27 if looking is a crime, lock me up
27
if looking is a crime, lock me up
Ava
The August sun beats down on Finn and me in the queue for the changing rooms. I squint when I look his way, and he wordlessly steps to the side to block the sun from my face.
When my retinas stop burning, I let my eyes settle on the towel-clad sight in front of me. Sun-kissed shoulders, those arms that easily lifted him out of the water, wet hair sending glistening rivulets down his chest.
‘You good?’
My head snaps up to meet his eyes. They’re playful like they always are, but behind that, something smoulders. It’s fine. He’s an attractive man, and I’m allowed to look. But that doesn’t mean I want him to catch me doing it.
‘Are you flexing?’ I counter, trying to keep my gaze level.
One corner of his mouth raises in a smirk. ‘Might be.’
In an attempt to reroute my thoughts, my brain switches gears. ‘Wait, how was your interview yesterday? I meant to text you about it.’
We step forward in the queue, and he keeps his body angled to block the light for me.
‘Honestly?’ A lock of hair flops on to his forehead and he pushes it back. ‘I don’t wanna jinx anything, but they as good as told me I had it. There are some formalities they need to go through first, but I’ll find out for certain within the next two weeks.’
Finn’s rarely bashful, but when he unsuccessfully tries to push down a smile, pride crashes through my chest. But there’s something else I can’t place too. I push it aside to say, ‘Told you you’d smash it.’
He shoots me a smile that feels like a secret. ‘It feels like everything’s falling into place. With the job, with my dad coming to visit soon.’ He wrings his hands. ‘I’m hoping this move will bring us closer.’
‘You really want to make him proud.’ If I had a son like Finn, I’d be proud simply by default. Not many people glow so bright that you start to believe you could step out of the shadows and see the road ahead with their light.
‘I guess.’ He shrugs and looks away, and a single bead of water falls from his curls to his shoulder. I follow its slow trail down his torso, all the way until it reaches the dark hair that disappears into his towel, and a low heat in my stomach feels like it’s sinking along with that droplet.
A changing room opens up at the far end of the row and we both walk towards it, and for the briefest, silliest moment, I envision Finn joining me in my stall. Instead, he clears his throat and says, ‘I’ll watch the door for you.’
‘You can go first.’
‘You’re starting to burn. I’ll survive a little longer.’ He gestures towards my chest, face impassive, and when I look down to see it’s going pink where the material’s rubbed away my suncream, I unconvincingly tell myself that he’s just looking out for me and there weren’t ulterior motives for his eyes to be there. And then, when I adjust myself in my swimsuit and glance up to see his eyes tracking the movement, I pretend I don’t notice that, either.
He says quietly, ‘I think the toga thing is working for me at the moment, anyway.’
I risk another glance at his torso. Yeah, I’d say it’s working for him.
Focus, Ava. You are about to go on a nice, easy date with a man who’s staying in London and doesn’t muddle every thought in your brain.
In the stall, I laboriously remove the material stuck to my damp skin and spend the next few minutes trying not to gag every time my body touches the freezing tiles on the walls. Just as I’m finishing up, my phone buzzes, and I find a new message from my date, Jacob, asking if everything’s still looking good for later. He seems friendly, polite and sweet. And so far, I think I’ve done an incredible impersonation of someone who is also friendly, polite and sweet.
I press send on my reply right as I open the changing-room door.
‘You’re looking very . . .’ Finn’s eyes seem to get stuck on every curve where my brand-new gym shorts and top sit perfectly flush against my body, and I feel more naked than I did in my swimsuit. He blinks as if to clear his vision and finishes with, ‘Sporty.’
‘It’s a new outfit.’ We switch places, and he pushes the door closed while I reply, ‘I’m going to the leisure centre after this.’
The sound of his towel moving against his skin scrapes against my nerves in a way that is not entirely unpleasant, and he says, ‘I thought the gym was against your personal beliefs?’
‘It is.’ When his swimming trunks hit the floor with a soft sound and I register what that means, it feels like I’m wading through sludge trying to remember my plans for the rest of the day. ‘But I’m going on the date I mentioned to you yesterday.’ His movements cease on the other side of the door, and it’s quiet for a few moments until I add, ‘Jacob likes climbing, or bouldering, or whatever the fuck it’s called, and I’m going to join him.’
‘When you said you were trying to show interest in his hobbies, I didn’t know you meant climbing. ’ He starts moving again and says, ‘I mean this in the kindest way, but good luck.’
I press my forehead against the wall with a laugh, and I don’t even have it in me to pretend to be offended. ‘I need it. More for maintaining this new personality than for pretending I have any semblance of athleticism. And that’s saying something.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean that I’ve been extremely polite and agreeable with him thus far, and I need to keep it up.’
‘I told you; you don’t need to be someone you’re not.’ He pulls a zip up on the other side of the door. ‘Soft and polite and gentle isn’t going to work.’
‘And I told you I want something uncomplicated. No drama. I want to see what I’m capable of if I loosen up a little, and in this instance, loosening up means faking it. And who knows, maybe if I act this way long enough, I’ll become sweet Ava permanently.’
I end the sentence with a grin, but the door opens and it’s like someone’s taken a drawstring and tightened Finn’s entire body. His forehead crumples, his mouth pinches, and his shoulders hunch as he looks at me.
‘Stop doing that,’ he says in a low voice. ‘Everything about you is exactly as it should be. I’m sure of it.’
His sudden intensity throws me off. It pushes and pulls at the same time; blasting me into space while the g-force pins me down and presses in from all sides. I don’t like the way the tension closes up his features, so I let the moment tug between us, flexing and stretching and tugging until it settles.
‘Okay,’ I say with a nod.
‘Okay,’ he repeats, a small smile loosening the lines on his face. As the smile spreads, I grow too, a flower bud tasting the start of spring. It seems unfair that he can do this to me while all I ever do is bring the clouds to him.
After far too heavy a silence, I take my hair out of its bun and retie it into a ponytail, and Finn’s eyes flit to my neck as I do.
‘There’s still a tag on your top,’ he points out. ‘Let me h—’
I move my hands to the back of my neck and yank at the label there, but I end up pulling the card off and leaving the plastic attached.
One expression after the other flicks across his face like an old stop-motion animation. Amusement, fondness, exasperation, repeat. Every single one of them makes my heart hurt, just a little bit.
‘As I was saying,’ he continues, eyes sparkling, ‘let me help.’
I hold my hair over my shoulder and step in front of him, and I look out at the pool and focus on the people racing along one of the lanes to keep my mind off the drifting of his fingertips up my back.
‘Sorry,’ he says quietly, after a few gentle pulls at the material. ‘I’ve got suncream on my hands and it’s not . . .’ Warm fingers brush against my skin, careful but sure, and my breath catches. He continues in a measured voice, ‘I need to use my teeth.’
Teeth . Even the word has bite. It clamps down on my resolve, and I nod.
One hand settles at the side of my throat while the other holds the fabric of my top, and when he dips his head, every part of me narrows its focus to the spot where his hot breath touches my skin. He smells of summer – of suncream and chlorine and laughter in the sunshine. Or maybe summer just smells like Finn.
I fight against the way my eyelids want to flutter closed, and my body screams at me to relish this proximity, if only for these fleeting moments. He’s so solid, so present behind me that it makes it feel like he’s everywhere, that whichever way I turn, he’d be there, wouldn’t falter supporting me for even a second.
There’s a tug and a snap, and I know he’s done, but he lingers at the top of my spine for a beat, then two. I can’t tell if it’s his fingers or his lips that brush the skin there, but then he’s gone, stepping out of my space and exhaling slowly.
‘My hero,’ I say lightly, heart pounding so aggressively I’m worried he’ll notice it.
I glance over my shoulder just in time to see a vaguely pained expression cross his face, before he clears his throat and returns to nonchalance. ‘That’s me.’
‘Should we go and find the others?’
He motions for me to lead the way, and as we walk towards the café, I suddenly remember what I’m about to go and do, and open my mouth to share how terrified I am of the climbing wall when Finn asks, ‘So what does it take to get a date with Ava Monroe?’
‘Something like this, I guess.’ I open my phone to show him mine and Jacob’s initial interactions. As I do, I accidentally press play on a voice note. Jacob laughs in it, and it doesn’t make me feel like a flower opening up in the spring, but it’s still a nice enough sound.
I scroll up to the first messages, and I watch Finn’s lips move while he silently reads them. ‘ You look nice. ’ The sun must dip behind the clouds for a moment, because the briefest shadow passes over his face. He hands my phone back, and just before we reach the others, he touches my arm with the lightest possible contact. It still burns. ‘Hey. Be yourself for him. Please.’
‘Maybe. I’ll keep you updated.’
His eyes bore into mine in a way that makes me feel like he can see the maelstrom of emotions colliding in my skull. ‘I’ll be waiting.’
‘You said that yesterday, too.’
‘Because I’m good at waiting.’
Julien’s voice shatters the thickness in the air, and then we’re back to laughing with our friends, and I’m distracted by the ease with which we all mix that I can ignore the ache in my chest, at least for a little while longer.