~~Part 1~~
(The First Meeting)
Of all the jobs I've taken to pay the rent while I pursued my true love, which is art, this was probably one of the worst. Spending long hours that stretched into the night at an empty bar was never my aspiration. And now here I was once again stuck all by myself in this dimly light, over priced, monstrosity, while my supposed friends lived it up at the Leaky Cauldron.
Whoever said that a posh hotel needed a posh bar that stayed open until four in the morning was completely wrong. Especially when nobody was ever going to come to the bar after ten. They were in their nice hotel rooms doing not so nice things I barely remembered doing.
Dean Thomas, I scolded myself, you need to get a life. Your almost thirty-five years old and you haven't done anything.
It was easy for me to scoff off this stern reprimand. I gave it to myself almost every night.
I doodled on cocktail napkins for awhile, longing for the blank white canvases in my flat. Of course, they have been white for over two years now, so one more paint-less night probably won't bother them. Alicia says I'm just in a rut and that Seamus is in rut. I suppose that the Seamus part was beside the point, but it brought always smile to my face.
The clock struck once and I breathed a sight of relief. Only a few more hours and I could escape to my comfy bed.
Moving out from behind the bar, I sat down on one of the lounge chairs and undid the horrid orange bow tie all employees were made to wear and drifted off into a content sleep, letting the idiotic thing fall to the ground. It seemed like lifetimes had gone by when a faint tap tap tap woke me. Sighing, I looked over my shoulder expecting to be greeted by the unpleasant sight of Martin, the manager of my personal hell.
What my eyes were treated to instead took my breath away.
She looked like a goddess straight from a Greek myth, her flowing purple gown clinging and not clinging in a way that it had to have been made by a man who knew what other men wanted to see and to guess. Her short brown hair had pearls beaded into it, making it sparkle all the more in the dim light. But the thing that really got me about her was her eyes. They had to be the saddest blue eyes I had ever seen, but they also possessed a hardness to them that I only noticed as she walked closer and closer to me.
I stood up quickly and awkwardly, sleep still fogging up half my brain as I tried to remember where I was and more importantly what I was supposing to be doing. But all that flew into the background of my thoughts as she came nearer to me, her scent subtle yet overpowering me completely.
She smell of something that reminded me of innocence summer days and strawberries.
"They have a bar, but no bartender." she said to me with a slight accent, her face tilted upward. She was almost a head shorter then me in four inch stilettos. Some primal part of me wanted to lift her up so I would be the one forced to crane my neck. It seemed improbable that an angel should be the one looking up at someone like me.
I dumbly looked from the bar, where I now remembered I was suppose to be, then back to her, someone I knew definitely wasn't on the same level as me. It wasn't as if I had low self-esteem, I just had a healthy respect for the natural social order of life.
Goddesses do not talk to artistic bartenders.
Thats when I made my decision. For just one night, I would be one her level. It would be that one experience every artist, whether painter or writer, talks about. The one thing that inspired them above all other things. She would be my muse; my haunting dream.
"It's a shame." I replied in an almost bored manner I had heard some clientèle speak in and sat back down on the sofa, making a grand sweeping gesture to the empty spot beside me.
The shadow of a smile crossed her heavenly face before she sat down, crossing at her ankles like a proper lady always does.
"What's your name?" she questioned sweetly.
"Dean... Thomas Dean." I said stupidly, stumbling over my own name, distracted by the light hand on my shoulder.
"And tell me, monsieur Dean, what do you do?"
I paused for a moment, trying to recall other conversations I had heard; Other flirtations between demi-goddesses and the men they choose to go with after ten.
"I do enough to keep me happy and traveling."
"Marvelous," she said, her smile widening so I could memorize each of her perfect white teeth. I thought of the hours I would spend later just perfecting how to draw that captivating mouth. I knew innately that I would never be able to capture her eyes though.
"And you?" I asked eagerly, piling on another question in my attempt to find out everything about this miracle muse, filled with desire to hear her soft voice, which was almost a mummer now. "What are you doing here?"
The sadness seemed to intensify in those sapphire eyes for a moment, before almost disappearing. A silence followed, in which she sat there scanning my face in a way that made me want to admit to every awful thing I'd done.
"It's my birthday." she stated finally, inching closer to me.
"Oh..."
"And all I wanted was a martini."
I tried not to look eager as I casually glanced around the bar and stood up. "It is your lucky day then, martini's are my specialty."
"Really?" Her answer had an almost teasing quality to it, one that made my heart pound in such a way it dented my ribs with every rapid beat.
I nodded, completely enthralled and hoping no one, especially the night manager, who used to be a snotty Ravenclaw, decided to come in and destroy this perfect charade.
Wondering across the room and behind the bar, I tried very hard not to stare at her and act like I didn't know where every glass and bottle was situated. The former was a lot harder then the later. Halfway through adding the finishing touch to her drink, she came up to the bar and sat on the high stool across from my station. She looked at me without smiling or frowning, but curiosity evident in her face.
"How does someone like you know how to make a martini?"
"My house-elf... Seamus isn't always around." I said with a shrug, thinking half-truths sounded more believable then outright lies. And it was true, Seamus wasn't always around. He was always off with the current 'fling-of-the-week'.
Handing her the fragile glass, I leaned on the wooden bar top and waited with with eager anticipation for her reaction. This was perhaps the most important drink I made in my life. She lifted the flute to her lush lips and I gave up trying to not to stare at this point. I noticed that she didn't seem to mind though, as though she was use to being constantly ogled (though I would like to think what my eyes were engaging in was something less demeaning then ogling).
When she finished, she handed me the glass, a faint outline of her lipstick staining the clear glass. I would draw that later too, though it would take me hours to mix the right red.
"Wonderful." was the only praise that left her lips and I felt exalted beyond all measures; I was sure that no man before me, and none after, would ever raise to such heights as my heart did at that moment. If I was acting like myself, I would have beamed, but I had to stay in character for my muse, or else the spell would be broken and she would vanish.
So I gave a small shrug and a roguish grin instead, waving my hand for a second as if to indicate that it was nothing. I didn't have to try to plan my next move, because she opened her mouth to speak once more.
"I think Thomas, that I like you. Your just so.. so.." She took a moment and while she was looking right at me, blue piercing brown, I felt like she was actually miles away. Instinct possessed me to take her soft hands gently in mine, as if some earthly touch would bring her back, and it worked. The small smile that tugged at her lips drew a similar smile from me.
"Thomas?" she asked, her voice soft.
"Yes?"
"Would it be..." my muse paused for a second before continuing, as if weighing an unknown scale in her head, "Would it be imprudent to ask you to kiss me?"
My heart soared and heat rushed through every vein as I gave her a kind smile in return and shook my head. Lifting her hands that I already held up higher, I softly kissed every knuckle, before turning them palm up and laying my lips on each wrist, if only for a few seconds. Looking up from my pursuits, I glanced upon her face to see her reaction.
Soft pink graced her cheeks in a way that cannot be achieved by makeup or magic, but only by being naturally induced. But the thing that really got me was her eyes, because for the first time it seemed like all the hardness went out of them and all that was left was endless blue which drowned me the instant I saw them, paralyzing the very marrow of my bones with their unguarded brilliance.
I would have stayed motionless for entirety, enthralled, had she not bowed her head forward and kissed me. The moment tongue caressed tongue, I swear I felt a faint shift in a faraway place and I knew my heart no longer resided within me.
***
When I awoke alone, I was almost sure she was a dream. Some illusion my heart created to survive yet another night alone in a bed clearly made for two.
It wasn't until almost a year later, when I realized that my dream girl wasn't a dream. The exact moment I realized this was when I saw her at a party. Her white venetian gown stood out among all the dress robes. Curls, longer now, loosely cascading down her back and her arm around none other then the newly divorced Adrian Pucey.
A/N: Alright everyone, this is the first chapter! I'd love to hear what you all think, so please R&R :) I don't know if the style I'm writing this in fits or not, but I think I'm going to stick with it for awhile. Hope everyone who read it enjoyed it! :) :)
DEDICATED TO: This story to dedicated to my beta/sister, Kate7, who requested I do a Dean/OC romance. Hopefully this fulfills her wish!