Chapter 16 #2
“You have no idea how happy this makes me.”
“Me making fun of you?”
“When we’d just met, I was afraid I’d never see you smile.
” Denny stroked Eris’ chin with her thumb.
“Now here you are, with laughter in your eyes.” Eyes so luminous that sometimes the irises almost disappeared in the light.
Eyes that were now riveted on Denny with a funny balance of devotion and glee.
“You’re kind of blowing your own trumpet here.”
Denny took in the table: the few pieces of her phone still waiting to be put back in place, the weird tools lined up on the left with surgical precision, the old screen on the right. It was mind-blowing. And Eris still had the nerve to call herself unintelligent.
“Can you finish this tomorrow?” she asked.
“It’s already tomorrow.” Eris gave in to a yawn. “I can finish whenever. You’ve already spoiled my surprise.”
“Perhaps I’ll forget about it overnight.”
“Can’t rule that out.” Eris tapped Denny’s thigh and Denny got up, dragging her along.
They left the table as it was, phone pieces everywhere and the headphones in the centre. Tomorrow was Sunday: they could take their time making room for breakfast or even have breakfast on the bay window in the living room.
Sunday.
Finally a whole day for themselves.
* * *
The room was bathed in the milky light of the Autumn morning sun. It filtered through the lace of the curtains, painting beautiful flourishes of light and shadows on Eris’ cheek.
Denny could’ve spent the whole day just lying here, watching her as she slumbered peacefully, an arm slung across Denny’s waist. Her eyelashes were so long and dark they were hard to tell apart from the shadows they cast on that pale skin.
Aside from the faint acne scars along the jawline, Eris’ face was unblemished: no moles, no spots, no stains, no lines.
It wasn’t just her delicate features that made her look like a doll: it was the unnatural smoothness of her complexion.
Denny ghosted a hand down the braids on top of her head, the rings and beads she had personally woven into them.
She was proud to have provided something that Eris loved so much.
It was usually the other way around, Eris doing things for Denny, be that boring paperwork or house chores.
Denny was still striving to find ways to reciprocate that.
Sometimes the sentiment was so strong that she felt she might burst from it.
Her hand trailed down, to the side of Eris’ head, her cheek.
She remembered the skittish girl that had sat in her van with that trapped, feral look and marvelled at how far the two of them had gone in such a relatively short span of time.
It felt like it’d been years, like life before Eris was an old, discoloured photograph at the bottom of a drawer that was gradually getting submerged under piles of brighter, better memories. She had Eris now, and Eris had her.
A warm twinge burst under her solar plexus as she skimmed a kiss on Eris’ forehead.
You’re mine to take care of now.
Eris stirred, face scrunching. Her eyes drowsily fluttered open, squinting at the sunlight pouring into them.
“Sup?” she asked in a hoarse voice that roused goosebumps all the way up Denny’s spine.
“Nothing. Just watching you sleep.”
A faint groan scratched up Eris’ throat as she buried her face in the pillow. “You’re a creep.”
“And you’re beautiful.”
Denny heard something like ‘Fuck’s sake!’ coming through the pillow. She pulled back, but an arm blindly reached for her and yanked her back as Eris rolled to her side to tuck her against herself.
“It’s Sunday, Sunshine,” she murmured into Denny’s hair while stroking her back. “Why are you up at the crack of dawn?”
“It’s past 9.”
“As I said.”
Denny nuzzled in the valley between Eris’ breasts with a satisfied hum. As far as she was concerned, they could rot in bed until tomorrow. Forever, ideally.
“I think I’ve figured out why you look so young.”
“Mh?”
Denny put a hand on Eris’ hip; the oversized t-shirt had pooled up her side, baring the skin to her touch—soft, silky skin that filled Denny’s belly with tingly butterflies.
“You don’t have smile lines.” Her heart sank a little in saying it. “Your eyes, you mouth… They’re as smooth as porcelain.”
Eris’ reply was exactly what Denny was thinking. “They’re called smile lines for a reason.”
The peculiar thing about Eris was that she could be awkwardly expressive when one would be expected to maintain a poker face and thoroughly neutral when pronouncing words that shattered your heart.
“I’m going to give you smile lines,” Denny declared. “Don’t care how long it takes.”
Beneath her, Eris’ chest bounced with a quiet laugh. “Knowing your stubbornness, a month or two tops.”
Nothing had ever made Denny feel as powerful as making Eris laugh did. She was getting quite good at it, but there was still room for improvement. Practice made perfect, after all.
Her hand slid under Eris’ pyjamas, following the hollow of her spine up to the middle of her back, where taut muscles rippled under her caress. Eris let out a throaty sound that Denny couldn’t interpret.
“Sorry,” she muttered. For good measure she took her hand away.
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Eris blocked her halfway out of her top and guided her hand back to her skin, the soft plane of her abs, the ribs, the swell of her breasts…
Denny wouldn’t have dared going that far without an invitation, but now that she was there a vein of greed trickled into her touch.
She didn’t hesitate to take what she was being offered, cupping her hand over the full mound of Eris’ breast, kneading gently, the nipple pebbling under her palm.
She swept her thumb over it, not quite teasing, but not quite innocently, either.
Eris praised her with a muffled moan. If they hadn’t been clothed, Denny knew exactly what she would’ve done next, but at the same time she was glad to have an excuse to refrain herself: this was too good and too cosy to ruin with more.
She wasn’t looking for sex: she just wanted to get acquainted with Eris’ body, map every curve and every crook, learn how to touch her, where she liked to be touched…
But to most people this level of intimacy was a prelude to sex and she didn’t want to accidentally initiate something she didn’t feel like going through with.
“Bloody hell, Denny!” Eris whined. “Can we enjoy some cuddles without your brain going into overdrive?”
Denny cowered, grinning despite the bite of guilt, because she would never not be amazed by how easily Eris could read right through her.
“I didn’t want to give you the wrong idea.”
Eris sighed, but it was a sigh that oozed fondness. She grabbed Denny’s chin and tipped her head back. “Do you want to have sex right now?”
“No.”
“Do you want to keep exploring?”
Denny blushed. “Yes.”
Eris smirked. She had no business looking so insufferable and so irresistible at the same time.
“See? It’s that simple.”
It couldn’t be that simple.
Denny trailed her fingers over Eris’ abdomen, soaking up her warmth, hungry for contact and nothing more. It was the closeness she was craving, and Eris seemed to understand that, but there were things that couldn’t be left to guessing.
“We’ve never had the sex talk.”
“What’s to talk about?”
“When it’s going to happen, if…”
“It’ll happen when you feel like it.”
“What if I never feel like it?”
“It’ll never happen.”
“And you’re okay with that?”
Eris’ features darkened with something that Denny could only describe as sorrowful sympathy. “I’m okay with whatever works for you.”
What she was actually saying was: ‘I got you. Please, trust me.’ And it wasn’t like Denny didn’t trust her, but they had something so rare and beautiful that she lived in fear of damaging it with her clumsiness and her limits.
The avalanche of her thoughts was interrupted by a gentle caress on her cheek. “I’m not going anywhere. Stop sweating about problems that don’t exist.”
Denny wanted to promise so badly that she would, but it would’ve been a lie. “Old habits die hard.”
“We’ll fight them until they do.”
Denny scooted up until she was face to face with Eris and stole a kiss. “I love you so much.”
“I know,” Eris whispered upon her lips. “You’re silly like that.”
Denny’s attention travelled to the side, along Eris’ jaw, down her neck, kissing, nipping, the tip of her tongue chasing the path of her pulse down to the clavicle.
“You love me, too,” she breathed. It wasn’t a question.
“I do.” Denny felt it, a vibration under her lips, that little cluster of sounds that she had seen so many times written in Eris’ look but had never heard spoken out loud. “I love you so much that I don’t know what to do with it.”
That was how Denny felt.
That was why her body felt too small and her skin too tight and her bones too brittle nowadays.
Both the love she carried and the love she collected were larger than her own life.
* * *
When they finally peeled themselves from bed, it was to visit a nearby vegan café for lunch.
It was small and cosy and the food was to die for, although Denny and Eris usually had different ideas of what affordable meant.
To Denny, fifteen pounds for a yasai curry sounded like a bargain; while Eris could only think ‘I can buy half a week’s groceries with fifteen quid’.
She didn’t see the point in spending money on things that weren’t strictly necessary or could’ve been prepared at home for a fraction of the price.
Denny didn’t blame her: she could see where she was coming from and respected that perspective.
She just wished that Eris stopped thinking like someone who didn’t know when they’d be able to afford their next meal.
“What’s that smug mug about?”
“Huh?”
“You’re strutting.”
Denny didn’t even try to hide her ear-to-ear grin. “Just happy to show off my girlfriend in public.”
Eris looked like she couldn’t decide whether she was serious or not. “You’re not okay,” she said, in a way that was far too affectionate to be taken seriously.