by Nichole
The middle of the afternoon and the sky was nearly black. Clouds that blocked the sun dark and threatening, moving over the water before him and it all seemed endless in that way that left you just a little claustrophobic and made it hard to breathe.
She sat down beside him and dipped bare feet into the almost freezing water like it had been the plan all along. Dropped her sandals between them and shivered from the cold even as she was sweating from the summer heat in a yellow sleeveless shirt. She scratched her thigh where the grass made it itch and titled her head as she watched him draw.
Charcoal turned his fingers the color of the clouds overhead, and the picture of her almost lost it's focus, but he didn't have to look at her to draw her eyes.
"It's gonna rain," she told him in almost greeting.
Smalltalk now. Her hair was easy to draw, strands falling down to frame her face from the ponytail she'd pulled it back in to keep it off her neck. It was too hot to wear it down, she'd told him. The middle of a heat wave and that was the only thing he'd learned except that he couldn't talk small with her.
"They've been saying that for a week, of course, but now I believe them. It's still hot though, shouldn't the sun being practically gone make it cooler? And easier to breathe?"
"Clouds trap the heat," he muttered, eyes staying on the paper his charcoal was moving across, easier now that he wasn't thinking about it. "And the humidity makes the air feel thick. Sticky almost."
She nodded in something like agreement and didn't care that he didn't see. Just let that be the answer because it was the best one that she had. The water was cold, and she wondered why he came here if not to get wet as she kicked her feet just a little.
"Are you mad at me?" she asked him a moment later, unable to handle the silence that was hanging over them and smirking at its victory. "Are you mad because I kissed you?"
Charcoal flying across paper quicker now, and he still didn't look up. Just wished he could do something that wasn't black and white because her mouth begged to be painted in an angry red while smiling.
"People do crazy things in a heat wave?"
And it drove him just a little crazy that her excuses were always spoken as questions.
"Domestic violence rates go up, I don't think a lot of people randomly kiss guys they blew off a few months ago."
"You're mad."
"I'm not."
"Whatever," she sighed, kicking her feet again. "And it wasn't a few months ago, it was like seven."
"Whatever," he returned.
She leaned back on her elbows and tilted her head to the sky. "It seems like it always rains on the fourth of July."
"It doesn't."
"I know," she said on another sigh. "It just seems like it. It ruins barbeques and firework displays. Although I suppose we could still set off fireworks."
"Not in the city limits."
"Yeah." She nodded her head again even though he still couldn't see. "Plus it'd be hard to look up at the sky while it was raining."
"Turkeys drown from looking up at the sky while it rains."
"That's a myth. Completely untrue. I think I saw it on the Learning Channel. Anyway, it's not true. But they are really stupid birds."
Again he didn't reply, still didn't pause in his drawing of her because he'd been trying to do this for days now and nothing seemed right.
"My mom wanted to know why you weren't there for lunch today."
"It was family."
"It was family and a few cops my dad works with and Grace and Rebecca and it was supposed to be you too."
"I got distracted."
"So I see," she replied, trying to tilt her head at an angle and catch a glance of what it was he was doing that had captured his attention to such a degree. "You know, I'm much more stubborn than you are. And if you're planning on doing another two months of avoiding me, please remember that. You can't avoid me forever."
"No, you know all my hiding places."
"We're going to have to talk about this eventually."
"There are a lot of things I'm gonna have to do eventually, doesn't mean they're getting done today."
She giggled a little at that, but she didn't have a good reason for doing so. Scratched her leg again because the grass was dry and it tickled as it swayed in the wind that picked up. "I wish you wouldn't be mad at me."
"I'm not."
"Whatever."
"Now I know this is going nowhere."
A vague remembrance of another conversation that went exactly nowhere because she'd refused to allow it. "I didn't reject you. I just said I wasn't ready."
"Otherwise known as rejection, Jane. Look it up."
"What if I'm ready now?"
"What if I'm not," he returned, eyes still not straying from his drawing even as his hand finally paused. He wasn't expecting to say that.
She just inhaled sharply, same sound she made when she got a paper cut the last day of class. Like his words had cut her and he figured she'd been expecting him to jump at the chance.
A few minutes of still, stunned silence and the first drops of the coming storm were falling onto the sketchpad in his lap but they didn't move.
He really didn't want to have this conversation today.
Looking back up at the sky, she shrugged her shoulders and wished just a little bit that he'd look at her. The rest of her overriding that wish as she did her best not to cry. She never thought it would hurt like this, but then, she'd never thought he'd say that.
Rain falling faster and it made her shiver because against the heat of the day it was cold too. "I'll wait," she decided, eyes moving back to him in time to see him—not relax, exactly—but let go of something that had been keeping him sitting up straight since she sat down. "I'll wait, and I'll do it much better than you did."
He laughed at that, because it seemed a little ridiculous that she thought he'd ever stopped waiting. Didn't bother explaining the joke to her though cause it wasn't funny. She joined in his laughter anyway because she never got to hear the sound and it did something weird to her insides.
It reached and tugged on something that was probably important. She decided to take it as a sign that waiting was the right thing to do. Pulled her feet out of the water and stood. Finally managed to see what he was drawing and recognized her eyes, her mouth, her nose and her hair on the page in his lap.
From where he was sitting she seemed impossibly tall. Something to be feared and even as he was—just a little bit—afraid of the rejection and the hurt he knew she'd caused before and undoubtedly would again, he was mostly kinda awed.
It had never occurred to him that one day she'd decide she wanted this too.
Reaching out her hand and once again he didn't even think before he took it. Just laughed a little more because they were replaying all their previous scenes with their roles reversed and there was no way this would end well, but he wasn't about to stop it. Didn't even really want to if he was honest about it.
She tugged on his hand and the sketch book in his lap fell shut as it fell to the ground, getting soaked by the rain and it was doomed. And so were they but when he stood and put his other hand on her hip he didn't care all that much.
"This the part where we dance?" he asked, because he felt it was an honest question.
Throwing her head back, she laughed. The rain had soaked her hair, her clothes and he would be lying if he said he didn't love that she didn't run from the rain. Instead she moved a little closer, arm around his shoulder and even as they swayed to no music at all it occurred to them both that it was more of a hug.
He didn't twirl her, just pressed his lips against the corner of her mouth and grinned.
They didn't break apart until thunder rumbled across the sky and almost right above them and by then they were both laughing at pretty much nothing and shivering from the cold.
Started to lead her by her hand back to the great indoors without a look back when she stopped him to grab her shoes and his sketchpad.
By the time they'd reached his back porch the thunder was almost constant, the lightning was a little too close for comfort and the temperature had dropped at least ten degrees from the time she'd sat down beside him. The backdoor was unlocked and he wasn't sure if he was relieved or disappointed that his father was home.
She stopped before stepping inside and pulled him to her, tilted her head and let him make the move. And he could make her wait but there was really nothing in him that wanted to even if he knew for sure he wasn't ready for this girl.
And they were both dripping wet, cold rain having soaked them probably too the bone, but her mouth was warm, open and inviting and getting lost in her heat seemed like the best idea he'd ever had. Cupping her cheek with the hand not holding hers it took more effort that it should have to pull away. Finally managed only to look at her and decide it had been an incredibly stupid move to separate his mouth from hers. Tried to dive back in only to have her stop him with a hand on his chest.
Agreed to her unspoken demands with a nod and went right back to his waiting for her.
A few steps into his kitchen and his shoes were squishing, she was giggling and he was rolling his eyes at her. "I think you're shoes are gonna have to go," she told him with a smile.
Toed off the left, then the right and made a face at wet socks on a cold tile floor. Pulled those off too and when he straightened she'd put the book of his drawings that she'd been hugging to her chest on the cabinet and dropped her sandals next to his Nike knockoffs.
Her hair was dripping on the floor, her make up had smeared and her clothes were clinging to her. He could see that she was trying to not blush as he admired her but her smile didn't fade and it felt a little strange that he wasn't sure she'd ever been more beautiful to him.
Another quick kiss and then she tried to stop him from pulling away by grabbing his shirt except that just wrung water from it made them both laugh all over again.
"Adam?" his father called from the front porch. "That you?"
"Yeah," he called back, leaning away from Joan and reaching around her to find the candles they kept in the junk drawer in case the lights went out.
"Did Joan find you?"
"Yeah."
"She with you now? Or did she get lost in the wilderness that is out backyard?"
"Yes, Mr. Rove," Joan answered, still laughing. "I'm here and have no wild beast attacks to report."
Adam lit a candle just as the lights went out and smirked in victory. Even though it was light enough to see without it.
"Ooh," Joan cooed. "You're good."
"Mocking me will get you nowhere," he told her, but he still hadn't lost his smile either. Another quick kiss and then, "Hold on, I'll get you a towel."
Nodding her assent even as she pouted because she really was getting kinda cold but she also wasn't ready to let him out of her sight.
He'd been out of the room all of fifteen seconds when the electricity came back on. The rotating fan in the window hitting her and making her shiver all over again. Turning around, hands on the counter and she didn't even give a thought to privacy before opening the soaked book that she probably hadn't managed to save.
First three pages were destroyed, just blurry black lines against white paper and even as pretty as it was now she knew it didn't hold a candle to what it had been before. The fourth page was in pencil and another drawing of her, different from the one she'd seen before and all she really noticed where the wings.
The fifth, sixth and seventh pages had different pictures of her, but both with the same set of wings.
On the eighth page she held chains.
The ninth she was crying and her wings had been erased.
The tenth and eleventh the chains were back, both times with a smile.
On the twelfth she had them both. Wings and chains and she was smiling and she was crying and all at once she understood.
He wrapped the towel around her shoulders and dropped a t-shirt and a pair of sweats on the counter next to her. His chin found her shoulder and he was lost as for what to do when he realized she was crying. "Little bit stalkerish?" he asked, hoping against all hope that she wouldn't say yes.
"It's like you don't know who I am."
"Sometimes I don't think I do." A soft sigh and when the fan hit her she got goosebumps that he tried to kiss away.
She leaned back against him, just a little. "Are all of them of me?"
"Yeah, I'm only about halfway through it." Pressed down on the book only to have water spill from it. "Or I was."
"I'll buy you a new one," she promised. Turning in his almost hold, she pressed her lips to his. "When you're ready, I'll tell you everything and maybe then we can both figure it out."
"When I'm ready?"
"Yeah." And she smiled at her own bad joke, "I'll just wait until then."
And then she kissed him again.
There are the clothes that I wear
This is the only thing I wanted more than anything"
- Tabitha's Secret 'Million Miles'