Blood red love by Dripping Creativity

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Blood red love 

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The first thing Charlie did the next morning was to check Vidar’s shoulder. It had healed and 

Vidar had her remove the stitches. 

“I told you it wasn’t a big deal,” he told her. Charlie caressed the area where the wound had been the night before with her fingers. 

“It was to me,” she said and placed a kiss on his shoulder. He smiled at her and kissed her hand. “When are you going into the office? Do you have time for breakfast?” she asked. 

“I do, I’m not going into the office today,” he told her. 

“What are you planning?” she asked him and looked at him like she could read his mind if she tried hard enough. He laughed and towed her into the kitchen. 

“How about a full English breakfast to give us a good start?” he suggested. 

“I’m not going to refuse something like that, but what are you planning that requires you to feed me like this?” 

“I’m not planning anything. I think you are getting paranoid,” he told her as he started pulling things out of the fridge. 

“Okay, but just so you know, for your non–planning, I start work at nine today,” she said and took out plates and placed next to the stove and then set the breakfast counter. Vidar froze in the middle of cracking an egg. He let the egg hit the pan and turned towards her. 

“You’re going to work?” 

“Of course, I have bills to pay and I have already left Jenni in a bind more than once lately,” 

Charlie said. 

“Baby, Caine is still looking into what happened. He can’t go with you,” Vidar told her. 

“I understand.” 

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“Charlie, you can’t go alone. I wouldn’t have allowed it before yesterday and there is no place. 

in hell I’m letting you do it now.” Vidar stalked over to her and caged her in against the 

counter. 

“You have other men,” she simply said, looking into his eyes. She wasn’t giving in on this. She had feelings for him, strong ones. But she wouldn’t give up on her own dreams just 

because he thought it was a bad idea for her to go to work. 

“I do, but none that I would trust with your life.” 

“That’s your issue, not mine.” 

“It will become yours if whoever shot at you yesterday tries again,” he growled. 

“So what do you want me to do? Hide in this apartment until you find out who did it? And then? Stay here in case someone else gets the same idea?” She took a deep breath to calm down. She put her palm against his cheek. “I’m not blaming you, Vidar. I accept that being in your life brings certain risks and being a maiden probably adds to that. And I will gladly take it on if it means I can be with you. The good far outweighs the bad. But I’m not going to let the bad control my life.” Vidar’s eyes softened. 

“It’s a little frightening how easily you win me over,” he said. “Fine, I’ll go with you and you 

can work.” 

“Vidar, no. That’s not what I was saying.” He smiled at her. 

“Either I go with you and keep you safe, or you stay at home. Those are my conditions,” he calmly said, kissing her nose. “Now, you’ll have to excuse me, but I have burnt the eggs.” Charlie watched him move to the stove and then scraped the burnt eggs into the trash before starting over. 

“Vidar, we have talked about this. I can’t ask you to sit in the bar all night,” she said. 

“You don’t have to ask, I volunteer.” Charlie decided to give up. They had reached a compromise and she would have to accept it. 

“Thank you.” 

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“Anytime,” he told her as he looked over his shoulder at her. 

“Does this mean your plans for today will change?” 

“No,” he happily said. 

“So there is a plan?” she asked with a smile. He spun around and looked at her like he had a hard time understanding what had happened. Then he smiled a brilliant smile. 

“You are too smart for your own good, lilla lo,” he told her, sounding pleased. 

“Does that mean you will tell me what it is?” she asked. 

“No.” He plated their breakfast, two heaping plates of delicious looking food. “Eat your food. and get dressed.” 

An hour later, Charlie was walking into a furniture store. It didn’t look anything like the furniture stores she had been in before. She was certain that nothing in this place had a core of plywood or pressed wood. No, this was a place that sold proper wood furniture. 

“Vidar, why are we here?” she asked. 

“You will need furniture for your office. And if you see anything else you like, we can get that as well. If you want to change out the furniture in the apartment, just let me know,” he told her. 

“No, why would I do that? I love the apartment. And I already have a desk and things like that.” Vidar looked at her and frowned. 

“Charlie, please don’t be offended by what I say next. But I saw the desk and chair you use. They look like they would fall apart if I leaned against them. Do they hold specific value to you?” 

“No.” She had bought them in a secondhand shop when she got her apartment. She admitted they were a little frail. Okay, the desk swayed if she accidentally bumped it while she vacuumed and the left armrest of the chair fell off if she put too much weight on it. Charlie thought about it, with all the extra tip she had received she could afford to replace them, 

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would do the trick. “Okay, I see your point. But this is out of my price 

range,” she told him. She expected there to be the usual bitter taste after saying those words. But there was none, Vidar already knew about her situation and he had never made a big deal about it. 

“Baby, I don’t expect you to pay,” he simply said. 

“No, I can’t let you pay. I’m not a kept woman.” Vidar chuckled at her outrage. 

“I know you’re not. I’m spending my night in a bar because of it. I’m not proud of it, but money has lost its value to me 

It has been a long time since I had to think about where my next meal would come from or if I would be able to have a roof over my head. Money is just a thing that gets me what I want. But now it has a new value, it can give you what you need. So let me use my money for that purpose,” he told her and caressed her cheek. Charlie had a hard time understanding how money could lose its value. So much of her time the latest years had been spent thinking and worrying about money. First to make sure her inheritance would stretch far enough, and then how to replace what she had lost. 

“Okay,” she told him. 

“Good, now let’s get started. Tell me anything you like and if you don’t find anything, we will try someplace else.” Charlie laughed. 

“I don’t think there are too many of these stores in the city,” she pointed out as she looked at the beautiful furniture. 

“No, but we can go to another city, or to Europe, or Asia, depending on what you like,” he told her. She just stopped and stared at him. 

“I have work at nine,” was all she could think of to say. 

“Yeah, so any longer trips will have to wait a day or two,” he agreed. 

“I don’t even have a passport,” she told him as she tried to focus back on the furniture. 

“You don’t own a passport?” he asked. 

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48 

“I have never needed one.” 

“You haven’t been out of the country?” Charlie understood that to Vidar, who probably had travelled all over the world multiple times, it was a strange concept. 

“No. My dad took his new family and Huxton on some vacations when we were kids, but I didn’t get to go. I usually stayed with my grandparents on my mother’s side. When mom was still alive, she would take me and Huxton on camping trips. She could rarely afford to take time off work, so we usually drove out to the woods outside the city and spent the weekend. We would sleep in the back of the car, she had an old Volvo and if we folded the backseat down, it would fit three of those thin air mattresses. It was comfy and if the weather was nice, would leave the tailgate open and look at the stars. We would cook over an open fire and it was just such a fun adventure,” she told him. She had been so lost in her memory and looking at the furniture, Charlie hadn’t noticed that Vidar had stopped and was looking at her with an expression she couldn’t read. 

We 

“I’ll show you the world,” he told her and walked over to her to kiss her. 

“I would like that,” she said. She was just about to tell him how much she appreciated everything he did for her when her eye caught a desk and she forgot what she was about to say. Vidar followed her gaze and smiled. 

“Do you like it?” he asked. 

“It’s beautiful,” she said and walked over to it. The desk was simple, which only highlighted the quality and workmanship of it. The dark oak showed off the natural pattern of the wood. The two brass squares that looped over the top and down to form legs were a beautiful contrast to the dark wood. At each end of the top, a drawer was hung from beneath it. 

“It is,” Vidar agreed as he walked up behind her and put his arm around her waist. A man came walking up to them. He was a little older than Charlie and dressed in an immaculate dark grey suit. 

“Good day, I’m Marcus, how can I be of assistance?” he introduced himself. 

“We were looking at this beautiful desk,” Vidar said. 

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“Yes, this is quite a brilliant piece. One of a kind, handmade and part of a set. The artist also 

made the bookcases to go with it,” Marcus said, showing them two large bookcases. They were made of the same dark wood and they had a thin band of brass that ran along the shelves in a geometrical pattern. 

“Do you like them?” Vidar asked Charlie.. 

“They are amazing,” Charlie told him. 

“Should we get them?” She knew they had to be crazy expensive. They were all handmade. But she wanted them. She could see how perfect they would be in their apartment. They would fit in like they were made to be there. She nodded. “We will take both the bookcases and the desk. We will also need to look at the office chairs,” Vidar told Marcus. 

“Of course, very well.” 

When they left the store, they had got the desk and bookcases, an office chair that was like sitting on a cloud and a side table for the fish tank. Everything would be delivered to them the next day. 

“We need to clear the room,” Charlie said as they were driving back. 

“Jones has already taken care of it,” Vidar told her. 

“Well, aren’t you efficient?” He took her hand and placed a kiss on it. 

“When can we move your things?” he asked. 

“Well, I’m off work Thursday and Saturday,” she said. “I’m thinking Thursday is a no go. If we do it on Saturday, Huxton and Tyler can come by and help,” she thought out loud. 

“You do know I can have a horde of men packing up and moving your apartment with in hours?” Charlie scrunched her face. 

“I don’t want stranger going through my things. And if we do it, I can sort out what I want to bring and what to donate or throw away.” 

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“Then that is what we will do.”