"Sh, it's alright." he speaks to me in a calming voice while his arms embrace me in a hug and I cry into his chest while my hands grip his back.
"You're okay, I'm right here." he continues to try and comfort me while I still sob and I inhale a breath.
I feel him rubbing my back up and down while I shake from crying and I hear the clock in the living room make a loud sound as it signals the new hour.
"Can you tell me what went on? I'm terribly confused why you're so sad and why there's a bleeding cut on your cheek, Court." he speaks and I sigh against his shirt.
"Lets go sit down on the sofa." he suggests and I unbury my face from his now wet shirt and we walk over with his arm around me and me with my hands rubbing my eyes.
We sit by each other and his arm stays around me and I cry into his shoulder while his other hand strokes my hair.
I sigh and move away to rest my arms on my knees and I cover my face with my hands and I feel his hand rub my back.
"Court, what'd Robbie do?" he pries and I sigh.
I get the courage and breath to repeat to him all that happened and he listened patiently as I took my time telling him, and by then the tears had mostly gone. I sit there by him with my head on his shoulder once again and his warm thumbs wipe the idle tears from my cheeks and I lift my eyes to his.
"And you didn't tell Pearl or anybody what happened?" he questions.
"No, I got out of there as fast as I could." I admit.
"Somebody needs to be told, Court. He can't go on thinking how he treated you was okay, and he can't just walk away not getting any punishment for it." Paul states and his fingers leave my cheeks.
"What am I supposed to do, Paul? He probably won't even get punished appropriately, you know how they treat women nowadays." I allude to how in this time male are still superior, but they still in some ways are forty nine years in the future where I'm from.
"You should tell Pearl, or whoever the hell is the manager, or maybe even the person who owns it. I'm sure they won't take it all that lightly that an employee of theirs basically abused another employee. He could go for some degree of assault, Court!" he urges and I'm left with not knowing what to say.
"I don't want to figure it out today, I'm exhausted." I admit and he nods his head with an understanding look.
"When's the next time you work?"
"Not for a few days." I reply after thinking about it for a few seconds.
"Okay, well we'll get it figured out soon, just not today," he comments and my eyes trail away from him. "And it's going to be okay, love. He's not going to touch you again."
"How can you say that? You don't know that." I reply boldly.
"Yes I do, because I'm not going to let him." he remarks with a meaningful look and I just nod and sit back to sink into the couch and he follows me into the kitchen to get something to drink.
I get a glass of juice and stand against the counter drinking it and I set the empty glass in the sink once I'm finished.
"Let me get a washcloth to clean that cut on your cheek. It's not that bad, but still." Paul suggested and he wets a washcloth and gently dabs at it and puts some bacitracin on it.
"Thanks." I reply and he nods.
"Welcome, love."
"I knew he wasn't any good the minute I saw him, you know. I admit I didn't like him from the start." he comments and I cross my arms over my chest.
"Please don't tell me that I told you so, I know I should've been more cautious about him."
"I'm not gonna say it, there's no point to say it." he softly comments.
"But you were right yesterday, because I have never liked him, and I sure as hell don't like him now." he states and I again realize his protectiveness over me showing through his words.
"Yeah you were right about him, I should've listened to you." I add on and I glance to him and I let out a sad sigh, and he sets his drink on the counter to give me another hug.
He gives me a squeeze and I move away to meet his gaze and he runs the tip of his finger barely over my cheek and we form a strong eye contact. I look to his lips and he looks to mine and he moves in and this time we're not interrupted. His lips touch mine in a kiss and I kiss him back, and it only lasts a short second before we both pull away and my eyes fall on his soft face.
"Don't cry, everything is gonna be alright." he says quietly.
"Okay." I reply, trusting his word.
"Why don't you go up to my bed and have a nap? Us lads have to go do something for business anyways, but we'll be back before dinner." he suggests and I nod my head and exit the kitchen leaving him behind as the thoughts in my head are a big mess.
I pull back the covers of his made bed that I made this morning and I get under them to lay down. I stare at the wall with a lost look since that's exactly how I'm feeling. Did we really just kiss? I touch my finger to my lips and I let it drop to rest on the soft bed sheet and I hear voices and footsteps that drown out after multiple seconds. The last sound I hear is the loud bang of the front door shut downstairs and then it's all an empty silence that I sit in. I close my eyes to escape this crazy day and all of these muddled thoughts I'm having.
I wake up with a start later on, however long i was out, and I look around with my heavy eyes to see a tall figure over by the dresser, but because of the drawn curtains I can only see their silhouette.
"Hey it's just me, love. I'm sorry I woke you, I just had to get something. Dinner won't be done for probably another thirty minutes, so you can go back to sleep, and I'll come to get you when it's ready." Paul comes over to me and says and I nod while looking at his smiling face.
He leaves to close the door behind him and I shift in the bed to pull the covers up more and I let my eyes wander around the dark room. I suddenly remember everything; what happened with Robbie, and the random and totally uncalled for kiss with Paul. Janes face comes to my mind and I sigh, he has a girlfriend. I couldn't fall back asleep with all of the thoughts running through my head, so I went downstairs early to smell cooking from the kitchen and I find a seat on a chair in the living room as Ringo and John sit watching tv, and I join them.
I watch with them some black and white show until Paul comes out into the living saying its ready, and he seems surprised to find me down here, not upstairs sleeping. We had macaroni from the box and a chicken from the market for dinner and I didn't say much or anything. I don't know if Paul told the others what happened with Robbie, but there wasn't any mentioning of it and they didn't act off, so I assumed that Paul kept to himself about it. Paul didn't say hardly a word to me at dinner, or afterwards when we planned to go see a movie at some local theatre.
"Who's all going other than us?" I ask George as we place the last few dishes in the cupboard after washing them.
"Oh, well John's taking Cyn, Ritchie is taking his girlfriend Maureen along, and I was just gonna go to the music store to check out some guitars."
"What about Paul?" I ask since he had forget him.
"Oh, he's bringing Jane." he answers and I simply nod my head and we leave to get ready and meet back downstairs to wait for the car taking us there.
"Hey George, would you mind if I came with you? I'm not much of a movie person." I shyly ask him as we sit in the car and this time I don't sit next to Paul, he found a seat far away from me with the other two on his sides, I wonder why he's acting like this towards me after we kissed earlier.
"Yeah sure, I don't mind." he replies and they get let off at the movie theatre first to meet their girlfriends or for John wife, and Paul looked back at me but didn't say anything.
While they were seeing some film I sat in a chair at the music store while George tried out guitars that he played. I watched in awe as my favorite guitar player of all time played licks and riffs that I wish I could play, and he caught me looking at him. He smiles at me and I gladly return it and I turn to look at the banjos, mandolins, ukuleles, acoustic guitars, electric ones, and dozens of other music things.
"Are you sure you don't like films, Courtney, or is there some other reason you didn't go?" George questions after returning a nice looking and sounding guitar to its stand across the room.
"I just didn't wanna go, I'd be the odd one out." I admit and he nods his head and I go to look at the little kazoos and those fun things over by the counter and I spend the rest of my time there before the car picks us up to go back home.
Jane came over to hang out with Paul of course, and since I didn't want to see them kissing and cuddling on the couch in the living room I followed George up to his bedroom where he's testing out the new guitar he purchased at the store. I admit it's quite a beauty, and I'm happy with my choice to skip out on the awkward fest downstairs where I'm probably not wanted anyways.
"Have you ever played guitar?" George questions as I sit on a wooden chair across from him as he's perched on his neat bed with the prized possession under his fingertips.
"Nope, I've never been talented in that way." I reply and he offers to try and teach me, and as tempting as it was to learn the guitar from George Harrison himself, I declined from the fear I'd embarrass myself.
The company left when it got late and I still felt like Paul was ignoring me, and I would soon find out that I'm right. I found some pajamas in the box of Cyn's old clothes so I changed into those rather than what Paul borrowed me, and I decided to sleep on the couch downstairs after none of the guys, except for Paul, said they didn't have any problem with it. I didn't bother to ask him, or let alone speak to him.
"Why're you sleeping on the couch?" Paul comes down the stairs and asks me as I stand by the couch that I laid a blanket and a pillow on.
"Because you're ignoring me, and so you can have your bed back." I admit and he stops at the last step as he's in his usual pajamas.
"I'm not ignoring you." he objects and I remember how caring and kind he was to me earlier, what a change that is from now.
"Don't lie, it's not a hard thing to figure out." I remark and he takes a step towards me.
"I just want to know why, did I do something?" I plea because I hate that he's mad at me, that my hero and somebody I've become close to would ignore me for some reason I don't know.
AN: What are your thoughts on this part and what happened in it? Are you liking the direction it's going in?