Tapping nervously my foot against the floor, I waited for someone to open the door. They already opened the gate, so it was pretty obvious somebody would be at home.
Well, the gardener was there, but he looked at me sympathetically without saying a word, so obviously it wasn't him who opened it.
It was 5 pm on a Tuesday. I hadn't heard from Ace since our conversation Sunday night. I tried to call him twice from Sarah's phone since mine was dead, and I also texted him but he didn't even read the texts. I didn't know if he was ignoring me or he simply didn't go through his phone. I even went to the library and studied there hoping I could see him, but he didn't show up.
Finally someone decided to open the door. Hopefully it'd be just Ace and I wouldn't have to handle some member of his family when I was going to have this 'talk' with him.
What I saw surprised me to say the least. Ace opened the door quickly and threw me a confused look. He was clearly shocked. He opened his eyes wide before furrowing his brow and his lips parted slightly as if he was going to say something.
But that's not what surprised me, he obviously didn't expect me.
What surprised me was that he had make up on his face. Blue eyeshadow and really vibrant pink cheeks to be exact. His hair was covered in purple butterfly hair clips and other accessories. I tried to remain serious as I hid my lower lip inside my mouth fighting a laugh. My eyes went wide in absolute shock.
I heard tiny footsteps running towards us. "Ace, I haven't put on the lipstick yet!"
Ace shook his head rapidly and turned to face the voice. Morgan appeared behind him with a cherry red lipstick in her hand.
"Martina?" She asked sheepishly as she looked at me, her eyes widening. A smile began to curl up in her lips.
Shit this was going to be way more difficult than I had thought.
"Hi, princess." I smiled at her, crouching down to her level. She came and gave me a hug, resting her head on my shoulder. I glanced up at Ace who was still a little bit in shock.
"You staying for dinner?" She asked with her soft voice, grabbing my hand.
Standing up, I glanced at Ace and gave him a uncertain look. "I wouldn't like to disturb, sweetie. I-"
Ace frowned again and shook his head, this time as if he was kind of escaping of his trance state. "You can stay, it's just the twins and I."
I looked around searching for an answer. This was not what I had planned before I came here.
Morgan gave me a little smile as she pulled my hand making me go inside of the house. She then began to run towards the living room and I heard her say something. I cleared my throat and glanced at Ace smiling shyly.
"I love the new look."
He chuckled without looking at me. "Yeah, I'm taking it off right now. It itches." He said taking a pin from his hair off.
"Martina!!"
There she was. Claudia came running and jumped into my arms. I picked her up and hugged her tightly.
"I missed you!" She said.
My heart cracked a little.
"I missed you too, bonita."
Ace was staring at us, clearly trying to suppress a smile, until he cleared his throat and I let Claudia down.
"Mhm, I'm gonna go remove this." He said gesturing to the stairs.
"But we haven't finished!" Yelled Claudia and Morgan at the same time.
Whoa. That was twin telepathy or something.
"I know, but I can't stand it no more." He said scratching his face.
Morgan pouted and Claudia scrunched up her face angrily.
Ace rolled his eyes and bent down to whisper to them. "Go to the living room and put on a movie, I'll make popcorn and a pizza for dinner if you don't tell mom."
They both nodded eagerly and disappeared in less than a second.
I glanced briefly at Ace. "I'll help you." I said in a low tone. He nodded and began to walk upstairs. The tension was heavy between us. I followed him as he entered his bathroom. I watched as he put his head in the sink under the faucet and rubbed his face hard with the water. He glanced at himself in the mirror and saw that he just made it worse.
"Do you have any idea how to remove this?" He asked exasperated.
"Does your mom have make up remover?" I asked approaching him, stopping beside him as we talked looking at each other through the mirror.
"Maybe." He bit his lip and inhaled deeply before letting out a big breath. "Come with me."
I followed him to his parents bedroom and got inside the bathroom. He opened a cabinet and gestured for me to look for it. "Somewhere in here?" He said more in a question tone.
I found it and grabbed his forearm making him sit down in the toilet. He opened his legs and I stood in between them. He rested his hands on his knees. I grabbed a cotton disc and poured some of the liquid on it.
"Close your eyes." I said softly. He did so and I began rubbing his eyelids gently. "How long are your sisters staying?" I asked after I cleaned the mascara and eyeshadow of one of his eyes.
"Until September. They've already finished school. My parents are in Sweden right now but they have a babysitter and well, me."
"You have to be very happy that they're here."
"I am." He said nodding his head slowly.
"You can open them now." I said taking another disc and removing the blush in his cheeks.
He stared at me quietly. Sadly, it was a silence full of tension. We obviously needed to talk, we had a little argument there, and then it was that other thing I wanted to do.
We were so close I could smell his amazing scent and drown in his intense eyes. His thick lips were asking me to kiss him.
I sighed and pulled away when I finished, giving him a tight smile. I put everything away and closed the cabinet. He stood up and I glanced up at him. I knew we had to talk but for some reason I couldn't do it. I felt so scared.
He might have noticed because when I turned around and began to walk towards the door he grabbed my arm.
"Martina." He sighed.
I turned to face him and saw the hurt look in his eyes.
"I'm sorry." I murmured searching his face. "I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have talked to you like that-"
"No, you shouldn't." He said serious, letting my arm go. "But I should have understood that you were upset with everything that happened, and understand that you needed space."
"I was just a little suffocated and-" I sighed and looked at my feet before glancing up at him again. "I called you."
"I know." He said biting his lip. Okay, so he was ignoring me. I had to admit that hurt a little. "What happened to your phone?"
I avoided his gaze embarrassed. "I was mad, I threw it on the bed but it ended up crashing against the floor." He shook his head and sighed. "I needed to buy a new one anyway." I shrugged.
"Well, are you better now?" He asked intertwining the fingers of one of his hands with mine.
I looked up at him and nodded with a frown before giving him a little smile. "Yes." I lied.
I couldn't do it. From now on, you can call me Martina the chicken.
He gave me an incredulous look as he bit the corner of his mouth while he played with my hand. "I don't believe you." He approached me a little bit and ran his fingers along my bare shoulder while his other hand still grabbed mine. "Do you wanna talk about it?"
His voice was shut down by one of his sisters' call. I couldn't quite decipher if it was Morgan or Claudia's voice, but I could guess it was the latter since she loved to yell and was more like the energetic one.
"Ace!!!"
He sighed and tilted his head down closing his eyes.
"Come on." I said squeezing his hand and pulling him out of the room, that way I could avoid the topic for a while. I didn't want to talk about what I ended up doing the other night with her little sisters downstairs. I'd have to leave it for another moment. Soon, though.
We went downstairs and I saw Claudia with the remote in her hand while the TV screen was completely blue. Morgan pointed at the screen with her index finger, her face seemed innocent as she sucked her thumb in her other hand.
"It's broken. We can't save it." Declared Claudia shaking her head, letting out a breath and putting a hand on her hip. I swear she was like an old lady trapped in the body of a five year-old.
I felt Ace's grip tightening before he let go of my hand and went towards her. "What did you do?" He asked taking the remote from Claudia's hand.
"Nothing, I swear." She said innocently stepping back and letting Ace fix it.
He ran a hand through his hair while he pressed some buttons. Morgan glanced up at me and I approached her and carresed her hair while she hugged my leg.
"Ace, I'm sorry." Said Claudia guiltily, her confidence leaving her body. "I can buy a new one, I have a piggy. Don't be mad, please, please, please."
Ace achieved to fix it and put on the movie. He turned around and crouched down putting each hand on Claudia's shoulders. She was pouting trying to keep her tears back. "Claudia, I'm not mad. I thought you'd remember how to turn it on but I guess it's been a while." The little girl nodded. "Come on, give me a hug." He said with a little smile opening his arms. Claudia threw herself at him and rested her head on his shoulder. He picked her up and let the girl in the couch.
"I'm gonna make the pizza and popcorn, okay?"
I went to follow him but Morgan tugged the hem of my skirt. "Sit with me?"
I melted a little bit on the inside as I saw that the girl was slightly opening herself to me. I smiled at her and nodded my head.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Claudia was lying on the floor, her head rested on Renzo's body as she hugged him. They both were asleep, their breathing slow. She reminded me of my five year old self.
Who was I kidding, I still sat on the floor everyday.
Morgan was beside me, her side against my body, her head resting on my chest as I wrapped her little figure with my arm. Her thumb was inside her mouth as it usually was. Ace was beside me but we weren't really touching. The air was for some reason a little tense between us. The reason was me, obviously. We had dinner, I only had a slice of pizza and he noticed.
Of course he noticed.
And I guess the fact that we had an argument two days ago was also a reason why he was kinda ignoring me.
We were surprisingly focused on the movie, it was probably the first one we watched till the end since we were together, and it was a Disney Pixar one.
Hey, I'm not complaining.
When it finished, we stayed silent for a few seconds. I removed Morgan's hairs of her face and glanced down at her, seeing that she was fully asleep too. I should have noticed it when I was still commenting the movie and nobody replied.
Ace stood up and picked up Claudia from the floor. Renzo woke up and sat up. "Can you pick her up?" Asked gesturing to Morgan. I nodded and tried to sit up without waking her up. I got up and lifted her up. Renzo followed us as we went to their bedroom -they liked to share one, even though there were like hundreds of rooms in this house- and let them in their beds. I watched in awe as Ace gave each of them a kiss on their foreheads. I was leaning against the door frame when Ace walked towards me.
"Mhm, I should probably go." I mumbled staring at him after looking around nervously.
"No." He whispered approaching me.
"No?" My voice trembled at his sudden proximity.
He shook his head looking all serious. "No."
"Then what?" He drove his fingers to my cheek, brushing them against my skin slowly.
"You should stay."
His eyes were hypnotizing me. I searched them frantically, my head was spinning. The touch of his fingers burned my skin as he drove them to my chin, tilting my head up a bit. I needed him closer. Without even realising it, I approached him a little bit more. With the last bit of confidence that I had, I was able to let out a whisper.
"Yes?"
"Yes." His mouth was just mere inches away from mine now. I could feel his breath in my lips.
I nodded my head in agreement and he leaned his head slowly towards mine. His lips brushed mine so gently that it would have been difficult to notice them at the beginning, if it wasn't because when they touched mine, my whole body shivered in response. The electricity I felt was immense as he deepened the kiss and I kissed him back, driving my hands to the back of his head.
I pulled his hair pushing him closer to me, pressing my chest against his body. He kissed me hard, with passion. His hands travelled down my sides, stopping at my thighs were he gripped hard lifting me up. I wrapped my legs around his hips and he began to walk, his lips never leaving mine.
Oh god, how did I miss those lips and what they did to me.
I drove my mouth to his neck, biting it gently and sucking on it. I breathed in his scent, resting my head on his shoulder.
"I love how you smell." I whispered more to myself than to him.
All of a sudden, I felt the mattress against my back, I looked around and we were in his bedroom. I glanced up at Ace, who was taking off his shirt.
Was it me, or was it suddenly really hot in that room?
I did the same with my top before he lay down on top me, crushing his lips fiercely against mine.
I suddenly thought of his little twin sisters in another room of the house and stopped.
"Ace."
"Shh." He drove his lips to my neck, finding my weak spot and making my legs close uncontrollably. "I've been wanting this for so long..."
"A week?" I chuckled.
He stopped and looked at me wide-eyed. "It's been a whole week?" He said dramatically.
I laughed. "Unbelievable, I know."
"Well, this is for all the times that we got interrupted."
"It has to be amazing then." I said with a grin, running my hands through his hair.
"When is it not?" He said with a cocky smirk.
I drove my hands to the back of his head, still combing his hair with my fingers until I frowned when I found something hard. "What the hell..."
I grabbed it and held it in front of my eyes to see what it was. Ace looked at it and we both examined it. I burst out laughing when I discovered what it was.
"How many of these hair clips have you got in there?" I laughed stroking Ace's cheek when I noticed his aggravated expression.
"I hate living with so many women." He sighed shaking his head and looked down.
"Liar." I smiled, my laughter fading. "You love those girls."
"I do." He glanced up at me under his lashes. "And I love you." He leaned down and kissed my forehead. I smiled wider and brushed his hair back with my fingers putting the hair clip to hold it away from his forehead.
I laughed again as I watched one of his eyebrows lift and his lips pursing in an unamused way, though I could tell he really wanted to laugh. He took it off and ruffled his hair, giving it the messy look that he always had.
"Are you done laughing at me?" He said biting his lips trying to suppress a smile.
"Mhm, maybe." I shrugged. "I don't know. It's fun." I bit my lips amusedly.
His eyes went a shade darker as his gaze fell on my lips. "I know something we can do even more fun."
"Oh yeah?" I smirked.
He nodded and leaned down to whisper in my ear, inhaling deeply in my hair. "Hmh. But you have to promise me you're going to be a good girl."
Oh boy.
My body shivered as his mouth roamed my neck, tracing its way down my chest. I softly moaned when his teeth pushed my bra aside and his tongue found my nipple.
"Are you going to behave?"
I closed my eyes and nodded while I licked my lips unconsciously.
"Sorry, what did you say?" He said suddenly stopping and looking down at me furrowing his brow.
At this point I was breathing heavily, my voice came out shakier than I would have liked. The effect he had on me always seemed to surprise me.
"I promise I'll behave."
He smiled and leaned down to talk closer to my mouth. "I'm kidding, I want you to be as naughty as you want."
I laughed again as I rolled my eyes. "Shut up and kiss me already."
He laughed too and stared at me for a second, studying my face and smoothing my hair back from it gently with his palm. "Ti amo tantissimo." My chest tightened before he leaned down and kissed me passionately.
And my head couldn't stop thinking about my purpose when I first came here. But as he kissed me just how he knew to, as if his life depended on it, I forgot about everything.
Just one night.
Just tonight.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ti amo tantissimo: i love you so much
The end is coming soon! Next chapter would be the last but there are three epilogues so you'll have me here for a couple of weeks more 😌
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