Plans

It takes us a few wrong turns and driving all the way around and then thirty more minutes of confused directions to reach Miley's house. This was a part of the city we barely ever visited. But when we finally do, it blows our mind. Miley's home is not a house it's a freaking mansion! The kind of place you expect to be a small luxurious resort rather than a residential.

"Holy shit, girls! Can you see it too or did I have too much bear?" Bella exclaims as the horribly beautiful mansion comes in full view.

We park in the back lot, in front of a gigantic swimming pool with at least a dozen of sunbeds. The yard in between where almost all the cars from CSU are parked, is a perfectly trimmed green with neatly cut bushes to match. Good heavens! What is this place?

The mansion looks like a block away from the pool across another humongous green lawn. It might take days to just get there on feet.

I'm assuming at least twenty rooms, of which the outer ones are lighted a faded shade of yellow. Everything about it is white and gray brick walled. A few of the rooms to the eastern side are glass walled, giving the house a touch of completion. It's all modern architecture but somehow aesthetically antique.

"We can't be hallucinating at the same time," Courtney assures Bella but I hear doubt in her sarcasm.

"You can have a better look if you get out of the car, you know," I remind them, eyes still locked on the marvellous piece of creation but still restless to get out of here. I can see people, the size of big insects, dancing and diving into the pool. A crazy beat from some pop music blasts around the space. They both get out of the car.

"You sure you still not coming?" Courtney leans against my window.

"Yes! And I'm getting late for where I want to go," I gladly lie. This is all the more reason to be grateful I cancelled. Fancy parties are the last item on my things-I-love-to-do list.

I'm about to drive off when my eyes flicker to the backseat through the rareview mirror and find Bella's purse lying on it. Darn it! Why does she always has to be so careless?

I consider keeping it in the car and driving off anyway but I can't trust her in a party, especially not in this one. My friends are senseless, walking people when drunk who often need a ride home from someone a little less drunk.

I turn off my engine, take Bella's purse and let out a groan before getting out of the car. Now I have to find her in this mess of happy-ish looking people dancing their asses off and making out like it's their last.

I search the pool, on the sunbeds, in the temporary bar I didn't notice from inside the car, under the water but she or anyone from my little acquaintance is MIA.

I clumsily move towards the other part of the lawn hoping them to be there. I mentally decide to head back if I can't find them here as well. I've overdone my part.

"So we have met again," I hear that voice that's plastered to my brain by now. The music is a blur in this part of the lawn but my eardrums suddenly threaten to blast from pressure. 'Not if I don't turn around and just run away' I respond to him in my head, still standing frozen in the position I was. I really didn't want to face him again. I know in my entire body that he is trouble. That he can and is messing with my head and my walls of defence I've built over years. I shortly go through the idea that I'm hallucinating but it sounds more dumb than when Bella said it. She is the reason for this whole polt twist!

Turning around would confirm destruction. But running on grass with this high heeled ankle straps Bella made me wear, is not something I can consider. Therefore I turn around and face Aeson.

He looks so different every time. Tonight he is a complete contrast to yesterday. And hello, did I just meet this man yesterday?

He's in a formal suit this time. A neat black jacket and black plaited pants with an ultra thin white shirt underneath. His jacket is unbuttoned, leaving his shirt in sight which is also halfway unbuttoned just above his chest. His hands are pushed inside the pockets of his pants.

The three times I have seen him including today, the wrist watches were always there but never the same one. His hair is perfectly set in that deliberate messy structure and his face pulled into a decent killer smile. A beautiful masterpiece as always.

"Hi!" I mutter with a not-so-godly smile.

His face changes as he takes me in. His stare is the same one I spotted in the library. It turns my stomach.

"You look stunning," he breathes, taking a few small steps towards me. "Wow," he adds.

"Umm..thanks. My friend insisted on dressing me up tonight," I say, uncomfortably smoothing my dress over my hips.

"You say that as if that somehow lessens your beauty." His eyes intensify as I blankly stare back at them.

"Tons of make up is a big part of this look," I shrug.

His lips twitch up to a side, forming a smile, "The shoes can only fit Cinderella, baby." His words make me feel light headed.

"I expected some avengers metaphor," I reply with a weak smile.

He smiles back, "That might have been too violent to compliment a beautiful woman like you."

He continues before I could tell him to stop calling me Beautiful. "So, what brings you here? You don't look like the party-all-night type." What does he know about my type anyway?

"What are you doing here? You don't look that young either," I tease back with as beautiful a smile as I can manage.

He looks old enough to have completed University. His clothing only adds to the assumption.

"That is quite a rude remark towards someone who just complimented you."

"Well I learnt from the best."

He puts on a hurt face in response. These are the moments when he looks so childish, it surpasses his expensive polish to hide it. He realizes that and quickly recomposes his face. He doesn't like loosing control it seems. A control freak.

"I was wondering," he says in a restored authoritative tone, "If you would like to sit somewhere and continue the argument?" I blink at his face, confused and nervous, the blood draining out of my face sparing just my cheeks. He's just asking you to sit in a huge lawn filled with people, I remind myself. No big deal!

"Actually I was just here to bring Bella's, I mean a friend's purse. I should be somewhere else right now," I remind us both. Shit! Emma is probably waiting for me.

"Why? You didn't intend on coming here tonight? I thought Miley invited you."

"You know Miley?" I vaguely nurture the idea that he's her boyfriend. That would only seem fitting with the way they both look. But the thought squeezes onto my heart.

He looks at me for a second, considering something before answering. "Yes! I happen to know her brother," he says with a wicked smile.

"Her brother?" The way he says it, makes me want to delete my earlier assumptions. But then again, I know nothing about Miley and yet I'm at her party talking to this man, I just can't seem to avoid.

"Yes. Her brother seems to be kind enough to let her live here and look what she has done in the very first week," he shakes his head once in disappointment. It feels like he is enjoying privilege over some information that I'm lacking.

"So this is her brother's house? I mean mansion?" I inquire again.

He laughs. "Yeah, more or less," he shrugs, still laughing.

"Hmm."

"Do you really have to go?" He asks. Something in those faded gray eyes do something to me.

"No," I blurt out without thinking.

"I..I mean, not really! I guess I can manage something." I let out a sigh of disappointment with myself. Where on earth is all my self control?

"Thank you! That would mean a lot." He beams and all my doubts disappear.

But there's something else in his eyes too. His looks...defeated for some reason but weirdly, he looks happy about it.

"What are you doing to me Eileen?" he asks more to himself, looking out in the distance but I hear it and my heart stops. I don't understand why he would want to ask me that but I know it means something.

"Let's go," he says, as if he never spoke that question out loud.

We sit around a small wooden table in the farthest corner of the lawn, as far away from the pool as possible. The yellow lights from the house is pouring onto his beautiful skin, making him look unreachable and aloof. It's his eyes that pin me down to him. I stare at him and let my mind admire the perfection this time.