"Nice, anyway it was nice to meet you Ellie, you know, before."
"You too, I threw that jacket away, the horrible white one."
"Great! Well done, I didn't want to say anything… but yeah who knows, maybe that coffee was just trying to help you out, by falling over," he says cheekily. I laugh at his attempts to cover up the fact that he was the one that knocked the coffee over.
"Hmm, aren't you glad you knocked into my table, that's how we met isn't it?" I say with a smirk.
"What, of course not…" He says with a wink. He keeps walking and I follow him.
"On the right is two of the guest bedrooms, there are two on every level of the house, so eight guest bedrooms and two master bedrooms, a hell of a lot bedrooms huh?" He looks behind at me and smiles.
"Has anyone ever told you that you only need enough bedrooms to sleep in?"
"Oh, of course, but I want these bedrooms, they have their uses…" unless I'm dreaming, I swear there was a hidden meaning behind his words.
"…Wait, you don't mean…?" I asked quietly.
He didn't reply, just winked at me. Loki, how can you be so enchanting may I ask?
I decided to make small talk, "So, how was work?"
His pace slowed down somewhat and he replied in a stiff voice, "Just the usual."
Woah, someone takes their work way too seriously. When I didn't say anything else he relaxed again and walked on at his usual pace.
But I couldn't forget his cold reaction to the reaction of his work. And before when I had first met him, he sounded really nervous about work. Surely his job can't be that bad? I'm not all that much of a fan of where I work but I certainly don't dread going there.
I'm dying to ask him why he's so unhappy about work but I don't like the idea of him becoming angry and cold like he was before. He goes on, talking about how the house was built, when he moved in, how he met Celly. Which is quite an interesting story.
It was when he first came to New York from England. He was naïve and didn't know his way around the huge city. He didn't have a job yet and he was renting out a tiny apartment down in Brooklyn. He had spent the whole day looking around the city for any available jobs. There had been plenty but none that he'd taken an interest in. Loki didn't tell me what exactly he was interested in but anyhow. He had been sitting down on the couch watching a movie on his laptop when there was a knock at the window next to him. There was a young woman outside! He went over and opened the window. 'Hey whats wrong?' he had asked.
'Uh, well, I know this is going to sound really weird but can I stay in your apartment for the night? I'll sleep on the couch and you don't have to get me any food, by the way I'm not a beggar, I just ran into some… trouble,'
Loki had been surprised but he couldn't say no to this woman, who seemed nice enough, 'Sure I've got a spare matress and sleeping bag you can use,' he stood aside so the woman could get in.
She had looked at him and smiled gratefully.
'Care to tell me about your trouble?' Loki had asked.
'Okay, I've been meaning to get it off my chest for a while now.' She had held out her hands and showed Loki her engagement ring, 'Well I'm married, unhappily, because my husband, well, he went to Hawaii for a holiday. And as you can see, I'm not with him. So basically he went on a holiday without me,' she had said, the anger apparent on her face.
'Bastard,' Loki had muttered.
She had laughed and nodded her head. And if you're wondering why this means I have to escape and stay in someone else's flat for the night it's because I sent him a letter. I was tired, drunk and full of emotion. I thought it'd be a great idea to send him a letter telling him everything I hated about him, and all the secrets he'd tried to keep from me but I'd ended up finding out anyway, and I threatened to tell the police if he didn't give me $500,000 in less than a week. He knew that I would probably carry this out if I was drunk, so not taking the chance he sent some people to our house. Not just ordinary people. You know, if I didn't know my husband so well they'd probably killed me by now. Fortunately I escaped the house before they were even issued to come there. I didn't even have a car. So I just ran, and ran. Until I thought I was far enough away from my house. And I went up to your block of apartments and tapped on your window, hoping to find charity. Much more interesting than your life, huh?'
'Wow.' was Loki's reaction.
She just laughed and pulled up the sleeping bag that Loki had brought out to her face.
Loki had been feeling pretty desperate to get a job of late so he blurted out to her, 'Would you happen to know where I could get a job?'
'Oh sure, I know heaps of people, what about tomorrow we can go and ask a few? It'll be my thanks to you for letting me stay the night here.'
'Goodnight, sorry I don't even know your name?' Loki had said.
'Ceila, but you can just call me Selly, and yours is?' Selly had replied.
'Loki.'
She raised her eyebrows but didn't say anything. Loki had sighed, everyone thought his name was different. Or maybe they just thought he was different himself.
And that is how Ceila, Loki's "house companion" met him. I don't know how she ended up being his maid though. A story for another time perhaps.
Loki broke through my thoughts, "You know I haven't invited anyone over here before?" he asks.
"Yeah Selly told me when earlier," I replied, wondering where this conversation was going.
"Oh okay," he frowned slightly, "Don't listen to anything she says, well at least don't take it too seriously," he sounded really serious, like he truly wanted me not to take her seriously.
"What, why?"
"She doesn't entertain the idea of me not being single," he says it quickly and quietly, like he didn't want anyone to hear, not even me.
"She likes you?!" I exclaim.
"Ellie, shhh, quieter! And yes, I suppose she does, in her own way."
"In her own way? What do you mean, why are you even telling me this?" this is getting all too confusing.
"She has never really forgiven the male gender after her messed up husband but she does like me, tries to hide it but I can tell," he isn't really talking to me, just talking, thinking.
"But why are you telling me this?" I ask, he still hadn't answered that question.
He looked at me and said, "Well if you want to, uhm, get to know me you have to know things about me." I noticed that his face went dark at the end of his sentence, what else was he hiding?
I felt giddy at hearing the words, get to know me, of course I want to get to know you Loki.
"Anyhow, shall we continue?"
"Of course, can we go upstairs?"
"Most of its under renovation but we can go and see the master bedrooms. I noticed that he pulled his phone out of his pocket and texted someone.
"Who you texting?" I ask.
He doesn't reply for a while and I almost think he hasn't heard me when he says quietly, "My brother."
"Ooh, a brother? I didn't know you had one, what's his name?" I say curiously, my shyness has actually started to fade away. What are you doing to me Loki?
"Yeah, his name's Thor," he states blankly.
"Seriously?! I thought your name was pretty cool but Thor… That's the name of one of the superheroes right?"
He turns around just to smile at my waffling on, "Yep, it's pretty unique."
"Okay, here are the stairs to the master bedrooms!" he exclaimed, sounding excited to show me the bedrooms.
As we reach the top Loki's phone starts ringing, he mouths sorry to me and picks it up, "I've got someone over," he hissed into the phone, not even a greeting, "No, I'm busy, don't come, goodbye."
I raise my eyebrows and ask, "Who was that?"
"You're rather inquisitive aren't you?" he says winking, "My brother again."
I smile as he opens the door to one of the master bedrooms, obviously the one he occupies. There are numerous pairs of black pants, the same ones he's wearing at the moment, lying on the ground. He has a trophy stand, prints of the superhero painting I saw back in the hallway, a massive walk-in wardrobe and an even larger DVD collection.
"Nice room," I say, giving him direct eye contact, feeling really caught up in the moment.
He gives me another one of those amazing smiles and I sort of sink into the ground. At least my heart does. We were probably close to kissing, him taking my hand, or something interesting happening. But Celly thought it a good time to come rushing up to the bedroom. Even Loki sounded irritated.
"Mister Loki you have another visitor," she was flustered, obviously from running up two stories, and perhaps from catching Loki and I unaware.
"Tell them I am busy," he said simply.
"Mister, I did, he said it was important."
Loki frowned and replied, "Tell him his brother already has a visitor."
"Mister Loki! Is this visitor your brother? You didn't tell me he was coming?!" she exclaimed, sounding surprised.
"Yes, and I told him not to come but obviously his brotherly instincts got the better of him. He said "brotherly" in a really mocking tone. He had some sort of built up resentment against his brother, Thor.
"Selly, just don't let him come up here, tell him to come back tomorrow or something, okay?" he asked Selly, looking at her seriously.
"Okay then," she didn't sound very happy about this arrangement but she listened to Loki's wishes.