Act 17: Sara

I'm startled when a pair of hands unexpectedly land on my waist; I have a split second to turn around and see Catherine grinning widely before feeling her lips on mine.

I cup her face, losing a hand in her hair, in return she pulls me closer to her; her hold on my waist is firm forbidding me to go anywhere – not that I had any intention to.

Kissing Catherine is… like dropping an incandescent match into a barrel full of powder. Every time is different, and explosive, and mind blowing, and just… wow.

My heart is beating frantically in my ribcage like it was trying to fly out of my chest, my guts are burning with an indescribable energy, and I'm amazed at my ability to stand because my knees do feel weak.

I can't help the tiny moan bubbling in my throat when her tongue teases mine, my knees buckle and I lose a bit of equilibrium, lucky me there's a counter right behind, I gladly lean on it never breaking the contact with Cath.

She pulls back, panting, and rests her head against mine. "I've been waiting to do that all day," she whispers with a smile that is matched by my own.

We have kissed a dozen of times ever since our first kiss two weeks ago; I've learnt that a) I'm addicted to her lips; b) it's an incredible experience enjoyed by every fibre of my being; and c) I want to do it all the time.

As a matter of fact I lean in for an encore, the small noise of appreciation she makes as I suck on her bottom lip makes my head spin; her hands clench my sides as our kiss deepens. She pulls back to give me an Eskimo kiss and I'm suddenly very self-conscious about my appearance.

"Sorry," the word passes my lips on its own volition.

Catherine tilts her head back a little and looks at me with confusion. "I'm not sure how I'm supposed to take this," she chuckles. "You're sorry you kissed me?"

"No, no, no," I reply hastily. "I'm sorry, I'm still kind of sweaty right now."

"I don't remember complaining," she smiles lazily and bites her bottom lip, my stomach makes a back flip at the vision. "You were awesome this afternoon," she says before kissing me again.

Today there was a tournament at Lindsey's school. It was a bit like Olympian games, the kids are supposed to make a team with at least an adult, Nancy hurt her wrist and Catherine was on call, since she didn't know if she'd be free by the time it started I offered to join the boys and Lindsey. The games were physical – to be honest it was hard to keep up for some of them and I consider myself athletic. We had a lot of fun and the kids are happy because we didn't finish dead last, we ended in third place which wasn't bad considering who we were up against.

"You know," she continues in between kisses. "It was hot to see you in effort, in those shorts and shirt," her chortle reverbs in my mouth as she's kissing me deeply again. "So you see…" for the first time her lips wanders on my jaw "You being sweaty is kind of a turn on right now," her lips are brushing my neck and the shiver running down my spine is so intense and sudden that I tense up a bit.

Catherine stops immediately and looks at me shyly, I can feel her about to apologize but I stop her with a passionate kiss, she moans in surprise but returns the attention just as fervently.

We only pull apart when there are knocks on the door. "Are you two done making out? I have four teenagers in need of sugar so I need to come in to get some snacks since you're taking ages to do the job, and I really could do without any inappropriate visuals," says Nancy.

"Go away," Catherine laughs a bit, then resumes kissing me.

"Right, let me rephrase that, there are four teenagers in need of sugar in the living room and they are seconds away from demanding my blood."

Catherine pulls away, rests her head on my shoulder and sighs. "Fine, come in."

Nancy enters in the small room Catherine uses to store her food supplies, takes a look at us and rolls her eyes. Catherine doesn't bother stepping away from me which results with me blushing profusely.

"Right, you can resume your debate about quantum physics now," Nancy smirks as she exits the room with three packs of biscuits.

We are alone again but the spell has been broken. "I should probably get back there and give her hand to handle the beasts," Catherine jokes.

I rest my forehead against hers. "And I should go take a shower."

She sighs deeply and finally lets go of me; the withdrawal effect is immediate and realizing that I might not get a chance to kiss her for several hours I give into my next impulse as she's walking to the door. I grab her wrist in one swift movement I turn her around, pull her to me and crash my lips against hers; I kiss her like there was no tomorrow. When I pull back her eyes are glazed over and she sways a bit as if destabilized.

She works her mouth but can't form a word; she blinks several times then shakes her head and just smiles. I'm a bit proud to have kissed her stupid, and for once I'm not the one speechless, that's a nice change.

I exit the room with a silly grin on my lips; I think a cold shower will be more than welcomed.

When I come back in the living room feeling as fresh as the morning rose I'm surprised to find myself alone.

"Feeling better?"

As always when Nancy ambushes me my stomach ties itself into a knot.

"Yeah," I reply with a shy grin.

She anticipates my next question. "They went to the mall, something about t-shirts, then they'll go to the grocery store because they want to cook a dessert to celebrate your third place."

"Cool."

There's something about Nancy that impairs my speech skills; words suddenly vanish from my mind and I become this monosyllabic moron.

"You can help me prepare the dinner."

It's only four in the afternoon but I know that Catherine and Nancy like to get a large head start to condition the vegetables so that when they do prepare dinner it doesn't take long, something about teenager's lack of patience and big appetite.

"Sure."

I shouldn't feel nervous by now, I mean Nancy knows I'm seeing Catherine, and because Catherine likes to spend time with her sister I spend a lot of time with Nancy by extension, yet whenever we're alone I feel like I was facing the gallows.

"I'm going to peel the carrots, you can cut them in little dice, is that good with you?" she asks moving around the kitchen and taking out what we need.

"Yeah."

We start on our tasks in silence once we both cleaned our hands.

"Today was fun," she gets back on track.

"Yeah."

"In any case, you looked like you were having as much fun if no more than the children."

"I was."

"Wow, did you just use two words in a row?" she looks at me with exaggerated surprise. "I never knew you could be that chatty."

I chuckle nervously. Maybe if I focus enough on those carrots I'll manage to ignore her intent stare.

"You do realize that I don't eat people, right?"

"That thought alone hardly make your ambushes any more pleasant," I retort without thinking. Sure, Sidle, shoot yourself in the foot that always helps.

Nancy laughs good-heartedly "And we have a full sentence, a witty one at that. I am impressed."

"I'm good like that," I decide to go with it and brace myself for what is to come. It just occurred to me that she probably won't stop ambushing me until I bare my teeth to her.

"You call them ambushes, I see this as a way to get to know you better," she shrugs with a grin.

"Oh… so that's what you're doing, getting to know me?" I can't hep my caustic tone. "You could have fooled me what with the constant yet subtle criticism and barbs."

"Admit that you don't make it easy. It took you that long to react."

"I take it that in your vocabulary 'getting to know me' translates as 'testing my reflexes and resistance'."

"You take it whichever way you like best," she replies, her grin still firmly in place.

"Evidently, I keep failing those secret tests of character of yours, because you don't like me very much, if at all."

Her ever so present grin vanishes immediately and her expression turns serious. "You're dating my sister, Sara, it's not my job to like you," she says firmly.

I thought she was scary before, but as it turns out she was playing nice.

Oh boy…

Unlike her sister, Nancy has a quiet temper; she's always in a genuine good mood as if nothing in this world could ever corrode her positivity. From my observation of her interaction with Catherine, I've come to learn that she's generous, affectionate, always steady, ready to carry any burden on her shoulders, attentive. She's like a little ball of sunshine able to illuminate a room with her bubbly personality.

However when the steam is reversed – like right now for instance, the coldness radiating from her chills your bones, not unlike Catherine on that aspect.

"You have a problem with me seeing your sister?" I square my shoulders and stand as tall as possible, I don't care if she's Catherine's sister, I'm not going to let her dictate or spoil what Catherine and I have.

"I didn't say such a thing," she states with a small shake of her head.

"In that case I don't get what the problem is."

"My sister is someone great, she has a piggy character but she's great. However, when it come to choose people to date she's a terrible judge of character. Inexplicably she always gets vulnerable with the worse persons."

I tighten my fists and screw my jaw not to say anything offensive or lose my temper; I am livid that she's basically telling me that I'm not good enough for Catherine, that I'm not a good person period.

"I have one job, that's protecting my sister and her heart from those people," she continues as calmly as she was discussing the weather. "Catherine has let down all her defences around you and so I've been watching you closely, especially since I've spent many years hearing about you in less than eulogistic terms."

She marks a pause probably waiting for me to react but I'm too busy restraining myself. "Years of history repeating itself again and again taught me to have expectations, and I had great expectations for you, you see."

"I expected you to have an angle; I expected you to have ulterior motives; I expected you to bail at the first difficulty; I expected you not to really care and the list goes on," she continues. "And so far you've been an immense source of disappointment."

Oh.

There's a subtle movement of her lips as her grin discreetly comes back, she observes me intently waiting for the moment she'll know my brain finally caught up with everything she has just said. Only then does she carry on. "I even dare hope that you'll keep on that path."

I slowly relax feeling a bit light headed trying to adjust to the brutal and unexpected 180 degree curb her words just took.

I have to swallow several times to find my voice again. "I have no intention to hurt…"

"I've heard those words before and they always turned out to be void of any sense," she cuts me off bluntly. Half a second later warmth comes back on her face. "Something tells me that you might be the first to give them a true meaning, or maybe it's just me wishing you'll be that person."

I'm still not wrapping my mind around what's happening, but I do realize it's big. "You never failed, Sara. Not yet, anyway," her grin gets more visible. "After all those months I'm forced to admit that you probably are that extraordinary person you appear to be," she fakes a dramatic sigh.

"Does that mean that there's a chance for us to be friends… eventually?" I ask after a long pause.

"Stick around and find out. There is however the certainty that I'll always keep my eyes on you, and I'll make reminders of that fact when I deem it necessary. You hurt my sister and I'll make you regret every second of it, then our brothers, who won't care one bit that you're a woman, will beat the shit out of you."

And we're back to threatening; maybe one day I'll get used to those abrupt changes of hers, there's hardly seconds to get used to some footing that she's already pulling the rug from under my feet for another spin.

"That's fine by me," I reply firmly.

"Not really like you had the choice here, anyway," she smirks very amused.

I think that she has said everything she wanted, I'm also certain that I have said all I had to. There's a long pause where she looks at me intently, grinning – I'm not sure whether I'm glad or scared about that, and I'm shifting a bit under her gaze.

"Should we… uh…hug or something?" I query cautiously.

"You want to hug me?" she narrows her eyes at me still grinning.

"Well…there's a glint in your eyes, and the way I decipher it was that I had to choose between that and giving you some of my blood…"

"That's kind of gross," she chortles.

"The idea of hugging me?"

"No the blood thing, I've stop doing that a long time ago. Hard to believe but voodoo has gotten out of style," she quips. "As for the hug, I'm not sure we're ready for that much physicality just yet. I've just paid you genuine compliments, indirect ones, but compliments nonetheless surely that's enough of a strong moment for this time."

"Yeah, I think so," I snort with a shy smile.

"We may resume the preparation of dinner though."

I nod and turn my attention back on the carrots.

"Now that we cleared that up, can I hope that we're also passed monosyllabic responses?"

I turn to her and smirk. "Yeah," I purposefully reply and focus on the carrots again.

She keeps looking at me for a few seconds, shakes her head and snorts with a smile. "Smartarse."

"Yeah," I confirm with glance at her, a mischievous rictus playing on my lips.

"Shut up," she rolls her eyes.

I cut the rest of the carrots in a comfortable silence, then when I'm on the potatoes Nancy strikes a conversation again and this time I reply with full sentences.

Not too long after Catherine and the kids come back. They want to dye shirts to create our own coats of arms. I leave Catherine so I can brainstorm with my team mates about the shirts.

The rest of the day goes with as much enthusiasm and laughter as it had started, I have a brand new, customised shirt in the making; the dinner is a tremendously fun affair, so that when Nancy and her boys leave I have stitches on my side from so much laughing.

Lindsey goes in her room to read before bed time while Catherine and I share a quiet time on the couch. She lies down and puts her head on my laps; I automatically caress her hair with one hand while she plays with the other entwining and untangling our fingers in a lazy movement.

"I saw you and Nancy actually talking," she points after a long silence. "You looked a bit more relaxed."

"Yeah. I'm rather shy, and because it's your sister the contact was a bit more challenging and intimidating," I explain. "I always need some time to be at ease, but I think I've reached that point with Nancy."

"That's good, I'm glad," she smiles then delivers a light kiss on the back of my hand, then resumes to play with it right after.

"Me too."

I cherish those moments with Cath, comfortable and intimate, I feel incredibly close to her, I feel home.

"Today was a good day," she muses.

"Any day we spend together tends to be," I smile at her.

She reaches out with her other hand, puts it on my neck and brings my face down so she can give me a sweet kiss on the lips. "You're a sweet talker."

"I'm being honest," I rub my nose against hers and peck her lips again before returning to my original position.

Her smile widens, a light blush colours her cheeks, what I like the most is the sparkle in her eyes. "Do you want me to drive you back home or would you like to stay the night?" she asks watching her hand playing with mine.

"I'd like to stay the night."

Even though I like sleeping in her company, I don't always stay. Today though I don't want to leave her sides, I want to extend that day as much as possible.

"Great," she beams.

We're lying in bed almost two hours later; I'm playing with Catherine's hair who is already dozing off on my shoulder. Morpheus is being a bit pickier with me, so I let my mind wander from one thought to another.

Only now do I realize that I have Nancy's blessing, her full approval of me and of what I have with Catherine, and apparently I had it for quite some time but she was waiting for me to face her to let me know that.

This is a freaking big step; it cements what I have with Catherine into a certain level of seriousness. Speaking of the devil, Catherine sighs deeply and unconsciously shifts her position so she's even closer to me, sign that she has finally drifted off for good. I kiss her crown as a silent farewell to the land of dreams.

I'm more than okay with this new step, happy about it even.

But still…

Fuck.


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