6
Emma watched AJ as he opened the door and dealt with the young man who brought in a rolling tray with hot chocolate on it. They exchanged a little small talk and then AJ gave the man a tip and said good night. Emma looked at AJ until he laughed nervously and smiled at her, "What?""How much did you tip him?"
"Uh, I don’t know… probably twenty? I just pulled out what I had."
"You tipped him twenty dollars to bring up two mugs of hot chocolate that probably cost about five bucks a piece. That’s a 200 percent tip and he didn’t even make it for us."
"Huh…" AJ said and thought about it for a moment. He then shrugged and smiled, "That’s okay… he’ll give me great service any other time that he’s sent up here now. So, that’s cool. I can trust that he won’t spit in my food or anything worse…"
Emma shook her head and smiled, "Okay, big spender."
AJ laughed and handed her a mug as he motioned toward the couch, "Stop mocking me and sit down or I’ll throw you back out in the hall…"
Emma couldn’t help but laugh at AJ and did as she was told. She sat down on the couch in front of the huge television in the equally huge suite and pulled her legs up underneath her body. She smelled the hot chocolate and smiled inwardly at the fact that she’d been thinking about ordering that same overly priced beverage and AJ had gone ahead and done it without even knowing.
She watched him for a while. He was a jittery person. She’d noticed that about him the first time she’d met him. Not overly jittery, or annoying, just that kind of jitter that makes someone bounce their knee when they’re sitting in a meeting or pick at the hem of their clothes to keep their fingers busy. AJ was flipping channels on the television, drinking his hot chocolate and bouncing his knee slightly. After a while he finally noticed her watching him and he smiled, "What?"
"Nothing… just thinking."
"How’s the cocoa?"
"Very good…" Emma said with a smile and a nod. "I appreciate it, you didn’t have to order anything."
"Yeah, yeah…" AJ laughed and finally put the remote down settling for the Cartoon Network. "You need to warm up from the inside as well. One time when I was a kid, I got stuck out in the rain after school. There was usually someone home when I got out of school cause my Ma and I lived with my grandparents. But this one day when it happened to be pouring, none of them were home and I forgot my key. So I sat on the front porch and got drenched for probably half an hour. Granted, we lived in Florida, but it was pretty cold rain…" He chuckled and took a drag of his cigarette before going on. "My mother threw a shit fit when she got home and saw me sitting there. She was bound and determined to take me to the emergency room to be checked for hypothermia, but my grandma talked her out of it. But I can remember my grandma putting me in a shower and telling me to start out with warm water and make it hotter as I warmed up. Then they bundled me up in about six layers of clothes and fed me soup and hot chocolate…" He stopped himself in mid thought and looked at Emma, "Soup… do you want soup? Cause I can order some…"
"No, I don’t need soup…" Emma said.
"You sure?"
"I’m sure…"
"Okay… so anyway, yeah… My mom and grandma made sure that I warmed up that day. In fact…" Emma watched him in confusion as he stopped in mid-sentence again and ran out of the room disappearing for a moment. Then he returned holding a blanket that he must have pulled off of his bed, "Blanket… here, wrap up in this, it’ll help."
"Thanks…"
"And I know…" he said with a huge smile, "’I didn’t have to…’ blah, blah, blah… I wanted to, got it?"
Emma smiled and nodded as AJ fussed with the blanket tucking it around her so that everything but the arm holding the mug and her head was under the blanket. "Got it…"
