If you were mine

The spur of my car's engine threatens to go off as I push Annabelle up the hill. Yes, my car has a name. After living in her for a few days, we have gotten a deeper connection. No one would understand this if they’ve never been homeless. The steepness of the hill works alongside gravity to hold us down and slowly, inch by inch, we struggle to push up to the plateau and the house that sits on it. I clutch onto the paper sitting in my pocket, threatening to burn a hole through my clothes. James had been so kind to let me use his room for a few months until I got back to my feet. His letter of recommendation and blah blah is supposed to make it an easy move in. Annabelle pulls up to the courtyard of the compound, and my mouth falls as I take in the building. It is huge. Sure, I have always known James's family is loaded, but this loaded? No. It’s a gigantic Victorian house with Ivy covering every inch of the roof and a great deal of the front wall. The courtyard is wide, easily containing a fountain, a couple of benches and a strange mix of vehicles. Annabelle will fit in perfectly here. I sit in the car for a couple of minutes, trying to collect myself to walk to the door, only for someone to rap on the window, startling me out of my thoughts. "Hello?" I stare at him with wide eyes. He gestures at me to pull my window down. For seconds, I’m stuck, doing nothing but staring right into his blue eyes and wondering how icy they are, how cold, how…beautiful. He knocks again. Shit. I realize I’ve been staring. That is definitely not a good first impression. God, I am embarrassing. I smile back at him, a weird smile that wrinkles the side of my face and makes it look like I’m squinting. The window slides down, and he sticks his hand in to shake mine. "Hello, I'm Gregory, the caretaker here." What is it about him? My eyes lock in on his hair, wondering how he manages to keep the thick dark strands healthy, smooth and rich with moisture. I smile back, a proper one this time and take his hand. His grip is solid, and I can tell he's a gym enthusiast or probably a hard worker. His forearms are big and veiny, but his palms are soft. Soft and slightly moisturized. Like a lady's. "I'm Abby. Abby Sanders." "I know, Abby. James called ahead of you." Oh. That explains a lot then. Gregory opens the door for me, and I step out. Before he starts speaking again, I take a deep breath, filling my lungs with the crisp and clean mountainous air. It smells like old wood and clean springs, no city pollution. The sounds of little birds flit through the air, and the wind is a dull rolling sound completely fit into the background. Gravel crunches underneath my feet and the heat of the sun is almost imaginary, the big yellow ball only serving as a light source. I turn back to Gregory who has been standing there, just waiting for me to take it all in. "Beautiful, isn't it?" he asks. He is leaning on the bonnet of the car, his hands in his pocket. He must have been watching me admire it all and the thought of that pulls the heat up my belly, letting it creep up my skin and staying my cheeks red. I bend my face away from him and nod. "Can I see the letter James gave you?" I nod again, slipping my fingers into my jacket to fish out the letter and hand it over to him. As he opens and goes through it, I pull my hoodie up to hide the blush better. "Did James recently become a policeman?" I look back at Gregory, but his head is still bent down, his eyes on the paper. What? Confusion wraps around my head. I’ve gone through the letter and there is absolutely nothing in it that pertains to being a policeman. Gregory looks up at me, his face completely neutral. "Policeman? I don't understand." He smiles, and waves the sheet of paper at me. "You have me a speeding ticket, Abby." I take a moment to process it. When I finally understand, embarrassment comes all over me, wrapping me from head to toes in shame. I slap my forehead lightly, and Gregory chuckles, a low rumbling sound that makes his already remarkable baritone sound better. The letter comes out, and I give it go him. He reads it, going ohh… and ahh… every once in a while. Then he fixes those glassy blue eyes on me. Dear God. "James said to give you the basement. It’s a large space, so I believe we will be expecting more of your things during the coming week?" "Uhm, yes. Yes, sir." He laughs. "There’s no need to call me that. I’m barely three years James's senior." The look of confusion on my face sends him into another fit, albeit a better controlled one. "I am his friend. Not an employee. I simply manage here as I live close by." Right. Somehow, the explanation makes me relax a little bit. He looks at me again, giving me a proper look over. "Welcome to the Caesar Lodge. Let's get you and your belongings inside." We both stack boxes and go in, him heaving up four like it’s nothing while I struggle with two. He walks ahead of me, the boxes obstructing his main line of vision, I can’t help but notice the way he fits into his pants, the width of his shoulders and the size of his arms. "Stare a bit less, yeah?" I almost throw down the boxes I’m carrying as the whisper slips into my ears. From the periphery of my vision, I spot a young woman by the doorway, her intense gaze on me. She frowns when I turn to face her and looks at Gregory quickly. Oh. Jeez. I guess I’m not his only fan. I look away and soon, I hear the sound of her door shutting. This is going to be weird. So, so weird. Gregory is way ahead of me and I have to hurry to catch up to him. He looks back at me and smiles and I have to give up a silent prayer of restraint before I end up with this man living rent free in my head. We get to our destination and he puts down his boxes to open the door, giving me an opportunity to look over the corridor. It’s wide enough to accommodate three people walking side by side, with two doors on each side. My door is on the end wall, staring into the walkway. The walls are covered in red wallpaper, the print depicting a crest I know I’ve seen numerous times but at that moment, I could not tell where. There are little chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, casting warm light down to the ground. The flooring is smooth wood that has a bright shine to it. The door clicks open and the caretaker turns on a switch on the landing before taking my load down the stairs with me trailing after his heels. At the end of the staircase, Gregory turns on another switch. Lights come on around us, flowing down in a pattern. He walks to one end of the room and drops down my luggage then turns back to me. "I will let you look around while I bring down the last box. Make sure everything is to your liking." I nod, and he gives me one long look. Self awareness makes me tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. Then he walks out the room without another word. Jesus Christ. Well, that was a grand welcome. I look around. He was not lying. The room’s large, with two doors at each end. I open one and step into a closet. This is nice. Opening the second door brings me face to face with a toilet and bathroom. There’s also a walk-in shower and a bathtub. I walk to the tub and turn on the faucet, setting it to hot and letting the water run between my fingers. The room has a large bed with pillows tossed all over it. There is a big desk to the right, with a little green lamp on it and a swivel gaming chair in front. An overcrowded bookshelf sits beside it, stocked with volumes and volumes of books, many of them with cracking spines and loose threads around the edges. I pull out one. “Why believe in Jesus” by Tim Lahaye. Great. Just in case I ever forget I’m losing my faith, I have an entire wall of books to remind me. A television is fixed to the wall, with a large air conditioning tower beside it. James likes luxury, and I can see just how much. There are LED rope lights running from the last step on the staircase to the bed and surrounding the entire room. A chandelier drops from the top, and another bulb is set close to the top of the table. I flop down on the bed and lay back, content to sink into the softness of this furniture. Finally, a proper roof over my head. I’m overwhelmed by emotions and I break into tears, so lost in my head that I don’t hear the door open or notice Gregory come down the stairs until he touches my shoulder, making me flinch back. "Are you alright?" I can see the concern in his eyes as he sits on the bed with me. God, I really need to get a grip of myself. "I'm okay, thank you. There was so much dust on my way here,” I chirp He looks at me and I know he’s never going to buy that. But he does not push. Slowly, he gets up and begins to leave the room. Then he stops at the edge of the stairs, his hand on the banister. "I come around only once a week to stock up on supplies." He turns around. "By six o'clock, all your neighbors should be back and in the general room. They've been informed about you, so you should get a warm welcome." He pauses, like he wants to say something else. He does not. "Bye, Abby." "Bye for now, Gregory. And thank you." He nods, and walks back out of the room. I release a line breath I didn't know I’d been holding. If this is going to be my new home, I’ll need to learn how to behave around him so I don’t end up drooling all the time.