The Chase by Amber Riel (story reading txt) 📖

          I sat the empty coffee cup on the table and curled up, freezing to death.  Louis looked at me and I figured that he had guessed that the cool air was affecting me.  “I’ll go get a blanket.  I’ll be right back.”

          I nodded as I watched him leave the room.  He came back into the room not long later with a long white fluffy wide blanket and wrapped around both of us as he awkwardly wrapped his arms around me to keep me warm.  He pulled me closer to him, letting me rest my head on his shoulder blade.  I felt my eyes grow heavy with sleep and blinked a couple of times.  “Thank you,” I replied kind of yawning as I kept my eyes closed.  It was so comfortable behind there with him and peaceful.

          “Hm-hm,” I heard someone clear they’re throat.  I woke up to see Carmen standing in front of the coffee table kind of smiling.

          I looked over at Louis who was still sleeping and felt embarrassment take over as I pulled myself away from his grip.

          “So did you sleep well?”

          I didn’t know how to respond, feeling awkward from what she had seen.

          “Are you hungry?  I made some pancakes and Lainie kind of helped.”

          I nodded and stood up, following Carmen into the kitchen.  Lainie sat at the table and in the process of eating a few cut up pieces of pancakes.  “Good morning, Auntie Samantha,” she said, trying to swallow what was in her mouth with a bright little smile.

          “Good morning to you too,” I replied, returning the smile.

          Louis walked into the kitchen, stretching as he yawned.  “Good morning, ladies,” he told us three girls as he sat down at the table next to Lainie.

          I avoided eye contact from the man, keeping my eyes on my food while I thought about the night before and how he was so comforting toward me.  The awkwardness of the situation was that I was starting to like him a little more than I had hoped for.  It wasn’t something I was ready to face yet.

          “Good morning, Uncle Louis,” Lainie replied.  “I helped Auntie Carmen with the pancakes.”

          Louis smiled.  “Well, then I bet they’re extra specially then, huh?”

          “Yep,” Lainie replied with the widest smile that I had ever seen on her face.

          “She did a good job too,” Carmen replied as she placed a plate of about four or five pancakes in front of Louis.

          “I’ll bet,” Louis answered.  I felt his eyes move over toward me but then back down to his plate.  I had the feeling that he was feeling kind of awkward too.  It might have been childish the way we were kind of avoiding the others gaze but after constantly arguing for about three or four days then having a nice long conversation wasn’t exactly the way to get into a relationship.

          Although, I did kind of want to know why he was starting to show me kindness after being a jerk to me for a little while?  I wondered if he was starting to get feelings for me or if he was even attracted to me.  I wanted to know what was going on inside of his mind.

          “I’m going to go shopping today, Samantha, would you like to come with me?” Carmen asked as she sat down next to me.  “You could pick out some outfits if you want and we could chat.”

          “No, I think I’m going to hang around here for today.  I’d like to kind of get use to everything here…. If you don’t mind,” I replied.

          “Of course not….”

          “Can I go with you, Auntie Carmen?” Lainie asked with excitement rising in her voice.

          “Of course and I’ll get you a new pair of shoes because you don’t have any here and you didn’t bring any with you, did you?”

          Lainie sighed with disappointed.  “I had some with me but we had to leave the hotel and I didn’t grab my shoes in time.”

          “Aww.  Why don’t you go ahead and get ready?  I think Sara left some clothes here the last time that she was here and there should be a pair of her sandals in the closet which should fit you…. Okay?”

          “Okay,” Lainie nodded as she jumped out of her seat and rushed out of the room.

          Carmen waited till Lainie was out of earshot then turned her attention toward Louis and me with a devilish smile on her face.  “So…. Did you two have a nice night together?”

          “What?” Louis asked as he raised an eyebrow as he looked over at his sister.

          “You two were cuddled up together this morning….” Her smile grew as she spoke.  “You can ask Samantha…. She practically had to pull herself away from your grip.”

          I felt myself blush as I looked down at my plate.  I wanted to melt in my seat and slid under the table so that they wouldn’t see the embarrassment on my face.

          Louis, apparently, was filling the same way I was.  He kind of hid his face in his right hand.

          “It’s okay, you two,” Carmen replied.  “I remember when I fell in love Eric and those sweet nights we would spend talking about nothing and laughing…. You two looked so cute together and so sweet….”

          “It’s not like that, Carmen,” Louis replied, “I was just---”

          Carmen raised an eyebrow as she looked at the both of us.  “I know what I saw, Lou….”

          “Don’t call me that,” Louis replied with embarrassment in his voice as he spoke.

          Carmen just kind of laughed.  “So cute and so sweet….” She sighed as she stood up and started heading out of the room.  “Well, my fun’s done for now…. I’ll be back though.”

          Neither Louis or I moved.  We both just sat there in an awkward silence which we both felt so embarrassed by what Carmen had said before she left.  Neither of us knew what to say that would make the situation any better or any worse than it already felt.

          Louis sighed and turned toward me.  “I’m sorry about my sister,” he replied finally.

          I kind of smiled to hide any embarrassment I still had and to keep myself from blushing.  “It seems that we have something in common.”

          He kind of nodded and looked around the room, trying to figure out what we could do while Carmen had Lainie for the day and possibly something for us to talk about.  “Why did you call my name last night anyways?”

          I felt a shock go through my body as I blushed but turned my head to where he couldn’t see it.  “I don’t know…. I guess maybe because you’re the only one I know here and Annie or Ron aren’t here,” I kind of lied because I didn’t want to tell him that I wanted him to be the one to keep me safe even though it was partly true as well.

          He nodded as he took in what I said.  “That makes sense.”

          I kind of bit my lip.

          “Look…. I’m going to my room for a little while….” He swallowed then looked at me.  “I have some things to think about.”

          “Okay.”

          “If you need me, my room is upstairs, the first room on the right…. Right next to the room you and Lainie are staying in…. You can watch TV in the living room…. They have tones of movies you can look through in the drawers of the entertainment center…. Pretty much whatever you want to do you can…. Just stay out of trouble, alright?  I don’t feel like fighting off anymore taxicab drivers.”  He smiled.

          I couldn’t help but kind of laugh at his comment.

          I walked into the living room and went through the movies that Carmen had.  Most of them I had never heard of because they were from other countries but there were a few I had recognized.  I kind of laughed to myself when I spotted the DVD collectors all three movies of The Mummy Trilogy.  Personally, it was one of my favorite series.  I loved the movies.  Although, the first one was my all-time favorite out of the three, the other two were still pretty amazing.  I searched to see if I could find any others that I might have recognized.  I found a few Disney movies which had caught my eye as well.  I was about to give up when I found The Vow.  I loved that movie and decided to put it in.

          After the movie was over, I placed it back where I got it and decided to head up to the room.  I wanted to lay down, not take a nap just to lay down and relax a bit.  As I walked past Louis’s room, I couldn’t help but notice that his door was opened and he was sitting on a full size bed, facing a window, staring at what I figured to be a picture.  I kind of knocked on the door to let him know that I was there.

          Louis didn’t bother to look at me or even really seem to notice that I was there at wall.  I walked into the room and over to him, trying not to seem rude by moving to close to him.

          I noticed a woman was in the picture he was holding.  She had shoulder length blonde hair which curled outward.  She was wearing a beautiful light blue dress which had thin but wide straps which hung on her shoulder blades.  She looked to be about nineteen and she was lovely.  “Is that her?  Your wife?”

          Louis kind of sighed and nodded as he kind of tilted his head toward me.

          “She’s beautiful….”

          “She was even more beautiful without the wig on….”

          Wig?  Oh, I thought at the realization of what she wore the wig for.  “What happened to her?” I asked as I sat next to Louis on the bed.

          “She had childhood cancer,” Louis replied, “it wasn’t leukemia…. But it was another deadly cancer…. No one thought she would make it to twenty but she did…. We weren’t even married for about six months when she lost her battle….” I looked at him and I could see the tears in his eyes as he spoke.  “I would have loved even more if she was alive today but she’s gone now….”

          I felt so horrible about the comment I had made to him about a couple of days before when I told him that I wouldn’t have been surprised if she had left him.  I felt like the worse person in the world to even have considered had saying that.  He may have been a jerk to me when we met but no one should have to deal with that.

          “We were eighteen when we met…. I was twenty when we got married and she was about to turn twenty….  A few weeks after her twentieth birthday she had past…. I couldn’t believe it…. I was by her bedside every day and night until she was finally gone…. When she was alive and when she was well, I would tell her that she was beautiful and I didn’t see the point in her wearing the wig…. It only hid her true beauty but she wouldn’t listen…. She felt