Slide 6 : Socks
"I think you're charming." She was smiling, oh so earnestly, her knee pressing against his thigh as she leaned towards him. Her hair was still wet from the sudden downpour, her cheeks flushed from the dash for the building.
He was holding a cup of cocoa. He looked up at her, quirking the half-smile that she liked to think was probably fond and saw so often these days. "I'm not sure what I think of you."
She shrugged and laughed lightly in a gesture that rolled her shoulders back and let her head fall against the back of the couch. "That's good enough. Need a place to stay?"
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The door swung open and closed again quickly. A scarf fell to the ground, shoes were slipped off, a briefcase clattered against the floor. The thermostat clicked on, sock-clad footsteps came from the living room, and he stood there in a turtleneck and slacks, grinning at her. "Welcome home."
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"Coffee!" She snatched up the cup, curling her fingers around it and raising it to her face to bask in the radiating warmth. Will laughed and she grinned at him.
The last of the fall-turned leaves were crunchy and falling to the sidewalks in the heavy rains and high winds that November summoned. Her students, when they wandered into the store, more often than not had their heads buried in notebooks, studying furiously.
Adele, though, seemed more relaxed than she had since fall quarter had started. Will noted that the gun stayed firmly at her hip, but she had an easy, cheerful glow about her these days.
He looked away from her, smiling slightly, and caught Clarissa hesitating in the doorway. She arched an eyebrow in Adele's direction and he beckoned her closer. Adele looked up, turning, startled. "Adele, this is Clarissa Evans. Clarissa, meet Adele Rogers."
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There were nights he didn't come home. She would leave him a note and a plate in the refrigerator. Some of those nights, she would wake up to the tang of ozone and charcoal, his arm around her waist and his lips still pressed to her throat in a sleepy kiss. She would sigh and go back to sleep, leaving it as one of those things they never talked about.
Sometimes he just left. She would fall asleep to the electric crackling and slight blue glow of the Jacob's ladder in the bell jar by her bed. It would be days, maybe a week or two before she would come home to him snoring lightly and bleeding all over her sheets. She would cry and he would apologize, never offering any explanation.
She was still a little afraid that if she ever did question him too closely, he would disappear the way he had come, leaving her alone again.
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"So what are you doing for Thanksgiving, Adele?" Clarissa was sitting at a table near the register, Adele across from her. Will leaned over the counter and eavesdropped shamelessly.
Adele shrugged, staring at her coffee, looking preoccupied. She hadn't been herself for a few days. "Nothing, really. I've got a new flatmate and I thought it might be nice to do something with him."
"I didn't know you had a flatmate" and "Ooh, him?" sounded over each other, Will and Clarissa looking respectively perturbed and enthralled.
She smiled fondly, looking up. "Nick. He's very…charming." Will frowned.
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The toaster is broken and I'm assuming it's your fault. Fix it or buy a new one, please and thank you.
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He saw her strolling along the waterfront with someone, lanky and dark against the setting sun. She had a patchwork scarf slung loosely around her neck and his arm was around her shoulders possessively. They looked like opposites, Adele in her fall harvest colors and full skirts, this guy with his tailored suit in navy blue, but she was laughing and he was grinning down at her, tugging at her scarf playfully. He snagged it off her neck and she spun away, giggling madly as she rushed towards him again, hands outstretched to catch her scarf back.
She's happy, he told himself as the light went green and the bus pulled away, and that's all that matters, but he couldn't quite shake the feeling that there was a puzzle here somewhere, that he just wasn't putting it together right, and that time was rapidly running out.
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He was laughing over James Bond movies in the living room and she heard the distinct metal on metal noise that meant he was tinkering and building something again, but she couldn't bring herself to mind because he was really actually very neat, almost OCD about his projects, and besides there were sweet potatoes in the oven and nothing can go wrong when there are sweet potatoes in the oven.
She leaned against the counter and took a breath. Why did she always feel like something awful was going to happen to disrupt these perfect little domestic moments?
But it was Thanksgiving and she shook the feeling off, picking up the knife and an onion to chop. Nothing would happen.
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Will shook his head, slipping his coat on in the empty hallway. The quiet sound of good-natured bickering was coming from somewhere. It wasn't getting louder or beginning to involve gunfire, so it was probably Henry and Ashley rather than John and Helen. What an odd little family he had found himself in. He smiled wryly at the ornate rug beneath his feet.
"Will." And there was a hand on his arm. Helen was standing next to him, one eyebrow cocked in greeting. He tried not to stare at her and look unreasonably startled. He wasn't sure he would ever get used to how quietly she moved about.
But her lips were pressed together in a way that rarely boded well. "Trouble?" He straightened, turning more to face her, away from the door, ready to help.
She almost smiled. The world wasn't ending today, then. "I need a favor, if you would."
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Down the harbor, a bullet was narrowly missing a young man to the sounds of static-laced radio chatter.