They have their routines.
Sort of, kind of, maybe [definitely].
x
She waltzes into the Rammer Jammer with her [chocolate silk] hair loose around her [slim bronze] shoulders and a quirk of a grin set on her [not so tart, he once reckoned, cherry] mouth, and he just comes undone.
Placing a ready hand on the counter and tracing slow [so incredibly deliberate] figure eights on the rim of her glass of chardonnay, spitting sarcasm with barbed twists and truth that [no,Idon'treallymeanwhatIamsaying] reflects in her soured honey eyes. With a manicured finger teasing the lip of the bar, she leans over instinctively to react [to his words, to the spark of mischief in his eyes, to the way his tanned forearms rest so gently against hers].
It goes on like this for a few hours. She drinks her way through a bottle of the best house wine [that he puts aside for her every once in a while, [always]] and listens to his slow, southern drawl as he wipes pint glasses and stemware with a raggedy bar rag that comes from his back pocket.
He'll tell her that she can't hold her alcohol as her lipstick smudges on her [golden crisp] cheek. She'll ask him when he is finally going to get a real profession besides chasing skirt. But it is all tinted with cranberry colored laughter that sounds off the wooden panels and into their skin and goes all the way up to their eyes.
Eventually, she will have to be getting home [she has a big girl job, after all, don't she?] and he will have to be lettin' her walk away, but that doesn't mean that he ain't watching her go. The slow steady rhythm of her pittering footsteps on the dirt roads as her heels spike delicate holes in the soot and her hips sway with sin from angle to angle, and he thanks the good Lord in heaven above because even though he hates to see her leave, it's still the best way to flicker out the night.
x
By now, the whole town knows that she hates asking for help. As stubborn as they come, that girl is with her New York fire fierce on the tip of her golden threaded tongue. And he watches as she fumbles and struggles and he just waits and waits for his cue, because like it or not, she's always be comin' to him when the world seems a bit short at her feet.
He would like to keep a running count, but honestly he lost track somewhere in between copperhead snakes and the feel of his hand on the sharp [and oh so tantalizing] crease of her waist. She has little signals that his exit from the wings will be needed soon, hoping with baited breath that she still extends a hand.
And like clockwork, there is a soft knock on his glass window or the explosive shutdown of all power in a five mile juncture or just a slight hover near the doorjam of his car, hand on the trigger spending time wasting for release as she hems and haws and mulls it over until he finally rolls his [evergreen] eyes, runs a hand through his [sandy] hair and let's half a [crooked mooned] smirk die on his lips before granting her wishes. She'll sigh and fake irritation, flipping her wild mane over her shoulders, hiding that slight grin twitch at the corners of her mouth. He'll carry out each syllable of her requests with one hand on his chest [hart, heart?] and the other ridiculously close to counting the freckles that scatter on her nose.
x
Now he was raised a good southern boy and knows and understands all the rules of courtship, but that don't mean that he is always goin' to be following them. He's not George Tucker or Lavon Hayes or any other boy in town, and there's something about a dark knight that he has always found to be much better [more satisfactory, more rewarding] than a golden boy.
The only part that really ain't great is that fact that she is golden and needs a man that isn't going to hide behind false heroism and little white lies of truth. He's anythin' but that in worn jeans and flannel shirts with mismatched buttons and his role is just to stand on the sidelines and watch [or at least it is supposed to be].
But he knows just how to get her, to push her buttons, put all of her nerve endings on edge, send her careening into an unknown [far too dangerous] oblivion.
He'll inch one bit too close to her face enough to feel the hot breath on his lips as she dares to look into his [evergreen] eyes and reads exactly what he is thinkin' of as he stands too proud, too clever, the heat from his body colliding with hers. She'll pretend to be disgusted as her fingers clutch the chipped banister to steady her [jelly shaken] legs on the antique staircase as she attempts to inhale and exhale in tempo with the hummingbird living inside her ribcage as it always does when he hooks a finger in her belt loops, drawing her onto his shoulders and her words catch in her throat.
And she comes undone with his [evergreen] eyes probing hers and [sandy] hair falling with ease on his chiseled jaw as his half [crooked mooned] smirk plays on that mouth. He's ain't never really been a sidelines kind of guy and besides this is their routine after all so who's to say he ain't doing what he is supposed to be doin'.
x
They are a [inappropriate, messy, marvelous] spectacle.
His eyes trained on hers, skin fighting fire with fire blasting smoke signals into the Bama sky as they shoot bullets of lyrics into the other like some kind of battlefield. But still, he doesn't regret to notice how everyone holds out with baited breath like they are watching something unfold that may be a bit bigger than a snarky New York doctor and the local heartbreaker dealing back in deuces.
Maybe lives with vehemence on his mouth every time she crosses the globe and enters his area of the world with that [chocolate silk] hair and [slim bronzed] shoulders and [not so tart, he once reckoned, cherry] mouth.
x
He'll like the way it rolls off his lips as the door swings open and she saunters in with confidence, sidles up to him, spits a request coated in sarcasm and a grin stung on her mouth and shielded kindness in her sour honeyed eyes. She'll like the way he moves into her, brushing his tanned fingers upon hers as he pours the chardonnay with ease, slow southern poetry falling from his tongue, eyes sparking with each word that hangs in the thick air.