CHAPTER568
“Just tell me you will be there… Without a doubt, and I’ll feel better.”
“I’ll be there. Couple more days and I will be right back beside you, where I belong.” He responds genuinely.
“Okay. So… What are you doing tonight?” I try to change the subject so the anxiety in my stomach will disperse.
“Meeting Nathan, Jason, and Christian to go have some man time, only… Somehow whenever Christian is there, it ends up feeling like a bunch of women having a girl’s night out. He really does raise the tone from beers and pizza, to cocktails and steak. What about you? No plans with anyone from school? You never mention them or seem to want to make any?” Arry pushes softly and I tense right away.
“I like my quiet time after school, I see them all day. I guess I just feel tired and like to come home and chill out. An early night after I do some of the sewing I need to do and maybe a movie in bed… You know me… Munchies and a movie and sleep, three of my four favorite things.”
Arrick laughs softly, deflection successful and I let go of the breath I’m holding.
“Let me guess… Me being the fourth? Or is it sex …With me?” He laughs again, only this time huskier and a hint of sensual flirting. Arrick can switch on the sexy whenever he feels like it and we are not opposed to sexting and dirty calls nowadays, in fact they have become necessity with his frequent absences and I finally got good at them.
“Actually, I was going to say shoe shopping” I answer in a blasé way and then giggle.
“Yeah, sure you were. You have been known to sacrifice many a shoe shopping trip for an extra few hours rolling about my bed, baby. I have no doubts about your love for some Arry between the sheets, and your thighs.” He laughs this time, probably at his own cringeyness and how pervy that sounded. I can’t stop the eyeroll that almost dislodges my retina.
“Ewww, stop… I may have to break up with you, you weirdo.” I grimace properly, a little shudder and thank my lucky stars he is not normally someone who gives out such sleazy lines.
“Ha, ha, I’m sorry, but we both know it’s fact. You helped me regain my Carrero Casanova crown and reminded me just how much I love sex, especially sex with you… Hold on.” he cuts off again, to another mumbling female voice in the background and this time I hope she heard every word of my man chatting me up and talking about sex with me. She needs to give him some breathing space when it’s clearly his girlfriend on the phone.
I sit for a moment and ponder what she looks like, having never actually met her. She sounds young, maybe. I somehow have managed to visit his office or Carrero house whenever she is either elsewhere or not there at all. I have never actually crossed paths with her, beyond talking to her on the phone once or twice. Arry made me take his cell and dictated something, while he showered or brushed his teeth. Or that one time he was peeing, and I was in the bath and he made me recite his to do list… Instead of, you know, calling her after he emptied his bladder.
“Sorry, baby, I have to go. The suits for my next meeting are in the conference room already and Jake is already glaring at me through my office window because I’m still here.” He sounds irritated, I guess because his brother is standing outside his office trying to intimidate him and as much as it may be worked when Arry was younger; it does not work now. I can almost imagine him sticking his feet on the desk and smirking while birding his brother. They are still so juvenile towards one another, especially at work, which you would think demanded a professional persona.
“Okay. Call me later, I will be up for another few hours. Arry… I love you.” I cradle the phone as humanly close to my ear as I can, willing him to crawl inside my head and stay there for the next hours of missing him.
“I will, I’ll call you before you go to bed, like I always do. I love you more, Mimmo. Much, much, more. Can’t wait to come home and wrap you up and smother you to death with kisses. This trip has been more monotonous than all the others and is dragging like crazy.” The noise around him intensifies and I guess he’s walking out of his office now.
“Ditto… I guess because it happens so much, they feel longer and longer every single time, especially when you were only home a couple of days. Bye, handsome.”
“Goodbye, beautiful, and yep… You’re right about that. Laters, Princess.”
Arrick hangs up and I’m left holding my cell to my ear, sighing heavily, and staring into space for a minute before the smell of Coq Au Van comes wafting at me from the other space. I guess Janetta is laying the table in the kitchen, with my food, which also signals her getting ready to go to her own home down the hall. She comes back after I eat to clear up the dishes and put the apartment to rights before I go to bed and she also leaves me supper.
I love having her so permanently close by as it means she can leave when I want alone time and doesn’t have to hang around when there is nothing for her to do. Arrick worked out a great deal with her so she can still tend her own home and husband in between tending to me and always on hand even late at night. She doesn’t work for the money as they really are pretty well off and have a modest apartment in our complex, but she does it for the love of caring for people she told me. Her own kids grew up and moved away and she misses family life.
She comes at seven am when I’m in the shower and makes me breakfast, irons whatever clothes I lay out on my bed and generally makes the place less lonely when I get up. She only does this when he’s not home though, as Arrick likes to cook for me in the mornings and I don’t mind ironing my own clothes while watching him.
God, I miss him.
I get up from the bed a little lack luster and decide to change before I go through and eat, pulling open my wardrobe to find a fluffy Onesie and can’t resist running my hands across his row of shirts hanging to the side. Arrick has changed a lot in the past months in terms of how he dresses day to day, spending more time in shirts and pants because of his constant back and forth and less time looking like the casual preppy college boy that he used to be when we stayed in New York. I guess because he had to buy more ‘work’ clothes when he started spending the majority of his life in the office and left all his casual stuff in the back of the wardrobe and less accessible. I miss it, I miss him looking like my casual fighter and laid-back hot boy. He is starting to mimic his father and brother in style.
Lately he looks like a businessman; more groomed, more manicured, and always in shirts. I miss his jeans; I miss his sweats and trainers. I just miss everything that was us when we were in New York and not for the first time I can’t wait for the end of my semester to spend an unbroken few weeks in our city apartment. Time seeing friends and family and going back to our old life and doing normal things.
It’s not like I don’t like Paris, it’s a beautiful city with amazing culture and some of the sights here are breath-taking. I just don’t belong here, and even though Arry has a knack of blending into any place he goes, I can’t seem too.
I’m becoming excessively needy as time goes on, always thinking about him, more than ever before. Always looking for him to make me happy, keep me occupied or generally just be there for me around the clock, whether in presence or by phone or email. It has been changing how I feel about myself. I’m losing my self-dependence and ability to entertain myself. I’m aware of how unhealthy it is."
