Mysterious

Chapter 35

Bruno sat at Arissa's small kitchen table in mid November. He saw a printed piece of paper from Orbitz under her planner she used for work. He slipped it out from underneath the notebook making a slight noise. She turned around from the stove where she was taking bread out of the oven. "What are you doing? Mr. Nosy-pants...?" she asked pulling off the bright pink oven mitt.

"You're going home for Thanksgiving?" he asked.

"Yes, I am. The 23-26th." she answered him.

"Why? I thought we were all going to New York..." he asked confused.

"Bruno..." she paused looking at him. "I haven't seen anyone in my family since September...I miss them. You're lucky that your family can drop everything to come to LA. Mine can't." she explained.

"But, Riss..." he walked over to her. "I haven't seen you in so long..." he said grabbing a piece of her hair to play with as he stood in front of her.

"Don't try to seduce me, Mr. Mars. I'm going home for a few days."

He made a sad face continuing to play with her hair. "I know you haven't seen them..it doesn't mean I can't be sad I won't have you for those days..."

"Bruno...you aren't even going to be here....if I'm going to fly during the holidays its going to have a purpose..."

"Purpose?" he backed up from her.

"I mean....I love being with you. I love seeing you perform and the fans are great and everything..but I just need to lay on the couch next to my mom and watch really bad football games...then not eat turkey because Cami hates it...and then try my hardest to wake up in time to see the parade watching it by myself...just like last year..."

"Ohh, sweetheart..." he responded sweetly rubbing her arms to comfort her. She started to cry.

"I just miss home...." she told him through her tears.

"I know you do, baby. I know you do. Did it sound like I was mad at you for not wanting to go with us?" he asked. She nodded her head slightly. "I could never be mad at you, Arissa. Never. I'll even pack for you. You need to go home." he finished leaning in to kiss her.

**

"Phew...I had no idea I had this much stuff, Mom..." Arissa said throwing her suite case in the back of her parents' Ford truck.

"It is really heavy...are there rocks in there?" she asked starting to change gears to leave the airport.

"I honestly couldn't tell you what's in there. He packed for me..."

"Are you sure you don't want to open that to see what's in there before we get home? The mall is right there...." her mother motioned to the other side of the highway.

"No. It should be good." Arissa said as they flew past the mall at 75 miles per hour.

She grabbed the suite case out of the backseat dragging it into the house. "Wow. Now I do need to know what he put in there...." she said after the dogs attacked her with kisses. She sat down on the floor unzipping the bag with her family watching. "He just packed a ton of stuff..." she said pulling out sweaters, jeans, pajamas and t-shirts. "Aww..and look he packed his Thrashers shirt..." she told everyone.

"What a buzz kill." Cami sighed. "I thought there would have been something amazing in there."

"I haven't looked in the pockets yet. But I'll save that for later. Are we going out tonight?" Arissa asked.

"Umm...yes! We're going to Silo." she told her.

"Well let's go!" she responded getting up to put her clothes away.