Chapter 13

MARGARET OPENED THE door to see Charles behind the hinged wood waiting for her. Her eyes immediately went to the similar ring he wore at his finger. She’s so fed up with the thoughts of the other fish she hadn’t reeled in that she allowed the person in her midst to come flood her that she had coming.

“Sorry I didn’t get to follow you up after your meeting with Mr. Meyer. I had back-to-back ones myself since yesterday,” he leaned in for a kiss.

Margaret, in her ever-overflowing roulette, leaned back a bit to say “I have something to tell you.”

Charles’s heart performed a Led Zeppelin drum solo when he just realized that the loose end Maragaret tried to hitch and shank might have not been tied with Albert. Charles struggled to believe it though, knowing of his adopted brother’s innate character. To him, Albert's the brother with the most honor; seeing that he’s still duty-bound to the their father after all these years.

The same form of drum solo was happening inside Margaret’s head as she never even anticipated what her mouth did a moment ago. She slid past the overwhelming pressure of her indecisiveness and just threw her mouth to kiss Charles to prevent further suspicion... and traction.

“I wanted to say that I still haven’t brushed my teeth, but I guess it was pretty impolite for me to not kiss you back.”

“Oh, thank god,” Charles breathed. “I mean—that’s okay.”

A fiddly string fiddled itself between the two with that slip. They were both high-pressured with the fact that this is their first time in the position of near-marriage. They hoped to make it their last. 

The time ebbed as they look for more things to do around the house that will cause them to delay their speaking. But there’s only so much food you can munch on the fridge, appliances you can dust, and yards you can scale in this claustrophobic space. When the time eventually came, the house looked like a clean mess. 

“How was yesterday?” Charles took his courage and started it.

Margaret, still uneasy, missed the entire island in what she was trying to say, and hit a double bull on the weird answers slot, “He’s currently on a date with your secretary.”

“Huh?”

As their chemistry collapsed, another pair in town’s relationship got better by the second. Ana and Albert, surprisingly for both of them, were having one of their best dates just by talking. They both got that feeling when you find someone who’s equally as invested in a fandom as you. Although, one statement from Ana caught Albert off-guard.

"My girl?" he asked, almost choking on his chicken.

"Yeah, that pretty little thing called Marge." Ana was so imbued in knowing the relationship between the two that she clicked more buttons than one.

"She's not...my girl. There’s no possessions happening there."

"But what's your relationship with her? Someone kept telling me to stop pursuing you because you're clearly in love with her."

Albert raised an eyebrow. "Who told?"

Ana told him that VV used to tell her a lot about their relationship every time she failed hitting on Albert. VV thought, he’d be the net to catch her, but she made no effort to make eyes back at the butler. Although, his words still stuck a bit to her. So, she wanted an answer.

Albert answered.

Ana got flabbergasted by the answer. “Best friends? You told me you rarely see each other!” Ana exclaimed with Albert's story.

“Were. We were best friends. You could say we still are but it’s complicated,” he cleared that up. Even before his pirate expedition towards seclusion in beaches, Albert rarely saw Margaret perchance he’d see the Baron and give him an assignment. At least that’s what he told himself was the real reason.

“Did something happen that made you stop being best friends? I believe by the I knew you; you were already kind of growing distant with each other.”

“That was the time I...uh”—he looked for a reason— “I got busy with work!” He tried dodging from the fact that the time he met Ana was the time Margaret and Charles got together. That was the same time he found out, maybe that’s why he always has associated the people present then, including Ana, with a bitter time. He tried harder to hide it from his face.

But Ana noticed and grabbed the fork-squeezing hand of Albert. "I’m sorry for insisting you to tell the story. I thought you guys had a relationship more than that," the concerned lady commented. As a woman of boundless intuition, Ana knew what the man in her midst was feeling, but she still wanted him to feel comfort.

Albert, in his ever-honesty replied. "We almost did ages ago. Several times. But circumstances didn't allow it and we still remained friends and that’s what matters."

Ana caressed the hand in her in sympathy. His Maldives-tanned hand full of animal bites and scratches pale in comparison to Ana’s perfect-colored unblemished gem. 

"Your hands are really pretty," he uttered. His eyes lingered while he traced its every outline.

"Yours are, too. I wonder what wonderful things can it do," she shot a stare into Albert's weary soul.

Being a human with a non-stupid brain, he knew what that snake of a look implied and was trying to tell. After a quick wipe from the well-lit food parlor; through the dissatisfying jalopies galloping around town; to Albert’s apartment, these feelings just echoed with him.

"Wow, I know I'm not expecting anything on how your place will look but this is just out of my comprehension," Ana was stunned by the fact that Albert has an empty room for an apartment. Just a huge cuboid space with nothing.

"I'm usually not here so I never really get the need to decorate."

Ana wandered around in search for things but all she found was a refrigerator full of vanilla ice cream, a cabinet full of condiments, and a 2,000-square-feet room full of bored microbes who played poker with nonbeing.

Albert wasn't the type to decorate just for the sake of looks; a kind of super minimalist. If it's not functional, it's not in his mind to put it just for him to get bored at it and throw it while wasting a decent amount of money. 

Although, "I do have a fully furnished bedroom though if you want to see it."

She just nodded, "Ah, I see. You made your living room empty so that you’ll have an excuse to show them your bedroom." She kept on nodding as to bask in her detective work and patted herself the shoulder.

He just opened his bedroom. "Well, don't you want to?"