Into The Light
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters in this fic!
Chapter Fifty
Trixie jumped when she heard the knock on the door. Laying the silverware down in a jumble, she turned towards the door, grimacing at the pain when she forgot about her injury and moved too quickly. Biting back a groan, she smoothed out the frown on her face, not wanting it to be the first thing Jim saw, and walked over toward the back door, her pace deliberate and cautious. Her pain forgotten, she didn't need to force the wide smile on her face when she opened the door, her blue eyes glinting with delight. "Jim!" she greeted him happily. "You're here!" The time alone in the house had dragged on endlessly.
He had seen the look of pain on her face but didn't call any attention to it, respecting her need for privacy and impressed with the way she had bounced back from it. "Trixie," he responded evenly, stepping over the threshold and into her home, standing as close to her as he could get without touching her. It was a test because he wanted to see how she would react. He was relieved when she held her ground, with only an attractive blush blooming across her face. Then he glanced around the comfortable country kitchen, surprised by how quiet and subdued it was. Normally the room was bustling with activity and filled to overflowing with both Beldens and non-Beldens. It was strange for it to be so still and quiet, but, as his eyes slid back to Trixie, he realized how grateful he was for it.
She resisted the urge to shuffle her feet. It took an effort but she made herself stand perfectly still and to appear at ease, although she found his nearness very disconcerting. The new, fluttery feeling was back, taking up permanent residence in her stomach. She pressed a hand to it to hopefully quell the sensation. It didn't work, not that she had expected it to. "I know," she said, understanding him completely. She found it odd, too. "It's hard to remember the last time my house was this quiet."
"It rarely happens, doesn't it?" He dropped his backpack on the floor and headed toward the table, inspecting the table setting. Seeing that the silverware was in an untidy heap, he started placing each item on the correct spot.
"It's the curse of being a Belden," she remarked with a roll of her eyes. She whirled around and opened a cabinet, pulling out two glasses and set them on the kitchen counter with a quiet snap. "So, what do you want for dinner? It's leftovers, I'm afraid. Moms left a few choices for us to pick from. I'll see what options we have." Opening the refrigerator door, she peered inside and started rummaging through the overly stuffed appliance.
"What do you have?" Having finished setting the table, he sidled up next to her, with the barest amount of space between, and looked into the refrigerator with her, his face only inches away from hers.
It took her a minute to answer. He was so close to her. She could feel his warm breath on her neck. "Hmmm," she mumbled out incoherently, frustrated with herself. She tried again, not wanting to bore Jim and make him flee from the house due to her less-than-stellar conversational skills. She couldn't tell him that his nearness seemed to be affecting her ability to think, as well as to speak. Clearing her throat, she managed a two-word sentence and mentally patted herself on the back. "Let's see." She reached inside and pulled out a container, insanely excited when she recognized the contents. "This is Moms's homemade macaroni and cheese."
He took the container from her and put it on the kitchen counter. "That sounds promising. What else do you have?" Experimenting again, he moved the tiniest bit closer to her, their sides touching, and bit down a knowing smile.
He was going to drive her crazy. It was as clear as day. They were going to need expressionless men dressed in little white suits to come and take her away. Her equilibrium was shot. "Umm." Trixie was back to mumbling and had to shake her head to clear it. Thankful to have something else to focus on, she grabbed another container. "Salad!" she called out triumphantly and handed it to him. "And this is left-over chicken from last night." She straightened and moved away from the refrigerator, expecting him to have stepped away but he hadn't. Instead, it was his turn to hold his ground. She bumped right into his solid chest. "Oh! I'm sorry."
He reached out to steady her, his hands resting on her shoulders. With a grin, he kept them there longer than necessary, massaging the area until he carefully extracted the chicken from her before it fell to the floor from her suddenly boneless grip. "No problem, Trix," he said huskily.
She willingly stood next to him, one of his hands still on her shoulder, and become hypnotized by his deep emerald gaze. She had no idea how long she stood there, with nothing between them but the slightest amount of space. Trixie's eyes grew wide. She really didn't think she was going to get through the evening without making a fool of herself. He had only been her for ten minutes and he had already rendered her speechless. It didn't bode well for her for the rest of the evening.
Pleased with her reaction, Jim stepped back first, with the container of chicken in his hands. He placed it on the counter next to other food items and studied them. Leftovers at Crabapple Farm were as delicious as a first-time meal anywhere else in Sleepyside. "Dinner looks good," he declared after his survey.
She gave her head another shake and inhaled deeply, needing the air to help her resume the capacity to think. "Dinner. Right," she muttered and grabbed the containers. "I'll, uhh, I'll go warm them up in the microwave. You can get the salad dressing."
He grabbed a few choices of salad dressings. Then he leaned against the counter, with his arms folded across his chest and his ankles crossed. Jim looked deceptively casual. He hid his intense perusal from her while he watched her work. Glad to see that she moved well and fluidly, he nodded his head. Then he took a good look at the side of her face. She wasn't getting enough sleep, he thought to himself, not that he was all that surprised. He wasn't sleeping well, either. "Can I help you with anything, Trixie?" he offered, breaking the silence.
"No. There's nothing else to do." She absently pulled out two steak knives to cut the chicken and laid them on the counter. After pressing the buttons on the microwave to heat up the chicken, she turned around, intent on setting up salad bowls. A beam of sunlight came through the open window, illuminating a smooth, silver blade, and drawing her attention away from everything else. It wasn't a dangerous knife. It was only a plain old steak knife, one that was common and could be found in many households, and it certainly was not as sharp as some of the other knives in kitchen, but she found herself mesmerized by it. Her eyes went wide. She wasn't seeing that knife but another one, raised high in the air in the capable and sinister hands of an absolute madman, and coming towards her in the dark of the night.
"So I'll let you pick our first movie of the evening. I won't pressure you into a choice or anything," Jim said conversationally, taking out a container of homemade iced tea from the refrigerator. He poured them each a glass. "Don't worry. All of the movies I brought with me are terrific. You won't have any trouble finding one that you want to watch." He turned to offer her one of the glasses and stopped, stunned to see the waxen pallor on her face and the glassy look to her eyes. Reaching out blindly, he was lucky to get the glass on the counter before hurrying over towards her. "Trixie?" he questioned worriedly, intently studying her face.
She didn't glance up, was caught up in the nightmare of last week, and couldn't tear her eyes away from the knife. She pressed a hand to the remains of the small scab on her neck. It was impossible to experience but it felt like that knife was pressing against her skin again. She could almost feel the droplets of blood starting to drip down onto her neck. Releasing a small gasp, she had to touch her skin again to be certain that the cut wasn't bleeding.
Bewildered, he tried her name again. "Trixie?" Nothing. He slid an arm around her waist and followed her eyes but all he could see was a clean counter with two steak knives, a microwave, and a glass container of macaroni and cheese that needed to be warmed up. Nothing stood out to him. Certainly nothing that would cause the look of utter panic on her expressive face. But he could feel the tautness in her body, could hear the way her breathing had quickened, and there wasn't any way to deny the fear that held her within an iron grip. Not knowing what else to do, offering her the only comfort he possibly could, he brought his arms around and tentatively held her, wondering if she would push him away.
Much to his relief, she accepted the embrace without a struggle and hesitatingly returned it. Her arms slowly came to rest on his waist while she stared at the knife and had the nightmare coil around her like tendrils of thick fog, unwilling to let her go. The feeling was odd. It was frightening. And it had the power to terrify her, even after dealing with the aftermath of her ordeal for an entire week. She didn't want to talk, doubted if she could get anything past the painful clump of emotion in her throat. Even the insistent chirping of the microwave, announcing that the macaroni and cheese was sufficiently warmed up, didn't register.
It wasn't difficult for him to guess where her thoughts had gone. He released a small, pent-up breath and pulled her tighter towards him, giving her the only support that he could, and waited her out with as much patience as he could muster. Waiting was difficult when all he wanted to do was jump in and fix it for her, make her problems disappear and go away, never to return to bother her again. After the microwave beeped loudly for the second time, he reached around her, keeping one arm securely around her shoulder, and pulled open the glass door.
The motion snapped her out of her reverie. Bringing up wide, frightened eyes to his, frustrated for letting the experience mar her evening with him, she felt a hot flush spread its way across her face and then dropped her gaze to the floor, disappointed with herself. She couldn't have been more obvious and let the shame of it take over her. "I'm sorry, Jim," she mumbled, hoping that would be the end and that he wouldn't question her about what had happened.
He didn't let her get away with it. He couldn't let her get away with it, not with the remembrance of terror that had been vividly reflected on her face. Gentle fingers reached down and tilted her chin up, not satisfied until she was staring back at him. He saw the fear, the despair, and the sadness and felt his own heart weep for what she had gone through. "Tell me, Trix," he ordered her softly.
Never one to follow orders well, she ignored him. Instead, she became a sudden flurry of energy. She pulled her face out of his grip, stepped out of his arms and grabbed the macaroni and cheese from the counter, hissing slightly at the warmth of the glass bowl against her fingers, and brought it around to the table, where she placed it in the center with the utmost of care and precision. "We should eat before it gets cold," she announced, her voice annoyingly cheerful.
He didn't make a move to help, only watched as she came back to warm the chicken up in the microwave. The salad and the salad dressings were put on the table next. Arching an eyebrow, he wondered why she halted in front of the knives and then avoided them. As soon as the microwave sounded, she grabbed the chicken and took it over. Then she went back for the steak knives. She inhaled sharply before picking up them up and adding them to their place settings. It took her a matter of minutes to have the table ready. Satisfied that everything was the way it should be, she nodded her blonde head. "I think we're ready to eat!" she exclaimed overly brightly and turned to him with what she prayed for a happy smile on her face.
Eating was the furthest thing from his mind. He came towards her, slowly and deliberately, and waited until he was next to her. "Dinner can wait, Trixie. We have something much more important to discuss." When she bit her bottom lip and sent her curls dancing with the agitated shake of her head, he pressed her a little further and pointed to the spot. "You were a million miles away over there, Trixie. What happened?"
Defeated, shoulders slumped, she scrubbed a hand over her face, understanding that he wasn't going to let it go. Thinking of the tape Sergeant Molinson had made, believing he must have heard it since it seemed to have been broadcasted to a good portion of Glen Road, she mumbled back, "You know what happened. I know you do."
A vision of that night, Britten on top of her with a knife at her throat, flashed before him. It was one of the scenes that replayed continuously through his mind when he closed his eyes in the dark confines of his room, one of the main reasons why sleep had been successfully eluding him night after night. "You're wrong," he denied evenly, caught on the figurative tight rope. He didn't want to push her too hard, causing her to shut down and block him out, but he couldn't ignore it. She needed to share her experience, whether it was with him or not. "I know part of what happened since I was there but I don't know everything."
She found that hard to believe and responded with a touch of cynical sarcasm, "Didn't you know that Sergeant Molinson made a tape for my parents? They know everything, whether I wanted them to know it or not. Mart and Brian listened to it, too. Mart, being Mart, shared it with Dan one day when they were working. Dan told me that the other night when he stopped by to visit me." Other than Sergeant Molinson, she hadn't physically told anyone else all the events of that evening. She hadn't had any intentions of sharing the entire events with anyone, other than the Sergeant, but he had taken the matters out of her hand. "Haven't you had a chance to listen to it, too?" she wondered somewhat bitterly.
"No," Jim stated clearly with a forceful shake of his redhead. He touched her gently on the elbow. He had known it would bother Trixie when she found out about the tape. "You've got to know me better than that. Brian offered it to me but I would rather hear it from you if you wanted to tell me. I wouldn't listen to it, not on a recording."
She tilted her head to the side and twirled a curl around her finger, stunned by his answer. She had assumed he, as well as the rest of the Bob-Whites, would have listened to the tape already. Her assumption was wrong. The truth was shining out brightly from his eyes. "Really?"
He nodded solemnly. "I wouldn't do that to you, Trix. If you want to tell me, then I'll listen." He leaned in closer and said, "Believe it or not, I am not going to pressure you or lecture you about it. All I'm going to say is that I have a feeling it may help if you talked to me about what happened last Saturday night." When she didn't respond, he bit back his disappointment, smiled reassuringly towards her and reached for the macaroni and cheese. "It's time to eat dinner. Are you ready?"
A puzzled frown marred her forehead while she observed him set up two plates, one for her and one for him. He had them filled to almost overflowing with the pasta, chicken, and the salad. He wasn't going to push her, she realized with a flash of insight, was actually going to allow her to regain a sense of control over the entire situation. Because of that, because of his willingness to let her decide what happened next, she took a deep, fortifying breath, and invited him into her own personal hell. "Do you want to know everything that happened, Jim?"
Shocked, he whipped his head around, grateful to see the sincerity on her face, and put the plates down. "If you want to tell me," he answered carefully, afraid that a wrong answer would shut her down and send her fleeing off in the opposite direction.
"All right." Trixie took a deep breath and started, telling him all the events of that night, beginning with her realization of what had happened to Di after she had left the Country Club and ending with the final scene in the clearing that he had come across. Her voice faded in and out, moisture gathered and glinted in her eyes that she resolutely blinked away, and she couldn't bring herself to look directly into his face during her retelling. She focused on the food on the kitchen table, noting inanely that it was getting cold again and not caring in the least. Telling him felt different than when she had to tell the sergeant, mainly because it was of her own choice, not something she had been forced to do. There was also the fact that it was Jim. It was easier to share it with him, even though she couldn't stop the twin feelings of shame and embarrassment from assaulting her. It was almost cathartic. When she had reached the end of her story, she nervously folded her hands in front of herself and waited for his reaction. "Are…are you hungry?" she inquired at his prolonged silence.
Food was the farthest thing from his mind. Moving quickly, he went with instinct and pulled her to him, roughly hearing the breath whoosh out of her, and wrapped his arms around her. He tangled a hand in her curls while the other rubbed small circles up and down her back, feeling the tautness in the lines of her body. Without meaning to, he broke her. Jim held on, murmuring inconsequential words of comfort, while the carefully constructed dam she had built around herself crumbled and the tears flowed freely from her eyes, drenching his shirt. He hated the fact that her whole body shook with the force of her release but he held on, unwilling to let go, and felt his own guilt grow with each broken sob that came from her lips.
She didn't know how long she cried for. Her sobs slowly tapered off and she became aware of the fact that she was holding on too tightly to him, like he was her stalwart anchor. She dropped his shirt, which she had bunched up in her hands, and pushed herself back, smiling glumly at the moist tear stains on his shirt. Bringing up a hand, she felt the area. "I'm sorry, Jim. I seem to have marked your shirt."
"I don't care." The stains were right above his heart. If he had been fanciful enough, he would have believed that each tear of hers had made its way into his heart, branding it with the memory and fusing the two of them together even more strongly. He tugged on a curl and lifted one side of his lip when it bounced back. "Don't worry. I'm glad that you wanted to share your experience with me."
Trixie was glad that he didn't let go but kept her within the protective circle of his arms, with his hands resting lightly on her hips. "Some way to get our night started, huh?" she tried to joke, brushing away a stubborn, remaining tear.
"I don't care," he repeated forcefully.
Lifting her eyes to his, she saw the strong emotions that were holding him firmly. "What's wrong, Jim?" she wondered aloud.
After everything she had willingly told him, he figured the least he could do was share his feelings of inadequacy with her. "I can't help it. I feel so damn guilty about everything." He ran a hand through his hair, agitating it. "I keep thinking about that night. I wish that I could turn back time and find you in the woods. It slays me to know that while you were out running for your life, I was hanging out at Mr. Maypenny's cabin, only a few short miles away." It gnawed at him, would continue to do so for a very long time to come. How could he have been enjoying himself with their friends when she was in such danger? "If only I had been able to find you sooner, Trixie, maybe I could have saved you from all the pain and the terror."
"But you did save me," she interrupted, confused.
"No, I didn't," he contradicted vehemently, believing in giving credit where it was due. "I tried but I lost. I hate the fact that I lost. It was Sergeant Molinson who ended up saving both of us."
"You have no idea." She stared into his eyes, astonished that he didn't have a clue how much he had helped her, how his mere presence had given her the courage to fight, or how he had bought the time they had needed for the sergeant eventually to find them. She didn't want to know what would have happened if Jim hadn't found her when he had. "You have no idea, Jim," she repeated, her words gaining strength in their volume. For a minute, she was back in the clearing, flat on her back with Britten hovering above her, and recalling how she had felt when he had announced his arrival. The relief had been mingled with joy and fear. And then there was the piercing green of eyes that had stared back at her, promising her salvation. She doubted if she would ever forget the sight of them. She started haltingly, hoping that she could alleviate the guilt that was smeared across his face, "When I heard your whistle…it was the sweetest sound I had ever heard. I almost couldn't believe it. I thought I had imagined it. Then, when I saw your face, I knew it was going to be all right. You weren't going to let anything bad happen to me. You never do."
"But I didn't stop it. Not this time." His hand traced the bruise on her face and then dipped lower, to touch her bruised and broken ribs. "Some bad things did happen to you."
She loved the feel of his hand on her waist. "It could have been a lot worse. I can deal with superficial bruising and a few minor broken bones. That's nothing. Maybe it will even help me remember to actually look before I leap." Her chuckle sounded normal while her blue eyes took on some of their missing sparkle. "What do you think?"
"You wouldn't be my Trixie if you weren't finding some new and unusual way of getting into trouble," Jim answered, relieved to see the smile on her face and to hear the laughter in her voice.
She colored at his words. My Trixie, she thought to herself, loving the sound of that. She hesitatingly touched his bandage, which went from his wrist to his elbow. "I'm not the only one who got hurt, Jim."
He knew better than to tell her that his injury didn't count. Only hers did. "It will heal, Trixie. There's nothing to worry about."
His words sounded suspiciously like hers. Smiling , she went to get the glasses of iced tea he had poured for them a while ago and brought them over to the table, noting that the ice had melted and that liquid felt lukewarm. "Are you hungry, Jim?" she asked again. Surveying the food, she released a small sigh. "I'm not sure how good it's going to taste. We may need to reheat the food again."
"Warm iced tea and cold chicken and macaroni and cheese," he answered, grinning at her, and putting the unpleasant subject to rest. "That sounds wonderful to me."
She sat down at her normal spot, her flush deepening when he chose to sit right next to her, especially when the rest of the spots at the large table were available. She handed him his plate. "You'll have to let me know how it tastes."
Jim took a bite of the now-cold chicken. "It's not that bad," he informed her after thoughtfully chewing it.
Surprised that her appetite had returned, especially after her meltdown in front of Jim , Trixie picked up the steak knife and started cutting into the meat, her demons appeased, and settled into a nice, quiet dinner with Jim. He was right. She really did feel better. Arching a look at him from under her lashes, she realized how grateful she was to him.
"We should lighten the mood a bit," Jim announced after a moment of companionable silence. He put down his fork and asked, "How about you tell me something I don't know about you?"
The fork hovered between her plate and her mouth. "You'll tell me something about you, then?" she inquired, intrigued by the idea. It could work and would certainly clear the heavy air between them.
He held up his fingers in the age-old Boy Scout pledge. "I promise. You can go first," he said invitingly.
"Thanks," she said with a sardonic roll of her eyes, deciding not to add that she had already told him more about herself than she had ever wanted to share. She had needed to tell him, she realized with a start. She swallowed her latest bite of lukewarm macaroni, and contemplated her answer, grateful that he had suggested something to lighten the mood. Settling on something she doubted he knew about her, she took a deep breath and began, "You may not know this."
He interrupted her with a chuckle and leaned back in his chair. "I have a feeling this is going to be good, Miss Belden."
She waved a forkful of chicken his way and chided him gently, "Now be polite. No interruptions, Mr. Frayne."
He saluted her this time. "No problem. Go to it, Trix."
Giggling, she explained softly, "It's a phobia I have, actually, all courtesy of my almost-twin. You see, when I was about four years old, Mart managed to convince me that there were ugly green monsters that lived under my bed. I was a little more gullible back then." She gave an exaggerated shudder, able to recall bits and pieces of that day very well. Her older brother had thoughtfully joined her in her bedroom, where she had been playing with a set of Lincoln logs. Mart had sat down and played with her nicely, much to her surprise, before he had elaborated on the monsters that lived under her bed.
It wasn't hard for him to picture. Kindergarten Mart, taking on pre-school Trixie. Sometimes he wished he could have met the Belden family well before they were attending the Junior-Senior High School. It would have made his childhood much more interesting. "I can easily see Mart doing that to you."
"It absolutely terrified me. I ran screaming for my mother. He laughed the entire time." She giggled. "I was scared to death of falling asleep for the longest time after that. My mother was furious with Mart when I finally told her why I didn't want to sleep in my bed so she suggested the best way to beat the 'monsters.'" She still couldn't believe she had been so naive, although Mart had always excelled at teasing her better than anyone she had ever encountered in her life. "Moms told me that all I had to do to be safe from Mart's monsters was to keep my feet covered when I slept. So, to this day, I still sleep with my feet covered."
"Why do you have to do that?" he questioned curiously.
"Not because I still believe in monsters!" she declared strongly, sending her curls flying with a shake of her head. Chuckling at the absurdity of her story, knowing that she was sharing a humorous weakness of hers, she continued, "I'm well aware that there aren't any monsters under my bed or in my closet. But I can't fall asleep if I don't have my feet covered up, either by socks or a blanket. I guess it's just habit." Shrugging her shoulder, she added, her intuition right on the money, "Mart would probably love to know that he's the cause of my phobia. I've never told him about it. He would never, and I mean never, let me live it down."
She didn't like to sleep without something on her feet. He filed away the information, aware that it could come in extremely handy at some point in the future, and cleared his throat to chase away the very appealing and sensual picture that came to his mind. "Very interesting, Trixie," he managed to get out, trying not to imagine her in bed, wearing only socks. He hastily scrambled for something else to say. "What did your mother do to Mart for telling you such a tale?"
"He wasn't able to watch Scooby Doo for an entire week," she answered with a short laugh, unaware of where his mind had gone. Mart's furious five year-old face sparked before her eyes. "Boy, was he mad! But he didn't tell me any scary stories for a long time to come. In fact, I can't think of the last time he told me one. He must have learned his lesson." She pushed away her plate and put her elbows on the table. "Now it's your turn. Tell me something that I don't know about you."
He was still fantasizing about the way she slept. But she wasn't in her bed in his imaginings. She was in his. And she wasn't exactly sleeping. A tell-tale flush crept across his face. He couldn't tell her that, just like there were a few choice, other things he wanted to tell her but couldn't. Not yet, not yet, his mind reminded him while he drew a blank. What else could he tell her? Nothing else popped out at him.
"Hello?" She nudged him in the shoulder. "Jim? You know one of my secrets. What's a deep, dark secret of yours?"
He blurted out the first thing that jumped out at him. "I almost punched Dan on the way down here."
Trixie drew back, her eyes as large as saucers, failing to picture it. "Why would you do something like that?"
Maybe it wasn't the best thing he could have told her. He could see the whirrings of her mind as she began to think it through and pondered the reasoning behind it. Rolling his eyes, he wondered why he couldn't have told her of his penchant for keeping his closet as organized as possible or the way he liked to color-code his assignments in his assignment book. "He can be as irritating as Mart is to you when he puts his mind to it."
Propping her chin in her hand, her food forgotten and that intrigued gleam that he knew so well to glinting in her eyes, she considered the information and decided that she would never have expected that from him. He had surprised her. Needing more, she not-so-gently prodded, "But what was he irritating you about? It would have to be something out of the ordinary, I presume."
He would have had to pick something extremely embarrassing to share with her. Other images of his childhood floated through his mind, taunting and laughing at him. Why couldn't he have told her about going fishing with his father or learning how to bake a cake from scratch with his mother? Too late now, he thought sarcastically. "I can't tell you why. Yet," he hedged, gritting his teeth.
"The 'yet' saved you," Trixie informed him smartly. She would give him that much. He deserved it for all the support he had given her. "Okay, Jim. When can you tell me?"
An idea came to him with a blinding flash of insight. Inspired, he suggested carefully, trying his best not to let her see how important her answer was to him, "How about we meet at Ten Acres after your graduation ceremony? I'll be glad to tell you why then."
She pursed her lips while her eyes slitted together, unsure if she could hold back her curiosity that long. "That's, like, a month away," she protested.
"No, it's not. It's only twenty-five days away," he corrected her automatically, then groaned inwardly when he realized how much he had given away and prayed that she hadn't caught on.
Calculating the remaining days in her mind, she answered, stunned that he was correct, "You're right." Drawing her eyebrows together, she studied him closely. "Why on earth would you know the amount of days until my high school graduation?"
"Honey's been counting down the days," he lied without a qualm and then shrugged his shoulder, hoping that she would let the subject drop. Trying not to let her see how important her answer was to him, he asked again, "What do you think? You'll meet me at Ten Acres after we get back from your graduation ceremony?"
"Oh, yeah," she responded swiftly. "You can tell me what happened between you and Dan then." She also wasn't about to turn down any time alone with him. Blue eyes peeped over the top of her glass before she coyly informed him, "You know, I could probably weasel it out of Dan, right? He's a very good friend of mine. He would only be too glad to tell me what happened between the two of you."
"That wouldn't be fair or half as fun," Jim remarked idly, secure in the code that bonded the male friends together. Dan wouldn't rat him out, he knew it, no matter how hard Trixie tried to push him. "Plus, I seriously doubt if Dan would tell you. He'd probably only refer you to me instead."
Grinning at him, she gave in with as much grace as she could. "You win, Jim!" She laughed delightedly. "Although how I'll ever be able to make it twenty-five days without knowing why you wanted to do bodily harm to Dan is beyond me." She stressed the number with a note of glee to her voice, giggling at his expense. "Someone would think it was your graduation and not mine."
Twenty-five days. Twenty-five days. It ran like a mantra through his mind. He would finally be liberated. Reaching out, he tapped her shoulder and suggested helpfully, "You can practice patience between now and then. If you need lessons, I'll be glad to teach you how to do that." He didn't know how good of a teacher he would be if she took him up on his offer. His supply of patience was running a bit thin.
Smiling happily up at him, she leaned back in her chair. "Thanks again, Jim. You've given me something to look forward to besides an endless round of final homework assignments and the dreaded final exams."
"No problem." He casually draped an arm around her shoulder and let it rest there. Touching her was becoming a necessity to him. "I aim to please."
She rested her head on his arm without thinking, becoming extremely used to the feel of him, and groaned at the dishes in front of them. "We should probably start cleaning up," she murmured, not making a move to start the endless chore.
"In a minute. I'm content to stay right here." And he was. Jim squeezed her shoulder tighter and stared down at the mass of tempting blonde curls. Their connection was getting stronger and stronger. He wondered why she hadn't brought it up. He knew she felt it, as surely as he did. He had seen it reflected on her face numerous times over the past week. She wasn't used to keeping her suspicions bottled up for long. But he didn't say anything, only kept his arm around her, and reveled in the knowledge that their time would be coming, faster than he had thought it possibly could. Ten Acres. On graduation day. It was the perfect place.
