ch24.page

Brian rented another limo that Saturday, to take him and Rose to his house in Orlando. She stepped out into the parking lot, loaded down with the two suitcases that containted every possesion she owned, plus two cases full of day-to-day and emergancies treatments, but when she saw the limo, her entire face lit up, and she turned to Brian with excitement written all over her face. "Again?" She asked, and when he nodded, a smile appeared. "Oh, thank you!"

He laughed at her child-like happiness. But then, who could blame her? Here was a girl who'd lived her entire life in an orphanage, never owning more two pairs of paints and a couple of shirts at a time, never having a room to herself, the most luxurious life she knew was what she'd lived in the hospital, and now, all of a sudden, there was a limo to take her back to the Florida mansion she was going to live in for the rest of her life. In this one day, her entire world was changing, and Brian just hoped he could get her to suck every last drop of enjoyment out of it while it lasted.

His house- thier house- was about an hour and a half from the hospital, and Rose spent the first seventy minutes or so looking through the mini fridge and flipping through the TV channels. Brian loved how she was still amused by the same things that had amused her the last time she was in a limo. She reached over to the control panel on the wall, and hit a random button, and the lights dimmed, and were replaced by tiny sparkling gold bulbs through out the cabin. She squealed in delight. "This is so amazing, Brian!" She said, smiling up at him. "You're so good to me!"

He laughed, and pulled a bottle of champaigne from the fridge. "Let's make a toast." He said, grabbing two glasses from a small cuboard, and pouring the champaigne into them. "To the next six months, may they be nothing less than perfect." Her eyes shining, Rose tapped her glass against his, and took a tentative sip.

She made a face, and held the glass away from her. "Oh!" She exclaimed. "That's awful!"

Brian's eyes widened. "You can't be serious! This is the best money can buy! It's- wait. Have you never tried champaigne before?"

Rose blushed a little. "Not technically." She said shyly. "But I knew someone back in the orphanage who did."

Brian laughed. "You're amazing, Rose." He told her, and her blush deepened. "I mean it. Despite everything you've gone through, every horrible event that's taken place in your life, you've managed to remain completely innocent. I love that about you."

Rose was a little taken aback. They'd never used the word 'love' with each other. And though saying that he loved something in her was a far cry from saying he loved her, hearing him say it still sent chills down her spine. "You wanna know what I love about you?" She asked. "You're sharing everything have, everything you've earned and worked for, and you're giving me the biggest part of yourself possible, even though you know that I don't have anything to give back to you. You're the most generous person I've ever met."

"And you," Brian told her, reaching for her hand, "are the most beaitiful person I've ever met."

Their eyes met then, and both felt the now-familiar rush that always moved them when they looked at each other. "Do you believe in soulmates, Brian?" Rose asked softly.

He took the hand that wasn't holding hers, and ran it gently down the side of her face. A tremor ran through Rose's body, and she leaned in closer to him. Her skin felt so smooth to Brian's touch. His hand stopped under her chin, and he lighlty pushed her face up towards his.

His lips moved in closer and closer to hers, and he felt himself shaking with the anticipation of touching her mouth with him. Rose's breath-taking eyes fluttered shut, and her lips parter slightly. They were less than a centimeter apart, so close that they were breathing into each other's mouths, tasting how sweet their breath felt on their tongues.

And then the limo lurched to a stop. The mood was broken.

The glass partician seperating them from the driver slid open, and a tall man with thinning hair smiled back at them. "Here we are!" He announced cheerfully. "Looks like you've got quite a reception here."

He moved stepped out of the car, and a minute later, opened one of the side doors. Brian saw what he meant by a reception. There were fifty of so cars cluttering the street around his house, and through the iron gates that surrounded the yard, he could hear splashing in his pool, and laughing and talking. The smell of something cooking on the barbecue wafted back to him. The disappointment of what was almost their first kiss faded a little at the prospect of seeing all his friends again.

"Yo, B!" Someone called from the house. Brian stepped out of the car, and took Rose's hand to help her, too. AJ stood at the door to his house, smiling and waving.

"Wow." Rose breathed, taking everything in. The house was bigger than any she'd ever seen, so big, it seemed to her more like a castle. She counted four stories, and around the back she could see a pool with an actaull fountain in the middle. "Wow. You live here?"

Brian led her inside. "We live here." He corrected her, and then wiped away the tears of happiness that filled her eyes.