A SENSE OF THE OLD TIMES



Even he knows that I will kill any bitch that tries to mess with him. He wouldn’t even dare betray me in that way. "I will gouge her eyes before she can lay them on him!" I snap.

"Uuuh! So possessive, huh? Yet you pretend as if you don't care."

I sigh at Rose's sarcasm and hike upstairs. Well, as long as we haven't called it quits, he is still mine, right? Definitely!


I get to my room and grab my phone from the bed. It vibrates once, and the green light is blinking, indicating a missed call. I stopped to unlock it.

Talk of my sweet devil! Wait, ten missed calls? What is the emergency? I redial and wait to hear his voice from the other line, albeit with a pounding heart. I hope all is well.


"Ellie!" He greets.

"Hey! Damian? Ten missed calls are savage. What is going on?" I respond.

"Are you okay?" he asks with a voice that is not too cool.

Me? Sha! With all this annoyingly sweet company he brought for me, why wouldn’t I be okay? Why does he still need to be worried?

"Aahh... Me? Why?" I ask in confusion.

"I was informed that you had a confrontation with your stepmother. I called, but you didn't pick up. I thought that maybe the confrontation went south." and he is indeed worried. Sometimes I think I judge him too much.

Damn! It must have been one of these guards who told him what happened back here. Shit! I didn't want him to know. He has a lot of important issues to deal with, and some trivial things, such as my fights with these witches, should not be added to his list of worries.

"I'm sorry, Damian. I left the phone upstairs, but I am alright. It was nothing I couldn't handle." I ascertain.

He sighs, a heavy sigh of relief that caught my ears so loudly through the line. "I was sick and worried." He hoars faintly.

It feels so sweet to know that he cares so much, even now. I can only imagine how charming Damian Almeda looks right now. His eyes are something I give the world to see right now. He has shown it to me countless times, yet it hits differently every single time.

"Ellie? Are you there?"

My! "Yes. Sorry for worrying you. Would you like me to?"

I pause to take a deep breath. I hope he doesn't misinterpret this.

"What?" he asks.

I breathe in and out, amassing as much courage as I can before speaking. "Make up for that? Would you like me to make it up for worrying you?"

I am grinning like an idiot, and now I think I am really an idiot who cannot express herself to her fiance again. Why did I have to go all this way to just ask him if he could have breakfast with me? That would have been straight-forward and easily understandable. Now only God knows what is going through his head.

A silence befalls between the lines, and for a moment I thought that he had dropped the call on me, except that I hadn't heard that end-of-call ring. But then he speaks.

"I wouldn't mind. How do you want to do that? Should I..."

"Don't get so ahead of yourself, Mr. Almeda." I cut him off. It has been a long time since I teased him with that name. I wonder what is wrong with me this morning.

"Okay, miss Riccaford! But be straightforward, because this guy's mind travels a thousand miles in a second when it comes to you!" He says it with a sigh of letdown.

Yeah! I know that! I just didn't know that he would have such dirty thoughts about us right now. "You are so naughty! You haven't changed?" I ask.

"I lost count of how many times you told me that. It reminds me of old times, and no. I ain’t changing because I know this is why you fell for me. This is why you love me, Ellie!"

Damn! Are we going back to that? Reminiscing about our old times? That sounds like a dangerous bid that I wouldn't want to take because what happens to my deal?

"Come over for breakfast, Mr Riccaforte Jr." I mumble.

"Mmh..." He rumbles.

"What? You don’t want to? Mind you, breakfast is already served, and I am not taking a no for an answer," I state.

He chuckles. "I will be there in ten."

Frown brown! Ten minutes? The distance from here to their place is about forty minutes by car. Unless he is taking a chopper, which is ridiculous.

"What? Had a hunch I would invite you for breakfast?" I query.

"Yeah, you can say that. I knew my baby would be missing me. Plus, I wanted to see you after that incident. I couldn't stay calm."

Mmh! I see! Wow! Then I shouldn’t have come all the way to waste my credit and make a fool of myself, I guess. But then, at least, I was able to tease him a little. To remember the old golden times. I can’t do that when he arrives. So, I presume the call was all worth it.

Yeah, it was so worth it because I am still grinning at nothingness. What the hell is happening to me, huh?

“What are you thinking right now? Fantasizing about your Greek God? You want me to come straight to your bed? That way, you can ogle me best and see if there is any detail about me you forgot.”

I am snapped from drooling about our memories by his voice. Bed my foot! No miracle or witchcraft can erase even a single detail of him from my mind. Even with my mind closed, I can draw his portrait so well and never miss a single detail. Nadah! "Just drive safe. Bye," I say.

"See you soon, he whispers through the line, and I bet he has to take the speaker of his phone to his mouth.

Are we going back to the old times? Being free and cool and flirting again?