Here, Here, and Here

“What are you doing?” I asked as we pulled up to a random building in the middle of Hamburg.

“Dropping you off” Tom says like it’s obvious. He lets go of my hand and reaches over to unlatch my seat belt.

“No you’re not. I have to help make sure everything is in order for the tour” I reply stubbornly.

“You’ll be fine, we’ll be fine, it will all be fine. We told Jost that you might not be at the meeting tonight so he doesn’t even expect you to be there.” He grabs my wrist as I got to buckle myself up again, “I’m not trying to baby you Avy, I just don’t want you jumping back into it all so suddenly, especially after what happened on our way here.”

“Hon, I’ll be fine” I say as he starts to rub the back of my hand with his thumb.

“Please” he begs as he interrupts me, “Just humor me?” He starts to wear away at my will as soon as he makes eye contact with me. His chocolate eyes are full of concern and responsibility, “Just stay here, relax, and get ready for tonight” now he is giving me puppy-dog eyes, the same ones that Caoimhe does when she really wants something. The sad thing is that I don’t think they even do it on purpose.

“Fine” I surrender again to him. Why can’t I be as strong willed with him as I am with Keevie?

“Good!!” he kisses me on the forehead, “Reaghan should be here in an hour or so” he says as I get out of the car. I do a quick check for unwanted cameras and then grab the suitcase that has all of my dressy type clothes and then I yank, from the bottom of the pile, my large tote type bag that holds all my heels.

I hear him pull away as I walk into the lobby. I feel my cell phone start to vibrate from with in my purse. I pull it out and read the text message. I’m confused for a minute as I look at it then I realize that it’s the floor and apartment number for Tom’s apartment.

I press the up button and the elevator opens up almost immediately. I slip up, unnoticed by anyone, to his apartment, which happens to be on one of the top floors. I then slide his key into the lock and turn it when I finally find his door number. As I open the door I’m amazed.

His apartment is so messy. It looks like he’s been living here the whole time. There aren’t clothes everywhere but it looks like he’s stripped his shirt in the living room a few times, among other things. I sigh as I set my stuff down.

I walk around for a bit until I find the bathroom. There’s another door on the opposite wall but I don’t dare open it for fear that it leads to Tom’s bedroom which I expect from past experience to be a mess. I turn on the hot water in the enormous tub and plug it. I plan on taking the most relaxing bath I’ve had in a while.

While I’m waiting for the tub to fill I walk back out to Tom’s living room and decide to do something about his mess. As I start picking up the dirty laundry I know that he’ll probably have a fit saying that I was supposed to relax not clean, but I can’t just sit in this while I wait to relax.

I find his washer and stuff the clothes in as I look for laundry soap. I find what’s left of it and pour it in as I set the washer to start.

Now that that’s done I felt better about being here relaxing so I decided to return to my bath. I open the door and am met by a full frontal attack of hot, moist steam on my cool face. The drastic change in temperature sends shivers down my spine as I strip my layers of clothes. I switch on my mp3 player, turning it to just the right volume before I slip into the hot water.

My music plays in the background and I lay down relaxing every muscle to the point where I could fall asleep and that’s just what I do.