Arthur felt embarrassed. He was too old to be doing this really. Babysitting was a job that teenage girls did during the summer for enough money to go on holiday after leaving high school. He was twenty-two, technically old enough to be too old, and studying further maths and architecture at Reading University in England. England was like a dream to him, basically where all the history came from: America was great, but everything was too...new. When you want to be an architect and you want to admire beautiful buildings that are older than all the people you know and all the people they know put together, the cities in England such as Durham, York, and Reading, are where you really want to be. So, with his parents' permission; under the promise that he would call and Skype regularly, he moved to Reading at eighteen years of age.
Arthur sometimes missed home, but mostly he was engrossed in a book or listening to music or out with his best friend Ariadne, who he'd moved to Reading with from Salem, New Jersey. The pair of them rented a town house with another guy and two other girls, Jack, Carrie, and Lia. It was student accommodation, so they weren't allowed to decorate it themselves, but next year, Arthur and Ariadne would have had enough money saved up to rent a nice house a few streets away from where they were living now. However, to get money saved up so they could begin decorating straight away, they were both working two jobs on the side of uni lectures. Ariadne worked in a nice cafe on the University Campus, Arthur was offering himself up as a babysitter for students and lecturers alike, and the pair of them worked at the popular student bar on campus.
Arthur had received a phone call from one of the university lecturers asking if he'd do some last minute babysitting for him. Arthur – not one to turn down some work – agreed and told the professor that he'd go to his home that evening around eight-thirty and look after his daughter for a few hours.
So that brings us to this particular moment, whereupon Arthur was walking to the lecturers house – thankfully only a handful of streets away from Arthur's student accommodation – and thinking that he was probably beyond the peak age for babysitting. As Arthur took to the steps leading up to the lecturer's town house, it dawned on him that he hadn't taken down the professor's name, just his address and the time to be there. Just before Arthur began to regret taking the job [having been left without a chance to verify that the man asking Arthur to be in his house was actually a professor at his university and not a murderer/rapist/kidnapper/all of the above/other] the door was opened to reveal – without doubt – the most attractive man Arthur had ever seen. It should first be explained that Arthur was gay, and had been since he first caught a glimpse of Liam from 90210 one night back in New Jersey with Ariadne. Therefore, with Arthur's standards being as high as the unnecessarily attractive cast of 90210, saying that this man was without doubt the most attractive man he'd ever seen was a genuinely dramatic statement for Arthur. He had to stop dead in his tracks for a moment to take in this major revelation in his still so young life.
"You Arthur?" A deep, husky, and somewhat suspicious voice asked in Arthur's general direction. He had every right to be suspicious, Arthur thought, there was a student just stood at the foot of his front steps gawping up at him mindlessly. As Arthur's mouth caught up with his mind and he finally realised that this man was expecting an answer, he just about managed to speak.
"Uh yes, yes sir, that's me."
"Strange. You didn't sound American on the phone."
"Yeah, England's made an impression on me and my posh phone voice has become southern English rather than east coast American."
"Haha, that's funny. You're funny. That's good. Do come in." The man opened the door properly and Arthur – on autopilot – walked up the steps and entered the tall town house. "My name's Mr. Eames, I teach English Language and Literature at the university. What, may I ask, do you study Arthur? I don't recognise you."
"You wouldn't, I study further math and architecture, sir."
"Urgh, don't call me sir, makes me feel pretentious and bossy. Also, maths is a hideous subject. You should be ashamed. Elsa!" Mr. Eames turned and shouted up some tall, beige stairs. Soon after, a thumping sound could be heard and another figure appeared at the top of the steps. A young girl came down the stairs and stood beside Mr. Eames.
"Yes daddy?" Arthur looked at her and thought that she must have inherited all her genetics from her mother, as she looked nothing like Mr. Eames.
"Darling I want you to meet Arthur; he'll be looking after you tonight while I'm out. Arthur, this is my daughter Elsa, Elsa, this is Arthur." Elsa reached out and shook Arthur's hand in a very business-like way that Arthur admired and nodded her head slightly in a way that reminded Arthur of the way gang members would greet each other in the 40s mobster films he loved so much.
"It's nice to meet you Arthur."
"It's nice to meet you too Elsa, that's a beautiful name by the way." Arthur smiled at her and saw her blush slightly.
"Thank you. I like the name Arthur; it's traditional, but still cool."
"Thanks." They shared a smile as the girl Arthur guessed was 15 turned and walked down the corridor. "I'll be in the living room when my dad's done doing his thing with you." Before Arthur's imagination had the chance to take that sentence to beautiful places involving Mr. Eames' bare chest, the man himself spoke up to Arthur.
"So Arthur, I've left a note in the kitchen with any emergency numbers in case anything should happen. I'll be back around 12:30. Is that alright?"
"Yeah Mr. Eames, that sounds fine to me. Um, how old is Elsa?"
"Elsa? Yes, she's...sixteen." He looked confused for a moment, then shook it off and said: "Blimey, she grew up fast." Mr. Eames took a heavy, dark woollen coat off a hanger by the door and opened the front door. Just as his handsome structure was about to leave, he turned and said: "Oh and Arthur? Don't call me 'Mr. Eames'. It makes me feel old." And with that, he was gone. Arthur was left stood in his hallway thinking 'Well what am I supposed to call him? Just Eames? That's a bit weird, but I guess it'll have to do as I don't know his first name.'
"Arthur?" Elsa's voice could be heard from down the hallway, and Arthur walked towards the back of the house where he found her in the living room, watching television. "Come and watch the telly with me."
"Yeah okay."
And so, the pair of them watched tv, ordered and shortly afterwards devoured a large cheese pizza. As it got towards 10:30, Arthur turned to Elsa and asked: "How come your dad hired me to watch you? You seem perfectly capable of looking after yourself."
Elsa hesitated for a moment before finally answering him.
"Well, he doesn't really trust me being here by myself. I'm a bit of a...hazard around here. I always find a way of getting into trouble." She smiled at him sheepishly before he wrist watch beeped a couple of times. "Oh, I need my medication. Will you get it for me please? It's in the top right hand drawer of my dad's desk in his office across the hall. I'd get it myself but I'm not supposed to go in there: he usually gets it for me."
"Yeah of course. What do you need medication for? If you don't mind my asking."
"It's ADHD medicine, keeps me calm. Without it I get really distracted."
"Okay." So Arthur got off the sofa in the living room, crossed the corridor and entered what he assumed was Mr. Eames' study. He flicked on the light and made his way over to the large, oak desk. Opening the top right hand drawer and started quietly moving things around in search of Elsa's medication. What he found, however, had him frozen for some time.
"Arthur?" Came Elsa's voice after a while, and she came to the door of the office, her jaw dropping slightly when she realised what was in his hand. The last thing Arthur remembered before he fainted was the Polaroid photograph in his hand. The photo that depicted Mr. Eames and Elsa, only rather than it being a photograph of the first time Mr. Eames held his baby girl in his arms, or a picture from one of their summer vacations, it was a picture of Elsa with a bind around her mouth and a terrified look in her eyes, and Mr. Eames holding a gun to her temple.
Please review to let me know what you think of this and where you may want it to go, if you want it to go somewhere, etc.