Aquarius – Chapter 14
He woke and she was gone (again). The house was silent, no running water, no television, no voice, just empty air; then he remembered it was Saturday, their day off. He rolled onto his side and began a silent, but deliberate observation of the sights and sounds and smells of this moment. He wanted to remember being in her bed, her house, her presence like this for the first time. It was still early, the dawn just breaking weakly through her windows and he could smell coffee from the kitchen. She wasn't readying for work; she was already working. For just a moment, he allowed himself the luxury of wondering what it would be like to wake up with Reese every morning, but then he realized if she wasn't in his arms he'd always wonder first if she was gone - again. Wryly he realized he was doing his level best to achieve "one night at a time" and trying to extend his streak.
He stretched and other than a few stiff spots and the stitched up gash on the back of his head, he felt good. The injury was tender to his probing fingers, he could feel the stiff line that held his scalp together and the fine hairs they'd shaved before stitching him up. Getting sutures on your head was different from getting them on your belly or your back – messier and yet somehow closer to reality. Other than being a little sensitive to touch and shooting pains in his head when the sunlight hit him directly in his eyes he felt fine. He'd never touched the pain meds they'd given him a prescription for.
He sat up and found himself comfortable in just his jeans - no shirt and he was barefoot. He rose and stretched again. He found himself drawn once again to Dani's painting. He stood at the foot of her rumpled bed with his hands jammed in the pockets of his jeans and examined the beautiful chaos on canvas. That was what she was to him. She was uncontrolled and uncontrollable, wild, beautiful – just like life. He realized he had to stop trying to steer her, protect her, to control her. She'd be just fine – she always had been. He just wanted to be permitted close enough to bask in that wild heat and revel in the passion that she approached everything in life with.
He padded quietly out of the bedroom to find her and once more bask in the circle of his dark sun as watched her work. It had been several months since he'd simply watched her work. It still impressed him – her focus and determination. She stood examining a single sheet of paper in the middle of her tiny kitchen table; a frown marred her pretty features as her brain worked a problem and conundrum or a mystery. Her arms were wrapped around her middle and she held a pale blue porcelain mug in her hand. He focused on the woman, not the work. She was perfect, flawed but perfect – for him.
She noticed him and it annoyed her – he could tell. But he knew now - in a way he hadn't last night that her annoyance wasn't with him. It was with herself, an internal struggle she was losing. She was perturbed that she could no longer pretend – that he wasn't there, that she didn't love him and that they weren't together. Dani liked being alone and he was the loner that she found herself at home with, the one she noticed and could not shut out. Dani liked the darkness, he was the light she hid from, but he also held darkness within and that drew her to him.
He walked deliberately to her, ignored her ire and the way she bristled when he wrapped his arms around her. He pressed a soft kiss to the back of her neck where the wisps of her hair escaped their rubber band prison and murmured "morning" against her skin. He made no value judgment in his statement – he couldn't tell what sort of morning it was going to be but she was clearly already agitated. He kissed her again, more slowly and was rewarded as felt her tenseness ease. She fought it, but he was stealing the agitation from her.
"Crews," she warned.
"Charlie, " he corrected.
She sighed again and surrendered. She transferred the coffee cup to the counter and turned in his arms. She buried her head against his chest, her smooth cheek pressed there and her warm breath fluttering against his bicep as she exhaled what could have been a mantra, but was just his name, "Charlie."
He smiled into her hair and kissed her there. He waited for the rest.
She did not disappoint. "I found something," she confessed.
"I know," he told her.
For just a moment, neither of them cared about what she'd found, about what was on that innocent sheet of paper or where it would lead them; they just clung to one another and listened to the silence. Then she lifted her head and looked into his eyes, "I love you."
That he was not expecting, but he smiled and repeated his words, "I know." Her eyes were calm and soft, he leaned down and softly brushed her lips - a half a kiss that said, "I love you too" without the words. Then he led her where she wanted to go, where they both needed to go, urging her quietly, "Now show me what you've found."