Chapter 18 #3
I pull the string slowly, meticulously, not wanting to rush the experience.
In fact, if I could freeze us in the moment forever, I think I would.
I remember a saying once about how the best bite of food taste the best in that moment before you actually eat it.
Anticipation is everything. So I savour it.
Savour this second in time when I'm holding a gift that Alexia Riley gave me because she realised how important this day is for me, even though we had never even talked about it.
Even though we haven't really known each other for six years.
Savour the sound of her breathing as she waits for me to open her gift.
I lift the lid and just stare at the contents.
It's a tape measure. A proper one, heavy in the hand, won't catch, or break if you drop it, which you will. She did her research. I turn it over once before I see the engraving along the side, small, precise letters.
Today's date. And the words:
Built Different. LL to M.
I stare at it long enough that she starts to look worried.
"It's stupid," she says. "I saw it and thought of you and then I thought maybe it's too much..."
"It's not stupid."
LL to M. Lexi-Lou to Marcus. She signed it with the name only I've ever called her, the one she pretends to hate but never once actually asked me to stop using, and something about seeing it stamped into metal, permanent, hers to give and mine to keep, undoes something in me that I've been holding shut for weeks.
"They were wrong," I exhale.
"Sorry?"
"It's so much better knowing," I exhale.
She frowns, thoroughly confused. And I don't blame her.
I turn the tape measure over in my hand, running my fingers over the smooth sides, the cuts in the metal that put her name next to mine, forever.
"Nobody's ever-" I start, and have to stop. I try again. "Nobody in my life has ever cared enough about what I actually do to give me something like this."
"That's not true, Marcus," she argues. "The guys care."
I nod. She's right. They do. But I expect them to at this point. We all give as much as we take. But her...and the way we...the way I...
"And I care." She says it simply, as if it's a given.
But it's not. We both know that. We know what happened.
We know that us standing here having this moment is an anomaly.
That her saying those words might happen in a parallel universe, but they were never meant to be uttered again in this one. But here we are.
And in a billion universes, I'd want to be nowhere but in this one. Right here. Right now. With her.
I close the small distance between us. One hand finds her jaw, praying that she won't pull back. When she doesn't, I tip her chin up to meet me.
And we kiss.
Soft at first.
An experimental second of my lips against hers.
It doesn't stay that way for long. She tastes like the champagne someone handed her at the door, and she makes a small sound against my mouth that goes straight through me like a thunderbolt, and my other hand finds her waist, pulling her properly against me.
For one perfect stretch of time there's no display village and no agents downstairs and no hundreds of houses I've built with these two hands, just her mouth and her body against mine.
"Lexi," I whisper as we pull apart just far enough to breathe. She shivers and I feel it travel up her spine as this time, she's the one to close the gap. Her lips so warm and sweet against mine.
A voice penetrates through the fog, and I groan, breaking the kiss.
"Marcus?” Anna's voice calls out from downstairs. "I need you down here. Now."
I lean in whispering against her ear. "Don't go anywhere."
"I won't," she promises.
"I'll be right back. I will. Please believe me.” We both know why I’m saying these words. But she doesn’t argue.
"I'll be here." She's a little breathless, her lips kiss-swollen in the moonlight and I have to force myself to actually walk away from her.
I take the stairs two at a time, already working out how fast I can deal with Anna so I can get back up there. I'm on the front lawn where Anna is waiting when I glance up toward the balcony just in time to see her - all the warmth she'd infused in me drains away.
She's got her phone out. Her whole posture changes as she reads the screen, her shoulders pulled tight. If I could I'd leap into the air to join her to see what's bothering her, but then Anna grabs my arms, her nails digging into me, her subtle way of saying "focus, you dimwit, this is important."
By the time I've dealt with Anna, a mix-up with one of the agents annoyed they hadn't gotten a private viewing before the crowd hit, I look back up at the balcony and it's empty.
I go through the kitchen, out the front, scanning the street full of parked cars and strangers, looking everywhere, a stone lodged hard in my throat. Then I see her, already at her own car, door open, sliding in.
"Alexia!" I call out, running to her.
But she ignores me. Her car door slams shut.
The engine turns over. And she's pulling out of the display village and onto the main road before I've made it halfway down the driveway.
I'm left standing there, the tape measure clutched in my hand, her taste still on my mouth, watching all my dreams fade into the night.