Mysterious

Chapter 30

"Anna! He's cheating on me...." Arissa cried into the phone in the hotel room.

"Arissa....I don't think that's true..." Anna responded.

"No! I was sitting next to him...and he was getting texts from this girl...and she said she did it better than me. I knew this was dumb. Everything has been so dumb."

"Arissa...did you talk to him? Did you ask him what was going on? He wouldn't do that. You know him better than most people..."

"But you didn't know that the second I got to LA he left. He went to the studio. And he doesn't text me in the morning anymore. And he sure as hell isn't trying to get in my pants the same way he used to..." Arissa started to cry.

"Oh honey bear...you're just finding each other. You were in the car for Ryan and my fight in Houston. And you know we've been late for things because we fight..."

"But I don't want it to be that way..." Arissa started. "And I don't want it to be like Robert. I stuck around for him too long. I'm not going to stick around for him; even if he is Bruno Mars..." she cried.

"You two will get it together. You're too good together not to get through it. And I am a bridesmaid still."

"I don't think there's going to be a wedding..."

**

What a shitty birthday. I don't know if I can even deal with it. It's too much. What do I do? How do I even start to tell her I'm sorry? Bruno started to think to himself walking down the hallway of her hotel. She has to be at the gym. That's where she always is. He walked by several hotel guests and employees wearing ray-bans and his beanie. No one bothered him. Wow, that was nice...but I need her...He looked in the swanky work-out area. He saw some Italian businessmen and that was it..."Shit." he said loudly. A young mother with toddlers looked up at him. "I'm sorry..." he told her. She shrugged her head at his reaction. He walked back toward the hotel lobby.

"Excuse me?" he asked a hotel employee.

"Sì?" the employee answered.

"Hai visto una ragazza bionda breve che ha bellissimi occhi verdi?" he pulled the Little Italian he knew together to ask the question.

"Ha appena controllato. She just checked out..." the man answered.

"Quando?" Bruno asked.

"Maybe an hour ago..."

"Grazie..." Bruno said going to the front desk.

"Do you know where Arissa Henderson is?" he asked the girl in the front.

"Mr. Hernandez...she checked out with her co-worker like an hour ago."

"Do you know where she went?"

"I can't tell you that, Bruno." the girl continued.

"But you know?" he asked.

"She's at the Pucci show..." the girl next to her answered.

"Where's that?"

"You're not going to get there in time..." the first girl told him.

"Where is it?" he demanded. The girls gave him directions.

He ran out the hotel trying to figure out how to get to her. He grabbed his phone and texted her.

Wait for me. Please.

Bruno waited in front of the fashion show for her. He held his head down careful not to be noticed. He saw familiar and unfamiliar faces walking out past the lines of cameras. Where is she? Where is she? Please come out this way. Please.

**

Arissa looked down at her phone to read his text.

"Do I send one back?" she asked Nahvia.

"No. Don't. He doesn't deserve a response. Even if it is a negative response."

She put her phone in her purse waiting for the show to start.

"Which way do we go out? If he's here I don't want to see him..." she wondered out loud over the exit music.

"We'll blend in. It'll be okay.." Nahvia told her.

They sure did blend in. No one saw them. She saw him sitting on the corner of the street with his head down waiting for her to come out...

"We'll walk around the other way..." Arissa pulled Nahvia with her.

**

Bruno walked slowly back to where he was performing that evening.

"Did you get her?" Phred asked.

"No, dude. I didn't even see her. They said she was at Pucci but I didn't see her. She probably booked it to Paris..."

"You'll figure it out..." Phred said. "Let's go. You'll have a great show tonight..."

"I don't know..I don't know..." Bruno said walking to the front of the stage for the sound check. He put his hand in his pocket to feel her ring.