Chapter 3
That laugh.
So infectious. So… perfect. And every single time I hear it, I’m taken back to the very first day I heard it during those winter months.
Heather was crossing the street with a couple friends of hers, guffawing at something one of them said at the time, and all I wanted to do was follow them so I could hear more of it.
She didn’t know who I was back then, but I told myself she would. I swore that one way or another, Heather Delaney would know who I was, and she would be mine.
I’ve waited so long to hear her delightful laugh once more, and just like the first time…
I’m still just as captivated by it. I love listening to the sound of the tiny snort she makes through her nose when she finds something truly funny.
Just like the one she’s making right now as she doubles over with hilarity at my name, and now that I’ve gotten the chance to hear it once more, I’m not sure I’m ready to give it up.
It’s a delicate sound filled with so much happiness I can’t help but respond to it with a smile of my own.
It reminds me of a child running around the yard with the puppy she got for Christmas.
Not only that, but it’s a very distinctive sound.
Contagious, enjoyable to be part of, and not like a braying donkey.
It was a laugh you could hear from across a crowded room ten years later and still be drawn to it in a way you didn’t understand. Nostalgic, and calming. Alluring, yet soft. Almost ethereal in a way.
Like a song you hadn’t heard played on the radio in so long, you didn’t realise how much you missed the melody until you heard it again. A laugh that just by hearing it, could instantly make you join in—even if you had no idea what was so funny.
My enjoyment of the sounds she made didn’t just come from the sweetness of it as it flowed up from her chest and out into the cold night air, no, it was from the look on her face.
How the corners of her desirable lips curved up, the way her tongue bobbed up and down inside her mouth, and those tiny creases at the corners of her eyes, showing me it was genuine. That she found something truly funny.
As the warmth of her hysterics crashed over the entirety of my being—igniting goosebumps in its wake, I truly realised my love for her.
When Heather laughed, my world stood still and nothing else mattered. The dulcet tone of her rich, uncontrollable giggling at my expense only caused me to want to be the only one who pulled those sounds from her throat.
I barely noticed when all the tension left her body—I was too far gone at that point, daydreaming about how it would feel to make her this happy for the rest of her life.
Tonight, I’m going to take every opportunity to bring that sweet noise out of her as much as I possibly can. I want to hear it so much, the melody it engrains itself into the very depth my skin and becomes a part of me. Within my ears, and mind, so there’s never a time when I’m without it.
Her laugh belongs to me tonight. In fact… all of her does.