Our Hearts Entwined (22 page)

“Oh… of course she can, sorry, I didn’t mean anything by it – I just didn’t understand…”

Cayd walked out of the building and into the daylight so Louise would be able to see him better before he called, closely followed by Natalie.

“Hello,” Louise answered, her image pixelating slightly on the screen as the connection took hold.

“Louise, I can’t get hold of Mia. Do you know where she is?”

“No sorry, I have no idea… Why do you need her?”

“I was supposed to meet her at her flat and she’s not there. I really need to talk to her Louise.”

“Well, I’ll let her know you called if I hear from her,” Louise responded before saying good bye and hanging up. Leaving Cayd wondering where she was, worried that she’d gone running back to Eric, or worse still, worried that she’d left entirely.

“What do we do now?” Natalie asked.

“Nothing Natalie, just go home.”

“You mean go home to Sydney or home to my apartment?”

“Right now, I really don’t care Natalie,” Cayd replied stalking back to his car as he wished that he had have held back with Mia until she had sorted out everything with Natalie like he’d planned. Now, he had moved forward with her too soon, possibly ruining everything.

***

“
Thanks for that. I’m just not ready to talk to him yet,”
Mia said as she stood outside the security check of Melbourne’s domestic terminal entrance with Josh and Louise.

“I don’t know why you’re giving the guy a hard time Mi. He obviously cares about you. Surely there’s a good explanation for all of this,” Josh put in, as he stood holding Mia’s hastily packed bag.

“
I need some time to myself alright? I have questions I need answered, I need to think, and I can’t do that here,”
she stated, reaching out to take her carry on from Josh and thanking him as she did.

“
Just look after yourself, and call if you need anything,”
Louise said before giving her friend a hug.
“Good luck and come back quickly.”

“Thanks,” Mia said before joining the line to move through the checkpoint, waving over her shoulder at Louise and Josh as they left together.

“Do you think she’s doing the right thing?” Josh asked.

“
Who’s to say what’s right anymore. But she has to do whatever she thinks is best. I just hope Cayd waits for her
.”

“Do you think we should tell him where she’s going?”

“We can’t, we promised
.”

“This sucks,” Josh groaned, sliding his arm around Louise’s shoulders as they headed toward the car. He hated keeping secrets.

It had been over a week since Eric last saw Natalie. Even though he had strong feelings for her, he was still majorly pissed off with her for deceiving him. He’d thought about both her and Mia constantly - he missed both of them.

Mia had taken off somewhere, and no one would tell him where she was, and Natalie had kept her distance. She hadn’t even texted him. He didn’t know if she was just giving him time like he asked, or if she had changed her mind and wasn’t as in love with him as she had claimed.

Eric kicked himself constantly for thinking so much about her – he should hate her. But he didn’t, even though he couldn’t see how any sort of a relationship could work out with her.

What she did had affected everyone who was important to him. He didn’t think that he could have something with her and expect them all to be cool with it.

It was a Friday morning and Baz had once again pulled up outside the 7-Eleven for their daily breakfast ritual. The moment Eric stepped through the automatic glass doors, his phone beeped a message. Immediately, he pulled it from his back pocket, swiping his thumb across the screen to read the text.

Don’t forget the sauce!

Shaking his head, Eric tapped out a reply as he walked towards the pie warmer.
Come in and get it urself u lazy bastard!
he told Baz, grinning to himself then pocketing his phone again as he slid out two meat pies and grabbed the requested sauce, adding the packets to the paper bags the pies were in. He then headed over to the fridges to get their milks.

His phone beeped again with another message from Baz and he attempted to balance everything in one arm to retrieve his phone from his pocket.

“Can I hold something for you?” a familiar voice said, its owner appearing in front of him.

“Natalie,” Eric breathed, almost dropping the pies and milk. “What are you doing here?”

Bouncing her shoulders, Natalie looked around briefly, “I wanted a coffee?” she attempted, her answer sounding more like question than the truth.

“At six thirty in the morning?”

“Ok, I wanted to see you,” she admitted.

“Here? Now? Couldn’t you have just called me?”

“Would you have answered?”

“Probably.”

Dropping her eyes, Natalie suddenly felt very foolish, “I didn’t think you would, you haven’t called me in over a week, so …”

“So you thought you’d stake me out?”

“No…I…I don’t know,” she admitted.

“You haven’t called me either,” he reminded her.

“I didn’t think you’d want to hear from me.”

“Seems to me Natalie, that you should be a bit more honest – say what you want instead of assuming things and getting them wrong. You could have saved us all a lot of trouble with a bit of honesty.”

“I…”

“What do you want Natalie? Why are you here?”

“For you, I want you,” she said in a rush, her heart thudding wildly in her chest.

Eric nodded his head thoughtfully, then moved straight past her and paid for the items in his hands, just as Baz hit the horn in two short bursts to tell him to hurry up.

Natalie stayed glued to the spot as she watched him move, barely breathing the entire time. After finishing at the cashier, Eric pocketed the change and picked up his items.

“Meet me at mine. I’ll be home around five,” he said as he walked by Natalie, who did little more than nod her head in response, finally breathing and actually feeling hopeful.

***

Louise worked as a graphic designer in a firm in Collingwood and most days she would meet Josh, who worked as a courier, for lunch in a little Café not far from her office. Today however, when she entered the reception area of her office she had another visitor as well.

“Cayd, how are you?” she said as she got close enough, eyeing Josh briefly to let him know that she knew this was his doing.

“I had to bring him Louise,” Josh shrugged, by way of excuse. He thought it was really silly that Mia took off without telling anyone. When he saw her and Cayd together it was really obvious they were into each other – he never could understand why women would get something in their head and go off the deep end instead of actually calmly talking about it. The female mind baffled him at times.

“Cayd, I like you. I think you’re a really great guy but, Mia is my best friend.”

“I understand Louise, really I do, but it’s been over a week. I need to straighten things out between us. It’s killing me inside to think that she’s blaming me for anything that happened,” he told her.

Louise dragged her eyes over Cayd’s beautiful face, he hadn’t shaved for possibly the entire time Mia had been gone and was sporting the beginning of what would be a very full beard. His skin looked pale and his eyes were underlined in dark shadows from his lack of sleep and his hair was dishevelled – it looked like he had spent hours raking his fingers through it.

“I’m sorry Cayd,” she said with a sigh, touching his arm gently to convey that she meant it.

Blowing out a breath, Cayd nodded before raising his hand to his chin. He signed ‘
Please’
before pointing to his chest to sign ‘
I’.

Louise’s resolve started to melt as she watched him slowly sign the sentence he had memorised, his hand sweeping down his side to sign ‘
need’.
He then lifted his right hand like he was catching something – ‘
find’,
before pointing to the side of them both – ‘
her’.

Louise pressed her lips together, fully understanding how much he missed her. She could see it all over his face. “I know you want to find her, Cayd. But I promised I wouldn’t tell anyone,” she said, reaching out again and touching his arm reassuringly. “Please know that she is fine, she’s just… looking for answers – that’s all I can tell you.”

“Looking for answers?” Cayd repeated, rolling the information around in his head and on his tongue. Lowering his eyebrows, he said more to himself, “Where would she go for answers?” before it dawned on him. “She’s gone to Sydney, hasn’t she?” he asked Louise, his hands resting on her shoulders as he looked expectantly into her eyes.

“I promised I wouldn’t say Cayd,” she said with a slight laugh.

“Ah, but that isn’t a no, is it?”

“No, it’s not a no.”

“Ha!” he called out, clapping his hands together. “Thank you Louise, thank you so much,” he told her, kissing her on the cheek and giving her a quick hug.

“I didn’t breathe a word,” she reminded him.

“Of course,” he laughed, backing away from her, eager to leave so he could talk to Natalie. He was now sure that Mia had gone to see Natalie’s adoptive parents.

“Oh and Cayd!” she called out. He stopped for a moment and gave her his full attention. “
Thank you for signing to me,”
she both said and signed to him, smiling happily. There was something about Cayd that she really liked, perhaps it was the way Mia was around him – they seemed to fit together, and he had been nothing but kind ever since they had all met. The fact that he tried to sign for her made her like him even more and really proved to her how much he cared.

Cayd smiled and nodded his head once before raising his hand in a wave and almost jogging out the door to his car.

“I really like that guy,” Josh said next to Louise, not really expecting Louise to be reading his lips.

“Do you have a man crush?” Louise asked, smiling up at him, her curly red hair surrounding her pale face.

Wrinkling his nose, Josh met her gaze and slid his arms around her waist. “Nothing like the crush I have on you,” he murmured before planting a soft kiss on her lips.

“Hmmm, maybe you should spend a bit more time signing then huh?” she prodded.

“I have been learning,” Josh insisted. He always tried to sign any of the words he knew when he was with Louise. But he was having a hard time obtaining any fluency in the language.

“Oh yeah, can you sign a whole sentence?” she asked stepping back from him.

Pressing his lips together Josh frowned in thought, “Ok, I was saving this one for the right moment but here goes,” he said, shifting his stance a little as he took a deep breath and prepared himself. First, he pointed to himself, before crossing his arms over his chest and then pointing at Louise.

“You love me?” Louise asked, a grin crawling over her face.

Wrinkling his nose up, Josh squinted slightly, “Yeah…I do,” he confirmed.

“
I love you too,”
Louise said and signed back before jumping into his arms and sealing their confession with a kiss.

***

Relief washed over Cayd as he made his way back home, at least he now knew where she was. He had been a wreck since she left, wanting desperately to talk to her and explain his situation.

Pressing a button on his steering wheel, Cayd said aloud, “Call Natalie Johnson.” There was a slight pause as the speakers in his car came to life, producing a ringing sound as the call went through.

“Hello?” Natalie answered, unsure of who was calling her from a private number.

“Natalie, it’s Cayd,” he said simply.

“Oh hi, I thought it might be you. What can I do for you Cayd?”

“I need you to text me the address of your parent’s home in Sydney,” he told her as he continued to navigate the streets.

“What? Why do you need that?”

“Because Mia has gone to see them.”

“Really? Wow, I haven’t even told them I found her,” she said more to herself. She was so angry with her parents over the adoption that she hadn’t been taking their calls or listening to their voice mails.

“Natalie, I need that address please.”

“I’ll send it now. Cayd – do you think I should come with you?”

“No, this isn’t about you right now. I need to see her on my own.”

“But I thought you needed me to clear things up?”

“Natalie, I just need the address right now.”

“I’ll send it now,” she said, feeling slightly disappointed. Somehow the idea of going back to Sydney and talking to Mia there felt better than waiting endlessly in Melbourne.

A few seconds after they hung up, Cayd’s phone beeped with a text message from Natalie containing her home address in Mosman.

The moment he pulled into his driveway, he picked up his phone and checked the message, confirming that it was indeed what he thought it was and rushed inside to his office with the single aim of booking the next possible flight he could make in time.