fantasty kiss, raj say hello [bill gates best books .TXT] 📗

hand from my thigh and placed it back on the wheel. When I found a station that played classical music, I stopped and rested back into my seat.
“You like classical music?” He asked a bit surprised.
“Yeah, it calms me down.” I shrugged, knowing he couldn’t see me. “It helps me to clear my mind.”
“What are you trying to clear?” He sounded truly concerned.
“You know the usual.”
He didn’t say anything for a long while after that and I tried my best not to let the soothing music lull me to sleep.
“Layla, love, wake up we’re here,” Devin said nudging me.
“I swear, I only meant to close my eyes for a minute.” I mumbled, groaning a bit.
“I know. You said that before you nodded off.”
As I rubbed the sleep from my eyes, I noticed that we were still driving on a road surrounded by trees. There was no house in sight as we drove around curve after curve then finally, after about the fifth curve, a large cabin type home came into view.
There seemed to be maybe two or three floors with large bay windows on the front of the home. I leaned forward in my seat, jaw hanging agape, and mumbled a whoa.
“Nice right?” He asked pulling up in front of the large log cabin.
“Where are we?”
“Salina, Kansas. Birthplace of Robert Simmons and Caitlyn Marie Brewer. My parents.”
“You were born here?” I asked exiting the car with him.
He shook his head while he went to go retrieve our bags from the trunk. “No, I was born in Colorado but my parents raised me here. Well, not in this house, this is just where we’d vacation.”
I nodded.
He led me inside the house and the interior was just as gorgeous as the outside. Oak flooring led from the front door to an even larger room, though it wasn’t a living room. It was more of stopping place for people to look at the artwork and family portraits on the walls. I recognized some of the work as Devin’s just by the abnormal brushstrokes.
Some of the family pictures were large and sophisticated, meaning the people in them looked strong and sophisticated. There was a older man in a black striped suit with a round face and a belly to match. His short hair was going grey around the edges of his face and bald at very top. The woman at his side wore an elegant red dress that matched her husband’s plain tie, accentuating her very slender and frail form. Her body looked sick compared to her face and long blondish brown hair, which made her look very young. He hand rested upon the shoulder of a young girl, maybe a year or two older than me, who’s arched eyebrows and supple scowl made me think she wasn’t too pleased with the red and green paisley dress she was wearing. She was a splitting image of the woman behind her, blond hair darker by a few shades, fewer worry lines above her brows and a perkier nose rested above naturally rosy lips. The man standing next to her resembled Devin very closely but seemed to be much older with shorter dusty brown hair. Even the half smile resembled the one Devin had been giving me lately. But I knew that wasn’t him. The last person in the picture was Devin. He wore no smile at all, with tense shoulders, and crossed arms. He, just like the man standing next to him, wore matching black suits with green ties.
“These are your siblings?” I asked after he came back into the room. I hadn’t noticed where he had gone with our bags while I studied the different pictures on the walls. The walls in this room, too, were oak or of some type of wood. “I thought you were an only child?”
“Yeah, that’s what I normally tell people.” When I gave him a shocked and confused look he went on to explain. “I don’t need people’s sympathy, Layla. Especially in my line of business. I wanted people to like my work because I was talented not because they heard most of my family died of stokes.”
“I don’t think they would have done that,” I told him taking hold of his hand. “Your work is beautiful, abnormal. I think they would have bought it for those reasons alone.”
“Yes, if only that were true.” He mumbled.
I wandered what that meant but before I could ask, he was taking me into his arms.
“You like the house? It’s been in the family for decades, but it has been update to code and for luxury. We can have the house setting on fire now can we?”
I shook my head a bit distracted at both out closeness and my suddenly full bladder. Knowing my bladder would win out eventually I asked him where the restroom was.
“Again? Do you realize we had to stop five time so you could…”
Seeing the stern, questioning look on my face made his words slow.
“All I’m saying is, that’s a lot of pee for someone…okay, um, there’s one right down that hall. It’s on the left.”
“Thank you,” I said placing a quick kiss on his lips. “And to be honest, you’re the one who got me the soda on the way up here, knowing that it was like a three to four hour trip.”
I heard him mumble something as I walked off but I couldn’t make it out.
When I finished in the bathroom, Devin wasn’t standing in the parlor anymore, but sat in a lavish living room.
“Waiting on me?” I asked leaning against the wall.
“Actually yes, I am. Are you hungry?”
It was around eight thirty at night but since I had told my father I’d eat at Marina’s before we left for the three day writers conference in Pierce City, Missouri I was definitely ready for dinner.
“Yeah, I could eat.” I shrugged. “What did you have in mind?”
“It’s your birthday weekend so it’s whatever you want.” He came to stand in front of me.
“How about we order pizza?” I asked fidgeting with the tattered sleeves of my pullover. “That way you can explain to me more about why you don’t want people to know about your family.”
He sighed but I remembered him telling me a few days ago that he would explain what had been going on with him. And I had a feeling that this was it.
“Alight, if that’s what you want.”
“That’s what you promised.” I smiled meekly.
He nodded. “I did promise didn’t I?”
Now I nodded.
“Alright, okay. I will…order the pizza and then we can talk. In the mean time, why don’t you go get comfortable.”
When he pulled his keys from his pocket I asked where he was going, which caused him to smile. “None of the pizza places around here deliver out here. They can never find it. I’ll have to go get it.”
“Oh, can…I come with? I sort of watched this movie last night and it freaked me out. I don’t want to be in this big house alone.”
“No one comes up here, love. It’s a private estate.”
I nodded not really liking it. “Is there cable?”
“There should be, but it may not be on until tomorrow.”
“Internet?”
“Connected with the cable. Sorry, you can check but I doubt either will be on.”
My face must have shown that I wasn’t too happy about that because he went on to explain. “Well, to be honest I didn’t think we’d be doing a lot of watching television. Not because of that. I just figured we’d be talking for most of the weekend or out in public doing…well, anything.”
I thought about it for a moment and figured that that made sense. We hadn’t been really going anywhere back home because we couldn’t be seen out in public, but here…
“Okay.” I smiled. “That sounds good to me.”
He then kissed me once more before he headed out the door.
As soon as he left, I dashed to find my bag. I’d packed my new iPod and since there probably wouldn’t be any television until tomorrow I really needed some background noise so I wouldn’t freak myself out.
I wasn’t sure how long Devin was gone but after about an album and a half of rock music he came sneaking in and interrupting my wild dancing and singing session.
“I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself.” He smiled.
My grin matched his after I realized it was him and not a mass murderer. The smell of pizza filled my nose but I wasn’t sure what kind. I didn’t remember telling him what kind I wanted, I just trusted him to get it right.
He led the way to the kitchen area, which I hadn’t discovered because I didn’t want to be a snoop. Okay, I didn’t discover it because the rest of the house was dark and the wood creaked when I tried to move to another room. So, I had decided it was best to stay in the living area.
“Have you thought about my offer any?” Devin asked after putting down plates for the both of us.
“What offer?” I opened the box of pizza and saw that it was half pepperoni and half cheese. He knew me so well.
“Well, I just thought it was nice coming home to my wife, putting dinner on the table, and you know it made me think about my offer. Have you thought about it any?”
“Actually, I’ve already told you my answer.”
“Actually, no you haven’t. You basically said in a fantasy world yes you would marry me. But in the real world no. You wouldn’t.”
“No, not that I wouldn’t. I can’t,” I said around a mouthful of cheese pizza. “Besides, we’re not here to talk about me. We’re here to talk about you. That’s one reason why I can’t. I want to, I just don’t know enough about you. And I really don’t feel you know enough about me.”
“What more do you need to know besides the fact that I love you?” He asked looking down at the pizza he hadn’t even take a bite out of.
I gave a hard laugh. “One, that is a very naïve way of thinking and two, how about what happened with your family? Why you don’t tell people about them?”
He sighed and, after taking a small bite of pepperoni pizza, began to explain to me what happened between him and his family.
“My sister died right before my father and he acted like he didn’t even care.”
I stared at him for a moment. There had to be more to the story than that. And there was.
“At a very early age my sister developed CML, Chronic myelogenous leukemia. It’s very rare in children but…my sister just had that type of luck, you know? She was always…accident prone when she was a child, never really grew out of it. Anyway, my father…he wasn’t a kind man. Instead of spending his money on treatments for Rosie he’d spend it on alcohol and strippers. He would come home from work and beat the crap out of my mother right in front of us then leave and wouldn’t come home until all hours of the night. He was an alcoholic, reeking of both the beer and women he’d just come from and still my mother wouldn’t leave him. The only reason my sister got the treatments she needed was because of my grandparents. They would take us here so we could get away from my father. They were willing to help their daughter in any way they could despite