He stood there looking at me with a smile on his face then he says, "sorry, I didn't mean to startle you". "I'm Michael, you met my mother earlier" he says and removes his hand from my shoulder.
"My mom insist that I come over here and invite you guys to dinner at her apartment. Don't worry you can say no, and I will come up with an excuse as for why you can't make it" he says then smiles again. The kind of smile that would make a girl feel things, pearly white and gorgeous. I nervously shift on the chair then look at the kids still swimming and splashing around. Michael is looking at me and I at him, I smile, the kind of fake smile that says, 'look I don't know you dude'.
"I'm sorry I wish I could, but we have plans for tonight" I say to Michael.
"But I didn't say tonight" he responds.
"Oh, my bad, I just assumed. When did you say it was?" I say and he responds with a mischievous smile.
"I didn't" he responds.
"Ok, so... when would that be?" I asked, but what I really wanted to say was no.
"When are you available?" he says
"Ahh..." I say unable to come up with a response.
"So, you thought I was going to make it easy for you? no that's not my style I never make it easy" then he gives me that smile again, this time a devilish smile. Most girls wouldn't stand a chance around him but I'm not most girls.
Like a stroke of luck Sophie ascends from the pool and walks over to us.
"Taylor, we need to talk" then she gives Michael a look that says, 'can we have some privacy?'. Michael takes the hint and proceed to leave us.
"Hello Abigale, I am Michael" he says then extends his hands toward Sophie. "Hi Michael, pleasure" Sophie says but doesn't take his hand. Michael pulls back his hand then look at me and says, "rain check?"
"Yes, sure" I smile.
I turn to Sophie, "what's up baby, what did you want to talk about?" I say to Sophie.
"Nothing, you just looked like you were in distress and needed rescuing" she responds, and we begin to snicker with each other.
We gave Sam a few more minutes in the pool, and then begin packing up our stuff to go back to the apartment. While Sophie and I were packing Michael comes over again and offered to help. I thanked him for the offer but told him that we were good, and we could handle everything.
"So did you think about my mom's invite?"
"Yeah, I don't think it's a good idea, we are just in town for a week, and we really just want to hang out as a family. Maybe, if we were staying longer but our schedule is kind of full. Please tell your mom thanks for the offer but I have to decline." I look at him and smile, this time genuinely, he seemed like a decent guy that was just trying to be nice but now wasn't the time for us to build friendships. At this point the less people that we get acquainted with the better it is for us.
Sam gets out the pool and takes up his Avengers comic book then proceed to wrap himself in his towel.
"So, you're an avengers' fan little man?"
"Yes" Sam responds while continuing to expertly wrap himself in the towel, or so he thinks. He's paying no attention to Michael, or anyone else for that matter.
"Who's your favorite avenger"
"Iron Man" still not paying any attention to anyone.
"Why him, why not the hulk he is so much bigger and stronger"
"Because Iron Man's cooler" now Sam looks up at Michael, and I get what Michael is trying to do. This brute is trying to get his way in through the youngest member of the family.
"You know what we should do, we should do a marathon and then decide who is the coolest avenger" Michael says.
Before I could intercept and nip it at the bud, Sam Yells, " yeeaahhh!!!!" then he turns to me "please aun....." I didn't give him a chance to finish the word 'aunty' before I yell " YES!!" my heart skipping a beat but I continue " ahh, I mean yes, yes marathon it is" I say in a lower tone
I turn to Michael and give him the side eyes however he was already looking at me displaying a huge smile like he just won the lottery!
"See you around 7, what's your apartment number, or we could do it at mom's? your pick, Taylor" I look at him with a defeated look on my face and say "725"
He walks away triumphantly, with pep in his step and a ridiculous smile on his face. I must admit the boy has some killer abs and body. He's giving off some Sean O'Pry vibes, no wonder he acts like he's God's gift to women.
We head back to the apartment, once we are there Sophie gives Sam the fifth degree. Poor Sam, you should see the look on his face. I could tell he was sorry, so I don't chastise him for his mistake.
"Sam you are going to get us caught, you can't just go and invite everyone home, what about this can't you understand? We don't even know who he is, you could be putting us in danger. All because you want to watch the avengers!? You've seen all those movies a hundred times already, was it really worth it, huh, Sam?" Sophie says irritably
Sam turns to me and says "I'm sorry aunty MC."
"And you almost called her aunt MC in front of him, HER NAME IS TAYLEEER" she stresses my fake name while shouting at Sam and now I really feel bad for the kid.
"Hey, Sophie, give him a break, he said he's sorry, there isn't much we can do about it now. We just have to deal with it, Michael is going to be here in a few hours so let's make sure we have our story straight and that this doesn't happen again, ok?."
Sophie and Sam in unison; "ok" Sophie with an exasperated look on her face and Sam's remorseful.
I hold Sam's hand and I take him to sit beside me on the couch and I go over our cover story. Reiterating the enormity of our situation again so that he understands that what happened today can never happen again.
The truth is that this is a tall order for any child and although Sam is a smart kid, it's understandable that he would make a mistake. It's not easy for a child his age to have to carry this lie and make belief story all the time. Nevertheless, I have a level of confidence in his ability to do this. I just hope that the lines between what is real and what is not don't become permanently blurred for him.
After our little chat I prepare dinner with Sophie's. I have her chop the vegetables for the chicken chop stew that I am about to make. Sophie loves to cook it's something we always do as a family. Mom used to put a lot of emphasis on her kids learning to cook, even our brother Jake. Our mother always used to joke, "I don't want you kids wasting your money in restaurants or going hungry because you are broke from spending too much money at restaurants".
I had a glass of wine with my dinner, and as per usual, and the kids had water. Sophie is doing the dishes while I give Sam his bath before his "movie date" arrives. Then I take a bath myself, I lay in the bath, close my eyes, relax, and Alex comes to my mind.
I dial his number!
"McKenzie, hi" Alex says breathing heavily into the phone.
"Hey, is everything ok?" I say, alarmed. The first thing that came to my mind is that he might be running from someone.
"Yeah, I'm just putting in some work at the gym" he says, and I breathe a sigh of relief. I can't help being a bit paranoid and concerned about the people I love.
"Oh, well sorry to disturb you "
"No, stop that, you're not disturbing me. Was there something you wanted to talk about?"
"So today we went to the pool, and Sam kind of invited another tenant to watch the avengers tonight" I say
"What do you mean like a kid? That shouldn't be a problem"
"It was a guy, well the guy kind of asked him who was his favorite avenger, and you know how he gets with those superheroes"
Alex pauses then says, "so basically this is your date? who is this guy what is his name, what's his apartment number?" Alex asks in quick succession.
I roll my eyes and then I proceed to give him the info that I have.
"There was a family of four, the mother's name was Maggie, Father John I think, the daughter is Angelica, and the son is Michael, and they live in apartment 528" I say.
"Ok I'm going to check them out, I'll call you back in a few minutes, what time is this movie thing"?
"At 7PM" I check the time on my phone and say "in an hour"
"I will call you back in a little while" he says, and I respond "ok"
I put my Ear Pods in and John Legend "Save The Room" comes on.