Chapter 13

Summary

As Kira extends the length of her stay on the island, Alise can't help but be a pushover. As time goes on, Alise begins to figure out what Owen was worried about and it's only just the beginning.

It's been 5 days since Kira started staying with me and it was originally only supposed to be 3 or 4 days tops like she said. She hasn't said anything about staying longer. In fact, she hasn't even mentioned anything to me about it. That was partly because I haven't gotten a chance to talk to her about it either.

I've been super busy with work and I was working nights and would get home around 11 and she'd already be in bed, or she'd be out. She slept pretty late so we didn't really see each other in the morning either. We haven't talked much, aside from me texting her here and there to check in and see what she's up to. I asked her what she's been doing and she said she's exploring and meeting new people, so I guess it's good she hasn't been stuck home doing nothing all day.

Owen still hasn't loosened up about her being here and he still hasn't told me his deal with her, mostly because I've been so busy. When I stopped by the enclosure for lunch earlier today he asked me if Kira was leaving soon and I said I had no idea. That's when he got annoyed and told me I needed to talk to her about the length of her stay, especially since it's been over what she originally said. I agreed with him, understanding why he was frustrated and decided I'd talk to her later tonight. I was going to be home by 6 pm, so it was the perfect time to talk to her.

I texted her to make sure she'd be home and she said she was out with friends, so she'd be back by 7. I didn't mind that at all, I was just happy that she was making friends so quickly and wasn't bored out of her mind. After that, she asked me what I was making for dinner. I made sure she has had something the past 5 days, whether I cooked it the night before, left her the ingredients to cook something herself, or brought her something to eat on the way home from work. Owen was on me about that too, saying she wasn't a child and could handle it herself, but I couldn't help it. It was just my nature. Maybe I shouldn't be doing it though, seeing as now she's almost expecting it to be done.

I ended up making Thai chicken salad and had it ready by 7, but she wasn't home yet. I texted her around 7:30 to make sure all was okay, but she never answered. It was a little frustrating. I ended up putting the salad in the fridge and watching TV while I waited for her to come home, which didn't happen until 8:15 when she stumbled into the house, making a hell of a lot of noise.

"Sorry I'm late, lost track of time!" she said as she shut the door and took her shoes off before heading into the kitchen.

"No worries…" I said as I walked into the kitchen. "There's Thai chicken salad in the fridge." I told her after seeing she was scanning the counters.

"Great, you're a doll. I'm starving." she said, taking it out and grabbing a fork, taking a large bite.

"I was actually hoping I could talk to you…" I trailed off, she looked at me with her brows raised, mid-bite. "But I can wait until you're finished eating." I said.

"No, no. It's fine," she said with her mouth full. "What's up?" she asked after she swallowed. I sat down at the kitchen table and she followed suit, I didn't want to watch her eating standing up in the middle of the kitchen anymore, it was weird.

"Well, I just wanted to talk about how long you've been here… not that you're an inconvenience or anything, but I remember you saying 4 days and it's been 5 and I realized we never really discussed this before…" I trailed off, I was a little nervous. I hated confrontation, but I tried to word it in a way that wouldn't make it confrontational.

"Right, well, you've been lovely and it's not a big deal and I didn't want to say anything…" she let out a sigh, "But my ex back home has been kind of stalking me. I just thought I'd come here to get away for a bit and he wouldn't know where I was, but it turns out, he knows and he's been asking all of my friends about me and trying to contact me, even though I blocked his number. I'm worried about what might happen if I go back and I know what I have to do when I do go back, but I don't think I'm ready to go back just yet…" she explained. My heart dropped, I didn't expect to hear that and I felt terrible.

"I completely understand… I had an ex like that, you're more than welcome to stay a little longer." I said, rubbing her arm to comfort her.

"Great. You're such a sweetheart, bless your soul." she placed her hand over mine and smiled. "Are you watching Impractical Jokers?" she asked. The TV was still on and we could hear it from the kitchen.

"Yeah, you like that show?" I asked.

"Like it? I love it!" she said, standing up and bringing her bowl into the living room with her. I smiled and followed suit. I loved this show, it was hilarious. It was also nice to spend time with her and hopefully get to know her a bit, seeing as she is living in my apartment and I barely know anything about her.

The next morning I had work at 9 am, so I met Lowery for coffee around 8:30.

"So, we're having a Thor movie marathon tonight starting at 6:30." I said as I blew on the steaming coffee.

"Thor? Again? How many times are you going to watch that movie?" he asked, almost in disbelief.

"As many times as I want. Loki is so hot." I shrugged, taking a sip of the coffee.

"Your obsession with him is actually concerning." he said. He wasn't wrong. I had a poster of him in my room and Aspen got me a cardboard cut out of him that I left back at my parent's house. As much as I wanted to bring it with me, I didn't know where to put him and I wasn't about to take him on the plane as a carry-on item, I don't even think that's allowed.

"I want you to play the movie at my funeral and I want a picture of Loki buried in my casket with me when I die." I said, just to get a rise out of him. Plus, I wouldn't mind any of that.

He rolled his eyes, "Of course you do."

"Oh, and my dildo with his face on it." I slipped in, a smirk on my lips. I was quiet enough so co-workers wouldn't hear us as we walked down the hallway, but just loud enough so he could hear.

"What?!" he asked, nearly spitting out his coffee. His cheeks turned a light shade of pink and I laughed at his reaction.

"I'm kidding, I don't actually have one. They don't exist, I looked. Although, I could probably get a custom one, but those are super expensive." I thought out loud.

"How does that even work?" he wondered, probably thinking about how they could possibly get someone's face on a dildo.

"There are ways. So are you coming or not?"

"Who's gonna be there?" he asked curiously.

"Kira might be and Lucy is going to spend the night and I think Lachlan might come too. Oh, and Owen." I said. Lowery looked at me with his brows raised. I gave him a confused look and opened my mouth to ask 'what', but he cut me off.

"Owen watches Thor?"

"Hey, don't act too surprised, he's watched it with me before…"

"Probably because you forced him to." Lowery said under his breath.

"I did not force him, he was fine with it. Although, this time I kind of just told him we're having a Thor marathon at 6:30 and he's bringing the beer and not to be late, so he didn't really have a choice in the matter." I shrugged.

"Now that's not surprising," he laughed. "I'm actually gonna pass, I've gotta be in the office tomorrow at 3 am for the early morning shift."

"Bummer." I said.

"And no kidnapping me this time, okay? I know you." he said, I raised my brows. I did that once… okay, maybe twice.

"I was not going to… and I'm offended that you'd even say such a thing..." I trailed off, even though he guessed spot on. I was going to attempt to kidnap him with the help of Lucy, but he caught me. "Fine," I sighed, glancing at the time. "Gotta get to work. See you later little brother." I said, ruffling his hair.

He opened his mouth and sighed, "Really?" he groaned, attempting to smooth down his hair. "Bye, you jerk."

"Love you too!" I called back, laughing to myself as I made my way into my office.

I got home that night around 5:45, just enough time to tidy up and set up for everyone coming over. I was surprised that Kira wasn't home because she said she would be, but I figured she'd just come later. Lucy and Lachlan both got here at 6:30 on the dot because both of their shifts ended at 6 and Owen ended up getting here around 6:45 because he was running late with work. So, when all was said and done, we started the first movie at 7.

Lachlan left after the second one finished at 11 and even though Lucy was practically falling asleep she said she wanted to watch the third one anyway and I wasn't about to argue that. Owen didn't seem to mind, even though he wasn't really into the superhero movies. He just gave in because he knew I liked it, which was really sweet of him.

About halfway through the movie, Lucy was curled up in a ball under the blankets and passed out and I was awake enough to finish, even though it was nearing midnight. I didn't have work until 1 pm tomorrow, so staying up late didn't bother me. I wasn't sure if Owen had to work tomorrow, but even if he did, he could basically go in whenever he wanted to.

I jumped when the door opened and slammed against the door stopper. I'm pretty sure if there wasn't one, the handle would have gone right through the wall. The only light in the apartment was coming from the television, but I could tell it was Kira who was stumbling in.

She mumbled something to herself as she kicked her shoes off, almost losing balance, but catching herself as she shut the door. She walked into the living area, leaning against the wall for support the entire way.

"Oh hey, you two!" she exclaimed, standing up straighter when she saw Owen and I both looking at her.

"Hey… you okay?" I asked, judging by the way she was acting, she was almost definitely drunk.

"Yeah, yeah. Totally fine," she said, surprisingly she was able to talk pretty decently, so I couldn't really tell by her voice that she was drunk, but her lack of balance said it all. "I'm just gonna go to sleep. I'm super tired. Really long day. Goodnight!" she said quickly before stumbling her way down the hallway.

"She's drunk." Owen scoffed.

"It's perfectly fine for her to be, the drinking age here is 18, remember?"

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean she should be getting plastered and you said she's done it before."

"It was just one time." I defended her.

"That you know of." he said, taking a sip of his beer. I sighed.

"Well, she's 20, of course, she's going to go out and drink. Don't you remember when you were 20? You were drinking and if I don't recall it was actually illegal when you did it." I raised my brows at him. Owen just shook his head, taking another sip. I had him there and he couldn't argue that.

"So when is she moving out? Tomorrow, I hope."

"About that…"

"Alise." he groaned, moving his arm from around my shoulders as he leaned forward, setting his beer on the table.

"Her ex-boyfriend has been following her around and she doesn't want to deal with it right now." I explained.

"Well, that's a lame excuse." he said.

"It's not a lame excuse, a stalker ex is serious. I don't want her going back to the states if it means being stalked by a dick. She's just going to stay a little longer until she figures some stuff out, no need to worry, I've got it handled, okay?" I said, rubbing his back.

"How long?" he asked.

"We didn't exactly say…" I trailed off, realizing that was probably something that should have been clarified.

"Well, you better figure it out quick because she'll stay here forever if you let her." he said, relaxing back in the seat and wrapping his arm around my shoulders.

I sighed, part of me knew that what Owen said was probably true.

I was finally able to confront Kira about the timing of her stay a few days later. I didn't see her because I was working late one night, then the next day Owen and I went to the waterfall and I ended up spending the night at his place, which I haven't been doing much recently because I wanted to stay home to keep Kira company, but I was starting to learn that she didn't need my company. She was always off doing her own thing most of the time anyway.

The only reason why I can tell she lives here is because she leaves her crap everywhere and I'm constantly putting things in the guest room. She doesn't do her own dishes, which I have to talk to her about as well. It got really frustrating sometimes. I'd like to say I'm a really neat person, people have always commented about that whenever they come into my apartment, but Kira was just a mess.

Finally, I caught her home around 6 pm when I walked in the door after getting a few groceries at the local market. It was a long and tiring day. We had 2 surgeries, a mouth surgery on an adolescent Stygimoloch who cut open it's jaw (and we have no idea on what - the park workers reported it when they were on safari), and a baby Triceratops who had a growth on its right leg. Then we had to put down an adult Stegosaurus that had something similar to cancer and she's been being monitored for the past few weeks. It got so bad and she was constantly living in pain, so the best thing we could do for her was put her down. That is always the worst part of my job, but I know it's always for the best. It's better to live a happy, pain-free life than to be miserable and in pain.

Needless to say, I was not ready for a conversation. I just wanted to put the food away, go into my room, get into my PJs, binge watch Agents of Shield on Netflix and eat popcorn for dinner, but I knew I couldn't do that, not until I talked to Kira.

I heard the TV blasting and I saw her sitting in the living room, sucking on a ring pop. I had a huge stash of those in one of the cabinets because they're my favorite candy, but she's gotten into them and went through like 20 of them in less than a week. I needed to find a better hiding spot for them.

"Hey Alise!" Kira said, turning the TV off as I walked into the kitchen and put the two grocery bags on the counter. She walked into the kitchen with a smile on her face.

"Hi Kira." I gave her a small forced smile.

"Oooh, what kind of goodies do you have?" she asked, looking into the bags.

I was a little frustrated after my long day, then to come home seeing her eating my ring pops with the TV blasting, then having her come in here and poke her head around in my bags just made me a little more annoyed. It took me a second, but I realized I was overreacting and shook it off.

"Just some stuff for dinner," I said, taking my shoes off by the door. "Hey, I actually have to talk to you about something…" I said, walking back over. I might as well do it right now, while I have her. From observing her behavior in the past, she'd probably be going out any minute.

"Oh yeah? What's up?" she asked, sitting down on the counter across from me, sucking loudly on the ring pop. I pushed my lips together and let out a slow breath, I hated when she put her butt on my counters, but that wasn't what I needed to talk about right now.

"So, we haven't really specified how long you're going to be here and I figured we should probably do that… of course, I don't mind you being here, but I'd just like to know… how long do you plan on staying here exactly?" I asked.

"Oh, I don't know," she thought. "Maybe a month, month and a half." she nonchalantly waved the ring pop in the air before sucking on it again.

My eyes widened, "A month and a half?" I repeated what she said in shock, I was expecting to hear another week or two, tops, but a month and a half?

"If that's not a problem for you… that'll be just enough time for Derek to get bored and move on, this happened the last time we broke up. It'll all blow over in no time." she said.

"What if it doesn't?" I asked.

Owen's words 'Well, you better figure it out quick because she'll stay here forever if you let her' rang in my ears. He was right.

"Oh, it will. Don't you worry, cupcake. I really appreciate you letting me stay, by the way. It means a lot to me that you'd lend me a room and a place to stay and we don't know each other that well. You're honestly a blessing." she said, sliding off the counter and hugging me.

I couldn't help but smile, she wore me down with her compliments. "Anytime." I still didn't fully process that she'd be with me for a month and a half, but I knew one thing was for sure, Owen was gonna be so pissed.