Something as Simple as This
In which Lily and Ethan realise they are more alike than they thought. Sometimes, it's the little things that make a relationship right, like being geeky and somewhat proud of it. (There is some French towards the end of this, I will translate it of course, but it seemed important at the time of writing!)
Ethan led his girlfriend into his living room, his cheeks growing warm. He was seeing it through her eyes, and he was suddenly embarrassed by the bookshelves crammed with volumes on anything and everything and the fiction books which barely fitted in their allotted places. Involuntarily, he cringed when his eyes fell on the piano, sheet music messily scattered in the stand and in little piles on the top of the meant-to-be-beautiful instrument.
Lily picked up on his malaise at once. "What's the matter?" she asked, squeezing his hand gently and pulling him towards her. She hoped that it wasn't her stunned silence which had upset him. In truth, she'd never seen another house quite as like hers as this one.
"This place," he explained, "it's so untidy, and so full of stuff… I bet your place looks nothing like this." He was ashamed – at work he always put on this façade of meticulous perfectionism, and yet at home he was nothing of the sort. His brain was just as wild and untidy as anyone else's, maybe more so because of all the things he tried to keep in there.
"My place," Lily began, "looks exactly like this."
Ethan let out a low whistle of a sigh, relief evident from even the way he was standing. Perhaps his assumption that her apartment was a minimalist paradise wasn't quite as correct as he had thought.
Lily went on. "Well, not exactly, because I'm pretty jealous of how many books you have…" She paused, her eyes settling on the piano. A smile spread across her face, and she bit her bottom lip lightly, failing to conceal her joy. "And I play the cello, not the piano. My sheet music looks just like that, too." She nodded to the haphazard piles of paper, and looked back at Ethan, who had a look of quiet triumph on his face.
She wanted to explore this room, uncover every little secret; it was like walking around Ethan's mind. Letting go slowly of Ethan's hand, so that he could easily stop her if he wasn't happy, Lily tilted her head towards the bookcase and waited for his nod of approval before heading over there. She examined the books at eye-level first, noticed the total lack of organisation, then sat cross-legged on the floor to look more closely at the books at the bottom. So far, she'd spotted a wide array of genres and authors, the organisation of which was atrocious at best. Historical fiction, next to fantasy, beside crime and mystery, interspersed with history books on medicine through time, the Titanic and the Second World War. The best way to get to know a person, she realised, was to carefully inspect their collection of books. There were post-it notes poking out of some of the volumes, and Lily longed to read them all, but now was not the time.
Her fingertips still brushing the leather spine of a collected works of Arthur Conan Doyle, she turned back to look at Ethan, who was standing awkwardly in the middle of the room as if he didn't know where he belonged in his own house. Lily looked away from him quickly. "Sorry. Who knew something as simple as this would turn me into such a terrible guest?"
"Don't be sorry!" Ethan replied at once. "It's good to be in the company of someone who likes books as much as I do. It's kind of... wonderful, actually." He walked over and knelt beside her.
"There are just so many different books here, it's no wonder you have such an infinite supply of general knowledge," she said, with a hint of admiration.
"I can't help it," Ethan said, semi-apologetically. "The whole universe interests me."
Lily smiled warmly. "What are you reading at the moment?" she asked, extending her hand out to rest it on Ethan's knee.
"Um," Ethan stalled, kneeling a little higher and looking at the shelf at his eye-level. He made careful thinking noises as he tapped each book in turn, with, Lily noticed, a piano player's rhythm and precision. "There," he said eventually, his index finger resting on a well-worn paperback. "Last Seen Wearing, by Colin Dexter. Inspector Morse."
Lily's eyes followed where Ethan was looking. She stifled a gasp as she realised that not all of the titles were in English. All of books surrounding Last Seen Wearing were in French. She tapped a couple of them to draw Ethan's attention. "You speak French, then? You're full of surprises."
Ethan's ears turned pink. "Mon frère ne pense pas que ce soit le cas," he muttered bitterly, before he could stop himself. (My brother does not think that this is the case.)
"C'est pas toujours important, l'opinion de ton frère," Lily replied, pressing a little harder on Ethan's knee to pull him out of his head for a moment. (Your brother's opinion is not always important.) she watched Ethan's jaw drop in surprise, before continuing. "Moi aussi, peut-être je suis plein de surprises." (Maybe I'm also full of surprises.)
Given that they were outright speaking the language of love, it shouldn't have been a surprise to either of them that they kissed; gently, nervously, cautiously, then passionately. Hands interlocked, books temporarily forgotten, but this moment always to be remembered. The whole universe, it seemed, interested them both, especially when they were together.
The quote "The whole universe interests me" was originally by George Brecht, but when I first came across it, I could only hear it in Ethan's voice.