Miles is hot. Orange nylon shirt and all, someone's got a crush. "She sees him disappearing down the road. Jumpsuit flapping unattractively low on his ass. Nothing special. Nothing special at all, she reminds herself. And yet, her she is. Mouth like sandpaper. Heart in her throat. "Set in Dharma-days after Hurley, Kate & Jack returns.
Nothing special
Kate is not a good looser. She has never been able to accept failure gracefully. Acknowledging defeat. Jealousy haunts her, day and night and it takes a preposterous amount of effort to feign indifference. He is with her now. She repeats it day and night. Still, she can't quite believe it. She has lost him.
She settles in. Learns to work the cars like a pro. Working side by side with her. Learns to hide her jealousy better. Learns to watch them without breaking. Learns to believe in her mantra; he is with her now.
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It is just before lunch. Her stomach churns. Feeling slightly qualmy from the hunger pangs and the heat. She stands up. Hands on hips like a trucker. Not feeling particularly feminine in her overall get-up.
Juliet does.
Scary-ass Stepford wife. She always looks elegant and at ease. Her movements are innately lithe and refined. A Grace Kelly at the garage. Smug bitch.
No, Kate has never been a good looser.
She cranes her neck as she sees him approaching in the distance. Grumpy half smile. Like a defective Cheshire cat. The palpitations of her pulse speeds up. Her mouth is parched and it takes all she's got to stop the wistful look she wants to cast in his direction. The urge to hit herself across the head with the large spanner in her hand is overwhelming.
Stupid, stupid, stupid! How could this have happened!?
He has passed the carpool now. She sees him disappearing down the road. His jumpsuit flaps unattractively low around his ass. Nothing special. Nothing special at all, she reminds herself. And yet, her she is. Mouth like sandpaper. Her heart is a lump of cement in her throat.
She slaps her hand to her forehead with an obscenely wet sound. Juliet turns around to look at her and gives her that algid queen-ruling-supreme elevation of the eyebrow that she does so well. The I-am-better-than you and I've-got-your-man-because-of it look. Her smug and cloying little half smile.
---------------------------------------------
At night, they all gather at the communal house for a beer.
He is there, of course. He sits in a corner, lips pursed, eyes crude and hostile. Loner.
His wide collared shirt, a horrid fluorescent orange colour, does nothing for him. How he manages to always look so arrogant, so conceited, she'll never know. His hair sticks up like wet chicken feathers. He looks perpetually unwashed and uncared for. A man that hasn't slept in weeks, dark circles etched under the intense animosity of his eyes. His face unshaven with stubble only on his upper lip and chin, pouty mouth set in a sullen curve.
But the self-confidence he extrudes, floors her every time.
She feels it in the pit of her stomach and further down. She swirls her drink around, trying to look aloof and glances elsewhere. But right at the other corner are Sawyer and Juliet. Juliet looking fresh like a fucking begonia in her light blue summer dress. Her hand on Sawyers arm, stroking him and laughing at something he's said. Proprietary. Proud. Like she had invented him.
And although all that is long past and the shock has settled, it still hurts and she has to look away.
Miles meets her gaze across the room. He raises his glass towards her with his cheeky insolent smirk. Eyes hard and black and scornful above his drink. He knows. He always knows. Bastard.
He is enjoying this. Her discomfort. This is the sort of stuff he lives for. A sorry excuse for a man. Sorry excuse for a smile too. And yet, argh!
He freaks her out. He sees right through her with his disdainful catlike eyes. He sees the oozing ugliness inside, the jealousy and the resentment. He sees the shame of her bitterness and the hurt over the abandonment. She feels him observe her downfall with glee. Always watching. Enjoying her misery. No, he isn't a good person. No better than she at any rate. Always that knowing mocking smirk, watching her from afar, making a fool out of herself. Not taken in at all by her sweet demeanour. He watches and waits. Other people, for his own personal entertainment
His unshaven face, messy and hell-if-I-care appearance. Eyebrows raised permanently in his very own what-the fuck-mode. Antagonising mouth, her undoing, his lips with its funny little upturned ends and an absurdly perfect absence of cupids bow. She looks down at her feet. She can't bear it. Crap!
Where did this come from?
The annoying pulse that gallops away when eyes meet eyes. To think that she had thought him, if not ugly, then meh… not exactly attractive. Not her type. He had not even hit the radar. Just annoying. Unremarkable, nothing special.
And now. Oh how….
She knows that he knows. He must know. Oh god, he can never know. The shame of it. It rivals the humiliation of seeing Sawyer and Juliet all lovey-dovey in their nauseating little suburban bubble. This ridiculous crush. Surely it is nothing else. A passing, insane infatuation. Mortifying schoolgirl puppy love. Sort of icky.
What is wrong with her?
Momentarily lost in her thoughts, all of the sudden, he is there, all offhanded arrogance and gall. He glides up right next to her. Near enough to feel his body-heat reflected on her naked arm through the offensive orange shirt. Nylon. And this what she yearns for.
She looks down. Not wanting to but, damned if she has anything to say about it. His wrists emerging from his sleeves, long fingers, smooth large piano hands the colour of freshly baked bread. He invades her space and she remembers the other one. How he used to be so good at it. With his looks and his dimples. This is nothing like that. But she can't deny the charge she feels. The inexplicable attraction. He's nothing special. Just another angry, hopelessly unapproachable man.
" So you need a new bad-boy huh? Doctor Love is a psychotic janitor and Sawyer has been domesticated and neutered. Too bad…"
Callous. She doesn't answer. Doesn't deign him with another look. Bastard!
He doesn't care. Pushes on. He enjoys this.
So am I it? I've seen you looking." Accompanied by a sly smile.
" In your dreams Miles!" she manages but feels her damned cheeks betraying her.
Heat spreading like lava from the neck up. The current painful in her veins. She hears a swoosh-like sound that she knows must be from the voltaic magnetism his cruelty gives of.
He laughs, his cynical demeaning laughter. His eyes vicious and amused. Nerdy, unremarkable man, but there is a crocodile in there somewhere. Sharp ruthless teeth. Predator. Insensitive. She wants to touch him. It hurts her fingers to stay still. She wants nothing else than to let her fingertips run over his impenitent, cruel lips, over his cheekbones, his arrogant neck. Skin the colour of maple syrup. Wondering what he tastes like. Like a mistake, probably.
Hold on to the glass. Don't let go.
He looks nods his head towards Sawyer and Juliet - knowingly. His words come out gruff and low but perfectly articulated.
" Don't flatter yourself. I don't dip into other peoples trash."
It is so outrageously crude that she can't even find the poise to feel properly offended. She tips her beer forward, splashing the front of his ugly-ass shirt.
Watching his face for his next reaction. His lazy dispassionate smile creeps up. His standoffish detachment eats up the warmth it could have contained. His lips. The amount of crap she has heard crossing those lips. Insane, that is what she is. Even Sawyer never was as deliberately cruel. He shrugs. Showing that it means nothing to him. No biggie. He turns around, showing her the back of his revolting carrot-coloured shirt.
A masochist that is what she is. The irony of it. She has always had men fighting over her. She knows she is pretty. Always has known. But he is immune to her. It is such a cliché. Just the wanting what you can't have.
Wanting the one that doesn't want you.
Nothing special. Just a shallow crush. She feels someone buffing in to her shoulder. Hugo sidles up beside her. Drink in chubby hand, the other brought up to rest heavily high on her back. She is grateful for the gesture. Embarrassed to have had her humiliation witnessed by someone.
" Dude, what did he say?"
" Nothing. It was nothing. Obviously not very fond of me."
Hugo tilts his head and pulls his mouth back tightly while rolling his chocolate Cocker Spaniel's eyes at her demonstratively.
" Dude, you are so way off, man, I don't even know where to start."
"I need another drink." she says and he smiles a daddy-knows-best smile at her before he takes her glass and pads off to refill for her.
-------------------------------
She doesn't stay long. It isn't really her scene or her crowd. And then again, what the hell is her scene? Escaped convicts and murderers? She giggles at herself as she fumbles with her keys on her dark porch of that creepily perfect little yellow house. As usual, she has forgotten to turn the porch light on. It doesn't matter. She is a bit tipsy and clumsy and can't manage to find a key that fits.
It's dark but she can see Sawyer and Juliet's house across the lawn. Tender orange light visible through the window on the side. She imagines them making love right now. Fucking. No they would never do that. They make love.
She half hopes that he will come out, and look across, at her. She often sits there in the evening, just for the off chance that he will. So that she will know that someone still cares for her. In an ever so distant disinterested way. She'll take any scraps she'll get. She isn't too proud.
" Admiring domestic bliss? Feeling lonely? "
She scatters a meter high at his voice. He moves out from the shadows. As if he had been waiting for her. A loutish grin on his face as he nods insinuatingly at the house at the other side of the lawn. Bastard. He knows she does this, sits here and watches. Every night.
" Not really any of your business." she quips putting on a snarky tone.
Damn, she wishes she could have come up with something sharp, witty, hurtful. But this is what happens. His presence suffocates any intelligent brain waves she might have had. She becomes this sheepish awkward idiot. Damn him.
Calm down.
He has one hand on the porch post and one on his hip, hitching up the awful shirt to show off equally disgusting brown bellbottoms. She knows he looks like a parody on 70's male fashion, but still she can't help to eye him up. Muscular, lean, perfectly proportioned, something not even the most horrendous clothing can hide. She has imagined him a thousand times. His skin on hers. His hands. His lips. Hot, angry and sensual.
Her eyes wander from his feet all the way up to that smirking acerbic face. The arrogance of him, oh fuck it. She can't help it.
What's wrong with her?
" Like what you see huh?" he mocks as his eyes meet hers.
Jeering, at her, dark almond shaped eyes, biting in, eroding her confidence further. Burning in and undressing her without mercy. He knows. Oh fuck, he knows.
" Yeah, yeah sure. You can move on now Miles. It's enough for tonight." she says in a vane attempt to regain some of her dignity.
His conceited presence is too much for her. She hates how he makes her feel. Wonders what he smells like? No, no, she pushes the thoughts away. Nothing special. It's nothing.
But he doesn't move a fraction. Enjoying this game to much. Hell, he is probably starved for entertainment. The obnoxiousness that he has tended into a craft, a hobby a speciality of his own doesn't get to many outlets in freaky hippieville. He jumps at an opportunity to hone his skills, to enjoy her humiliation a bit more.
" You've got money?" he leers.
Her mind blanks out. What the hell is he on about and why is she still engaging in a conversation with this ass? Because of the eye. The eyes.
" Huh?" is all she can say.
" You've got money? Mullah? I'd screw you for money. I mean if you really that desperate for it. But it would, but it'd cost you. Yeah,.. a lot…" he lets it trail out in the balmy evening air.
Why is she even amazed still by the baloney he comes up with? Say something. Anything!
" Didn't take you for a slut Straume" she retorts. Asshole! But she can't help to smile at his burlesque outrageousness. It is just too much. Even for him/
" So, is that a yes I take it?" he moves closer yet. Letting go of the post. His face in the shadow but his eyes glimmering wickedly in the sparse light seeping in. Body honing in on her, feline and frightening.
" Is this a clever ruse to get into my pants Miles?
" Yeah, whatever." His eyes waver. Not so cocky any more. The voice has lost it's edge. And then, quietly, astonishingly, almost shyly:
" Is it working?"
She has to laugh then. An unattractive horsey laugh that spills unabashed and shameless in the evening air. Something wonderful happens then. He looses his sting. His smile meets her. Open, delighted and devoid of the usual sarcasm and acidity. Expectant, alerted hopefulness. Suddenly he is close, so close. She doesn't think she can handle this. The current is too loud. Alarmingly close.
She feels his stubble brushing her ear. Lips that barely touches it's curve. Tentatively, like a child. She knows he is smelling her up. Inhaling. Weird. But he is so near. And she has to breathe. She has to. She pulls in sharply, taking him in and to her surprise he doesn't stink of mothballs and old cigarettes. Oh god.
Nutmeg, he smells like nutmeg and cardamom. Clean, warm, spicy. Delicious. If she were that kind of girl, she would swoon then. She would push her nose in the crevice of his neck, his skin and be greedy. But she doesn't. Who knows what risks she dares to take? None probably. Lips, his hot breath stroking her ear. The fragrance of him. Perfection.
" Alrighty then! It's a date…" he whispers so that it tickles her ear and she almost swats him away. Her heart leaps a mile.
Then he does something extraordinarily.
Something rivalling both time-travel and smoke monsters.
He literally skips off her porch, like an exuberant little nylon-clad orange puppy. Insanely and obscenely abnormal behaviour for him. He bounces down the steps, beaming. Her chin hits the porch, mouth open wide in disbelief, she thinks, she must surely be dreaming this crap up.
Miles skipping down the street, hippety-hop, throws her a glance backwards. She can see the sparkle of white teeth and from afar and then he gives her a little jolly wave. She falls headlong back on the porch and hits her head on the teak floorboards. A lingering fragrance of nutmeg. Her fingertips touches her ear where his lips were.
It's nothing special.