Page 56 of The Bodyguard Affair
“You’re okay to be single for the foreseeable future?” she asks, meeting my eyes.
“I don’t know. Guess I planned to work so much, I wouldn’t have time to think about it.”
“Sounds familiar,” she says with a chuckle. “Okay, it’s your turn. What’s your worst trait, aside from being a workaholic?”
“Okay, I don’t know if this counts because I don’t think I do it anymore, but when I was a kid, I had a sleepwalking problem.”
“Sleepwalking problem?”
“Oh yeah. I moved around a lot as a kid, so I’d get confused about where I was. I’d go all around wherever we were living at the time, trying to make food, and make a huge mess. One time at my grandma’s, I heated up water to make mac and cheese and I guess I decided to go back to bed and left the pot boiling on the stove. Another time, I literally left my aunt’s house in the middle of the night in the dead of winter and went into the backyard to make snow angels.”
She barks a laugh. “Sorry. I don’t mean to laugh. That’s actually terrifying and potentially dangerous.”
“It’s okay. You can laugh. It was so bad, I had to wear mittens to bed and sleep in a sleeping bag for a while.”
She tries to bite back a grin, but fails and snorts instead. “Sorry. I’m picturing you all bundled like a gigantic burrito.”
“I basically was.”
“I can see why you don’t do relationships,” she teases. “The sleeping bag and mittens might be a deal-breaker.”
“You don’t think mittens in the bedroom are sexy?” I ask, in a mock serious tone.
She grins, but her expression quickly morphs into something heavier. “Can I ask you something?”
I nod.
“You mentioned a couple times living in a lot of places. Staying with your grandma or your aunt. You don’t have to answer, but I was just curious—”
“No. It’s okay. Um, my mom was in and out of our lives, pretty much from the time I was around four or five.”
I explain how my dad wasn’t in the picture and how Mom’s life revolved around her boyfriends. How one of them convinced her she could become a singer and how she’d use it as an excuse to leave every few months, on this quest to be discovered. It feels easy, telling her this. It makes me wonder why I held off for so long like it’s this big secret.
“So what happened to you guys when she’d leave?”
“Usually it was without notice. I remember a lot of times sitting with Emma on the curb, waiting to be picked up from school, but no one would be there. And then the office having to call all our relatives, asking them to pick us up.” I tell her howwe bounced between family members, none of whom wanted the burden.
She wraps her arms around herself and lowers her head, as though she’s taken on the weight of my story. I feel immediately guilty for dumping all of that on her at once. “Shit…That’s…”
“Heavy? Yup. That’s why things are a bit complicated with my mom. Anyway, I really dampened the mood,” I say as she shakes her head to deny it. “Now you’re obligated to cheer me up with another bad trait.”
She kicks her feet against the ground. “You did not ruin the mood at all. But okay, let me think…I’m too sensitive. Like…I’ll cry at just about anything. If I’m stressed, I’ll probably cry. If I’m mad, I’ll cry.”
“Ah, so you cry easily. How is that a terrible trait?”
“I don’t know. It gets annoying for some people. Like, for example, orangutans are my favorite animal of all time. If I see a video or picture of them, I’ll cry and it’ll ruin the mood.”
“Okay, I need to test this theory.” I whip out my phone and search for orangutans on Google Images. “Does this make you cry?” I show her a photo of a large orangutan with flanges, eating a juicy-looking orange.
The photo draws out an instant beam. “No. Just baby orangutans.”
I show her another. This time, it’s a bunch of babies in a wheelbarrow. She immediately starts to tear up. I lean in to look closer. “Oh my god. You’re actually emotional about it.”
She wipes her watery eyes. God, she’s fucking cute. “See?”
“Shit. I’m sorry for purposely making you cry. That makes me a horrible boyfriend,” I say, forgetting to add the “fake” descriptor in there.
She doesn’t appear to notice. “No. It’s not your fault. I’m ridiculous.”
