The Masked Singer

[Chapter Fifty Seven]

When he's finished, he cleans his hands with the napkin that was previously wrapped around the cone. After cleaning his fingers, he scrunches the napkin up in his palm and tosses it into the centre of the table and looks up at me.

"Ava's scheduled early rehearsal tomorrow," Alex opens the conversation. Rolling my eyes, I lean back in my chair. I'm quickly shocked as the cold plastic presses up against my skin. It's now that I'm stuck in this cold shop that I wish I paid more attention to my clothing instead of my thoughts.

"Can we talk about something else?" I ask. The thought of discussing more work makes me sick to the stomach – I miss having real, deep conversations. Continually talking about work outside of work doesn't give me much of a break or a down brief.

"What do you want to talk about?" Alex asks, raising an eyebrow up.

"You." I smirk.

"What about me?" Alex asks, his voice quirking with surprise.

"We're supposed to be dating and I've yet to really learn about you. And I don't think all the things I've read on the internet about you is enough – you can't always trust what people say to begin with."

Alex's face morphs into an expression of shock, "If we're going to talk about that, what about you?" he starts saying, "I'm sure I know less about you – there's nothing about you to read on the internet."

"Have you tried looking?" I giggle, "Well, we're going to educate ourselves on the matter." I wrap my arms around my body as I lean against the table and closer to Alex. This makes him laugh and waggle his eyebrows – which gets me excited about the future conversations we'll have. I've always wanted to know what makes Alex ticks, he's a bit mysterious.

"What do you want to know?" he asks.

"Everything."

He doesn't immediately respond to the question, but leans back in his chair and tries to settle into a comfortable position. A thoughtful expression consumes his face and his eyes wander to the wall behind me. As he continues to think, the silence and waiting time makes a curious feeling begin to bubble up inside of me.

"I'll start with the basics," I suggest, "where do you come from?"

"Australia, mate." He winks, putting on a thick Aussie accent which makes me giggle.

"Really?" My eyes pop open, "I thought you were American?"

"No, I recently moved a few years back when we started doing more tours in America, it was easier travel wise. I guess I lost my accent over the years." He chuckles.

"Oh," I whisper.

"What do your parents work as? I gather your sister is still at school?"

"Mom doesn't work; Dad's a lawyer – the best at his job." I wink, "and yes, my sister is at school."

"A lawyer, sounds like a good profession to be in when his daughter choses this career path." Alex nods his head slowly.

"What about your parents?" I ask. Now that I think about it, I don't ever remember hearing about his family in interviews.

"Well..." His gaze wanders off to the wall behind me. His cheeky grin fades slightly, but moments later his smile becomes wider than before – like he's desperately trying to look happy, yet the sad emotions inside are eating him alive, consuming his words and plaguing his mind.

"Sorry," I say under my breath. This is why he never talks about his family on camera, touchy subject. How could I be so stupid? Of course he doesn't want to talk about it with me.

"It's fine. Both my parents live on a cattle farm, typical Aussie's right?" he laughs, "they breed and sell mostly cows, once we had horses," Alex lists off.

"And do you have any siblings?"

"Yes, but –"

The server from before suddenly appears next to the table. "We're closing, so could you please move on?" he asks, cutting our conversation off.

"Sure," Alex says. "We should be going now; we do have a busy schedule tomorrow." He winks, and I nod my head.

"We should finish this conversation later though," I say, hoping he will agree.

"Sienna, you're my girlfriend; I want to continue to know everything about you!" He smiles. Alex's glowing smile makes my heart race.

"I want to know everything about you too," I agree.

Alex helps me out of my chair and we proceed to leave the shop. Waiting outside is Mitch with the car. Like a gentleman, he opens the door and ushers me inside. The warm air from inside the car rushes out, reminding me of how cold I actually am.

Shooting Alex a quick grin, I hop in and wiggle across the leather seat so that I'm in the middle. Alex quickly jumps in and closes the car door which sends a rush of cold air my way. As soon as we are buckled up, Mitch drives down the road and joins the busy hall of traffic at the end of the street.

I'm glad I got the opportunity to spend some alone time with Alex after the incident with Nathan. Despite the differences we have and the similarities with Nathan, I feel like there's something with Alex, I just haven't had the chance to discover it.

]