Chapter 4


As she walked into the room she realized that she walked into the kitchen where also Romano and Feliciano were standing. Feliciano were unpacking the grocery bags and putting some things in the fridge while Romano was washing his face in front of the kitchen sink. With an little awkward feeling she leaned against one of the counters and waited until Feliciano got done with unpacking the groceries.
"Okay I placed everything you need for the food on the counter here and I gonna go get quickly our suitcases and the other stuff." He says with an smile on his face as he points to the food on the counter and walks then out of the kitchen. She grabbed the apron which were hanging at the kitchen door and wrapped it around herself. While she was cutting some tomatoes she saw from the side of her eyes how Romano finished washing his face and rubbed his face into one of the kitchen towels. As he walked by he watched over Miranda´s shoulder while she was cutting the tomatoes and then made an angry face.
"The way you cut the tomatoes you just ruin everything. It just looks horrible. I didn't thought that theres some women who really don't know how to use knifes!" He said as he gently pushed her away and grabbed the knife from her hands, cutting the tomatoes now by himself. A little shocked by what just happend she just moved on and prepared the the pasta.
"Hey I´m really sorry about what happend before with the tomato. I really didn't mean to hurt you but you really were rude to me without even knowing me." She said while she looked up to see his reaction. He didn't look at her but spoke then more in a calm way, probably because Feliciano were walking around in the apartment dropping some of the suitcases and then heading outside again to get more.
"Listen, I don't care who you are and I really don't want to know, you have luck that my stupid little brother is a nice person otherwise I would have kicked you out already when I saw you at the door." Suddenly he felt hands on his shirt and as he finally realized what happend he saw the woman who he insulted in front of him, pushing him against the wall next him and holding the collar of his shirt really tight in her hands. When he looked her in the eyes he noticed a tiny tear flowing down her cheek while her eyes were full of hate. When she suddenly heard Feliciano´s footsteps coming closer she let go of Romano and acted like she was cleaning his shirt.
"Hey Miranda, I brought your suitcases to the living room and Romano is something wrong? You are turning red." He said while looking at both.
"No, I'm fine she just removed some tomato spot from my shirt. Go take a shower while we prepare the dinner." Romano said while he made a hand gesture to Feliciano to give him the signal to go. As soon as Feliciano left the kitchen both of them were relaxing again. Miranda let go of his shirt and turned around to prepare some plates with pasta. She waited for Romano to put the sauce on the pasta to carry some plates into the living room where the dinning table was but Romano stopped gently and put his hand on her shoulder and whispered quietly in her ear.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you. You are not ugly, at least not that much."
Then without any other words he grabbed some wine glasses and brought them to the table where Miranda placed the plates. She seemed to be a little bit dreaming, she couldn't understand how someone can be such a meanie first and then suddenly being all nice, even though he still called her ugly in some way. But that was probably just his way to stay cool she thought. She realized a few seconds later that Romano was waving at her.
"Hey are you already off to dreamland or something? We are short on one plate. Theres only three plates here on the table but we are gonna be four people." He said while pointing at the table. She looked clearly confused and asked then
"Who else is gonna come? Another family member or something?" Just when she finished her sentence the doorbell rang. Romano walked to the door and opened it.
She could only hear a few words but it was clearly not Italian so she kept listening until she understood a few words and there she knew it must have been Spanish. Miranda was still preparing the dinner table as the fourth person walked into the living room. It was a tall man with green eyes and short wild brown hair. It didn't seem like he was brushing his hair too often. His skin color was much darker than hers so she must have been right with Spanish. When he walked in and saw Miranda he said something to Romano and Romano replied but she couldn't understand but by the expression on that Persons face it couldn't have been anything good. The man came walking towards her and offered his hand to shake hers as he started talking in Italian to her.
" Pleasure to meet you, my name is Antonio Fernandez Carriedo and i´m a childhood friend of Romano and Feliciano and Romano just told me about you. But from the lovely face you got I cant believe that you are an mean ugly witch." As she heard the last sentence of Antonio her face turned red in anger and she shot an angry look to Romano which just put his hand in front of his face because he cant believe that Antonio actually said what he told him. A few seconds later the bathroom door opened and Feliciano walked out of it smiling as usual but as he saw Antonio his face became even more cheerful than before. Like a dog who was waiting for its owner he ran to Antonio and jumped into his arms. Antonio really seemed to enjoy it and hugged Feliciano really tight, saying some soft words in Spanish. Miranda were watching both and felt happy. Feliciano walked over to Miranda and grabbed her left hand and then walked back to Antonio to grab his right hand and pulls both of them to the dinning table.
"I'm so happy to have you both here today, Miranda I gotta tell you so much about Antonio and what me and Romano did together with him and you gotta tell us more about you." said Feliciano as they all sat down. They all kept eating and talking for several hours. Antonio talked about how Romano used to bully him even though hes four years younger than him and was much smaller than him. He would come by everyday and be mean to him, sometimes beat him up also. He talked about that here was a girl they used to play with but there was an accident and after that Antonio and Romano became really close Friends. When he finished talking Miranda just finished her wine glass and put it on the table.
"What happend to the girl? I mean what kind of accident are we talking about?" She asked, while her voice sounded a little bit tipsy.
She was clearly not used to Italian wine.
Romano looked at her and then put all the empty dishes together and answered harshly.
"You are almost drunk, go get yourself some damn water and dare you to vomit anywhere!" Without any response she stood up and made her way to the kitchen.
"Hey Romano, don't you think she looks alot like that little girl back then? Of course shes a little bit different but you gotta admit she.." started Antonio but he got cut off from Romanos yell.
"Shut up! You know that cant be true! That girl from back then is dead! And you know it! Everyone knows it was my fault. I killed her. If I wouldn't have climbed with her on those stupid trees and pushed her she wouldn't have fell down. She hit her head and lost so much blood, no one would survive that! So stop it! Stop trying to make me feel better about it! Why do you think her parents suddenly moved away? Of course not because their kid got better again, their daughter.." He stopped talking as he saw Miranda coming back from the kitchen with an glass full of water in her hands. She didn't need to know those kind of things. After all she was just a Stranger to him. She sat down on her seat again and looked around at their Faces, all of them seemed a little bit stressed so she asked.
" Hey what did I miss? Did Romano say something rude again or what?" At those words Romano formed with his lips the words " Fuck you" but he didn't say it out loud. Before Romano could say something really Feliciano stopped him and started wondering.
"Romano, didn't we had a white sofa or something?..." All Romano did at the question was scratching the back of his head and looking at Antonio,giving him the sign to start talking which he did then.
"You know.. when you were gone on your trip to Germany we had kind of an party here.. the whole band and yeah.. it got pretty wild and we had so much fun that.... we kinda destroyed the sofa. But don't worry with the next money we will buy you a new one." Feliciano was obviously not happy about that but he also didn't wanted to make a big wuss about it so he just sighed and responded with a question instead.
"That´s great but where is Miranda gonna sleep then today? I only have my single bed. But if me and Romano sleep together in his big bed then she could have my bed for the time" He turned his face to his bigger brother which didn't seemed to be pleased. But Antonio answered.
"But that's no problem, I can take her to my place and there she can sleep in my bed with or without me and I can sleep on my sofa" He said with an smile on his face but when he turned his face to Romano he could only see an angry red Italian in front of him. He started yelling at him in Spanish so Miranda wouldn't understand.
"Are you crazy? Who knows what you are gonna do to her then?! You hang out so much with your French and German idiots that you also became perverted like them! And no I will not sleep with you together in one bed Feliciano, I cant stand it anymore to get hugged by you in the middle of the night and hear you having dreams about your potato bastard friend!" He took a deep breathe and started thinking but then just sighed. He shot a death glare at Miranda.
" Fine, you gonna sleep today in my bed but FAR away from me and if I feel ANY touch from you or you say anything weird you will sleep on the balcony! And you! You tomato bastard get out of my apartment now! Its past midnight!" Feliciano got up and grabbed the dirty dishes and brought them to the kitchen while Miranda just sat there and watched how Romano tried to hush Antonio out of the apartment. Even though they seemed to have an really awkward friendship it seemed to be intense. Before Antonio walked out of the door him and Romano hugged each other. She couldn't hear the words he was saying to Romano but it sounded like something calming. After Romano closed and locked the door he walked back to the table and gently grabbed Miranda´s hand who was confused by this action.
"Come, you better go to bed now, I want to sleep and I don't want you to wake me up in the middle of night." He dragged her behind him while he talked to her. She didn't say anything. At that moment she noticed that she was actually more drunk than tipsy. But she couldn't resist the wine. She was hoping that she wouldn't feel too sick in the next morning though. When they both walked into Romanos room she couldn't really pay attention to anything. She only saw the light which Romano just turned on and the bed. She must have been standing there for some time because she saw him walking around and preparing the bed and talking to her. He sounded frustrated and the next thing she feels is how he picks her up in bride style and carries her to the bed and drops her on it gently. He takes off her shoes gently, takes out her earrings and undoes her braid. She felt so helpless at that moment.
"I'm so sorry that you have to do that for me" She said but it sounded much more different from what she was planning to say. He responded even more frustrated and pushed her into the bed, covering her with a blanket and placing a bucket next to her bed side.
"Just shut up finally and sleep! And dare you to vomit but if you do then do it at least into the bucket which is next to your bedside." After he spoke those words he went also to bed,shut off the lights and everything around them became dark and silent.