"Well good morning my wonderful, fake fiancée." Paul stumbled out of his bedroom and towards the kitchen, "how'd you sleep?" He opened the freezer and pulled a box out, "how long have you been awake?"
"For about an hour or so. I slept okay." She was trying not to stare, but his blonde hair everywhere made it hard, "so I need coffee and I thought I would say something and not just steal your car to go to Starbucks."
"That's what I'm doing. I'm gonna make coffee right now. Do you just want regular coffee? I like the chocolate one." He opened the box and took out a small plastic cup.
"Wait, what the hell?" She got up and stood in the kitchen beside him, "why's the coffee in a little cup?"
"Because it goes in my coffee pot like this." He opened the top of his Keurig coffee brewer and placed the tiny cup in its holder, then snapped the lid shut, "you pick which size cup you want and there you go, it makes one cup of coffee for you. Which is perfect for me because I live alone." He smiled, "well at least I used to."
"Why does this seem like a total waste? It only makes one cup of coffee out of one of those little plastic cups?" She tried to pretend it wasn't like the coolest invention ever.
"There's not that much coffee in the little cup anyway. Plus, you can make tea or hot chocolate. And if you really play with it, you can get it to make iced stuff. You put the ice in your cup and there's a setting to where it won't make your drink boiling hot."
"Hmm, weird." She observed as he took the full cup from the coffee pot, "so, I just put the plastic cup in the top and push the button? That's it?"
"Pretty much." He put his mug on the counter and went to the refrigerator for milk, "the cups are in the cabinet right above." He loaded his cup with sugar and walked away.
Stephanie opened the cabinet and found a couple of coffee mugs that said World's Greatest Uncle, both with a different design, "you have like a brother or a sister?" She grabbed one of them and put it into the coffee brewer.
"I have both, my sister has kids, and I'm their favorite uncle." He smiled to himself, "I'm so awesome that even though they see my brother more often, I'm still they're favorite." He sat in his recliner in the living room, he was barely awake and trying to drink his coffee fast, "is that hideaway bed comfortable?"
"I guess so. It's a bed, it doesn't make a difference to me." She sat across from him, thinking, "how did you sleep?"
"Great I guess." He smiled, "I take my Ambien at nine and I get up usually at seven. That's ten hours. Didn't wake up once." He started to sip on his coffee, "and my bed is made for me and my back problems so I sleep pretty good, when I do sleep."
"You take Ambien? What for?" She gave him a stare down, "maybe if you drank more water and less caffeinated stuff like soda and coffee, you wouldn't need to take sleeping medication."
"Shut up. You're drinking coffee right now too." He scoffed, squinting his eyes at her, "this is what I'm talking about, you make bitchy little comments at me, I hate that."
"Paul, its seven in the morning and I drink one cup of coffee. You drink coffee from when you get to work, all the way until noon. Then you drink soda, Dr. Pepper to be exact, which is one of the worst sodas when it comes to caffeine. I wasn't trying to make a bitchy comment to you, I was just stating why you probably have to take Ambien." She put her cup in the coffee table and sighed, "and why do you have a bed made for your back problems, what back problems?"
"Cause you aren't the only one whose had to deal with the after-effects of a car accident. Before I worked for you and could afford a safety-tested car, I used to drive a really small piece of shit Toyota, and at the end of its life, I was at a stop light when some guy hit me from behind, I never heard brakes squeal or anything, he just hit me, doing 40."
Stephanie would have never guess, "really?" She once again looked him up and down, "is that why you have problems sleeping?"
"I don't take Ambien every single night, I only take it when I'm stressed out. If I'm stressed and I don't take it, I watch TV until midnight and when I try to go to bed, I'll end up lying there and thinking. When I finally snap out of my thoughts, I look at the clock and its almost two in the morning. That usually affects you because I haven't really been allowed to miss work unless its an emergency, and even then, I think I would have to be dead to be allowed to miss work."
She thought, "you've stayed home before. Don't make it seem like I never give you the day off." She bit her lip, realizing the last day she could remember giving him the day off was yesterday.
"Oh, yeah, I think we had a big argument when my dad was in the hospital for his heart surgery, if my mom hadn't called into the office crying for me, I'm pretty sure you would have made me work." He stood up, "I'll bet you don't even remember that."
She sat pondering over what he said, "maybe I don't, but after this, I'll give you as much time off as you want. I don't care." She felt bad, "now that I'm thinking about it, I kinda do remember, I'm sorry about that. Was your dad okay?"
"Yeah, he's fine now." He rinsed his cup in the sink, "he had to get his pacemaker replaced, but he's doing great," he changed the subject, "anyway, I'm going to take a shower, so we can go pick up all of your stuff."
"Well not all, its just the rest, I have a storage locker in Agoura Hills with all my stuff. I couldn't keep all my stuff in my mom's little house."
"You make loads of money and your mom has a small house? Well that doesn't seem right. Just how much stuff is in this storage locker? Cause I have the Mercedes and another car, but, not a whole lot of room you know."
"Its mostly clothes and stuff like that." She scrunched up her nose, "what other car do you have? Do you think Shawn would help us? I know he has a truck."
"Shawn, help you? Yeah right, he hates you more than I do. I just want you to know that I did take Shawn with me to get Madison yesterday, and the whole ride there he was referring to you as a bitch, while I was trying to explain how you weren't a bitch, I couldn't come up with very many counterattacks."
"Thanks." She slouched down into the chair, "so, what other car do you have? How big is it?"
"I have a truck like Shawn's. He has a shell on it so his will hold more stuff though." He scratched his head, "you take the Mercedes, I'll take the truck, I'll see if I can talk to Shawn, but with him, I don't know what he's gonna think of all this. But obviously, you need to be living here and we need to be quote, 'in love', soon so it looks like we aren't faking this, like we are." He started further down the hallway, "I'll be out in like, 20 minutes."
"Okay." She smiled, still totally surprised he was doing this for her. She heard the water turn on and started to look around, seeing a pair of framed pictures on the TV stand, the first and smaller one was of four kids seeming to range from ages three to thirteen, the bigger picture was of him and two other adults who looked to be around the same age as him, "these must be his nieces and nephews, and probably him with his brother and sister." She held back another smile and put the pictures back next to the TV.