Chapter 27
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Icould hear the rain pattering against the pavement as I stumbled into my apartment.
As soon as I passed the threshold, I let out a deep sigh as my wet hair dripped against the hardwood floor.
After several weeks of unrelenting sunshine, the rain was a much-needed change.
For Darling, the weather had been uncharacteristically warm–burn your cheeks and warm up the soul, warm.
I wished I could have enjoyed the weather more, but it had done little more than drain my energy and deplete my mood.
Not that I thought the universe would or should take my mood into account, but it would have been nice for the weather to be a little more aligned with how I was feeling.
Although I was silently jumping up and down inside for the welcome change in weather, I couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for my grandfather, who had just set out on a weekend-long fishing trip with some of the men from the neighbourhood around his age.
He didn’t fish, and I’m pretty sure he never had.
But I understood it. The need for a distraction.
The need to be anywhere but a house that held nothing but memories of Maura.
Looking for some semblance of happiness when all of that was tied up in another person was hard.
I whipped off my boots with a little too much gusto, one of them pulling off one of my socks as it went.
I tossed my bag on the kitchen table, and for a moment, I just stood there, taking in the black-and-white photo that was hung on my wall.
Where it would have previously turned my stomach over in knots, this time, I just smiled, letting the feelings take hold of me for a moment before I turned around.
I wasn’t sure what it was that was woven into the smile that greeted me–magic, maybe.
Love, almost definitely. But that smile spoke of home.
No, it didn’t just speak of home. It whipped open the windows of my heart and screamed it from the rooftops.
That smile spoke of slow, quiet mornings huddled under blankets.
It spoke of stroked hair, yellow tulips, jam on toast, and a love I never knew I deserved.
His hair was slightly messy, the blazing red strands framing his face as his eyes met mine. The same rings of crimson I’d come to know and love, softening slightly. I often found myself lost in the colour of his eyes, the ones that had pulled me out of the darkness more times than I could count.
For a beat, I was captivated by the look he gave me before I was pulled, reluctantly, from my thoughts by the music playing in the background. You could find the opening notes in the Quincey Sterling dictionary, pencilled in under nostalgia. Or favourite. Or Baby.
I wasn’t sure what it was about this film, but I’d loved it from the very first moment I’d seen it and hadn’t stopped loving it since.
I wasn’t sure if it was the warm, summer-resort energy of Kellerman’s or the way Johnny looked at Baby like he couldn’t quite believe she was real, but every time I heard ‘that was the summer of 1963. When everybody called me Baby, and it didn’t occur to me to mind,’ something hit me right in the chest. Something warm. Something fuzzy. Something right.
A grin made its way onto my face before I could stop it happening…
not that I tried all that hard to stop. “Whatcha watching?” I smirked as I made my way over to my forest green sofa.
I side-stepped a number of new plants, giving Thallor a quizzical look, which simply afforded me a half-smile and a shrug in response.
I settled in next to him, and he draped part of the fuzzy, burnt orange blanket over me before shuffling closer.
“Should I expect a lot of dancing in this film?” he asked as he stretched an arm out behind me, before pulling me into the crook of his body, as if it had been made just for me.
I looked up at him, hoping he didn’t notice the way my breathing accelerated when he leaned in close.
Nothing had happened since that day in the library.
Nothing other than the same stolen glances, half smiles, and the occasional touch that courses through my veins like electricity.
After everything that happened with Maura, we almost felt stuck, suspended in limbo; neither of us was willing to take the next step, so we remained in that familiar place.
We were caught between what we wanted and too hesitant to acknowledge.
So, I shuffled in closer and let his familiar scent engulf me.
I knew he felt as nervous as I did, but occasionally I'd see that smile tug at the corner of his mouth, which reassured me that his feelings hadn't faded.
I was almost certain that he knew what his smiles did to me, what his smiles did to my heart.
I wanted to take hold of every precious, priceless feeling that lingered between us and preserve them in some sort of museum.
If nothing ever happened between us, at least I'd have a relic of his happiness, one not carved in marble but carved into my heart so I could hold onto those feelings for a lifetime.
“Well,” I chuckled to myself, “it is called Dirty Dancing.” I looked up at Thallor with excited eyes and a fool’s grin. I had been most excited to watch this film with him. Not only was it, hands down, one of my all-time favourites, but I was also dying to see Thallor’s reaction to the dancing.
Not even twenty minutes later, I got the answer I was looking for. “Sterling,” Thallor said with a low, gravelly voice as he turned to look down at me. I gawked up at him with glistening eyes from where I was huddled against his chest. “What kind of film are we watching?”
“A film about dancing?” I giggled.
Thallor’s eyes darted between mine and the television. “I’m not sure I would call that dancing.”
I looked up at him, shifting slightly so I could hold his gaze properly. “And what would you call it, Thallor?” I challenged.
“Some sort of music-based foreplay.”
I snickered and rolled my eyes. “God, if that is your idea of foreplay, I really do pity all your previous lovers.”
Thallor’s eyes darkened as he looked down at me.
There was something laced behind that look.
Want. Desire. Everything I had been feeling since the moment he kissed me reflected back at me.
“You can pity them all you want, Sterling.” His voice was breathy and low as he whispered into my ear. “None of them have ever complained.”
“You’re a demon; maybe they were afraid of giving you any constructive criticism.” I laughed, playfully rolling my eyes.
“That’s not how it was.”
“So, I’m just meant to take your word for it, am I? How convenient for you,” I mused, letting my voice shift in pitch as I mocked him. “No complaints, no Yelp reviews, no five-star rating. Surely, you don’t expect me to just believe you?”
He pushed the hair that was currently draped over my shoulder behind my ear so my neck was exposed to him and leaned in.
He was close enough that I could feel the heat of his breath prickling against the skin of my collar bone.
“I might not have references but—” his fingers drifted lightly across my knee, just barely there, “—you could just let me show you.”
Like a tacky gas station sign, in flashy neon lights, my body came alive with what he was suggesting.
I let out a shaky breath, hiding my overly flustered state under the guise of pulling off the itchy sweater I’d been wearing all day.
Whether it was my incessant fidgeting or Thallor’s innate ability to read my every movement and action, he immediately pulled off his hoodie and placed it over my head.
The hoodie wasn’t really his, and it wasn’t really mine.
Like everything else, it lingered in that place of interchangeable ownership, tender feelings, and those ever-tentative attempts to get closer to one another.
I reached over and grabbed a jelly worm from the bag he was holding before settling back into the crook of his arm.
“The water scene is my favourite part of the whole movie,” I fawned between mouthfuls.
“I love the way he lifts the side of her vest up when it slips. I’m pretty sure that was unscripted. ”
“Have you ever done anything like this?”
“Like what?”
“Have you ever been dancing like this?” His voice was low and curt. As if he didn’t want to know the answer to the question but did.
I laughed loudly. “God no. Firstly, I think if you tried that in a bar, you’d get thrown out. And secondly, you’ve seen me trip over my own feet. I’ll steer clear of dancing, dirty or otherwise.”
“But you like the film?” he says, looking down at me.
“Of course,” I smile at him. “’Nobody puts Baby in a corner!’”
“What?”
“Just watch the film.”
The end credits trailed across the screen as I lifted my head from my slightly squished cushion.
Sleep was tugging at my body from all angles, gently coaxing me toward that elusive world I visited when my eyes were closed, and my subconscious took over.
I felt warm and cosy and safe, on the simple thought of moving was enough to have me groaning and cocooning myself into the sofa with Mort in the hopes that I would somehow teleport to bed.
“Come on, you,” Thallor said, stooping down and helping me to my feet.
My body felt like lead, and my bed felt too far away.
The mere thought of having to drag myself through each sluggish step toward the bedroom was enough to anchor me in place.
Not to mention the fact that I still had to shower, pull on my pyjamas, wash my face, brush my hair and teeth, all of it an uphill battle that I was no longer willing to face. “Leave me here,” I groaned.