[Alex's POV]
"So, what are your plans now that your boyfriend has finally arrived?" Annabelle asked once all the little girls were put to bed and Alex, Otto and Annabelle were sitting around the table to eat. Well, Annabelle wasn't eating, obviously. She was there for the company.
"I'm not sure, to be honest," Otto said. "I guess it's time to go home. I've been gone for nearly a week, without a words notice. My parents must be worried senseless."
"Well, that was an understatement," Alex thought to himself. He had been curious to how things were going on earth, so he'd magicked himself a phone and had been surprised to find that their disappearance had stirred up quite the commotion online.
Everyone was talking about them.
Alex had found one particular blog which started with a picture of the both of them kissing and was basically a rant about how Otto probably was some horny teen who'd ran away with her "habba-habba"-boyfriend to practice all her fantasies undisturbed.
Alex had stared at the picture in the article and had thought that, based on the picture in the article, it clearly was him who was the horny teen, who wanted to do all those things with his "habba-habba"-girlfriend.
Even thought you could see only half his face in the picture, he couldn't hide his lustful feelings at all. Otto, on the other hand, was smiling a heavenly smile against his lips. As if she was laughing with a silly joke she'd told and simply happened to have her lips pressed against his. Yet, the article had made Otto look like a man-devouring whore. What the hell was wrong with the world?
But Alex had to admit, they both looked really good in the picture. He hadn't noticed when it was taken, but it clearly was at school. And there was only one person who took good pictures at school.
Lindsey.
When he'd typed her name in the search engine, he found her portfolio pretty easily. Turned out a hefty section of it was dedicated to pictures with him in it. The number of pictures in that category amounted to almost forty percent of all the pictures in her portfolio. He hadn't even noticed when most of the pictures had been taken, even though he was staring straight into the lens in some of them.
She'd made him look like a freaking perfume model!
Lindsey had told him a few times that she'd added pictures of him to her portfolio and that he should check them out, but he never had. A fact he was starting to regret.
Judging by the fact that the pictures in "his category" were all accompanied by an average of three Google ads while there were none in the other categories, suggested that his pictures drew quite the crowd.
With these pictures he was starting to see why Otto had felt the need to inform him about the "extremely handsome"-thing. But that didn't mean he liked all of those pictures to be on the internet.
Who knew how many people had seen them? The thought that they might have been drooling over them gave him the shivers. Certainly because those people couldn't know that the photographer had pulled the subject out of its context to make a piece of art.
If that blog article had been written by someone like that, he suddenly understood why they'd lashed out at Otto instead of him, but that still didn't make it ok the slander someone.
Alex shook his head briefly to clear it from his train of thought and looked at Otto. He could see that she was terribly worried about her parents, so he reached for Otto's hand and gave it a gentle squeeze.
"They are indeed worried senseless," Alex said. "Newspapers, television, social media, police, missing persons unit, ... Everyone is searching for you and no-one has a clue as to where you might have vanished to. There's only one thing they unanimously agree on and it's that wherever you are, you probably are there with me. Seriously, the theories go from me kidnapping you, to two lovers eloping together. Some kinder than others."
Otto's brow furrowed in thought.
"How do you know all that?"
"I made my phone work," he said, purposely making it sound as if it was the easiest thing in the world.
"Of course you have," she mumbled, but didn't elaborate. "Can I see?"
Alex instantly made a sour face.
"I'd rather you didn't see what some people wrote about us. It's quite obnoxious and some of them are rather toxic."
"Then, can you make mine work too so I can call my parents?"
"I can do you one better," Alex laughed. "You probably didn't notice when you came here, but we got here through a portal which connects everything in the universe. Given enough energy, it is able to teleport us to a certain time and place. So I was thinking of teleporting us back right after the moment we vanished."
"You can do that?!" Otto asked incredulously. Alex nodded, he felt rather proud about the fact.
"In other words: You are leaving," Annabelle said. She sounded rather downcast.
"Not necessarily," Alex said with a shrug. "I've been here for four days and I haven't been able to enjoy one moment of it. If we're going to travel back in time anyway, I wouldn't mind staying for a few more days."
"But it doesn't change that you are leaving," Annabelle said with a trembling voice. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get emotional. Usually, when Jack brings somebody over, they stay here until their rebirth. And I really enjoyed your company for the last few days. I'll surely miss you!"
"Oh, Annabelle," Otto said, fighting back tears of her own, and hurriedly hugged her. "I've really enjoyed my time here too. But let's not say goodbye just yet, ok?"
Annabelle nodded into the hug. To Alex, Annabelle looked like a friendly aunt, but Otto was hugging her as if she was a precious childhood friend. Looks like they really had gotten attached to each other in the past few days.
Why did everyone always have to get attached to his soulmate? Thank God she'd agreed to sleep in the same bed tonight.
"Don't look so jealous, Alex," Annabelle chided once she'd released Otto from the hug. "You'll have her for the rest of your life. I'm sure you can spare just one little hug."
"You've seen nothing yet," Alex mumbled dissatisfied, which made Otto chuckle in turn.
"So, I guess this counts as a little vacation if we're staying a few more days. What'll we do tomorrow?" Otto asked excitedly. Alex shrugged. He literally didn't have a clue.
"Oh, I know," Annabelle said. "We could take a few canoes and row down the stream. The valley down hill is filled with lots if baby rabbits and deer this time of the year."
Otto looked up at him with little stars in her eyes, barely able to contain her excitement.
"That sounds wonderful," he said, smiling warmly.
"HURRAY! We're going sailing with mommy and daddy tomorrow!" an overjoyed cry sounded from around the corner.
"Eva!" Otto said in the most stern voice Alex had ever heard her use. "How long have you been there?! You should have been sleeping ages ago!"
But it looked like the sternness of her voice had more of an impact on Alex than it had on the little Eva, since she skittered back upstairs in a fit of giggles. Otto followed her, undoubtedly to tugg the little one in with a gentle smile.
"What's all this mommy and daddy business she's been going on about?" Alex asked Otto once she was back downstairs.
"Ah, I'm afraid she believed me when I told her she could be my baby when she's reborn. Even though there's nothing I can do about it, really," Otto said, clearly feeling guilty about the fact. "Should I tell her to stop?"
Alex briefly shook his head. He didn't know why, or how it had started, but he'd recently started to notice red strings tied to people's pinky finger.
For example, a red string was tied to the pinky finger of his left hand. It was bright red and secured with a delicate-looking, kind of girlish, little bow. If he followed the thread, it was clearly attached to Otto's pinky finger in a similar fashion as his own. It was clear that his was tied to Otto, because when they were near each other, the thread hung loosely in between them.
There was another threads tied to the pinky finger of his other hand, that went through a wall in a general direction and disappeared from view, which he guessed was his connection to his dad. Otto had a similar thread tied to her right hand, disappearing in the same direction as the thread tied to his right hand.
Annabelle, on the other hand, did not have a single thread tied to her, which seemed plausible, since Alex could imagine that normally death would sever all ties to a past life.
No, the peculiar thing here was the fact that, to the thread that tied Otto to him, a second string was attached of which the other side was tied to little Eva's right pinky finger.
Whatever Otto had promised this little girl, it was definitely binding.