Chapter Six: Final Details

Olivia

You didn't tell me exactly when you'd be back. You said a couple of weeks, but Today is February 3rd and you still haven't appeared. Elliot was shocked. I'm not sure if he was more surprised about my revelations at lunch, or if it was that you were coming back. Either way he was quiet on the drive back. I didn't bother trying to fill the silence. He has his own things to think about right now. And as frustrated as I've been that he hasn't confided in me about Kathy and the kids, being on the outside of his life has taught me a few things. Besides that I'm still reeling from the Patterson case. I can't get the vic and her girlfriend out of my head. It's been three weeks and we still can't convince Sophie to testify. She's so afraid her family will find out she's gay that she's willing to let her rapists go free to protect her secret. I can't say I don't understand her reasoning, although the idea of those three morons going free makes me sick.

Every time the doors swing open I feel my head whipping up, hoping it will be you. Yesterday Novak was on the receiving end of a very nasty look that left her looking confused and offended. I almost wanted to apologize. (almost) After three weeks our conversation is fuzzy in my head. I wasn't exactly awake in the first place, and time has smudged some of the other details. But I know you're coming, I'm sure it's not a dream, and I've spent this time getting ready. I've made some decisions, made some changes. Taken care of some final details.

I painted the kitchen last weekend. Which I know will crack you up. It was the one room I refused to let you redo. Actually, if I recall, I refused to let you redo any of my rooms. Repeatedly. Until you gave me that look. That damn doe-eyed look you saved especially for me. I never could refuse that look. But I put my foot down at the kitchen.

"C'mon Liv! You let me do the rest of them!"

"Yeah, and now my bedroom is purple!" I shot you a look, steeling myself against those baby blues. I know what's coming and I need to be prepared.

"But picture it babe, a gorgeous golden yellow. It'll go perfectly with the blue in the living room—like a sunrise!"

"A sunrise? At the end of a hard night, I don't want to come home to a sunrise."

"But now it looks like a tomb!"

"No it doesn't! I let you paint the living room blue!" But only because you picked the exact color of your eyes. Not that I'll ever tell you that. Well, maybe I will when you come back.

For once you found you couldn't persuade me and my kitchen stayed dirty-white. I decided that this was going to be my first real project. An immediate way to show you I've changed. Last week I dug through the drawers, found the paint sample sticks you'd left on your side of the bed. I ran my fingers over the bumpy samples, remembering the excitement on your face as you showed me the sticks—you'd spent hours having the hardware store mix and dip samples so I could see what they'd look like dry. You tricked me with the purple, did the living room first, then the bathroom. I trusted you after that… you managed to get my approval on the bedroom without showing me the sampler.

I can't help but smile at the way your eyes twinkled when I saw the room for the first time. I wanted to kill you. I'm just not a lilac kind of girl. But you are. And when I turned to confront you, the nervous, expectant look in your eyes melted me.

"I know its not… you really. But I couldn't help it. I saw the comforter first, then the curtains. All the fabrics were so rich, so dark. I knew you'd love them. But I didn't want the room to be dark… that was the whole point of the redo in the first place. So I went with a lighter purple on the walls."

"You and your damn doe eyes," I said, pretending to be disgusted.

"What do I and my damn doe eyes have to do with your new bedroom?"

"You tricked me. With that… that look! That damn doe-eyed look you get. The one I can't manage to say no to!"

"What look?" The corners of your mouth turn down a little, you widen your eyelids, bat your eyelashes, ever so subtly…

"THAT LOOK!" I can only feign frustration for a minute. "Oh forget it. Well Counselor? Shall we give the room a fair trial before we throw out the verdict?" I turn to face you full on, looking up through my eyelashes, then top it all off with a wink. You know the look well. It's the one that you can't say no to.

I walked in the kitchen with the sampler sticks, holding the yellows on the wall that splits between the living room and the kitchen. I look at the stick next to the blue, and next to the white, trying to decide. I'm not good at this. I'm not good at the whole, girly-homebody-decorating thing. That's why my apartment stayed white for so many years. Why my dinner table was a folding card table. One chair, old loveseat, no TV. Until you came along. Now all of a sudden I'm trying to decide between 'golden amber', and 'gentle buttercup'—Who comes up with these names!

I pitch golden amber, deciding it looks too much like a good frosty beer… something I don't need to be constantly reminded of and head out to the paint store to pick up a gallon of buttercup. And some white for the cabinet doors. Goodbye white and brown, hello yellow and white.

So now the kitchen is yellow, the way you wanted it. I even pitched in and bought new hardware. Silver handles and drawer pulls. I bought a new microwave, since I actually was tired of jamming a spatula in the old one to close it. And a new coffeemaker and grinder… just for you. In case you need coffee in the morning.

I shake my head. "Getting ahead of yourself Liv. Keep it together. Stay out of the clouds." But I can't help myself. After two years I still reach for you in the morning. I still wake up surprised at the cold emptiness that greets me in the place where you should be. I can't help but think, for the millionth time, that I should have made you stay with me the night Donovan died. Maybe if we'd been together the next night… we could have called in… skipped the party. We'd have been dining at home, in my apartment, or in your loft. The only walk would have been from kitchen to bedroom. There's no place for a shooter in that walk.

The fact that it wouldn't have mattered if they shot you then or later doesn't stick in my mind. Because all I want is to see you again, to try and make it right. To try and make you stay.

Alex

Tomorrow. Tomorrow. Tomorrow. I've been pacing my living room, unable to contain my nerves, my excitement, and I know it would amuse you to know it… my hormones. It's been two years since I held you in my arms, since I felt the softness of your hand in the small of my back, pulling me in. I know you'll have assumed I found someone else, it's what you do. I'm sure you've "awful-ized" yourself into a proper fit about my relationship prospects since I left. I know the way your imagination works. You've probably worked into a proper depression imagining new girlfriends, or knowing your insecurities in a way no-one else would understand… imagining me with a boyfriend. You never could believe me when I said there'd never be anyone else.

Hammond dropped by, and nearly shot me when he saw what I'd done to my hair. I should have left it but I couldn't stand the idea of you not recognizing me. My own awful-izing I suppose, the idea that you wouldn't notice me this way. I hate the look of this boxed red hair next to my skin… don't like the green contacts the Feds thought would complete an "Irish" look. If I'd had my way, I'd have gone for brown hair with brown contacts… but no-one asked me. I bought the hair dye after trying 4 times to sneak away from my security detail and into a salon. The 4th time Hammond himself showed up to stop me.

"Its not safe, Miss Regis." His tone, as always was serious. And I have to stop myself from screaming at him.

"Valez is dead. His assassin is in custody. The entire branch of his cartel is wiped out. And I can't loosen up enough to at least get back my natural hair-color? Give me a break Hammond. It's just a goddamn haircolor!" He steered me away from the salon and I climbed reluctantly into my car, aware that he followed closer behind me than usual. At least this time I managed not to call him a "fascist."

And I didn't cut it. He probably would have shot me if he'd shown up to find the same old Cabot cut on top of the blonde-boxed dye. He should be thrilled… I kept my contacts on. I wonder what you'll think of this new do. I wonder what you'll think of the new glasses I'm hiding from Hammond. I wonder what you'll think of me.

I'm pacing the room again. Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow. Jeez, now I sound like Macbeth. What's next, "Out out damn spot?" Or how about Hamlet? "To sleep perchance to dream…" You always hated my propensity for quoting Shakespeare. At least until I quoted that sonnet… the silly one. That's what you called it… "do the silly sonnet." You'd look up at me with that shine in your eyes, and I always broke down.

"My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;

Coral is far more red, than her lips red:

If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;

If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

I have seen roses damasked, red and white,

But no such roses see I in her cheeks;

And in some perfumes is there more delight

Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know

That music hath a far more pleasing sound:

I grant I never saw a goddess go,

My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:

And yet by heaven, I think my love as rare,

As any she belied with false compare."

You'd start laughing about halfway through, tickled to find something so 'real' in Shakespeare.

And on that first night, our first night. You begged me to recite it again.

"Please, Alex… I have a surprise for you. Just recite the sonnet. And be serious this time! Last time you laughed harder than I did. You have to be dignified."

I started my recitation as you treated me to a moving interpretation of the versus. Then you made me laugh, pursing your lips, mussing your hair, you'd take a deep breath in and then pinch your nose, hit a few off-key notes and then cover your ears. You pranced around the room as I tried to recite with dignity, finally kneeling in front of me at the foot of the bed, and kissing my hand most genteelly at the final lines. Somehow all the levity of the moment vanished in that instant, as I stared down at your kneeling form. There was still a twinkle in your eyes, but something else too. You rose off your knees and kissed me as I sat at the end of my bed.

The force of your mouth meeting mine pushes me back, until we're lying there together, your weight settled comfortably into the dips and curves of my body. I'm lost in you, as usual… the scent of your hair drowns my senses and I feel my body responding to your tender advances. I know you can feel my heat as I return your kiss, letting my tongue play lightly on your lips, asking permission, waiting for the invitation of your open mouth. I fumble with your overshirt, gently trying to open the first few buttons, then giving up and popping the rest. You massage my tongue in your mouth and I feel as though I might explode with each new sensation.

I fumble with your belt as you pause our kiss. Lifting yourself off me ever so slightly, without totally breaking our contact, you settle back, straddling me with your legs bent at the knee, calves behind you. With one hand you stroke my cheek, and with the other, you take my hand and help me unclasp your belt, undoing the button and zipper at the same time. You dip back to kiss me again, and I welcome you as you press your tongue into my mouth, dancing with my own. You leave a space between our upper bodies now, arching out your back to dip your head into me and keep contact in a kiss as you use your free hand to undo my slacks. You're far more adept at this than I am.

In the blink of an eye my slacks and underwear lay in a heap on the floor beside the bed, and as you pull away from me you take my shirt with you, adding it to the pile. I find myself at a disadvantage, left in only my bra while you straddle me, shirt and pants unbuttoned but still on. It's my turn to be in charge. I pull you back down to me, and take advantage of my extra few inches of leg to reverse our positions. Now I straddle you, pulling at your jeans and underwear, then pulling off your now-ruined button down shirt and slowly teasing your t-shirt off your body. They join the stack of clothes on the floor and I go a step further than you were able to. I kiss you again, and pull you up to me, working my arms around you, slyly unhooking your bra… a perfect match to your sky blue t-shirt. I wouldn't have figured you for the matching bra type. As I break my contact with your lips I pull the straps down your shoulders, leaving a trail of kisses down your arm, reveling in the goose-bumps I leave in my wake. I drop it on the floor with the rest of our clothes, noticing something I didn't see before… your underwear matches too. I can't help but giggle, at this unexpectedly girly side of you.

I don't get to enjoy the moment long before you take over again. You shift in the bed, sitting up with me in your lap you mimic my movements and remove my cotton-white bra, then I watch you lean back and take in your first unobstructed view of me. I love that look in your eyes. Lust and Love and Desire all mix in those deep deep chocolates, and I know I'll never forget the way you looked at me that first time.