Page 77 of Finding Home with You

“Hey dude,” Sarah calls as we both walk into the living room. “Can you go pick up our food?”

“Name’s Chris,” he answers back, standing up and extending a hand to Sarah as she stands in front of him. His eyes are trained on hers as she shakes his hand and introduces herself. “And no, Sarah, I can’t go pick up your food.”

“Why not?” she questions, her hip jutting out and her tongue poking out to wet her lips. She’s totally trying to seduce this guy into picking up our food.

“Because I’m not here to pick up food. I’m here to make sure Erin is safe and if I leave I can’t possibly do that.”

“Ugh,” Sarah moans, flipping her braid over her shoulder, she stomps away to put her boots on. “Fine, I’ll go get the food,” she responds annoyed, grabbing the menu for the Chinese food restaurant and the one for Beck’s pub so she has the addresses.

I flop down on the couch next to Chris, flipping the TV on and surprisingly, he gets up and moves to the front door, opening it for Sarah and following her out.

I think nothing of this since he’s been leaving the house every hour or so to check the perimeter like Ryan requested. All I care is that my house is quiet and back to normal for a few minutes.

A half an hour passes and Sarah is still not back. The town isn’t big enough for anything to take a half an hour and I grow concerned. Texting her a couple of times, but getting no response. Then I hear the back door open, the alarm chime sounding to let me know.

I’m up from the couch and making my way to the back door when I see Chris walk in.

“Where were you?” I ask, suspicious of the fact that it took him far longer to make his rounds around the house. I’m glaring at him, but his face remains impassive.

“I stopped to smoke a cigarette and then I thought I’d give you a few minutes to yourself,” he says brushing past me and taking a seat at the kitchen table. He pulls out his phone and goes back to ignoring me.

I stand there for a few seconds eyeing him and wondering why he’s being so sketchy, when the alarm chime sounds for the front door this time, and Sarah comes through looking frazzled.

“What took so long?” I ask, looking her up and down. Her hair is coming out of her braid, strands framing her flushed cheeks as she tries to carry the food and her oversized parka. She’s disheveled and I swear her sweater is on inside out, but when I go to question her more she spits out, “The food wasn’t ready.”

She shoves the bags at me and drops her coat on the floor, slipping off her untied boots that I know were tied when she left the house. We both stand staring at each other and I burst out laughing. I don’t know whether I should be shocked or find the whole situation humorous.

“What?” she asks and her voice comes out high and breathless, almost winded like she’s been running or…

“Oh my god, did you have sex with Chris?” I whisper shout, stepping closer to her, my hand wrapping around her upper arm, because I want to shake some sense into her if she did.

“What?” she says again, but this time shock replaces her breathless tone. “No, fuck no! That hired street thug? Even I have standards,” she states, her hands on her hips now, appalled that I would even think it.

“Okay, then what’s with this?” I ask, my hand flitting in her direction as she tries to smooth the wrinkles out of her leggings; her fingers quickly tucking her loose strands of hair behind her ears.

“Nothing. It’s cold outside,” she replies back, but won’t make eye contact with me, and again I’m laughing.

Sarah heads into the kitchen, passing by Chris without either of them looking at each other and I know something is up. I watch them both from the doorway as Sarah rummages through drawers for utensil and plates, and gathers what she needs.

“Grab us something to drink,” Sarah says as she takes everything into the living room and sets it down on the coffee table.

I grab some bottled water and sit down next to her on the couch; still totally suspicious that something is going on.

The room falls silent with the exception of the crinkling of the paper bags as Sarah unpacks the food, and I ask her again. “You didn’t have sex with Chris?”

“No, I didn’t,” she says, letting out an exasperated sigh before she shouts, “Hey bodyguard, did we have sex?” And now it’s me whose face flushes red, stunned by her boldness, but practically in awe that I’ve met someone who is as vocal as I am.

“No,” he responds back coldly and says nothing more.

“See.” Sarah shrugs her shoulders and begins eating straight from the carton of fried rice.

She’s lying.

Several hours later, we’ve finished off the massive quantity of food we’ve ordered and are on our last movie, The Bodyguard. A choice made by Sarah I think to intentionally make Chris feel uncomfortable, and she ups the uncomfortable factor when she starts belting out, “I Will Always Love You”.

There’s no possible way she didn’t have sex with him.

The chaos of Sarah’s life is a nice distraction from mine.

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