Solitude & Storms

2.

Time stood still for a moment. Isabelle's lips were tightly pursed as she mentally ran through all the mistakes she'd already made. The argument at the door, calling him a butler, ransacking his fridge like some hungry badger. She held back a tiny whimper as his expression darkened even further as though he was thinking the exact same thing.

There was no other way. She had to either distract him or make up for it, otherwise he would definitely tell Aunt Rosa.

She threw her arms wide open and split her face into a giant grin. "Raphael!"

Flying across the space between, she threw her arms around him and hugged him tightly to her as though he'd just returned home from the frontlines. "Look at you! You're all grown up!"

He was stiff as a plank in her arms, widened eyes staring over her head as he tried to process the ridiculousness of his current situation. A maid? Clinging to him as though they were old friends?

The bloody nerve?

Pulling back, she held him by the shoulders and gave him a good shake. "I'm so proud of you, little Raphael!"

The atrocious nickname gave him pause. Raphael's gaze quickly dropped to her face and bewilderment slowly turned into realization.

It couldn't be. His lips parted in mild shock. "Isabella?"

Her cheerful grin shrivelled and she mildly glared at him. "You still haven't given up calling me that?! You learnt nothing from all the times I nearly pulled your hair out for calling me that." Her glare lit up in a smile. "But listen to your voice, it's unrecognizable! What happened, you're a totally different person!"

He said nothing, shock paralyzing his tongue. Rosa had gotten her niece as a replacement?! No bloody wonder! It all made sense now! Her crazy behaviour, her ridiculous assumption that he was a butler!

Who else if not the craziest girl he'd ever known? Isabelle Fourie.

He swallowed, unable to decipher his own reaction to her presence. Was he happy or displeased? Curious or outraged?

He couldn't tell. All he knew was that his every childhood memory with the girl, involved him either getting his hair pulled or his cheeks plummeted with annoying kisses. He'd grown into a formidable man but, at the tender ages of four to twelve when she'd been around one to nine years old, he hadn't had a leg to stand on against crazy Isabelle.

She'd been coming to his house from the age of one since Rosa was always working and had brought her to work daily. Raphael had gotten used to her presence until she'd stopped coming to his house and then left for the States at ten years old. His reaction to her departure had been an odd mixture of feelings he couldn't comfortably identify. There had been a giant amount of (forced) relief, however, that he would not be her plaything any longer. So what if her departure had left him all alone? He'd forced himself to shrug at her absence. After all, when it came to him, the girl had acted like he was made of candy or wood, whichever had suited her daily mood.

First, he'd been the victim of her toddler curiosity, the destination of her chubby, wandering baby hands and wet kisses. Then, by the time she'd turned five, he'd discovered that she hated being called Isabella when her name was Isabelle. His childish, deliberate use of the wrong name had promptly turned him into her worst enemy. The fights had started then and Raphael had been glad because he'd felt much more comfortable getting his hair pulled by her due to his relentless teasing than he'd felt getting her warm hugs and flustering kisses.

She'd been very affectionate when they'd been children. It appeared that hadn't changed.

He shrugged her hands off his arms, stepping away. What had changed was that he was now her employer, albeit temporarily. If she thought she could skip in and become his best friend, she had another thing coming. He wasn't interested in becoming friends with Isabelle. Much less best friends.