Chapter:20
So unusual for a teenage boy.
The room had high ceilings with a skylight in the center, taupe walls and bright white moldings and dark wood furniture. On the left was a leather couch. To the right, a brick fireplace with a flat screen television hung above it, sat positioned between two doors.
"Edward, this is beautiful. I guess I came on a good day; the housekeeper has apparently already been up here."
He crossed the room and opened the bathroom door for me. "No, it always looks like this. She's not really allowed in my room. No one is," he said quietly.
I looked at him for a second, entranced by his eyes. "Your eyes are gray today," I whispered. I wanted so badly to reach out and touch his face.
"Oh, um…they change color depending on what I'm wearing."
Something fluttered in my chest again and I ducked into the bathroom before I puked or burst into tears or mounted his leg- either of the three a genuine possibility.
I looked around at the beautiful bathroom, which was about the size of my bedroom and sighed. Again- neat, meticulously clean and clutter free. I peered in the sink- not a single whisker could be found and by the look of his smooth face, he had definitely shaved that morning. I don't know why it fascinated me so much, I suppose I was used to the only two men in my life being slobs.
I used the toilet, washed my hands and noticed the moss green hand towels hanging perfectly level on the rack next to the sink. I was almost afraid to use them, so I patted my hands delicately, not really drying them much. Wiping them on my leggings, I opened the cabinet for a Band-Aid and muttered, "Holy shit."
There were six rows of toiletries, all high end brands, endless bottles of lotions, creams, colognes and tonics, and hair products. They were arranged in height order, labels facing outward, aligned in a perfect row. It felt like a cross between Sleeping with the Enemy and American Psycho. And truthfully, if he even closely resembled either, I should have been running away from that bathroom screaming for my life.
But I didn't.
I just couldn't.
"Hey Edward," I called, opening the door. He was sitting across the room on his couch with one leg tucked under him waiting for me. "You're a little OCD, huh?" I chuckled, saying it completely as a joke.
His face fell and he shook his head slowly in silent acknowledgement as his eyes met mine. In that moment, something passed between us that shook me. I realized that not only had he let me into his room but admitted something that was deeply personal and private and possibly embarrassing for him.
And I had made fun of him. He looked away, fidgeting with his hands in his lap, so childlike. Just as he did that morning, no leather jacket to hide behind, only his shyness and his anger. His ribbed gray shirt clung to his chest and arms, revealing defined perfection underneath the fabric.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean..." I said, planted firmly on the bathroom entryway feeling like a complete jackass. "I was just kidding."
"It's no big deal," he said quietly, shrugging his shoulders. "I'm a neat freak. Some people call it OCD. Depends on who you ask."
In a meager effort to rectify my earlier statement, I blurted out, "Well, I suppose I would prefer my boyfriend to be neat than a slob." When he looked up at me with his eyebrows knitted together it occurred to me what I had said. "Uh, not that you are my boyfriend…or would be… or want to be… I mean just that if I had to choose between one or the other I'd pick the other…" He chuckled, shaking his head.
"I don't know what the hell I'm saying right now." He nodded, smiling. The mood lightened as he rose from the couch, opening his desk drawer to pull out a cigarette. He offered me one, and I took it gratefully as we went through the sliding glass door to the wide outside balcony.
The whitewashed wood stretched all the way down the length of the house, connecting three sets of sliding glass doors, which I assumed were each of the boy's rooms. It wrapped around the side of the house that Edward's bedroom was on, ending with a long staircase that led to the patio down below. In a wider part of the balcony that jetted out in the middle sat a cushy striped covered rattan loveseat, chair and coffee table with an umbrella. I gripped my hand on the rail, peering over the edge. Below I could see a partial view of their covered patio, a chair and a huge steel barbecue grill.
Looking straight out, the view was breathtaking. I gasped, never realizing the true beauty and magnificence was beyond the home I'd lived in most of my life. I could hear the babble of the river behind their house, most of it visible from the balcony.
The landscape was speckled with tall pines and beyond that, lush green mountains with hazy clouded peaks. "Wow, this view is amazing." I wondered if Edward came out here in the morning to watch the sunrise. "Do you come out here a lot?" He was a few feet away from me, leaning his foot on the lower rung of the rail as he smoked.
"Sometimes," he shrugged. I noticed that his eyes were fixated my bare feet. I wiggled my toes, which were polished a vivid pink. Each of the big toes had bright yellow suns painted on them; my mother's idea of something to remind me of her.
"Suns?" he asked, with his eyebrow quirked.
"To remind me of home," I said softly, slightly embarrassed of how personal it was to me. "Well, to remind me of California, because I suppose this is my home now."
"You'll get used to it," he said with a nod. I assumed it was a statement that echoed his own experience. "Is that the real color of your skin?"
I looked down at the milky white inverted V shaped lines my flip-flops had left on my feet. "Yeah, I'm kind of pale. You don't like suntans?"
He shrugged. "Not really, no." I nodded, feeling awkward and momentarily unattractive.
We were quiet for a few minutes, staring out into the distance. I noticed over to the left of the house was a long glass building. "What is that, the garage?"
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