Be forewarned…several pages of excessive mushiness, but not unnecessary lol. It will start to make more sense, or be put into a new light if you will, as the story progresses. I'm not totally going on blind faith here.
Long chapter; felt inspired during English a couple of days ago, came home, and wrote a whole mess of stuff. I love those days, don't you? Anyway, delayed posting in the hope that you might actually believe I have a life outside of fan fiction (which I do, I swear, its just that this is more entertaining…)
Go forth and read.
Enjoy!
Chapter FiveAfter riding all day without so much as a bathroom break, I was beginning to get a little antsy to get off those camels. The damn things smelled funny and the rocking sensation was making me sick to my stomach. Not to mention the fact that I was a little bored and a little anxious to get camp set up before dark. The hint of dusk on the horizon made me finally decide to stop.
Picking a spot close to the river, I jumped off my camel and landed with a thud in the sand. As I was scanning the surrounding area, my hands on my hips, Evy and her brother came up and paused their camels behind mine.
"Are we stopping O'Connell?"
I nodded slowly. "Yeah, this looks like a good a spot as any."
Jonathan breathed a loud sigh of relief and was instantly off his transportation. Grumbling about something, he shot me an annoyed look and then ran behind a bunch of inland reeds on the store.
Gross. I did not want to witness what he was definitely going to do. Shaking my head, I went over to where Evy's camel was and held out my arms for her. To my surprise, her nose shot up in the air and she swung her legs over to the other side, jumping off opposite of where I was. Grabbing her book out of a little bag, she scampered off angrily.
I stood there, dumbfounded, scratching my head as I watched her walk off. What the hell had that been about?
"So what now?"
Jonathan's voice broke through my thoughts and I turned slowly to look at him.
"What?"
"What do we do now?"
God, I had bigger problems right now then his incompetence to take charge of anything. Course, I had told him not to think he was in charge. Great.
"Ah, help me unload this stuff. We'll set up a couple of tents of the night and then I'll get dinner started."
It took us a while to actually get this done. First of all, Jonathan seems to have the same innate clumsiness that Evy has down to an art. Twice he had brought one of the almost-ready tents crashing to the ground. Second of all, he was just plain lazy. He wouldn't carry anything unless it weight about as much as a pin and complained when I would tell him was going to have to.
And third, Evy wouldn't help. John and I both tried asking her politely, a little more sternly, and then finally yelling at her to help. I just got a cold stare, Jonathan at least got a "You're handling it just fine."
And so, it took twice as long to set up and it was dark when we finally did. It got cold too. Out here, towards winter, the temperature can drop like a hat in a matter of an hour. We were all standing around the fire, trying to keep warm. Well, Evy was still sitting on her ass, reading a book, while Jonathan and I were standing around cooking dinner and trying to keep warm. Actually, a can of soup was more like it; hardly dinner, but still food. As I stirred the grub over the open fire, my arm carefully posed so not to get burned, I kept one eye on Evy.
Sitting across the flame, her eyes caught a little of the glow every time they inched upward. When she saw me looking at her, they would fall again, scanning over the words. Hypocrite. She looked cold in her flimsy blouse and skirt, but she was trying to make it look as if she wasn't by sitting far away from the fire- the fire I had made. Every so often, her delicate hand would run over the pages of the book, come to rest on the corner and then the page would turn over delicately. I don't have to tell you what this did to me inside. I wanted to be that book.
But at the same time, I wanted to make her suffer the way she was making me suffer. Sighing, my eyes went to the soup and I stopped stirring as I watched for any signs that it was getting close to boiling. Nothing, not even a tiny bubble. My eyes returned to Evy. She was shivering. I wanted to run over there and put my arms around her, give her the shirt off my back…possibly do other things that would keep us both warm. But I was pretty sure she would kick me- hard- in places that I wouldn't like.
Jesus, it was like all those nights coming home from Hampunaptra; not knowing how far was to far. At least then she had been talking to me. Now my own wife wouldn't even look at me.
I still couldn't figure out why she was pissed. I hadn't accidentally sworn lately, I hadn't left my shoes in the middle of the entryway, I hadn't done a lot of things she usually got on me about. And, I'd agreed to come out here with her. What was the big deal?
"Rick?"
I didn't hear Jonathan the first time. But the second time, when he hit me over the head simultaneously, I heard, and felt, him.
"What the hell do you want?" I asked, annoyed, as I turned my attention from my pissed off wife to my pissed off looking brother in law.
Jonathan was standing with his hands on his hips, looking down at me. "You going to let that burn?" he asked, pointing to the soup.
I immediately looked down to find I had stopped stirring the soup and now it was boiling…over the pot and into the fire. And it was hot! I jumped up, said some things that would have given Evy every right to be angry, and pulled the pot away, setting it down in the sand with another curse.
"Burned my damn hand!" I yelled to no one in particular, mostly just to hear myself say it. "Damn it!" I whisked the injured hand back and forth quickly, resisting the urge to run down to the river and dunk it in. I wasn't about to be a baby over something like this.
When the pain finally began to subside, I looked around to find a slightly angry looking Jonathan and a bewildered Evy, who was sitting there with her mouth halfway open. She seemed to have forgotten not wanting me to catch her looking as she stared from her position, the book lowered to her lap.
"I'm fine," I grumbled to both of them. Jonathan gave me a strange look and then went about filling three tin bowls with the damn soup. I wasn't in the mood now, but my stomach told me otherwise as I began to dive in. The hot food felt good against the cold and after the long day. I almost didn't notice how Jonathan brought one bowl back, almost, but not quite.
"Is Evy not eating?" I asked my brother in law in a hushed tone as he sat back down beside me.
Jonathan shrugged and began eating his dinner. "She said she's feeling under the weather," he offered after a few spoonfuls.
Sick my ass. She looked perfectly fine to me, as I sat starting at her again. She kept her nose in that damn book and was killing me every time she turned a page without looking up to see if I was still watching. Screw this; I was going to go find out what the hell she was mad about.
Setting my bowl down harshly, I jumped up and stalked over to where she was. She looked at me in shock as I pulled her up by her arm and started pulling her off.
"What do you think you doing?" she demanded, hitting me with her book.
I didn't answer her, tried to ignore the pounding on my arm, and led her about ten yards away from where Jonathan was, close to the Nile. When we stopped and I let go of her, she stared at me with a very pissed looking expression.
"What the hell is this about?" I asked before she could start in on one of her yelling fits.
"You know perfectly well," Evy said harshly, folding her arms over her chest and giving me that same angry look.
At least she was talking to me without hitting me. "Ah, no, I don't."
"Yes you do."
"No, I don't!" I roared. I could see it already; this was going to turn into one of those little battle of the wills that she would probably win if I didn't keep my head clear.
She gave me another lethal stare, which I had to admit, was a little sexy. It didn't help that she was standing there shivering, her hair wildly framing her face, her chest heaving up and down….
Wow.
Focus O'Connell! Remember that clear head thing?
"Look, Evy," I gently took her by the shoulders, despite her resistance, and held her firmly in front of me. "What did I do?"
She didn't say anything for a long minuet. A very long minute. Then finally she sighed. And burst into tears.
What in the hell?
First of all, Evy hardly ever cried. Second of all, she didn't cry over stuff like this when she did. I didn't really know what to do, so I just stood there. This went on for a good couple of minutes before she started to spill her guts. "You were being so harsh earlier," she chocked out between sobs. "I don't care if you don't want to be here Rick, but at least be a little civilized about it."
Oh God, was that was this was about. Jesus Christ. Wow. Talk about your hormonal issues. Geez. Ohh, but this was not good. I hadn't meant to be mean; I really didn't know how long it was going to take us. And I figured it was funny when I sped up. Oh God. What an asshole.
"Evy, look," I began, carefully moving closer to my wife, who was still sobbing her poor little heart out. "I- I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be like that."
She started crying harder. Geez! What was I suppose to do now? I just waited, running my hands nervously through my hair.
"You don't want to do anything with me," she sobbed, covering her face with her hands, making it even harder for me to understand her. "I was okay with that until you started acting like it was the end of the world! I thought this would be fun; something we could do together. I've been spending so much time at work lately…I feel like we don't even know-"
Her words gave way to complete sobs and she never finished her sentence. Oh man, now I really felt like an idiot. Is that was she thought? "Evy," I whispered her name softly before gently placing my arm around her slender waist, my hand resting in the small of her back. This seemed to calm her a little bit, but she kept breathing erratically and every few moments she would sob loudly.
"Honey, I-" I didn't know what to say to her. I hated confrontations like this. Usually, I just let my actions speak for me. But I had a hunch those weren't going to work very well- right now at least. I was going to have to try to talk to her in that whole mushy type way.
"Look, its not that I don't want…I do, I do want to do stuff with you."
Brilliant O'Connell.
"I just- its just that, well, this isn't exactly my idea of…ya know…relaxed fun."
Somewhere in the course of the last two statements I had pulled her closer and, to my surprise, she hadn't pulled away. She had stopped crying, which was a good thing, except for now she wasn't saying anything at all. And the silence was almost too much.
"It's just, uh, I, I…worry about you, ya know? It's dangerous out here. And I don't want anything to happen to you. Cuz, um, I kinda like ya."
That had to be going under the dumbest lines of all time. I kinda like ya? She was my wife and I couldn't even admit that I was head over heals in love with her, even when she was upset and thinking that I didn't want to be around her. Sighing to myself, I pulled her closer, crushing her body against mine. I felt her relax and she gently wrapped her arms around my waist, hugging me close.
"I'm sorry," I whispered at the base of her ear, kissing the lobe softly.
Evelyn didn't say anything, just made a couple of little sniffling sounds and buried her head against my chest. I held her for a long time, relishing the comforting sensation of her body snuggled up against mine. Her quiet sounds soon gave way to silence and for a while she just stood there, holding on to me tightly. Rocking her back and froth soothingly, I tired to keep my mouth shut, knowing any further words on my part would completely ruin the moment. At last, I heard her hoarse voice piecing through the night.
"I'm sorry as well Rick. I didn't mean to overreact like I did. "
Her face turned towards mine, tear stains blotching her red face. I softly kissed them away and then tenderly kissed the top of her forehead, right below her hairline.
"I appreciate what you said, about wanting to protect me," she went on as I continued my exploration of her familiar facial curves. She paused for a moment, allowing me to trace a moist line from the base of her neck up across the bottom of her chin and around the side, following her jaw line. "Are you angry with me?" she asked huskily after another minute or so.
Little tease. She knew I wasn't. I broke away from my progressive assault on her neck and brought my head up to look at her.
"Ah, no," was the best thing I could come up with at that particular moment. You see, I wasn't exactly thinking clearly, my mind too focused on kissing her again…everywhere this time. I wanted to go back to work on her neck, maybe move to her mouth; slowly and tantalizingly take in her entire body.
I think my wife must be a mind reader; leisurely (and painfully, for your information) she moved against me and finally I saw her break into that winning smile.
"Would you like to go talk for a while?"
"Talk?" my voice, squeaking as it had a habit of doing, croaked out. Talking was definitely not what my body wanted to do right now. Eh, I take that back. It was, if this talking also involved being stripped down and…
Woah, going too far in the mental images. As I was shaking my head in attempt to be rid of those pictures, I felt my tormenter leave me and when I looked again, she was sauntering off towards camp.
Ya know? If I didn't know better, I would have swore she was planning that the whole time. The whole damn time.
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