From the Moment We Met (Marina)

Chapter 7

"Do you have everything?  Clothes?  Chargers?  Vic please tell me you have all 40 of your bags!" Maya yelled at Andy and Victoria in a frantic and hurried tone as she ushered them out the door.

It was T-minus 2 hours before Maya's parents flight landed followed by a 30-minute car ride back to the house. Everything was a complete mess and Andy and Victoria's stagnant lingering wasn't helping with Maya's growing panic.

Maya hurried back inside and checked her watch again. Then looked around at the mess, scanning through it all to find the quickest way to get rid of everything.

"Start with the living room, throw out the snacks, clean the kitchen, put back up the schedules and plans, clean the guest room." Maya repeated aloud to herself.

Slowly the living room came along and any evidence of fun had since been destroyed. Every couch cushion was fluffed and every crumb was vacuumed, leaving it to look as picturesque as it did before hurricane Victoria and Andy blew through the house.

Maya then collected the trash bags and quickly disposed of them in her neighbour's bins, hoping she wasn't going to get caught and that she wasn't somehow breaking a law she didn't know about.  Then again, she'd rather deal with angry neighbours or cops over her dad if he found any evidence of candy or carbs.

She trudged back inside the house and braced herself because she now had to tackle the kitchen. Throughout the excitement of the weekend, every cupboard and draw had been raided and left in devastation and it was all left up to Maya to fix.

The tense girl tiptoed into the kitchen with her hands covering her eyes in fear of seeing the havoc that had been created. She peeled away her fingers, one by one to ease her eyes onto the disaster zone but that's not what she saw.

Maya walked around the kitchen in disbelief. It was cleaner than it had been before her parents left and she didn't understand how that was possible.  Was there a missing gap in her memory that prevented her from remembering tidying it or had she done it in a zombified state when she couldn't sleep?

"I tried to put everything back but you might need to check that they are in the correct place." A distant voice called out.

Maya stopped dead in her tracks. "God, is that you?" she wondered with frightened eyes jumping around the room in search of the ethereal voice, contemplating if there had been some divine intervention in her kitchen that she wasn't made aware of.

"I usually go by Carina but for you, I'll make an exception."

Maya jumped the second time the ethereal voice spoke and was brought back to reality by the angelic Italian accent that always managed to send a shiver down her spine.

"Hey, I thought you slipped out with the others?"

"I almost did but I saw the mess we made and it didn't seem fair to make you clean it alone." Carina moved into Maya's field of view and tucked her hands behind her back while rocking back and forth on the balls of her Converse clad feet.

The blonde brought a hand up to massage the back of her neck which was cramping under the weight of the tension that hung over her.

"Thanks Carina." Maya said, feeling a sense of extreme gratitude for the godsend that was the stunning vision that stood before her. "But you don't need to stick around any longer. It's just the guest room and the bathrooms left and I can manage that."

"No need bella. Mason and I tidied the rooms earlier and as we speak, he is tidying the bathroom for you." Carina responded proudly.

Maya squinted her eyes in disbelief and unsurety causing her cramping neck to seize up even more.