The Adventure Continues

[abrightboy]

For thatsfascinating.



The villa Malcolm rented was in the Languedoc, not far from Marseilles, south of Avignon. It was a very historic region, though Malcolm was particularly not interested in visiting Marseilles again. There was a charming village nearby the villa and if they were going to go to an historic city for a day, he'd rather make the trip over to Montpellier, where he'd never been at all, much less with Dr Whitly.

The villa had six bedrooms. As the driver brought their luggage inside the bright and spacious main room, Malcolm handed him some folded Euros and thanked him and shut the door behind him.

"First choice of a room is yours," he told Edrisa with a smile. "But you might want to explore first."

Comments

[thatsfascinating]

She giggled a little. They had swam together at Mohonk, but that was the sort of place where you walked into the pool like civilized people.

"I guess you're going to have to find out," she teased. She turned to go out the glass doors.

[abrightboy]

He grinned and followed her through the room and out onto the patio.

"The view is something, isn't it?" he noted as he looked around.

[thatsfascinating]

"It is gorgeous. Sublime. Exquisite. All the adjectives."

She saw the pool and grinned, then tapped Malcolm on the shoulder.

"Tag! You're it!"

She bolted for the pool.

[abrightboy]

It took him a moment to realize what she was doing and it occurred to him he hadn't played tag since.... probably the fourth grade. Back when other kids at school didn't avoid him like he had a plague if they weren't outright attacking him. But it was a simple game and he did remember how it worked.

He grinned and dashed after her.

[thatsfascinating]

Edrisa practically shrieked with laughter as she raced to the pool and jumped in, swimming underwater to the other side then surfacing and turning around.

[abrightboy]

He jumped in right after her. As she surfaced, he paused in swimming "I KNEW YOU WERE A JUMPER!" he called, then kicked hard, resuming his swim towards her.

[thatsfascinating]

"So are you!" she laughed, swimming toward the shallow end before turning again, grinning, to let him catch her.

[abrightboy]

It was a good thing she let him. His awkward one-armed swimming stroke was never going to catch her fair and square. He'd splashed the cast when he jumped in, but he wasn't worried about it.

When he reached her, he scooped her up with his good arm so he could kiss her.

"Hi," he said with a warm smile.

[thatsfascinating]

She wrapped her arms around his neck, holding onto him as he held her, and kissed him back.

"Hey," she answered, beaming right back. She supposed she was probably technically "it," but she doubted either of them wanted to run away from the other.

[abrightboy]

He really didn't. The water was a little on the chilly side and holding her warmed him right to his soul.

"Did you grow up with a pool at home?"

[thatsfascinating]

"Nope! There was a community pool in my town, but I did most of my swimming in the ocean." She tilted her head. "Where did you swim?"

[abrightboy]

"In the ocean. That sounds great," Malcolm remarked. "Liberating." He considered the question. "We had private swimming lessons, of course. At a club in the upper east side. We weren't allowed to swim in public pools, though one of my mother's friends.... before the arrest had a pool and Ainsley and I were allowed to go swimming there when we visited. And we swam in the Mediterranean when we vacationed in the south of France. I bet that's a little like swimming in the ocean," he mused.

[thatsfascinating]

"Probably warmer," she said with a smile. "The water off of the coast of California comes down from Alaska. It's warmer off of San Diego than off of San Francisco, but it still rarely gets above 70 degrees."

She kissed him.

"I think this water is about 70 degrees," she mused with a smile. "Practice for when I bring you back home with me."

[abrightboy]

He smiled.

"Are we excited about that or are we scared?" he asked. He knew how he felt and it was a bit of both, but she knew better than he did how her parents might react to him. Better, he hoped, than most people did.

[thatsfascinating]

She thought about it, tilting her head from side to side. "Maybe a little scared. But much, much more excited." She smiled warmly at him, her love and pride plain on her face. "You are amazing, and I can't wait to introduce you to my parents. I think they'll warm to you, but even if they don't, that's their problem."

[abrightboy]

His smile broadened and then he kissed her.

"It's like the opposite of meeting my parents, where you're still amazing but if they don't approve, that's probably good. Though I think my mother has warmed significantly towards you," he conceded. "I don't have any intention of entertaining a conversation with my father about you. Nothing good can come from that."

[thatsfascinating]

"Oh yeah, your mom and I are good," she said with a wave of her hand. "We both care about you and your welfare, and she actually seems to trust me at least a little. It doesn't hurt that she knows I will call her when I'm in over my head." She tilted her head. "As for your father...he's going to ask you about me, now that he knows I exist." She grimaced. "Sorry about that..."

[abrightboy]

He shook his head.

"No. Don't be sorry for that. I mean, at some point it was inevitable for him to find out and... just because he asks me about something doesn't mean that's what I have to talk about. He's a manipulator. He'll steer the conversation wherever he thinks there's some fun to be had for him, but we don't have to indulge him."

[thatsfascinating]

"True. It...might be hard to steer the conversation away when I'm your wife. If I'm your wife," she corrected quickly. She couldn't really say when. Not yet. Not until he was ready to propose.

"Even before then, though...how much of your personal life do you share with your father?"

[abrightboy]

"When," he said softly.

Not if. When.

"I don't share much with him, but he has his ways of... wheedling. He's a master manipulator."

[thatsfascinating]

She smiled, her heart warming, and kissed him gently.

"When," she murmured in agreement.

She nodded. "Yeah, he's definitely that. I guess I wonder if keeping such a big thing unspoken might give him more power."

[abrightboy]

"The only power he has over us from in his cell is as much power as we let him have," Malcolm said reasonably. Though the complex emotional nature of his relationship with Martin Whitly made that hard to live by sometimes.

[thatsfascinating]

"Have you ever heard the expression, 'your family knows how to push your buttons because they installed them?'" She brushed a wet lock of hair from his face. "This is like that times a hundred. Because most parents are amateurs at installing buttons. Your dad is a pro."

[abrightboy]

"Yeah, he is," Malcolm acknowledged. He considered her a moment. "How did being in the room with him make you feel? I mean, you've studied his crimes. What was meeting him... like for you?" he asked curiously.

[thatsfascinating]

She frowned, considering that. "It was weird. I think it might have been different if I was there to ask his opinion on a case or question him about new evidence or something. But I was there because of you. It's not that I didn't think of him as the Surgeon...I did...I just also saw him as your father. And that part of him was more important to me."