Chapter 17 #2
She was sad, but still took Eris’ face into her hands with her trademark gentleness, still made her feel like something cherished and valuable to be treated with care.
“Every time you do that—every time you say you’re not enough, don’t do enough, don’t give me enough…” Denny’s lips pressed together in a sorrowful pause. “You break my heart.”
A punch of guilt knocked the wind out of Eris. She thought she was being a decent person, striving to squeeze the bare minimum out of her meagre means just so she’d have something to offer to Denny in return, but clearly there was a fault in her reasoning she was failing to catch.
“You’re everything to me, Eris. If I did this to you, how would you feel?”
A light vertigo destabilised Eris’ balance. She held on to Denny’s arms, locking her eyes into hers while imagining Denny telling her that she couldn’t keep up, that she didn’t know how to reciprocate what Eris did for her…
It was all in her head, but it was so disturbing that she nearly screamed ‘Shut up!’ in Denny’s face.
She got it now.
She got it and it was unbearable.
“How would you feel?” Denny asked her one more time.
“Angry,” she answered, rummaging through the cluster of feelings simmering in her veins to separate them from one another. “Frustrated. Hurt.”
Denny gave her a small, lenient smile. “That’s how I feel.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s alright. We just need some practice.”
Denny’s thumbs traced Eris’ cheekbones, leaving a cool, wet trail on her skin. Denny kissed it away the same way Eris had kissed away her tears that day at the park, feather brushes of her lips that took away all of Eris’ anguish and replaced it with warmth.
Denny’s smile lit up the whole room, overpowering the grey and the gloom of the stormy day. There wasn’t and would never be in the whole wide world anything more beautiful than that smile.
Eris grabbed Denny’s hips and yanked her into a kiss that was regrettably ungentle and ungraceful, all teeth and greed and hunger, fierce like the love burning under her skin.
Despite a surprised gasp, Denny kissed her back, just as fiercely, but it still wasn’t enough—the kiss, the heat, their bodies clinging to each other.
Eris craved to reach the Denny that lay within, that pure, radiant beauty, and eat it, drink it, breathe it, let it consume her, but she had to stop herself before she got too carried away.
Denny’s whimper of protest snatched a grin out of her.
She panted, breathless and giddy, resting her forehead upon Denny’s shoulder.
Denny stroked her hair while they caught their breath. “Can we work on switching off the calculator on us? I know it’s hard for you, but I really need you to be less analytical and more…”
“Human?”
Denny’s posture stiffened. Eris pressed a reassuring kiss to her neck.
She knew it wasn’t an insult: just a fact.
She’d been called inhuman before, and she was all too aware it wasn’t inaccurate.
She didn’t feel the way humans did: the way she acted in public was just a well-honed pretense most of the time.
But with Denny she felt emotions she wasn’t used to, the good and the bad, pleasant things and scary things.
She hadn’t mastered the fine art of juggling them yet, but she was confident that, with a little assistance, she’d get there.
“I can do that. I can try.” The kiss inched upward, lingering below Denny’s ear with an idle scrape of teeth. “You’ll be patient with me?”
“As you are with me,” Denny hummed.
Pulling away from her was a challenge. Eris had to remind herself they were in the shop—again—and well visible through the large windows.
They stared at each other for a minute, a little dazed.
“Fight over?” Eris dared to ask.
“I think so?” Denny chewed the inside of her lip. “I’m used to arguments that end with tears and screaming and slamming doors.”
“I’d never had an argument with someone I cared about before.”
“Well, look at us going!” Denny smoothed down Eris’ hoodie like a proud mother, pausing with her hands on her shoulders. “Will you think about the job? Please?”
That puppy dog imploring look should’ve been illegal. It left Eris with no choice but to assent.
“Promise.”
After no one came in for a while, Denny jokingly noted how they could’ve kept kissing undisturbed until lunch and, just as she said that, a man rushed in looking for a last-minute anniversary gift.
“Whatever you have is fine, I have to be at the restaurant in half an hour!”
“Alright, let’s find something suitable for an anniversary!” Denny politely steered the man away from the daisies-but-not-quite he was eyeing to avert him towards the roses.
When, ten minutes and a lot of indecisiveness later, the guy hurried out with a gigantic two-hundred-quid bouquet, Eris jerked her chin towards the probably-not-daisies. “Why weren’t these good?”
“Chrysanthemum is mainly associated with death: it’s for loss and mourning. They can also represent friendship, especially yellow ones, but that’s still not what your wife wants to see on your anniversary.”
“Roses are so lame.”