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7. Serious Trouble


Yani


'Ah young love,' my Tía Consuela said with a smile on her face.
'We're not going on a date Tía,' I told her patiently.
'You can say what you want Dee-yah-ni,' she said, drawing out the syllables of my name, 'but it is a date.'
'She's right,' Tía Maria chipped in, 'IL niño y la niña-por supuesto it is a date.'

I tried not to sigh in exasperation.
I knew that I was right when I told Diego that we shouldn't tell anyone.
For some reason it seemed like everyone who lived on our street was outside, watching as Diego walked up to our house.
Not that he didn't do so every day-but word had gotten around that today was 'different'.

'I told you,' was what I said to him.
He grinned sheepishly, 'you are right, let us get out of here before they ask for the wedding plans.'
'What wedding?' my little cousin Estrella asked, pulling on my pants leg.
'The one for your Barbie dolls,' I told her lightly and she gave a squeal and ran inside, 'okay lets go.'

'You take care of my daughter,' my dad said to Diego in the 'man-to-man' way.
'Pa-,' I whinged, 'of course he will, we're only going to go have dinner.'
Apparently the big thing with dates in Colombia, equivalent to going to the movies in Australia-was having dinner and then going to one of the many parks there were.
Oh crap, I just called it a date.
Damn.

I tried to concentrate on our 'just friends' deal and it almost got me through the night.
The candlelight gave the night such a mystical feel and I felt relax and at ease with the world.
Almost... until Diego started asking questions.

'So, you have a boyfriend back home?'
'I did-I told you about him before... Matthew. But we broke up,' I said quickly.
I didn't want to talk about Matt, whose emails were still coming, but I'd stopped opening them.
'Why?'
'Things happen, things that you cant change.'
'Like?'

'I'd rather not talk about it Diego-,'
'But friends, they share, no?' he said with such charm that I almost gave in.
But for some reason instead of falling for it, I became angry-like Matt he was that way-couldn't he just take no for an answer.

'Diego, don't push me.'
'/Lo siento/,' he put his hands up in surprise, but even as he backed down the mood was broken.
He'd seen the impatient side of me and I don't think he liked it.
Which was just as well, I thought as he dropped me off home, maybe it was better that way.



Rach


'I don't think we should do this,' I said to Poppo, pushing him away.
The haze cleared from his eyes and the look of ecstasy changed to one of bewilderment.
'What?'
'Poppo-Bishop is my friend.'

'What's that got to do with anything?' he asked, frowning.
The gorgeous face looked completely confused and I had the urge to kiss the frown off his brow.
'You and she...'
'Red, I think you've got it all wrong... there's nothing going on with me and Bishop.'
'Really?'

It was tempting to believe him.
It was tempting to just take his word for it and leave it at that.
Tempting was what that lush mouth was saying.
He definitely was a good kisser, this boy.

'Really,' he said earnestly and leant in for another kiss.
I let him kiss me.
It was just as mind-boggling and explosive as the first one, but this time his mouth pressed more insistently.
I opened my mouth to take in air and he took it as an invitation.
Poppo may be an opportunist, but he sure makes the most of them.
If the kiss had been a 10 before, it was now a 100.

'You guys!' a voice whined from the distance.
I pushed Poppo away again.
It may have been déjà vu but knowing it had only been seconds ago that the same thing happened-I let it go.
'She's my friend.'
'She doesn't like me. We're not hurting anyone, Red.'
'How do you know she doesn't like you-have you asked?' I wanted to know, urgently before Bishop came wading over to find us in a compromising position.

'Look-what's this about?'
'You spend a lot of time with her,' I said tautly.
'She's my friend.'
'That's all...'

'I'm not going to say it again /Rachael/,' I winced at the way he said my name, 'if you don't want to believe me then fine. Personally I think this is just an excuse by you so that you don't have to commit.'
'What are you trying to say?' my eyes widened.
'The kisses were good enough for you-it's the extra work that bothers you.'
'Extra-,'
'Nothing, let's go...'

'You cant just say something like that and walk away,' I said angrily, I grabbed his arm, 'you know nothing about me you wannabe doctor.'
He looked at me as though I'd just let him down, and then walked away.



Emi


'Armaud?'
'Emily?'

God this was embarrassing, this was so devastatingly embarrassing.
'Yes, I uh-I hope you're not too busy.'
The warden clanged the keys against the post next to me to indicate that my minutes were fast dwindling.
I cleared my throat, hoping to dispense with the small talk.
'No, not at all,' he said in that cultured voice, 'are you back in Germany?'

'I wish,' I said wistfully, 'Armaud I need your help.'
'Oh, what happened?' his voice was instantly concerned; I could almost see him sitting up in his chair.
'I'm in jail in Switzerland,' I cut off his instantaneous barrage of questions by turning to the warden, 'excuse me-what station is this again?'
'Zurich State.'
'I'm in Zurich State-I'd be very helpful if you could pick me up.'

'Of course-Emily, tell me what happened!'
'Thanks Armaud-thank you thank you, the warden is telling me my phone call time is up-hurry,' my voice dropped to a whisper, 'the place looks clean but something /smells/.'
'Emily-!'

But the warden pressed the off button on the phone and guided me back to my cell.
'Thanks,' I said, bordering on sarcasm.
But only bordering, I didn't want to get on the wrong side of the jailers.
I was in a foreign country-no matter how neutral Switzerland was-and who knew how long I'd be here.
I sighed, at least glad that I had my own cell.

I lay down on the hard bed, it was only too much to hope that jails would accommodate for bad backs.
'How was I to know?'

That was the question of the hour, definitely.
How was I to know that it was illegal to take photos of the Castle without a permit?
How was I to know that there were hours of visit?
If the signs had been in English instead of bloody Italian or French, I'd have had a vague idea.

I sighed.
At least my parents wouldn't be here to see my humiliation.
Not that they'd care, my dad would probably just make a pun out of it.
I could have called Camille to come and get me, but I knew practically that Armaud would get here soonest.
Unless of course he was in the middle of an important meeting...

I groaned as I heard a flush of a toilet and a scent wafted.
Dear God Armaud, get here soon! Please!



Camie


Three days had passed.
And it was time to face Johnie again.
Except, I soon realised that I couldn't call him Johnie-he was John.
John Sandy if you wanted to be really specific, but he actually looked like a 'John'.
Johnie would be playful, boyish-John was a man.

'Are you alright?' he asked.
We were sitting at a café supposed to be talking, but I'd spaced out.
It was difficult, more difficult than I'd imagined to be sitting here with him.
Foolishly I'd thought that because I knew him so well over the internet, real life would be less awkward.
It wasn't.
I almost cried of jealousy of January-who seemed to not have the same hang-ups.

'I'm fine, I was just... thinking.'
'Look Camille, I'm sorry we didn't get off the right foot,' he said.
His voice was nothing like I'd imagined-because he spoke so good English over the internet I didn't expect the accent.
Because his dad was American I didn't expect the accent.
But there it was-making him more a hot-blooded Italian male than I'd thought.

'It's okay,' I said quickly.
He was like Sergio in that regard, but I was soon finding that unlike Sergio, John was complex.
I didn't know him-at least not all the layers of him.
Just what he'd filtered out over the internet.

'I need to tell you the truth, I think that's where we should start.'
'Okay then,' I said slowly, dreading the confrontation.
It was foolish to believe that in the two years we'd been separated, there would be no confrontation.
'I dated after we broke up.'

It hurt.
That one sentence hurt so much...
It had been only a six month break up before we got back together.
Oh my God, was he seeing her still? Right now?

'Are you...' I trailed off fearfully.
'No, I'm not,' thankfully he didn't pretend to misunderstand, 'but Camille-it happened. And it was serious... and-I did feel very deeply for her.'
'What's her name?'
'Rebecca.'

'Why did you break up?' it felt like masochism, but I wanted-no, needed to know.
'She met someone else.'
That could have been the worst case scenario.
At least if he'd broken up with her then his feelings were clear-but I could tell they weren't.
We lapsed into silence.

If I'd known meeting John would be this hard, I may have just stayed home.



Kei


'So where are you going today?' Julia asked at breakfast.
She was going out with her boyfriend again, and Jenny had already gone out to spend the day kayaking with Duncan.
What was wrong with these people?
Didn't they know that they had to entertain me on my first trip to the USA?

'She can stay with me,' Avery said and I cast him a grateful smile.
Jed looked on silently, still smarting probably of last night.
I didn't meet his gaze, I just couldn't.
It wasn't smart, that much I knew.

Not when I had a crush on the guy, a crush that I wanted to extinguish.
The best thing to do was to fly under the radar-not necessarily avoid him, but make it so he didn't have to bother with me.
Which meant getting into trouble with Avery was out.

'Just as long as we stay out of trouble,' I told him.
'Me? Trouble?' he pretended to look winded, I snorted.
'Yes, you-remember a certain dare...'
'Okay yes well,' he said hastily as Jed tried to shoot him down with a glare, 'we'll stay out of trouble, just sit in the beach.'
'Great.'

'You hate the beach...' Jed commented.
It was true, in principle, 'I don't mind sitting on it. I haven't done nearly enough of it.'
He shrugged, Julia seemed happy that I was occupied and when we'd finished everyone got up and started moving off.

Jed walked with Avery and I down to the beach but walked off without much of a good-bye.
I shrugged and let it go, after all, this was what I wanted, wasn't it?
I settled down onto the sand and indeed was enjoying myself.
Avery had erected an umbrella shade above me so that I could just wilt in the heat without getting burnt.

It would explain why I didn't see a shadow cast over me to indicate someone had arrived.
'What the hell are you up to?'
My eyes flew open and stupidly, I felt naked-I was wearing a bikini and boardshorts-but under Jed's scrutinising gaze I might as we have been wearing nothing.
'Ah... is that like you're version of "what's up"? Because if it is, I'm just enjoying myself.'

The innocence of the statement annoyed him and he walked off.
Gee, I try to stay out of trouble and he still disapproves of me.
There's just no pleasing some people.


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Author's Note: Dear Emily, since you are probably the only person who is reading this fic. Lol. I hope you enjoyed the chapter. If not, you will enjoy it more when I fix up the mistakes. Cheerios, Kei. To everyone else who reads this-- thank you :D Please let me know that you ARE out there.