up and then up some more while I watched the floor number above the door increase quickly. This had to be a hotel. Where else would there be so many floors?

The elevator stopped and opened into a spacious hallway lined with doors. Alright, not a hotel. An apartment building?

Only when I stepped through the door that Al unlocked and held open for me did I realize what this place was. “A condo?” Thoroughly confused and a little shocked, I dropped my backpack on the polished marble floors and confronted Al. “You did not get a condo for me.”

“You’re right, I didn’t.” My shoulders relaxed with relief. “Actually, I got this for Sierra a few months ago.” Al added my discarded backpack to his leg-buckling load and carried it all through an open bedroom door to the right. “She was getting tired of traveling, and she never liked my house, and she wanted me to get us a condo on the beach. I did, but then I realized I could never live with her and never told her about it.”

I tried to imagine having the money to buy a condo but never living in it. Al could always just sell it again…I guessed. Some things about Al’s lifestyle I would probably never understand.

“Are you hungry?”

I crossed my arms for something to do with them. “Yeah, actually. I kind of skipped lunch.”

“That excited to see me, huh?” He overrode my open-mouthed protest. “Don’t worry. We’ll figure something out. I don’t really have any food here, I’ll have to take you shopping tomorrow. That leaves two options. Eat out or order in. You can choose.”

“Hm….” I sat down on a plush beige couch cushion, the soft, forgiving fabric massaging away the usual discomfort of flying. “Maybe…” The couch was doing something else, too. It held me in a warm embrace, reminding me that except for the not-so-relaxing plane ride, I had hardly sat down to rest at all today. There had been practicing to do, packing to finish, last-minute schoolwork to take care of… I hadn’t taken a moment for myself. “Actually, can we order something? I’ve been running around and getting ready for this trip all day, and I kind of don’t feel like going to a restaurant.”

“Wise choice. What kind of food sounds good?”

Poring over his phone together, we decided on a Chinese place that was so close by the delivery person could probably just walk over here much faster than they could drive. As a typical money-saving college student, I would have been satisfied with one of the five options that had special dinner pricing, but Al told me to order whatever I wanted…so I went with the pricier honey walnut shrimp, chow mein and spring rolls combo.

Al ordered something that had none of those three foods. “So we can mix and match,” he explained. “That’s half the fun of eating Chinese.”

I agreed wholeheartedly, I just hadn’t wanted to be the one to suggest we share our meals. If you thought about it, sharing food was kind of a milestone in any relationship; platonic or romantic.

I snuck a glance at Al while he was staring at the menu on his phone and making the call to the restaurant. Speaking of platonic or romantic…

The food arrived after twenty minutes or so, and Al brought two plates to the living room. We laid out everything on the coffee table, slipped forks and spoons into all of the cardboard boxes, and helped ourselves to a little bit of everything, enthusiastically recommending things to each other when we tried them first and laughing when we tried to grab the chow mein fork at the same time.

---