Avalanche 25: Nightcap
Nightcap- noun; , A wine or liquor taken before bedtime, often believed to help aid digestion and relieve the effects of indigestion.
After they took their seats on the couch (or rather, when he took his seat, and she took hers ten minutes later, after meandering around the cabin) Arnold thought he could take the silence that cut through the movie. It wasn't enough that Helga clearly had a penchant for period dramas that he could barely follow, but she was also being intentionally silent and cold towards him. It was a deadly combination that he didn't realize would slowly kill him until he was already half dead. She leaned away from him, answered all his inquiries with a point of her finger at the screen, and only spoke in monosyllabic grunts. It didn't take long before his mood finally broke.
"I'm sorry; are you mad at me, or something?"
"No, of course not, why would I be mad?" Helga answered. Her tone could have been cutting and sarcastic, that cadence that boiled his blood and did something to a part of his brain that was dormant for longer than he preferred. Worse, somehow, was her voice now. Gone was the acid and fire, the salt and lemon in an open wound, replaced by coldness.
"Because we're watching your "favorite" movie and you don't look like you're enjoying it at all." Arnold responded with more vitorol than usual, to compensate for the lack of edge he was used to.
"Well, if you remember, I didn't want to watch this, so.."
Arnold asked himself why he was egging her on. Her leaving the beach so suddenly, not to mention the melancholy tone to her voice when they spoke, gave him her answer loud and clear. Her brash behavior could no longer be chalked up to ill-composed flirtatious banter, but as it truly was: she didn't like him. She probably only tolerated him. He was, after all, imposing on what could have been a perfectly routine visit to her mother. Instead of asking himself what he was doing there, and fearing the answer, he instead peppered her with questions. "Why wouldn't you want to watch your favorite movie?"
Helga scratched her forehead and hairline, clearly holding back an outburst. "I just don't, okay? Crimeny, leave it alone, would ya?" Even if her former cadence didn't betray her annoyance, a brief glance at him did. She was more than irritated. Helga was moments away from removing his head. Arnold could not succinctly answer why this thrilled him so.
"Whatever; it's not even that good, anyway-"
"It is good!"
"But, you don't want to watch it, so-"
"I don't want to watch it," Helga interrupted again, through clenched teeth. "Because you won't stop asking questions."
"I'm only asking questions because you won't talk to me otherwise."
"We're watching a movie, Footballhead! You're not supposed to talk and give away plot points! Just watch it and...figure it out, or something!"
Arnold paused in his attempt to antagonize Helga into conversation, and moved slightly away from his designated "side" of the couch. Settling back into his seat, he began again. "I just don't get why you're so angry at me, when I should be the one mad at you."
That would do it. He could already see the explosion coming from miles away.
Helga's eyes widened before she slowly turned to look at him, square in the eye. She spoke each word as though walking over a minefield. "You shou...you...excuse me?" Her breath was labored, and Arnold struggled not to think of it in any other context. He reminded himself of her feelings for him, or lack thereof. He reminded himself in a mantra, that she'd made it clear. "What on earth do you have to be mad at me about?! What'd I do?!"
Arnold didn't notice that his hand was shaking until he moved it over his face. He wondered if it was from fear or adrenaline, but put his money on the latter. "Well," he began, trying his best to sound like the reasonable party in the conversation, even though he was effectively the instigator. "...we were having a conversation on the beach, and you just...left."
In an instant, Helga blinked, turned away from him and sat back against the couch. Her stoic nature returned as quickly as it appeared, and Arnold mourned its loss. "Maybe, I didn't have anything else to say."
At the return of her coldness, Arnold felt his own patience break. He silently regarded that maybe Helga was right, and it was better for him to have just left her alone. Any reasonableness was gone and he was running off of pure annoyance. "And that's how you end conversations? When you're finished, you just run off, even if the other person isn't done speaking?"
Helga rolled her eyes so hard, Arnold thought she might pull a muscle. Adjusting an almost threadbare blanket over her lap, she turned to him, squared her shoulders and finally spoke, mostly through her clenched teeth. "Fine, what else do you need to say?" The look on her face read that she'd rather undergo dental surgery than speak to him anymore.
Arnold took a breath that betrayed a long, well-worded monologue, that he'd actually been mentally writing for the better part of the day. Upon releasing said breath, little came out, besides air.
"..."
"Well?"
He grunted, wondering if the sound came from himself or his companion. "...I may have forgotten what else I was going to tell you. But ,that doesn't excuse your abrupt...leavingness."
"Leavingness?" Helga asked, cocking an eyebrow. Arnold tried not to get too excited that she was finally responding with some vigor in her voice.
"You know what I meant. I planned on having a conversation with you, and you just ran off. Pardon me for losing my train of thought between then and now."
"Crimeny," Helga said, pushing herself off of the couch. She looked and spoke like she was preparing for a fight. "Then, let me refresh your memory for you: You and I are friends. Just friends. And you, being the friendly guy that you are, can't enter into a sham of a relationship with a friend. Because our friendship is so important." Each time she spoke the word "friend", she spat it out of her mouth like she'd rather not have said it at all. It reminded Arnold of his grandfather's dark brown bottle of cod-liver oil, that appeared anytime he had a cold. The liquid would be thick as it coated his tongue, and even when he knew it was coming, he couldn't keep his face from showing his disgust.
That's how Helga looked as she spoke to him. Disgusted to the point of nausea.
He wanted to be upset at her, but the feeling was mutual.
"Is that what you got from what I said?"
"Doi. I understand basic English. And ya know, I'm really not surprised."
"What does that mean?"
"Look, Footballface. I'm not an idiot. I don't know everything you've been up to for the past ten or so years, but I'm sure you've seen all these amazing places all over the world, and had life changing experiences, and met tons of really tall and beautiful and smart ladies. Like ones who know six languages, and can...I don't know...hike up a mountain, without losing their breath or getting frizzy hair, or whatever. And that's fine, man. Do you. I'm sure coming back here was super lame in comparison. But ya know what? Those things aren't me. As we say in the dance community, 'I know what my pointe shoes smell like'. I'm seriously effed up, dude. I'm a dancer who doesn't dance that well, I live paycheck to paycheck, and to top it off, I'm a part-time bartending daughter of a certified alcoholic. Anderson Cooper ain't comin' around to do an inspirational piece about me anytime soon. And, ya know, that's cool. I'm not under any grand delusion that you're gonna have feelings for me, beyond friendship."
"You don't think I have any feelings for you beyond friendship?"
"Le duh! That's exactly what you said!"
"I said you were my friend! How is that a bad thing?" Arnold tried to recite their former conversation in his head and keep up with the one they were presently having. He'd planned his words for most of the day, and even thought about writing them down, in case he lost his nerve at some point. He realized, however, that he was far less adept at words than Helga, and anything he prepared and attempted to recite would pale in comparison to what she could come up with at a moment's thought. Not to mention how she would react if he pulled a crumpled piece of paper out of his pocket and tried to read it in the dark.
She'd probably react as she was now.
"Okay, we're friends! Nothing more! Trust me, I get it!" Despite the fact that the beach was much colder than the inside of their cramped cabin, helga managed to change into an oversized grey hooded jacket, the hood of which she angrily pulled over her head as she uttered her las remark. It would have signaled a finality to their conversation to anyone else, but Arnold wasn't letting this one end as swiftly as the last one.
Arnold moved of the couch to stand in front of her. Before she object, or run away again, he pulled the hood off her head, spreading several strands of blonde hair across her face. The look on her face, one of shock and anger, nearly made him back of, but he swallowed his brief fear and spoke. "I didn't say 'Nothing more', you did! I mean, come on, Helga...do I have to spell it out for you?"
Helga swiped at her face angrily. "You spelled it out perfectly clearly, Footballhead! Hearing it more than once is not necessary."
"Well, maybe you should, so I can get all these dumb feelings I have for you outta my head!"
"Well, maybe I don't want to, because I do have feelings for you, beyond friendship!"
"Well, that makes two of us!"
Helga stomped back to the couch and took her seat, with Arnold following soon after. They were still separated by a physical distance, and now by a stretch of silence that had no discernable end. Arnold tried not to focus on that, and instead, took Helga's advice and watched the movie quietly. When one character mentioned another's freckles (or lack thereof), a question bubbled forth before he remembered not to speak.
"What's wrong with freckles?" he asked, quietly, or at least quieter than their last exchange.
"I don't know. People in these things never seem to like them," Helga answered, clearly tempering herself. The few minutes of quiet between them seemed to have calmed her frustration. Instead of the coldness that marked their evening, she was merely neutral.
"They're not so bad."
"Yeah, I don't mind 'em."
Arnold paused. "You have freckles."
"Yeah," Helga repeated. "They're worse in the summertime. I get it from my mom. Maybe that's why people back then didn't like them. Because it meant you were out in the sun too much, like a laborer, or something."
"I like your freckles."
Arnold watched a wrinkle appear and disappear on Helga's forehead quickly, before she responded with a simple, "Thank you."
"...you have feelings for me?"
Helga took a deep breath before answering. "I mean, technically, you can have 'feelings' for anyone...hatred, nausea, derision...even people you don't like or don't know…'indifference' is a feeling, when you think about it."
Arnold blinked. Of course Helga wouldn't make this easy. He asked himself when had she ever made anything easy for him. "Are those any of the feelings you have for me?"
"Can we stop using that word? It's making me uncomfortable."
Helga looked at him, almost exasperated, but still in good humor. He counted himself lucky to have stayed on her good side as long as he had. "Which word? Feelings?"
"Yes," Helga replied, rolling her eyes to finally meet his. "That one."
"You...like me?"
"If we're being specific," she began, her face finally creasing to reveal a smile. "I 'like you like you'." The joke was not lost on him; he and Gerald often joked at the copious use of the word in their youth, and how ridiculous they probably sounded. Helga's thinly veiled confession did not unnerve him; though he prepared himself for the worst, anyway. It was her first relaxed smile of their trip, that came after a brief breakdown, managing her mother and having to share a confined space with him. Vestiges of the old Helga were beginning to emerge, and he was a little more than happy to have her back.
"..and you, like me?" she finally asked quietly, the elusive forehead wrinkle appearing again.
"Yes." Arnold answered with more confidence than she, letting her know that his outburst was not due to a moment's indecision. He'd been dodging, denying, and eventually, harboring feelings for her for far longer than he realized. His first realization was Marc's disastrous housewarming/engagement party. He recounted the nervousness with which he readied himself, how having Helga in his apartment made him anxious and fidgety. Later in the evening, he remembered the disappointment at their parting; her dropping him off back at his apartment, and watching as she drove away, wondering if she so much as glanced at her rear view mirror to see him staring after her. He knew that, later, in his childhood home, he startled her (and effectively himself) with the exuberance of his feelings. He wanted to show her everything, share every memory in every room of the boarding house with her, and upon finding the treasure he'd been missing for years, his uncertainty left him entirely. He didn't intend to propose, exactly, but weeks of doing so little to cull his growing affection for her culminated to one brash, spontaneous act. When she returned with Gerald with a milkshake and her forgiveness, the seed of hope took root somewhere in his chest, and with each meeting between them, it was fed and watered.
"... I didn't know that." Helga maintained her gaze so fiercely, that Arnold broke contact before he meant to.
"I tried to tell you."
"By saying that we're just friends?" she asked, tilting her head. She wasn't wrong, he thought in retrospect. The beginning of their conversation was largely him telling her how much he valued their friendship. Thinking back on it, he didn't blame her for reacting as she did.
"What I meant was...ugh, I'm not good at words like you. I meant, if you only see me as a friend, I didn't want you to feel like you still had to go through with this. If there was a chance of you being happy with someone else, like if you wanted to get back together with Marc, or something-"
"-ugh, gross, never-" Helga interrupted, curling her lip.
"-I didn't want you to waste your time with me. Your friend."
"...that's really...selfless of you. Stupid, but selfless."
"I guess." Arnold didn't mean to sound quite so self-deprecating. His last foray into such waters was marked with almost the opposite response, and while he didn't want it to color his actions, he remained cautious. Helga did nothing half-heartedly. And should she grow to resent him due to an offer made out of friendship instead of real affection, he knew it would not be politely hidden. He had to be sure of her feelings, even as he worked out his own.
"Well, you don't need to worry about that," she told him, sitting on her hands and watching the movie play out. She leaned back on the couch and dug her chin into her chest, looking as though she was focusing on the film, but Arnold knew better. A lengthy diatribe was going on in her mind, and Arnold wanted to know in which direction her thoughts were heading.
"Because...you like me?" he asked, leaning toward her.
Letting her head and hood fall back, Helga sighed and rolled her eyes dramatically. "Ugh, I can't believe I told you. Again. I can't believe I like you again. Gross."
Arnold knew better than to take offense. Helga was remarkably skilled at writing whatever was in her head, but a lag came when she had to speak them. He noted the uncomfortable way that she accepted her mother's embrace when they first arrived, and their interactions often seemed somewhat stalled. He knew that this opening ino how she felt was only the tip of the iceberg, and he still had a ways to go before she was truly open with him, without some gentle prodding. "You really do have to stop yelling about how much you adore me. One day, someone's going to hear you."
"It's bad enough that you heard me," she remarked, moving the blanket to cover her legs. Aside from her face and hands, she was almost completely covered. Arnold took it as her way of maintaining a physical distance between them, even as she was letting him into her walls. "So...what happens now?"
"I think we should finish our movie." In reality, arnold wanted to keep talking. He had too many questions churning around in his mind to keep quiet or focus on the film. He wanted to know how long she liked him, or if her old crush had anything to do with it. He wondered if it was something he did or said that made her think of him differently, or of Phoebe and Gerald had some hand in helping him. He knew the answers would come eventually, but that didn't do much to quell his curiosity.
"Really? Isn't...something supposed to happen? I mean...we like each other. Isn't that supposed to change things?"
"It doesn't have to. Besides, we're like, three hours into this movie, and I have no idea what's happening." Arnold moved away from his side of the couch until their shoulders touched, and told himself to remain there for a moment. He tried to remember the last time he was this flustered over sitting next to a girl, and found that he couldn't.
"It hasn't been three hours. The movie isn't even three hours long; don't be a baby." Helga arched her back and fell against the back of the couch, pressing her arm against his. The motion was executed nonchalantly enough, but Arnold felt boldness bubble up in his chest, and against his earlier admonition, began talking to mask his nervousness.
"Who's that guy again?"
Helga paused a moment and followed his lead, allowing the conversation to continue in its new trajectory. "Mr. Elliott," she answered.
"I thought her dad was Mr. Elliott..."
"He is."
"Is that a long lost brother, or something?"
"No."
"Did her dad travel to the future? Is that her dad when he was younger?"
"This isn't science fiction, it's Jane Austen."
"What if there was a Jane Austen book about time travel?"
Helga paused and clicked her teeth. "...I'd read that."
"So, who is he?"
"That's her cousin."
Arnold furrowed his brow. "Then why's he acting like that?"
"He wants to marry her."
He managed to avoid looking at Helga squarely since their impromptu double confession. But Arnold leaned away from her at her answer. She smiled at his reaction and allowed a breath of air to escape her nose. "What kind of incenctous foolishness is this?"
"You sound like Gerald..."
"You can marry your cousin in this movie?"
"Yeah, people did it all the time. It was a good way to keep money within the family. And I guess they thought any children born wouldn't have, I don't know, an extra finger, or whatever."
Helga's explanation was too simple and easily offered, but Arnold didn't want to think too much on the subject. From the wa the movie was going, the main character seemed as romantically interested in her cousin as Arnold was on the idea of being romantically interested in one's own cousin. "That's weird."
"I guess," Helga answered, returning to her monosyllabic replies.
"What? You'd marry your own cousin?"
"I don't have any cousins." Helga stared at her hands, before covering her face to hide a yawn.
Arnold sensed the conversation heading towards a lull, and tried to think of something funny or witty or smart to keep it going. He still had little idea of what was going on in the movie, and even so, Helga was hardly interested anymore. His plan for the evening was all but subverted; not going in any way imaginable down the path he expected. "Still…"
"...but you do..."
Arnold's shoulders fell. He chastised himself for not seeing the joke coming. Especially since Helga's most common way of diffusing any situation was to laugh in its face. "Helga, don't-"
"I almost forgot about him…" Her eyes and smile were wide and menacing, filling the entirety of her face. Laughter waited like a volcano to burst forth and scorch everything around her.
"That's probably for the best." Arnold deadpanned. Despite the joke at his expense, Arnold knew from experience that Helga's light-hearted derision was a far better alternative to her apathetic silence, and took the jibes in good humor.
"Why didn't we call him months ago?!"
"Helga-"
"Oh come on! It could be fun! You could wake up every morning on a farm, feed some chickens, brush some horses…"
"I'm going to throw up…"
Helga leaned over to nudge Arnold's arm, sending a symphony of squeaks and squeals from her side of the couch into the air between them. Arnold wanted to make a joke about her and the couch having an equal number of screws loose, but the moment passed too quickly, and even so, it wouldn't be nearly as funny as anything she would come with in return. "I bet he'd even leave you that sweet, sweet lint collection in his will…"
"This is disgusting." Arnold's tone was serios, but he allowed himself to smile, mostly because Helga was smiling too, and hers was contagious.
"You're the one suggesting I might want to get back together with Marc. With a C. I'd rather marry your cousin than Marc."
"Nothing about this conversation is making me feel better about telling you that I like you."
"Don't worry, Footballface. Who wants a farm and a horse an a huge diamond ring, when I have a decrepit one room cabin in Montauk, New York, several feet from my recovering alcoholic mother?" she said, laughing at her own joke. Arnold managed to smile, before she righted herself and folded her hands over her stomach. She leaned in front of him, looking more like a little kid looking for attention than she probably meant to. "Hey Arnold, that was a joke. You're supposed to laugh."
"Yeah, yeah-"
"Oh, now you sound like me!" Instead of initiating contact, as Arnold guessed she would, Helga lifted herself up to sit on her legs. In one swift motion, she'd pulled her hair from the confines of her hooded sweatshirt and over her right shoulder. Her deft fingers parted and maneuvered the locks of hair into a somewhat crooked braid, that she finished with a previously hidden hair tie.
Arnold tried not to look too awestruck. In the span of no more than a half of an hour, Helga managed to enrage him, coax from him an off-the-cuff confession (which would no doubt sound preposterous once he had the mental dexterity to really think about it), and laugh at him. And now, due to her change of position, Helga was sitting slightly higher than him, looking about the room as if waiting for something to happen. If she were anymore of an enigma, he might have had the good sense to run when he had the chance.
"I guess that happens when you spend too much time with someone," Arnold responded, trying to calm the thrumming in his ears.
"Would you prefer to spend less time with me?" helga made her inquiry as if it were a challenge, and even if Arnold had a rebuttal at the ready, he could hardly trust himself to be anything but earnest with her.
"Not at all." Arnold guessed, by her mostly unchanging facial expressions, and the readiness with which she made jokes at his expense, that his words had little effect on her. Regardless, he let his last statement rest; unsure if his intention was to further engage her, or disarm her completely. She was so thoroughly skilled at both, especially where he was concerned, and he wished to return the favor.
"Fireworks?"
"What? Don't tell me you don't like fireworks…" Arnold had already dumped the contents of his thin, plastic bag onto the ground, and was poking sparklers into the sand, in a straight line.
"They're okay. I just don't know why you have them." Helga kicked at the sand and moved it around with the heel of her foot, and Arnold took it as a show of good favor that she wasn't kicking it into his face. It was dark and breezy and the struggle to see through the blue-blackness of the night was beginning to fade the longer they stood outside.
"I went jogging this morning, and there's a little general store about a mile from here. They were practically giving them away." Arnold looked over the long, thin columns and tried to make out the name and instructions in the dark. He didn't know the names of everything that he bought, bu for the price, he didn't quite care.
"And you just had to buy some. What are you, twelve?" Helga crossed her arms and stared at the waves lapping at the shoreline.
"What are you, a thousand? You know you secretly want to blow something up."
"...gimme that lighter…" Helga snatched the firecracker from his hand, and crouched next to him to figure out how to light it.
Arnold watched her turn the firecracker over in confusion, much as he had. "See? This is what fun looks like."
"Are you saying I'm not fun?"
"You could stand to be more fun."
"I am so fun!" Helga said as he stood up next to her. She turned back to Arnold, and her eyes widened in shock when he began removing his shirt.
"Oh yeah…"
Helga sat frozen on the ground, the cold air and wind coming off of the ocean, but her face and neck felt white hot in comparison. "Wh-what are you doing?"
"I'm going to jump in the ocean. You should come. It's fun." arnold walked to the shoreline, and was glad for the darkness around them and that he was facing away from Helga. The water was far colder than he expected, and the shock was easily readable on his face.
"That's not fun! That's dumb!" Helga said, loudly, jumping up to follow after him, but not quite to the water's edge. "I don't do dumb things, Footballhead!"
"Really? Because that sounds like something a real stick-in-the-mud would say…" he teased.
"Oh no, I know this game. Nice try; you're not gonna taunt me into jumping into the ocean at night. First of all, it's nighttime! This is potentially illegal! Second, it's freezing cold out there, and hypothermia is real! Also, there are actual sea monsters out there, and riptides, and-"
"-and a massive wet blanket sitting on the beach…"
"You can say whatever you like about me, Arnold. There is no way I'm going into the ocean in the middle of the night."
"I can't believe you threw me into the ocean in the middle of the night," Helga chattered angrily from under a towel that smelled of mothballs and cedar.
"Oh, c'mon. It wasn't that cold-"
She cut him off by slamming the bathroom door, and barricading herself in the bathroom. Back on the beach, before Helga could make a thorough argument for going back inside to sit in relative warmth and finish a movie, Arnold ran at her, closing the distance faster than she could turn and run. She shouted as he grabbed her around her waist, and lifted her easily. Her back grew warm against his chest, but when the waves began lapping at her feet and shins, her cries grew shrill over the waves. She cursed him and everything she could think of, threatened his life and manhood, and cared not if she strained herself in fighting against him. Her screams subsided when she swallowed a mouthful of salty sea water, and broke free of the arms that held her down. Breaking the surface, Helga took in deep breaths and tried to steady her feet on the sand below her, as the waves threatened to knock her back down. Arnold was a few feet away, laughing loudly and pushing hair and water away from his face. Angrily at first, Helga moved her arms over the water, and splashed water into Arnold's face, who returned the favor. Her frustrated splashings at him became a game, the pair only giving up after they fell too tired to go on. Together they sloshed back to the beach, and collected the unused fireworks from the shoreline.
The walk back to the cabin was frigid, the wind catching every inch of bare skin and stitch of clothing, weaving itself in and settling there with bone chilling cold. The cold resurrected Helga's anger, and by the time she got back to the cabin, she was tired, shivering and all to the blame of Arnold. She wasn't truly angry with him; annoyed, soaked to the bone, and not looking unlike a drowned rat. Embarrassment marred her face, and stood in contrast with the odd flush at having Arnold opening initiate physical contact with her, even if it was one that left her looking less than great.
She still didn't know what to make of their shared confessions. She'd been battling her feelings for months, using Phoebe and dance as outlets when they bubbled up too strongly for her to handle. Arnold, it seemed, had little such outlet, and resorted to making her lash out at him, a tactic that worked to his advantage.
She wanted to tell him off for essentially manipulating her, but the wave of relief she felt after she told him (and he responded in kind) was welcome. The expectation in her mind was that any revelation of her feelings would result in something catastrophic. Their friendship would inevitably shatter, an awkward drive home wold insue, and the rest would be history. If she had to dance her feet raw, she would before being the first to admit anything.
Being the second was less nerve rattling, but she felt raw and exposed nonetheless.
In the bathroom, Helga peeled off her wet clothes (having stopped at her suitcase and extracted clean, dry clothes) raked her fingers through her wet hair. A short shower washed the salt water from her skin, and she felt better for it. And while Molly contributed a plethora of face creams, serums and soaps in trial sizes, none of which Helga knew how to use in conjunction with one another. She settled for a face wash, and lotion that didn't smell too offensive, and abandoned her post in the bathroom.
On the couch sat Arnold, in dry clothes, one leg bent on the couch, an the other stretched out in front of him. Salt water clung to his hair and the nape of his neck, and Helga willed herself to focus on anything else in the room. Arnold seemed less inhibited after his admission, and Helga moreso. One of his arms was draped over the back of the couch, and Helga knew that should she take her former seat, contact with him was inevitable. She didn't object; it wasn't one that she didn't want. But, she certainly would have preferred some control over the contact.
Steeling her nerves, Helga sat on the couch, but refused to sit back. Before she lost her nerve, Helga swung her legs over the expanse of the couch, and in turn, Arnold's outstretched limbs. She settled her legs over his, crossing her ankles and pointing her toes in a way that wasn't meant to be seductive, but was nonetheless. Her face twitched and fought the smile on her face to stay nonchalant and in place, instead of turning into a face-splitting grin. Tucking her toes under Arnold's arm, and distracting herself with the thought of his shocked face, she kept her eyes on the T.V.
"So," she drawled, finally making slow and deliberate eye contact. "What I'd miss?"
A/N: Newsflash, I'm glad I got this chapter out, but I'm only halfway happy with it. But, I owe you guys a chapter, and maybe I'll like the next one more.
-PointyObjects