Beauty and a Beat (A Bruno Mars Fanfiction)

23. Magic

Marianne assumes that Bruno and Jessica are already doing well because he doesn't call her that evening. She goes out to visit Bob alone and easily finds him at his favorite spot. He's reading a newspaper and looks older than she remembered.

"Hey! Bob," she greets him as sitting down next to him. She gets used to some pairs of eyes looking at her and learned to ignore it for long time.

"Marianne!" Bob puts down the newspaper and smiles at her. "long time no see!"

"I was busy with the college" She answers as she hands a loaf of bread to him.

"How it's going? How about your project?" Bob asks, notices she has something she wants to say.

"It's going well and the project is almost complete. Just some little details left." Marianne says with a smile "you know, if I don't have you, I wouldn't come this far."

"and if it wasn't for you, I wouldn't live this long" He raises the bread

"It's the old lady's" she corrects him "I've been looking for you for days, where've you been?"

"It doesn't matter. Why did you find me?"

"I have good news to tell you." She says with excited voice. He smiles at her as an old grandpa would do to their little granddaughter. "I've got a job, as a researcher in Brazil."

"I always know you'll make it" he say with a bright smile he hasn't had for a long while "congratulation little girl"

"Thank you, Bob"

"When'd you go? Oh... i'mma miss you so much"

"2 months after graduate" she answers "It'd be hard to say goodbye to this city, to the little ma'am and to all my friends"

"It'd be hard for me to say goodbye to you too"

"then don't, go with me! My income is enough to feed two of us!" She offers "I'm serious!"

"I know." He answers, not smiling anymore "but I've gone too far. The street is my home. And who knows, someday if my little girl shown up, this is the place where she would be looking for me"

"It's been a long time, Bob." Marianne says as she reaches out and holds his hand. "I won't make you do something you don't want to, but, Bob, I offered you a start over. Just think about it. We would have a lot of fun. You'd be my personal adviser. We're gonna kick Amazon's ass. I know you miss the lab and plant and science. Please just think about it. At least don't turn me down now, it'd break my heart"

And she doesn't get the answer that night. She keeps thinking about him all the way home. Many 'what if' come to her mind. What if he starves after she left? What if he died, she'd not have any chance to know it. He is too old to be left alone homelessly in this city, not when she has the ability to take care of him.

The following morning, Marianne goes to Bruno's apartment as usual. She finds Jessica is up and doing something in the kitchen. She thinks that something is going wrong because it smell like a burned down house than food.

"Hey, Jessica!" Marianne great as she's put down the grocery bag on the counter "what are you doing? need some help?"

"oh! Marianne!" Jessica turns her back on the pan to talk to the girl.

Marianne just notices that Jessica is wearing an over size t-shirt like hot girls in the movies usually do after a sleep over night. She's wondering where would that shirt come from when it's look too big even for Peter.