One Step Forward...
Louisa had nearly been out of his reach.
She quite possibly still was, despite the only competition in town now leaving for a dream job in London. Yet at this moment, Martin still had a slim chance. Louisa had stopped him in the street, giving him a mild version of what-for, made him stay where he was, before marching into the pub, buying a bottle of wine and retreating to the relative sanctuary of his kitchen.
As the evening progressed and several glasses of wine had been consumed, Louisa had kept up her subtle attempts of getting him to 'talk'. He warned her what alcohol did to him, just making him drowsy to the point of falling asleep or passing out all together. It also lowered his defences...
It was then she began to tell him to shush, ironic as that is what he often -rather rudely- told other people. Staring at her across his kitchen table, Martin realized that he had been given the slimmest of chances, she was still here, she hadn't gone with Danny. She was sitting in his kitchen, plying him with wine, telling him repeatedly not to say a word.
He had to make a choice and the words were tumbling out of him. She was beautiful, so very beautiful, he admitted. The surprise in her eyes at his words caused him to pause with a brief flash of indecision, but then he plunged on, defences lowered enough that he had to do something before they reassembled and trapped him behind their formidable walls. He told her that every day he longed just to get a glimpse of her.
Emboldened now, seeing she wasn't fleeing from him home in horror at his admission, he made a second choice.
He told her that he loved her.
Twice.
As the alcoholic induced drowsiness began its insidious rise to conquer, her lips were caressing his and the last thing he remembered of that night was the kiss across his kitchen table.