CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER THREE

Keira woke to the shrill sound of her alarm clock. It read seven a.m, but thanks to the jetlag and the relatively small proportion of time she and Cristiano had used the bed for

sleeping,

her body felt like it was still the middle of the night. She felt groggy, like she’d had a very badly timed nap in the middle of the day.

But despite the physical discomfort, mentally she was incredibly excited for the day ahead. She leaped straight out of bed, powered by excitement and exhaustion-induced adrenaline.

She looked back at Cristiano. He was still sleeping soundly.

“Wake up,” she said, leaning over him and kissing his forehead.

His eyes fluttered open. “Do I have to?” he said, yawning. “That long flight exhausted me.”

“It was the

flight

that exhausted you, huh?” Keira said suggestively, with a wink.

But she realized Cristiano had fallen straight back to sleep!

She decided to leave him to rest and went to freshen up for the day.

She crept into the living area. It was dark and Bryn was snoring loudly. Careful to be as quiet as possible and not waking the sleeping beast, she tiptoed past her sister and took a quick shower, cleaning away the airplane residue and last remnants of Italy from her skin.

When she made it back to the bedroom, she saw that Cristiano was still in a deep, peaceful sleep. She sighed and decided she may as well take her dirty clothes down to the laundrette on the corner. No point wasting this time, since she was back in the office tomorrow.

She quickly emptied her case and collected last night’s strewn clothes, adding them to the bundle before hurrying out of the apartment, along the corridor, down the steps, and onto the streets.

It was an exceptionally chilly morning, and she felt a wonderful sense of nostalgia. She had spent next to no time in New York over the last two months and it felt really great to be home; the familiar sound of traffic, the familiar smell of fumes. It made her think of Thanksgiving, and she smiled to herself knowing she didn’t have too long to wait until her favorite holiday. This year would be extra special with Cristiano there to enjoy it with them. If he stayed that long, anyway.

It was empty inside the laundrette, and Keira loaded several weeks worth of dirty clothes into the machine, filled the drawer with detergent, and added some quarters. She only had enough change on her for a quick wash -- she’d not yet had time to get any local currency -- but a thirty minute spin was better than nothing.

Once the machine was spinning, she scurried back out, wanting to get back to Cristiano, to wake him and usher him from Bryn’s apartment (and claws) as soon as possible.

But once back in the bedroom, she discovered that Cristiano was still in a very deep sleep. She kissed him again to try and wake him.

“Sleeping beauty” she said, more brightly this time, her a voice a little louder, more obnoxiously demanded. “We have to get up and get going!”

Cristiano groaned. “Can’t we have a lazy day in bed?” he moaned. “We’ve been on the go for weeks. We deserve to relax for one morning, don’t we?”

Keira shook her head, thinking of Bryn in the other room. They had to make their escape before she woke up.

“Nope,” she replied. “The whole of New York is waiting for us!”

Cristiano yawned, turning away from her loud voice. “And it will still be there in the afternoon after breakfast.”

“But it’s best enjoyed in the morning,” Keira contested, heaving the covers off of him. “Take it from a local.”

Cristiano gave up arguing, and, shivering, got out of bed.

“Why are you in such a hurry?” he moaned.

“Because there’s so much to do!” she replied, quickly pulling on a pair of Bryn’s winter boots. All her winter footwear was stored in a box somewhere, her stuff from Zach’s apartment strewn in various locations from her room in her mom’s house, to Shelby and David’s attic, to Bryn’s closet. There was even a sneaky box under her desk at

Viatorum.

“Can I have a shower at least?” Cristiano asked.

Keira chewed her lip. Every minute wasted was another minute closer to Bryn waking up and attempting to get her talons into Cristiano. But Keira couldn’t deny him his basic human needs.

“Of course,” she said, brightly, feigning calmness. She went over to Bryn’s closet and pulled out a fluffy towel. “Here,” she said, handing it to him along with some shampoo and shower gel from her luggage. “The shower is just down the hall.”

He kissed her in thanks and disappeared from the room. Keira slumped to sitting on the bed, already exhausted. This was not going to be easy. She would need to find a new apartment as soon as possible. Like yesterday.

But that relied on getting her deposit back from Zach for their old apartment. She didn’t really want to initiate contact but it was clearly the lesser of two evils in this particular situation. She grabbed her cellphone and fired off a text.

Any news on the deposit? K

Against her better judgment, she added a

x

on the end. Buttering Zachary up wasn’t something she enjoyed doing, but if it meant she got her deposit back then it was worth it.

She peeked out the bedroom door into the living area. The blinds were still down and the room was black. The only sounds were the shower from the other end of the corridor and Bryn’s loud snoring. Luckily Cristiano hadn’t woken her on his way past either.

But she began to grow impatient. Cristiano was sure taking his time! She checked her watch and saw that her clothes in the laundrette would soon be reaching the end of their cycle. She decided to fetch them, rather than run the risk of some local stealing them the moment the lock clicked open on the machine’s door. Even at seven thirty on a Sunday morning you could never be too careful!

She left the apartment again and hurried to the laundrette. There were a couple of people in there now, both organized-looking middle aged women clearly attempting to beat the queues. Keira collected her warm, damp clothes. She didn’t have enough change for the drier so would have to hang them up around Bryn’s apartment.

She left, heading back along the street towards Bryn’s. It felt really good to do normal chores again, to be a normal person again rather than a travel writer in an exciting foreign land. There really was such a thing as too much of a good thing, it turned out.

Her phone vibrated in her pocket just as she began climbing the stairs up to Bryn’s apartment. It was a text from Zach. She bit her lip with anticipation then read what he’d written.

Bon jour Keira! I’m in France for work. A week long conference event starting tomorrow! Can we chat about $ when I’m back?

She sighed with frustration. It would be another week before they could speak about it, not that she could even understand what there was to speak about! It should be a simple case of transferring her share of the money into her bank but of course he wasn’t going to make this easy on her.

Her eyes still on her cell phone, Keira went into Bryn’s apartment. She was immediately surprised by the sound of laughter, and looked up.

Everything had changed. The blinds were open, the lights on, the coffee machine bubbling away, and there was Bryn in the kitchen, looking far more awake than someone who had spent the last day drinking ought to. Perched with his back against the counter was Cristiano, his bare torso glistening with water droplets, nothing but a towel tied around his waist to protect his modesty.

“What’s going on?” Keira cried, startled.

Bryn looked over at her, and frowned, amused by Keira’s paranoid tone. “I’m making coffee,” she said, stating the obvious. “Where have you been?”

“I went to the laundrette,” Keira said, holding up her heavy bag of damp clothes. “I was only gone two minutes.”

Two minutes, clearly, was all it took for Bryn to take the opportunity to feast her eyes upon Cristiano’s well honed body.

“Babe,” Keira said forcefully, looking at him. “We’d better get

dressed.

We have to go.”

“We have time for a coffee don’t we?” he asked. “While you’re hanging your clothes up to dry?”

Keira dropped the bag on the floor, nonchalantly, and tried to sound light-hearted as she went over and steered him by his shoulders towards the bedroom.

“But I want to take you to the best coffee place in the whole of New York,” she said. “Small batch. Freshly ground. Much nicer than Bryn’s machine made coffee.”

“Oh… oh, okay…” Cristiano said, putting up no resistance. “But… your clothes?”

As she ushered him into the safety of the bedroom, Keira glanced over her shoulder at Bryn. She was watching, smirking, clearly amused by her sister’s flustered haste. Keira gave her a stern expression, a warning look to leave Cristiano alone.

“I can hang your clothes,” Bryn said with a sweet, knowing smile.

“Thank you,” Keira replied, tersely.

She went to shut the door but Bryn wasn’t done.

“Hun, if you think I’m bad,” she chuckled, “Wait until you get him out there.” She pointed to the window. “You’re going to find a whole lot worse than me. Trust me.”

Her body tense all over, Keira shut the door.