Pain And Pleasure 18+✓

Eighty-two

Fresh air, a gentle breeze, and an evergreen yard have me recall a few of the countryside I've seen in movies. Growing up in Nevada, half desert and bearable dryness has been the only picturesque reality my visual paradise depicted.

It feels different here. Men in black suits are stationed everywhere—not openly but they're there like shadows right from the gates up to the mansion—and I can swear they're all in possession of firearms, either pistols or shotguns.

Beyond us lies a river or reservoir, expanding immediately after the golf club we're strutting through. Other than that, I've seen a fenced outhouse, an old stucco building resembling a training camp with rusty and beat-up workout equipment mostly found in prison exercise yards.

Adrian took his time there, which had me stop and wait without asking a question for almost three minutes. I felt his turbulent breath and saw his blazing eyes, which deemed me intelligent that it is important to him, or his memories at the very least whether good or not.

The estate feels safe but scary. Maybe rich people's houses have that sort of charm. But the thought that Adrian is with me mutilates any ounce of fear that could've dabbed my mind otherwise. Whenever he's around I feel like nothing can defeat me, and at times I'm afraid that I'm not worried enough about what could happen.

He's a member of an unconventional family after all. Maybe not a mafia dealing with drugs, extortion, and human trafficking, but perhaps with a similar background and operations hidden underneath, and I'm just a girl from a normal family with a very depressing but normal background.

We're two worlds apart if I'm being completely honest with myself. But I love him, fully and undoubtedly. I can only see my future with him, and if he isn't any part of it, I'll probably die of ire and loneliness. I won't be able to handle another void I lived through for the last several months of his absence.

Not ever again.

"You're too quiet," Adrian says, his gaze skirting my face and I wonder for how long. "Are you okay?"

"I was about to ask you that," I reply softly, trying to quell my churning thoughts. "You've been... mindful and I didn't want to interrupt."

A smile, although faint and laconic, sweeps over his face. "You're constantly worried, Arabella. I'm fine; I just feel out of place here but I'd appreciate it if you don't question me how exactly, and certainly not why."

Exactly what I was gonna ask.

"It's alright." I choose maturity over the overbearing curiosity my dad said could be a defect.

I give him the emotional space he needs, though physically I refuse to bear his absence at all. His fingers remain locked with mine, and slowly we stroll around the compound of a huge Georgian-style mansion painted in clear white with massive windows made of dark glass.

The only thing I do is take pictures, lots of pictures of him as we walk, then some more when we sit in the meadow near the water, together, as an ordinary couple does, and it occurs to me that this is the first outdoor date we've had in the course of our not-so-long relationship.

There's a speed boat ahead of us, docked at the water bank right where the wooden embarkment ends. It's swaying hence and forth with the wind or rapids—I can't quite tell. Adrian says it's Lance's and so I tell him we should leave it be despite my desire to ride with him.

And honestly, he seems in far dark places at the moment to engage in some kind of exhibition of similar color as fun. I just want to be here for him, not to coerce him into anything he doesn't feel like doing or saying as far as his inner torments are concerned now he's back to the place he once called home.