Chapter 59
I woke up to Mr. Czarn’s hand gently patting my head.
“Sweetheart, we’re here. Are you okay if I carry you?”
I didn’t even open my eyes. I hadn’t realized how tired I was until now, and I’d hit that stage of sleep where waking up was like hauling cars with your arms.
So I only grunted and turned my face towards his hand. The car seat was still so warm.
His arms were remarkably steady and sure as they slipped around my shoulders and beneath my knees. He didn’t bother taking my bag, leaving it on my lap, nor did he bother to close the car door. For that, I was thankful. It allowed me to start falling back into the fuzzy darkness. Even the muggy night air seemed like a blanket in my drowsy state.
The next thing I knew, I was waking up in a room with way, way too high a ceiling. And one of the walls was nothing but panels of glass.
Despite the strange surroundings, I let myself wake up slowly. The impossibly comfortable bed and ultra-fluffy, soft comforter atop me probably helped.
The walls had been painted a composed gray. From the ceiling hung a light fixture made of a series of mirror-like stainless steel tubes hung by fine chains. By far, the most amazing sight, however, was out the glass wall to my left, which was filled entirely with the leaves of beautiful trees, exotic plants, and bursts of flowers. I even saw a bird flitting through one of the branches. If there was a world outside the greenery, I couldn’t see it.
But, as is the usual culprit for ruining slow mornings, I had to pee.
Thankfully, directly to my right was a half-opened door where I could see a mirror and countertop. Sure enough, it led to a bathroom…a rich ass elegant bathroom that only existed in magazines. The bathtub alone could fit a family, and the shower stall had three, count them, three shower heads and glass kept clean enough it could be invisible. Not only that, but on a little shelf, I found bottles of obviously expensive shampoo and conditioner that made my life a commercial for Herbal Essences when I popped them open. I got so enamored by the bathing treats left in the bathroom that I almost forgot I had to pee, so by the time I made it to the toilet, I nearly wet myself.
Silly me, getting all excited for a shower. I just bathed last night, and it wasn’t like I had a change of clothes…
On the counter, directly after coming in through the door, was a neat stack of what could only be women’s clothes along with a note. I’d gotten instantly drawn in by the shower and bathtub and had missed it completely. Next to the clothes was also a stick of equally expensive-looking lady’s deodorant, toothpaste, and a toothbrush that had to be the only affordable-looking thing I’d seen since waking up.
…Well, Epsom salt baths aren’t really all that great for cleaning anyways. Make your hair all crispy weird feeling and stuff…Still, I’d already had a bath, so…
Three showerheads apparently were the key to breaking my stigma against money. It was like bathing beneath a somehow gentle, warm waterfall, which somehow turned into a massage that melted me to the fancy-ass white marble floor.
I did question a little when the clothes turned out to be maternity clothes that fit me, nonetheless. Though, I guess he’d already bought a dress for me. At least he didn’t get creepy and buy me a bra, though I imagined he’d had hired help buy it for me, like a maid or something—oh gawd, did he have a maid? Did he have a butler? Stop everything. I need to know if these sorts of jobs existed in the United States and whether I could get that job instead of the crappy glorified gopher one I had now. I could sneak three-head showers in every day with the excuse of cleaning them.
Oh no, stepping out of the bathroom only made me realize how soft the carpet was. Oh lordy…
Needless to say, it was a while before I made it out of the bedroom and a while after that before I found the kitchen. Everything was elegant lines and cool colors and glass walls filled with greenery.
To my faint surprise, Mr. Czarn was seated at the island bar of the kitchen, reading the newspaper, a half-eaten breakfast before him. He’d just picked up a glass to finish off the orange juice inside when he spotted me and instantly smiled. His teeth were white and straight. His dark hair still looked damp from his own shower.
“Did you sleep well?”
“Too well.” I took a bit longer to take in the kitchen. Honestly, I don’t know why I expected anything different. Even here, the light was colored green from all the leaves filtering it. “Are you trying to pretend you live in the Amazon or something?”
He chuckled and scooted back his seat to stand. “Sit down. I’ll make you something.”
“Don’t you have, like, a million-star chef to do that?”
“One of the great secrets to being rich is to not be wasteful.” He opened up the fridge and took out a few packages. There was still a cast iron skillet on the fancy-ass stove.
“Uh-huh. Amazonian stainless-steel house isn’t wasteful at all.”
He flashed me a toothy grin over his shoulder as he set out the breakfast goods. “Maybe I just needed an excuse to woo you with cooking. Be a dear and let me win this time, yeah?”
And he had to look so obnoxiously dashing and me so obnoxiously accepting of his spoiling first thing in the morning because a shower with three heads had seduced me that I just let him. I stole his paper, though, just to see if it was the normal paper with weekend funnies on the back. It was. I got my funnies. The cavemen always get me.
“Baby Bean asking for anything?” he asked.
I flinched and scolded myself for getting butterflies over something so inane. “Uh…think he’s still asleep…actually.” It wasn’t him asking for the food anyways; it was my hormones. My body. Stop being cute. Damn it.
“Regular bacon and sausage then?”
“Ugh, no.”
“No? Got your taste back?”
It was crazy how he made it sound like he’d been along for the entire pregnancy so far. Yeah, I had complained about how the baby made me eat greasy things that I didn’t originally like, but he didn’t have to have such perfect memory about it.
“Yeah, actually. You know how to make French toast?”
“If it can be fried in a pan, I basically know how to cook it. Except for potatoes. I could never figure out how to cook them all the way without burning them. I even tried boiling them first; that ended up nasty.”
I quickly solidified my theory as fact that a happy Mr. Czarn was a chatty Mr. Czarn. While not enough to be annoying, he had no trouble dropping into a story of a cooking escapade he’d had with his sisters trying to make hashbrowns to surprise their parents with breakfast in bed on their anniversary. Turns out, one of the cons of growing up rich was that you always got fresh, homemade food, which meant no contact with such miracles as frozen, pre-cooked hashbrowns. Or microwave dinners. Or freezer burritos. Or any cheap junk crap that was basically the staple of college students.
“I always wondered how people could get so addicted to food they’d killed themselves, and then I had Franks. You know, those packets of hot dogs you can get for a buck? Holy shit.”
His sudden profanity surprised a laugh out of me. I’d heard him curse a few times, but it had always been quiet and muddled, as though he were half trying to make sure no one else heard or pretended someone else had done it.
This was unfair. Totally unfair.