Temptation

32 - Madden

"Nice bum," I yell after him as he grabs us some towels from the pool house. He wraps himself in a towel and stands pool side waiting with the towel in hand and his arms open; I jump out of the water and fall into his arms where he wraps me. He picks up our clothes that lay on the ground, and we head back inside. We run into Adam and Markus who have just arrived with our groceries. Both bodyguards give Hero a wink and an oh la la. Hero grabs a pillow from the couch and tosses it at Markus and tells them to keep their eyes off me. The jealousy in his tone is very hot.

They bring all the groceries in while I take a quick shower. Once they are gone, Hero joins me in the bathroom while I'm brushing my teeth and he's brought me one of his grey hoodies. I throw it over myself, no bra needed because the sweater is so large, and I bring the neckline to my nose. It smells just like him. Then he hands me a pair of black panties and I slip those on underneath the hoodie. I leave Hero to his privacy and go to our room to find myself a pair of fuzzy socks and then head down to put all the groceries away.

While I'm organizing the kitchen, Hero's business phone rings on the countertop. I ignore it twice, but by the third time I'm very annoyed so I pick up. "Hello?" A woman on the other line asks for Hero, so I ask who's calling. "It's his baby calling, Alexa, who else?" She sounds very confident. My heart is pounding, and the shock is showing on my face. Hero approaches me and sees his phone in my hand, and I reach it out to him. I watch as he speaks to the girl on the phone and the expression on his face turns to guilt and shame. I leave him to talk to his 'baby' and walk out onto the back deck, finding a chair furthest away from his eyes.

Hero is calling out for me even knowing exactly where I am; expecting me to come to him. When he realizes I'm not moving, Hero makes his way towards me, probably ready to feed me some lie about who this woman is. Hero is trying to get a sense of my anger but I'm not angry, I'm just disappointed. He takes a seat next to me and puts his hands on my knees. "Babe," I nod my head no to his choice of words, "Madden, can I have a minute to explain?" I don't even look at him, I'm starring at the trees hiding his house from the world. "Look at me please," he begs. The guilt in his voice followed with the accent are too hard to resist. I turn my wet eyes to face him. "Please don't cry at my expense." "I just thought—never mind." I stop myself. "The thing is, Mara thought it would be good publicity for me to date another celebrity, so I started seeing Alexa Ren, the pop singer but I never liked her, and I find her fucking irritating. The night after I met you, I broke it off, but she still won't leave me alone." He wipes the tears away, "I promise, it's only you babe." I believe him; it's so easy for me to believe him and trust his words. I don't think he'd ever ask me to move here with him if that weren't true.

A small dent in our afternoon did not ruin the rest of our evening. Hero decided he was going to make me dinner, so I am fully expecting to have food poisoning tonight as he insists that I do not help him at all. I accept the gesture because it's so kind and he really is trying to do something nice for me even when all the things he has been doing these past few weeks have only been kind. While Hero cooks up a storm in the kitchen, I cozy up on the L-couch and cuddle up with a blanket. I turn on Netflix and watch my go to, Friends; Ross shouts, "I'm the holiday armadillo!"

Half hour later, Hero comes to the living room with two bowls in hand. He hands me mine and laughter escapes me. Hero made us Annie's white Mac n' Cheese. He winks at me and this is the funniest yet sweetest thing anyone has ever done for me. We sit on the couch together and enjoy the meal Hero slaved over. The single bowl of mac n' cheese fills me up completely while Hero goes back for a second bowl.

After dinner, I go to the kitchen with Hero to help him clean the dishes. I wash the pot and the bowls and pass them along to Hero to dry them. Hero does have a dishwasher but the cliché of us washing the dishes together is appealing. While scrubbing the soap into the last bowl, my mind wanders. Noah came over to meet my parents for the first time and after dinner he helped me with the dishes. My parents leave us on our own in the kitchen and I thank Noah for coming for dinner. Noah starts to get mad at me over something I implied over dinner and that did not make him happy. The first time Noah ever got aggressive with me was over something I apparently implied. He grabbed my wrist that was holding the bowl—the memory is all too real when the bowl I am holding shatters onto the kitchen floor. Hero turns to look at the broken glass and then to me. I drop to the floor to collect the pieces, but before I can pick anything up, Hero grabs my wrist pulling me away. "I got it." He says, looking into my eyes he can see the despair. I walk upstairs, straight to our bathroom, locking the door behind me. Minutes go by before Hero knocks at the bathroom door. I ignore him and he must have sensed that because he didn't knock again.

The shower water falls on my face and my fear slowly disappears. Once it is fully out of my system, I turn the shower off and wrap myself in a towel. Reminding myself that there is a man who I get to live with, who actually cares about me. A man who is going back to set in two days and I'm wasting my night like his, remembering the bad. I dress myself, then open the bathroom door to see that Hero is lying on the bed, playing on his phone, waiting for me. I lay beside him, putting my head on his chest and listen to his heart beating. He doesn't ask me what that was all about and his concern now is how we will spend the rest of our time while he's off. "What if I invite some of my buddies over tomorrow? They will find out about you sooner than later so better now than then," he says. I of course agree but on the inside and I hope Hero doesn't notice, but I'm panicking!

Hero takes a shower himself before we settle down for the night. He doesn't take a long shower, but when he comes back walking into the room naked, trying to tempt me, "Miss me?" I shake my head and give him a giggle. He slips on a new pair of boxers, this time red ones and then heads to the bed. Before he sits down, I ask him for a black pen and paper. He runs down to the kitchen, pulls out a note pad and pen and runs it back up to me. I look at him and he looks at me with confusion in his eyes, "Okay what are your friends' names?" I ask him. He laughs at me. "Are you going to study my friends?" "I just don't know anything about them." He can't contain his laughter. He starts telling me about each of his friends, and I'm constantly asking him for details: how do they look, what do they do? Some of his celebrity friends I've heard of, but he isn't keen on having them over just yet.

There's Leo from London who moved out here on a scholarship for College; he's a tall lanky man with black hair that flows down to the end of his neck; Hero says it's his best mate. Then there is Robbin, who is Leo's girlfriend. Robbin is a year older than Leo and they met because they ended up taking a second-year class together. Hero describes Robbin as a punk rocker girl with black hair, tattoos and a bad attitude. "Personally, she is a fucking bitch, but he likes her, so I deal with her annoying fucking face." I lightly punch his arm. Hero explains that there is a group of guys he hangs out with; Jakub, Alex and Zoom which is a nickname for Zander. He explains that they are the gothic emo guys who do drugs and drink every weekend. He doesn't want me to be around that crew, but I insist that I meet all his friends. I need to know the people that Hero hangs out with most, to find out more about Hero.