The Empty Room Page 11

  Smiling at me, grabbing my leg under the table and giving it a little squeeze.

  “Yeah, I think it’s been a great night,” Jeff remarked.

  Just then after we had polished off the fourth jug of Sangria for the night the waiter came back up and cleared the table and asked us if we wanted to order dessert,

  “Yeah, why not?” I insisted.

  As in agreement we waited for the waiter to come back with the dessert menu’s, while we had already ordered Lisa started to think we had been through enough jugs of Sangria and perhaps we should have dessert then go for a wander,

  “Nah, that’s cool, I think one more then dessert, I need to go back to the hotel for a sleep,” I replied.

  “I was thinking the same thing sorry sis,”

  “Well, we’ll see you both tomorrow anyway,” Jeff insisted.

  “Yeah Jeff, you sure will,” I laughed.

  “Um, okay then,” Lisa remarked, as Karen started to laugh with her.

  Leaning over the table to refill everyone’s glasses, with us all thanking her in return,

  “So where do you go tomorrow Phil?” Lisa asked.

  “Well, after catching up with you and Jeff, I think we head to Nice, for a couple of nights, checking out Canne and Monte Carlo while we’re based there,” I replied.

  “Oh nice man,” Jeff commented.

  As Karen just looked on smiling.

  “Well, I hope you both have a great time,” Lisa declared.

  As Karen got up and walked around to her big sister and thanked her and gave her a hug.

  Jeff leaned over and whispered,

  “Never thought I’d ever see that happen.”

  “Oh okay,” I replied.

  Any way here comes the waiter heading back and we all end up ordering churros and a coffee, after polishing off the last of the Sangria it seemed like the thing to do.

  We laughed our way through dessert

  Just as the waiter came up with the bill, Jeff tried to grab it.

  “Hey man, pass the bill, I’ll take care of it,” I insisted.

  “Nah, it’s okay we’ve got this one, you guys can shout us in Rome,” Jeff replied.

  With Karen agreeing, we left it at that, just before we left I walked up to Lisa just as Karen had hugged her and taken a few steps away that only Jeff could hear me.

  “Thanks for letting your sister be herself, it must have meant the world to her tonight,” I said.

  “Yeah it was nice, thanks Phil, I forget she’s all grown up and can make decisions for herself,” Lisa remarked.

  “It was nice just to be her sister,” Lisa added.

  A tear falling down her check, she quickly wiped it away before Karen can see it.

  “Karen looks like she’s having a great time, thank you Phil,” Lisa whispered.

  As Jeff agreed and we shock hands.

  “Get back to your hotel safely guys and we’ll see you both tomorrow,” Jeff said.

  As Karen and I agreed and turned around and strolled off to our hotel.

  Karen wrapping an arm around mine as we walked back through La Rumbla and headed off to our hotel, for one last night in Barcelona.

  “Thanks for this,” Karen said.

  “We haven’t done anything yet,” I replied back.

  “Can’t wait to get to Italy, wait and see,” I added.

  “Phil, thanks for this,” Karen said, stopping and turning to me.

  “Thank you, Karen,” I replied, taking a breath.

  We stood there looking at each other as someone not far from us was being mugged, the guy ran near us and I got Karen to stand behind me and I knocked the guy out, running up the guy that had been mugged dropped a kick in, while we both thought that was a little uncalled for we decided to sneak away and head back to our hotel before anything dramatic eventuated. Finely crashing through the door, we both walked into the bedroom, turning to Karen,

  “This may seem, well I’m not sure how this will seem, I need to get some sleep I not sure what you might have been expecting.”

  Karen just looked at me and bursts into laughter,

  “You’re such an idiot,” Karen laughed.

  Grabbing some clothes and heading into the bathroom to get changed. Coming back into the room brushing her hair, still laughing, but then walked up to me lying in bed.

  Kisses my forehead,

  “Thanks Phil, I really needed that tonight, where my sister doesn’t treat me like a kid, but just as a sister,” Karen said.

  “Yeah, I’m sure she was happy about it as well.”

  Karen just nodded and walked over to the desk in the room, placing her brush on top of it, scoots around to her side of the bed and jumps in.

  “Hey turn over, I’m gonna be the big spoon tonight,” Karen insisted.

  Laughing I rolled over and Karen wrapped an arm over my shoulder and kissed the back of my head and we drifted off to sleep together.

  Waking up as Karen trumps and pulls the covers over my head,

  “Dutch oven, Phil wake up!” Karen yelled.

  “That’s not right Karen,” I laughed as I press my face into the pillow trying not to breathe and wiggled my way to the side of the bed, letting out a loud trump myself.

  “Ew, yuck Phil that sounded like an angry lion,” Karen laughed.

  “Yeah well, oh my god,” I said, rolling out of bed and on to the floor.

  “Hey, it’s not my fault it’s the chemo medication,” Karen replied, with a cheeky smile on her face.

  “Wow, okay, we’re up now, let’s get packed, I see the laundry’s been done while we were out last night,” I said.

  “Yeah this place is awesome, we should have stayed for another day,” Karen said.

  “Can’t wait for Nice though,” Karen added.

  “Yeah it’ll be a fun trip, I wonder if they’re still doing road works?” I said.

  “Why?” Karen asked.

  “They always seemed to be doing road works when me or any of my friends have been there,” I said.

  “Well, okay then,” Karen said, shrugging and diving on top of me while I still sat on the floor.

  Catching her as she lands on me laughing.

  “Hey morning,” Karen said.

  Leaning in with terrible morning breathe.

  “Ha, morning,” I said back,

  Laying a casual kiss back on Karen lips.

  “Hey we have time,” Karen said.

  Starting to undress we both didn’t bother to jump back into the bed and eventually ended up showering together as about half an hour into our morning, room service for some reason burst in on us.

  “Hey, what times Lisa and Jeff meeting us?” I asked.

  “Um, eleven-ish I thought,” Karen said.

  “Cool, let’s go and see if we can get some coffee, we don’t need to check out until two pm and the train doesn’t leave till three-ish,” I said.

  “Ah cool, what’s the go with you not putting the, do not disturb sign on the door?” Karen asked.

  “Yeah, that was my bad.”

  Both of us laughing, as we stepped out into the hallway and headed down to the streets below on the search for coffee.

  “Hey you two, sorry we’re early,” Lisa greeted us.

  As I go to check my phone and it’s still only ten, walking over to Jeff to shake his hand and hug Lisa,

  “Nah all good, we were gonna go a find a place that sold good coffee,” I replied.

  “Well, we can go and get some breakfast at the same time,” Lisa said. Walking over to Karen and giving her a hug.

  “Hey sis, I heard from Georgia his morning, she’s keen on Rome,” Lisa remarked.

  As Karen hugged her a little bit tighter and tried to wipe away a tear so her sister couldn’t see it,

  “That’s so cool, Lisa we’ll have so much fun,”

  “Yeah well, let’s go get something to eat,” Jeff remarked.

  While we all agreed, and headed down the road to the first cafe we come across,
after trying the coffee, we all laughed and thought, we should have gone to the second.

  “Well sis, enjoy the rest of your trip,” Lisa said to Karen.

  “Thanks sis,” Karen replied. As she went around and hugged Jeff then came back to her sister.

  “I’ll look forward to seeing you guys in Rome, is Georgia bringing her new fella?” Karen asked.

  “I hope not, a little sister time could be fun,” Lisa replied.

  “We can still have sister time if she does.”

  “Yeah I guess so,” Lisa said.

  Hugging her sister one last time, as I walked over to shake Jeff’s hand and wish them a great time in Madrid.

  “Yeah man it’s a shame you both can’t come up,” Jeff commented.

  “We wouldn’t get much time to spend with them,” Lisa replied, over hearing Jeff.

  “Well I would, you’ll be too busy working,” Jeff joked.

  As both Karen and I laughed.

  “It’s okay, we’ll see you in Rome in a week or so,” Karen said.

  “Yeah can’t wait,” Lisa replied, as Jeff and I agreed.

  We parted company and Karen and I headed back to the hotel to grab our bags. Just as we’re about to head into the hotel, Karen grabbed my hand and stopped.

  “Phil, should I have told Lisa I loved her?” Karen asked.

  As her eyes started to fill with tears and she grabbed my arm even tighter,

  “Should I have just said something like that or held her tighter?” Karen asked, starting to shake as she held on to me.

  “Hey, your sister knows you love her,” I replied

  “How do you know?” Karen asked.

  “Because last night she told me about how she could see you as her sister and not some little child,” I replied.

  “Did she?” Karen asked.

  “Wow, good,” Karen insisted.

  Wiping her eyes on my shoulder, which made me laugh.

  “Hey, let’s get going, if we get there earlier we might be able to jump on an earlier train,” I said.

  As Karen agreed and we both walked up to our rooms and grabbed our bags, checked out and headed to the station, to head up to Nice.

  To say it was a terrible time was an understatement, Karen got a cold somehow in the middle of summer she got sick, I thought it was cancer related but after being to the doctors we got sorted and she was fine after a day or two. The only thing we really-did was walk around Monaco, we even walked into the casino and had a few goes at the blackjack table, where we both sucked, but before too long we were on another train and heading to Venice.

  I hadn’t noticed it, but Karen was really-enjoying the trip more and more, she had gotten to a point where she stopped worrying about me popping the question, though she did get a little nervous when we were on the gondolas, it was really romantic.

  “Hey what are you thinking?” Karen asked.

  “How beautiful you look and how lucky I am to have finally met you,” I replied. Trying not to sound to cheesy.

  Once again making Karen feel nervous,

  “Hey, cut it out,” Karen insisted.

  “But hey, thanks,” Karen added.

  “Yeah well it’s easy to come up with the words when your around,” I said.

  “Have you had much chance to get any writing done?” Karen asked.

  “Yeah heaps,” I replied.

  “What really, how is that even possible?” Karen asked.

  “I’ve sent Audrey a fair few chapters since we’ve been away,” I replied.

  “I told you it’s easy when you’re with someone that inspires you,” smiling a goofy smile towards Karen.

  “Oh wow, that’s awesome,” Karen laughed.

  Karen just looked at me smiling not really-understanding, how I had gotten so much work done, but between her naps and her constant demand for me to write postcards it just became a habit. I was always writing and sometimes smiling when I could hear her snoring from the comfort of the couches in most of the suites we were staying in.

  “So hey, let’s go and get lost and see what we come across to eat,” I commented.

  “Isn’t this your favourite part of Venice,” Karen asked.

  Smiling at me,

  “Yeah, it is and we have to try some gelato,” I said.

  As Karen stopped and turned to me,

  “Hey, I know gelato will probably remind you of her and I don’t want you to feel awkward about that,” Karen remarked.

  “Wow, I hadn’t even thought of her this whole trip.”

  “What really?” Karen asked

  “Yeah, I’ve been having a great time with you, why on earth would I think of another woman while we’ve been on this trip,” I remarked.

  “You mean together,” Karen said.

  Looking at me and leaning in,

  “Yeah together,” I said, smiling back and leaning in.

  We found a great, random restaurant in the middle of Venice and ate a tonne of margherita pizza and had no idea where we were, we just sat there as people walked by and we were getting pretty-boozed by the time we got up, luckily the proprietor, had a boat and got us back to our hotel, so we could sleep off the boozey lunch we’d just had, thanking the guy. Who asked us, if we wanted to go to little Venice and he’d show us around the next day,

  “Oh hell yeah, that’ll be great and we’ll have to try the biscuits while we’re there,” I said

  Karen just agreed, and we made a plan to meet the guy early the next day, and stepped into our hotel and went up to our room, luckily the hotel had gelato on the room service menu, so I ordered some coffee and a couple of bowls of gelato, with Karen looking and smiling at me.

  The next morning couldn’t come around soon enough, the proprietor was back to take us to little Venice, where we ate and drank all day, thanking him once again as he dropped us back at the hotel just as the sun was setting. We had another amazing day, I always loved Venice, getting lost any chance I could get, luckily Karen liked that as well. Though she gave me a few nervous looks over the three nights we spent their, especially every time I bent down to tie my shoe laces.

  “Hey, where are we off to tomorrow?” Karen asked.

  “Well, first Pisa so we’ll have to carry our bags around in the morning,” I said.

  “Then Florence for a few nights,” I added.

  Smiling Karen walked over to me, handing me another bunch of postcards to write out.

  “Hey, I might email Lisa,”

  “Yeah, we should be in Rome in about 4 days,” I declared.

  “Anyway let’s get packed so we can leave pretty-early in the morning and head to Pisa for most of the day, before going to Florence,” I added.

  “Yes dear,” Karen said. Still with a cheesy smile on her face.

  “Ha, you’ll have to see if Georgia is bringing her fella,” I reminded Karen.

  “Yeah, should be a fun time, either way,” Karen responded smiling back.

  Looking at her I could tell what she was thinking and walked over to her to give her a hug.

  “Hey, it’ll be great, you’ll see.”

  “Yeah thanks Phil, I’m just gonna go and pack and take a nap,” Karen said.

  “Yeah no worries, I’ll order some room service after scribbling some words to everyone.”

  Holding up the postcards and waving them at Karen.

  “Ha, no swearing at my mum,” Karen yelled as she entered the bedroom.

  Waking Karen up a few hours later.

  11

  When in Rome

  We laughed all day in Pisa, we ate more pizza and sat on the wrong grass and were told off for it. We laughed at the train station, as we sat on our bags and we laughed even more when we checked into our hotel in Florence. We were the worst tourists when it was raining, possibly even more so when we were stuck in our room for a couple of days, not wanting to go out and get wet. Luckily the second to last day the sun came out and for some reason, Karen wanted to buy a lock and go for a walk.

&n
bsp; “Yeah alright, what else should we do?” I asked.

  “Let’s just go and have a laugh, check out some statues and have some fun,” Karen said.

  “Yeah alright, might as well get some coffee while we’re here,” I said.

  “Yeah sounds good, so do you want to get out of bed and order some breakfast?” Karen asked.

  “No,” I said

  “What do you mean, no?” Karen declared.

  “I’m comfy, you get up.”

  After another hour of ordering breakfast, chicken, I finally got up and got organised.

  Quickly jumping into the shower as Karen jumped on the computer to check her emails.

  “Hey Phil, who’s Anna?” Karen yelled, from the couch.

  “Hey, what’s up?” I asked, as I poked my head out into the lounge.

  “Who’s Anna?” Karen asked.

  “Not too sure how to answer that?”

  “Oh that’s Anna,” Karen remarked. Looking back at the laptop and sorting out another batch of postcards we planned to send off today at some point.

  Walking out in my boxers I leaned over the couch.

  “Hey, have you ordered any breakfast yet?” I asked.

  “Yeah, it’ll be here soon.”

  “Oh cool, I’m gonna get dressed, do you want to jump in the shower and get ready?” I asked.

  Walking towards my bag in the bedroom.

  As Karen goes and has a shower, I’m already dressed and sitting at the table checking some emails, luckily Audrey is liking the pages I’d been sending her. Hannah still thought I needed to talk to Anna and sent me her email again so I flicked her a quick message just letting her know I wasn’t gonna be back in London for a while. Hoping it wasn’t important.

  Finally, a knock on the door, had me closing-up the laptop and opening it up to the room service guy and what smelled like a great breakfast to start our second to last day in Florence, well at least last full day. Slowly followed by Karen, again.

  “So what’s happening with Anna?” Karen asked.

  “Yeah, I’m not too sure just sent her an email, Hannah was saying the other day she might want to talk to me, so I dropped her a quick message,” I declared.

  “Will okay then,” Karen said, grabbing a croissant and heading into the bedroom.

  “Hey, do you want to go and see the statue of David today?” I asked.