I escaped out the back door and eventually came back with a basket of dirty clothes. While I didn’t like the idea of getting a laundry lesson, it wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been, seeing as how she was the one giving it. And she didn’t stop with laundry. She hovered near by while I cleaned the entire guesthouse. She barked directions and occasionally took over altogether, but within a couple of hours, we’d finished the bathroom, dusted and vacuumed the entire house, and cleaned all the windows with vinegar. To reward ourselves, we took a swim in the pool.
As she swam under the water, I caught up and grabbed the back of her shirt. As she fought her way to the surface, I held onto her shirt and made my way to the top with her. Our heads broke the surface within seconds of each other.
“Are you trying to drown me?” she squealed.
“It’s payback for almost killing me this morning with that run.”
“You asked to join, remember?”
“Don’t remind me.”
“I take it I’ll be running alone during the rest of my stay?”
“Oh no. I’ll be running with you. I don’t give up that easy.”
“So you’re a determined sort of bloke?”
“You have no idea.”
I let go of her shirt, dove back under the water, and swam underneath the surface to the wall and back.
“Show off,” she accused.
I shook my head, which made my hair to fly in my face. She reached over and swept it out of the way.
“Couldn’t resist, huh?” I teased.
“I apologize. Apparently not.”
“No need to say you’re sorry.”
She swam away from me and toward the shallow end of the pool.
“Cleaning’s hard work,” I said, swimming up behind her. “How many hours did it take?”
“About three. But I had to teach you, so it took more time. It won’t always take that long.”
“It flat-out sucks.”
“Are you ready for me to take it back over? I don’t mind.”
“No way. I’m doing it.”
“I can’t believe you never learned how to deep clean.”
“My mom always did it, and by the time I was on my own, I had maids.”
“If your mom did all the cleaning, then how did you learn how to cook so well?”
“My dad was a chef.”
“You’re teasing?”
“Nope. He owned his own restaurant for a while, and then he got hired away to California by a big-time director who hired him to be his personal chef.”
“So that’s how you came to know Oliver? Were he and the director your father works for friends?”
“Sort of.”
“Does your father know that you’re hiding away here?”
“Yes.”
“Does he understand your situation?”
“I don’t know. I think so.” I swam over to the side of the pool, climbed out, threw two rafts into the water, and jumped back in.
“I didn’t mean to pry,” she said quietly.
“I know.”
We climbed onto our rafts, she more gracefully than me, and made ourselves comfortable, she on her stomach, me on my back.
“It’s like you said the other day. I’m trying to figure myself out,” I said.
“It will happen. You just have to want it.”
“Want what?”
“The truth.”
“That sounds painful,” I said as I turned onto my stomach and looked over at her. “So tell me what you think. I know you have an opinion.”
“How about a small sermon instead?”
“Oh no.”
“Okay. I won’t.”
She dunked her hands into the water and started to paddle away, but I grabbed the raft and held on so that she stayed within arm’s reach.
“Go on,” I urged.
“You’re certain?”
“Positive.”
“Fine. Do you know what you do if you get bitten by a venomous snake?”
“I’d rather not find out.”
“Come on. Play along.”
I rolled my eyes. “Okay. You take an anti-venom?” I guessed.
“What if there isn’t any available?”
“You die?”
“Never mind. I’ll just tell you, or we could be here all day.”
I shrugged but kept my grasp on her raft.
“You get a knife and you cut a slit in the skin where the bite took place.”
“Why? Aren’t there already holes from the fangs?”
“Yes, but you want to get the venom out as fast as you can, so you make the wound larger in order to allow someone to get the venom out quickly.”
“I’m intrigued and disgusted. Go on.”
“In order to get the venom out, someone other than yourself sucks it out. Some people say you can taste the difference in the blood so you know when you’ve got it all.”
“And this is a sermon how?”
“You have some wounds. There’s some venom that’s causing you some doubt about who you really are and why you’re really here. To get the venom out, you’re going to have to trust someone enough to let them try to save you. In other words, you’re going to have to open those wounds up a little more so that all the venom can come out. There’s always more pain before the healing can begin.”
I let go of the raft long enough to clap a few times but then reached out and took the corners of the raft again.
“So well spoken for a mere twenty-year-old.”
“My father’s a preacher. I’ve heard thousands of sermons.”
“Do you believe them? His messages, I mean?”
“At first I just believed them because he told them. I trusted him enough to know that he wouldn’t lie. Eventually, the more I experienced things, the more I came to believe it because I lived it, saw it with my own eyes, or felt it in my spirit. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with borrowing someone else’s faith to get you through until you get enough on your own. If it wouldn’t have been for the faith of my father, I wouldn’t have survived.”
“Survived what?”
She rolled off the raft and swam to the ladder. “Like you say, we all have our secrets.”
“You’re leaving?” I asked as she climbed out of the pool and started to wring out the t-shirt she wore in the pool. “Look, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want. Stay out here with me.”
“I can’t. I’ve got the rest of the house to clean, and I’m a carrot top, remember? I burn easily.” She picked up a towel and wrapped it around her waist.
“Give me a second, and I’ll get out and help you clean.”
“No. You relax. Please get me your grocery list when you have the opportunity. I’m ordering the groceries tonight so they’ll deliver them in the morning.”
“Okay.”
“
Oriti
.”
“
Oriti
.”
She went back inside and left me lying in the pool alone, and cold. I thought about relaxing by the pool all day. And I thought about going inside and looking over the script on my next project. And I thought about taking a nap. But what I ended up doing was changing into some shorts and a t-shirt and walking back into the main house.
When I finally found her, she was leaning over the toilet and scrubbing with all her might.
“Hey,” I said.
Frightened, she jumped and rammed her head into the stool. “Bugger!”
“Sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t you know better than to sneak up on a woman? Good Lord. You scared the piss out of me.”
“Are you okay?”
“Very well, thank you.” She rubbed her forehead just above the eye and sat onto her bottom. “Did you need something?”
“I thought I’d help.”
“Help what?”
I pulled my arms out from behind my back and showed her my yellow plastic dish gloves covered hands.
“You’re volunteering to help me clean?”
“What else do I have to do?”
“Apparently nothing. You’re the most pitiful person I’ve ever had the privilege of meeting.”
“I’m honored.”
“I’m sure you are.”
I walked into the room and sat on the side of the bathtub.
“Well, don’t fanny about. Why don’t you start with the mirrors?”
“My pleasure.”
She watched as I pulled a sheet of newspaper out of the pile and sprayed the mirror with the water and vinegar mixture. “You’re right,” I said, laughing. “This is sort of fun, but only when you have someone to do it with.”
“You’re odd, very, very odd.”
“Hold your horses, Kei. You haven’t seen anything yet.”
“I don’t own any horses.”
“It’s a figure of speech,” I said with a laugh as I looked at her through the mirror.
She stood and rested her hands on her hips. “We confuse each other immensely, you and I.”
“Yep,” I said while pumping my eyebrows in amusement. “And that’s exactly what makes this so much fun.”
C H A P T E R
7
It was way past eleven by the time we made it out to the campsite and started unloading the car. We left the headlights on so we could set up camp without falling all over each other, and Kei still seemed unsure about spending the night alone in the woods with a guy she hardly knew.
“If I get killed by a bear, I’ll never forgive you,” she said while tugging on the end of a rope that kept her sleeping bag tied into a roll.
“Are there bears out here?”
“I have no clue.” Unable to untie it, she threw it onto the ground and looked over at me, her face full of disgust. “This was your brilliant idea. Did you not check into it?”
“Here.” I handed her my unrolled sleeping bag, which made her smile, and then I picked hers up off the ground. “I checked the weather, didn’t I?”
“I’d much rather get rained on than mauled.”
“What’s the big deal? Nothing wrong with a few battle scars.”
“Glad to hear it.” She neatly unrolled her sleeping bag and smoothed out all the wrinkles before walking to the car. “And you’re certain it isn’t going to rain? It’s looking extremely cloudy.”
“The weatherman said it’s going to pass over. We should be just fine.”
She grabbed her pillow out of the backseat and shut the door.
“Hey, grab mine too, will ya?”
She opened the car door, grabbed my pillow and tucked it under her arm, and then closed the door back. “This isn’t a four-wheel-drive vehicle, and I’m not sure we can get it out of here if it gets stuck in the mud.”
“We’re going to be just fine. Hey, grab that backpack too while you’re at it.”
Her eyes rolled before she spun back around and headed back to the car. “For someone who didn’t want me cleaning up after him, you certainly don’t mind me doing other things for you. I should make you get your own bloody backpack and pillow.”
“You’re right. You should.”
“Is there anything else you need while I’m here, Your Highness?”
“No, but you can leave the sarcasm in there.”
“Didn’t I tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
“I speak proper English, botched Acholi, British slang, and fluent sarky, sarky being the language I speak most eloquently.”
“I’m impressed. And I’m still waiting to hear you cuss like a sailor.”
“Then you’ll be waiting a bit. I’m making an effort to stop all of that. If there’s one area of me that the devil’s got a hold of, it’s my tongue.”
“Really?”
“Yes. And his grip is tight. What about you?”
“What about me?”
“What area does the devil have the strongest hold on you?”
“Maybe that isn’t any of your business.”
“Is anything my business? Because it sure doesn’t feel as if it is.”
She dropped my backpack onto my lap with a thud, and it did enough damage that I knew I wouldn’t be walking anytime soon. I hid my agony behind a groan when I lifted the bag off my lap and threw it on the ground beside me. She didn’t notice any of it. She was too busy talking.
“You’re living a big secret. I get it. But it’s hard to become someone’s pal when they won’t tell you anything about themselves.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t you worry. I’ll survive. I’ve survived much worse. That’s for certain. A little rejection from you isn’t going to do permanent damage.”
“It’s not rejection.”
She sat down on the sleeping bag and removed her shoes, tied the laces back, and set them right next to her bag.
I wondered if she might have a little OCD with all the straightening she did. I also realized that she had a point. She’d revealed a lot about herself, pretty much anything I’d asked. I, on the other hand, hadn’t told her anything.
“It’s drinking.”
“Pardon me?” she asked, flipping onto her stomach and resting her chin in her hands.
“That’s the hold the devil’s got over me. Or at least he’s trying, anyway. I barely touch the stuff anymore.”