"Tomorrow's the Summer Festival."
"Right," I affirmed carelessly to Gill's blank statement, staring at the wine-red velvet curtain that brushed against his house's hardwood floors. Caressing its stained cheeks with lush grazes.
He stared pointedly at me; fully aware of the irksome game I was playing. I smirked behind my chestnut tresses, which cloaked my lips as I laid my head on Gill's lap. Hamilton's house didn't feel half as intimidating when Gill was in it with me.
"What about it?" I asked, faux innocently, baby petals blossoming in my twinkling hazel eyes. My bleached teeth gleamed in the tender glacé orange lighting.
He rolled his irritated glass orbs; coveted translucent marbles that you played with as a child. His slim fingers stroked a stray lock of hair out of my face, tickling my fluttering eyelashes. "You're coming with me, right?"
I let a pause settle into the room, as if I were mulling over his invitation – more like a command, really – with utmost seriousness. My sunburnt legs dwindled over the arm of the sofa on which we rested, rich merlot velour that I could sink into, neat darts adorning the back of the loveseat.
"By the time you reply, the festival's going to be over already," he groused, poorly masking him embarrassment. Blood flushed his slender cheeks.
"I don't know," I teased playfully, letting my fingers interlace with his, our hands entwining in the air, "I was already planning to go with somebody else."
Gill's features contorted fleetingly into a blend of confusion and mincing jealousy, before settling back into his usual stoic demeanour. "And who would that unlucky person be?" he interrogated.
A season had passed since our confessions. I wasn't quite sure what we were – whether we were still just friends, or boyfriend and girlfriend, or something in between. Both of us swelled with far too much pride to come clean and ask.
"He's a bit of an egomaniac," I mused, darting my eyes to focus on the high ceiling, dripping with intricate ornate detailing, "And he's rude, pompous, kind of handsome, I guess, but that doesn't make up for all his other shortcomings." I sniggered behind a tanned palm, rose blush coming to settle decidedly on my round cheeks.
"Kind of handsome?" he echoed in genuine offense, "I think you're the rude one. And blind as well."
"I was right about the egomaniac part though."
"It's not egotistic if it's the truth."
"So right," I burst into laughter, grin stretching the corners of my lips up against gravity. Gill's normally straight lips curled lithely at the sides. I didn't need to go see a fireworks show; his smile already set off violent sparks in my heart.
"Am I interrupting something?" Castanet's mayor's jolly rambunctious voice bounced through the cluttered room, sending me scrambling off Gill's lap and Gill hastily flinging on his coat of formality.
Gill growled below his warm breath, "What do you want, Father?"
"Oh, nothing, I just wanted to see how the two lovebirds were doing," Hamilton chuckled in response, ever the humiliating dad.
Gill's eyes revolved in their sockets for the umpteenth time that sweltering summer day. Even the thick blanket of clouds that the sky donned couldn't prevent the heat from beating down on Castanet. Tired robins changed their chirping to sweating wails. "We're just friends," Gill grumbled in unadulterated vexation.
"Oh, alright," Hamilton replied, unimpressed, large nasal lobes twitching downwards in mischievous joshing, "But that cuddling you two were doing sure didn't look like, 'just friends,' to me."
"We were not cuddling," Gill almost bellowed in mortification, face precipitously caked in beetroot red. I would have giggled myself, had I not been equally as horrified by his father having caught us in such an intimate position and for poking fun at the obstinate thought that niggled at the back of my mind.
A question like what are we? was an itch our doctors told us not to scratch.
"Whatever you say, son," Hamilton was almost singing in ecstasy, "Looks like that money I bet on you being the next to get married won't be going to waste. I knew that if I believed, it would happen."
"M-marriage?" I sputtered, eyes widening into saucers, holding dainty hazelnut teacups in their indentations.
"Cut it out already," Gill yelled to Hamilton, rubbing an incensed hand across the neat pleats on his brow, "You're going to scare your only source of income right off."
"Oh, is that how you see me?" I grilled Gill openly, placing my hands on my hips, "As the poor soul who got suckered into buying land from you and your dad? Even though that land is on my farm?"
"Who said anything about poor soul?" he smirked, turning back to look at me. I poked him in the back, admiring the plush softness of his cashmere vest.
Hamilton interrupted our bickering before it could evolve into a fully-fledged blaze, and heavens knew how many times that had happened before. "See? You kiss her and fight with her, but you won't make an honest woman out of her," he shook his head, sighing exaggeratedly, bushy grey eyebrows bending into concavity in heaving disappointment, "What kind of son have I brought up?"
"Oh my god," I hid my burning face behind Gill's figure, wondering how one small portly man could dish out so much awkwardness.
"A pretty sane one, for having such a crazy father," Gill retorted to Hamilton's weeping question, bashful blush seeping all the way to the back of his neck.
"Well, hurry it up already," Hamilton chortled joyously to himself, entirely unaware of the discomfiture he actively spewed into the room, "I want grandchildren before I die."
Our mortified voices shouted in unison, most certainly not helping our case in proving to Hamilton our status as just friends, "We're leaving!"
Maternal radiance swirled around Anissa, clothing her in a silk shawl of glowing serenity mixed with dried perspiration. Chasing children around all day was no easy feat, but she took the task on with great vigour – and it definitely hadn't seemed to deter her in the least.
"You're amazing," I gaped, awestruck, as I observed her small tribe of children walking and crawling and crying in the background.
Van had just turned three years old; tall for his age, he maintained a quietly mature manner, sharp nose perpetually buried in a book of some sort. The spitting image of Jin. Veronica, their second, was a year-and-a-bit old: she took after her mother, with the same glossy russet hair, tied into two neat tufts. Mocha-hued dandelions sprouting restfully from her nape. Vince, their newest arrival, was barely two seasons old, and he was already capable of crawling. The town doctor's genes of pure intellect must have run strong through the bloodline. Vince was the exact split between Anissa and Jin, with brown sable wisps of hair that came from the combination of both his parents' locks.
"You give me too much credit," Anissa beamed modestly, the fatigue of being a new parent already embedded into her sagging violet eye bags.
"Not nearly enough," Gill expressed, in an extremely rare moment of genuine amiability. His polished oxfords neatly sidestepped a stray carrot stuffed toy idling perilously on the ground. We had escaped Hamilton's clutches of suffocating pressure, seeking solace in Jin and Anissa's house. The couple had been happily married for over three years now, and had the three children to attest for it.
"So, any intention of stopping soon?" I ribbed, settling down in the pistachio green chair beside the thirty-year-old mother.
"Trust me, Vince is the last one," she tittered melodiously, running her bony fingers through the sleeping boy's hair. He lay comfortably nestled in the crook of her arm, the space carved out just for his miniature, swaddled frame.
"Three is plenty," I stated, respect tingeing my voice, "Were you two aiming for an army or something?"
"You'd need way more than three children for an army, you simpleton," Gill's distinctive biting tones rang through the room, piercing my flimsy eardrums.
"How rude. I was just trying to pay her a compliment," I countered, pouting churlishly in his direction.
"It's just hard to listen to you talk when it's in an intelligent person's nature to correct things that are wrong," he sneered, slender fingers going to push his long ice blonde fringe out of his eyes, "And with you, it's just so hard, since most of the things that you say are wrong."
My eyes remained transfixed on his lean fingers; mere moments ago, they had been grazing my tough skin, cool metal against my sunburnt pores. Now, in the presence of Anissa and her army of children – damn Gill and his prissy pretentiousness – they rested so far away from me, in a whole other chair, falling smartly across his lap; the lap I'd just been lying cozily on, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
The trifling but tenacious thought pulsed through my mind again, running in circles until its friction-heated sport shoes burned a trail into my brain. What are we?
Alone, in between impassioned arguments and petty quarrels, he would wrap his fingers up in mine, press ardent kisses against my moving lips. In front of people, his knee would barely even bump against my own. Was it completely illogical to wonder where we stood?
"Molly," his fair fingers snapped before my face, breaking me out of my deep pondering, "Geez, if you can't think of a comeback, then just admit that I'm right. You don't have to think about it so hard. Your pea-sized brain will burn."
"Never. Idiot," I chastised, chucking an herb-shaped plush toy at his conceited face. His reflexes failed him, as the pillowed herb knocked harmlessly against his temple. A snicker fell out from between my lips. "Oh, man, I had no idea you were so lousy at catching."
"Alright, that's enough," Anissa called out pacifyingly, in a tone she must have came to learn by necessity ever since becoming a parent, "It's difficult enough having three kids in the house. Five is just too many to handle." She then cooed calmingly to the sobbing Vince, excusing herself to go change his diaper.
I pulled one leg up to my chest, resting a hardened elbow on the cotton armchair. I taunted relentlessly, "You heard her. Quit acting like a child."
"Do you have selective hearing? How can one singular person be so dense?"
"I should be the one asking you that question."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
I speedily realized how hazardously close I teetered to letting the all-consuming question that engulfed my mind slip out of my mouth. Promptly biting on the smooth inner surface of my cheeks to prevent the needy issue from stumbling out, I responded evasively instead, "Nothing. Never mind."
"So I win, then."
"This is a game to you?" I asked, incredulous. Sensitivity needled its way into my quivering heart. Deeper meaning cradled itself in the spaces between the words.
"As long as I'm the one winning," he declared smugly, resting his clean jawline on a balled up fist.
Something stung behind my eyelids. I hurriedly changed the subject before my uncertainty ate me up whole. A serpent consuming its eighty-pound prey. "Their kids are cute, huh?"
"Too many, if you ask me."
"How many would you like then?" I quizzed, "You know, if some ill-fated unsuspecting woman one day came to bear the demon-children you'd call your babies."
Gill harrumphed lowly, both of us having long grown accustomed to the snarky offenses the other was capable of dishing out. "Probably just one."
"You could call him Lucifer. Devil spawn."
He rolled his crystal eyes, silky fingertips going to interweave with mine across the barriers of the seats on which we sat.
Gill was lemonade, but he was also burnt ice cream: no such thing existed, but that's what he was. He was so cold that he sent spiking chills down the pulp of your teeth; setting your nerves on edge and making you accidentally bite down on your tongue, drawing blood. But then, he was also scorching flames; so infectious that one touch would set your skin ablaze. Gill existed on either end of the spectrum, fire and ice, but he never existed on any point in between. In fact, more often than not, he was both extremes at the same time. He was either hushed caresses or condescending insults, or the speckling of both. Sparking feelings or the absence of them altogether, or the torturous combination.
"I thought that name was already taken," he glared pointedly at me, letting his fleeting fingers pull away as he noticed Veronica's wide eyes staring in our direction. Scarlet strokes decorated his pale cheeks, the thin skin clinging sweetly onto the curved cheekbones underneath.
"Lousy comeback," I announced triumphantly, wiggling my toes in their grimy boots, "I give it a two out of ten. I win this round."
That year, I learned: love is not a game. And if it was, then it was a constant battle to have the upper hand.
The obstinate question roared against my sealed lips, kicking and screaming and pressing desperate arms against my mouth, a dejected lover's cries falling flat on sturdy windowpanes; all so that I could emerge victorious.
"I knew you didn't do any work on your farm."
Gill's lithe figure trudged up to my house, set against the backdrop of the blinding afternoon light. The unyielding rays of sun painted an incandescent halo on the platinum canvas of his hair. A thin film of barley sand came to smear onto his reflective taupe shoes.
"Excuse me?" I retorted in indignation, "You think those crops just planted and watered themselves?" I gave one last brush through my horse's, Café's, sheeny mane, before wiping the back of my palm across my perspiration-clad forehead. "Did you walk up here and see that brush just magically moving by itself?" A faint snort escaped from between his hibiscus lips; perfectly even smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "What're you doing here, anyway?"
"The festival's starting, idiot. If I didn't come to get you, you probably wouldn't turn up until tomorrow."
My heart fluttered mellifluously, pinwheels spinning in the beating organ. "I told you, nobody's buying that gentleman act, so you can give it up already," I mocked, pressing a lingering pat on Café's muzzle before making my way over to him.
His cool fingers barely but purposefully grabbed onto mine, before he swiftly turned around and dragged me towards the bustling beach.
As soon as the slightest glimpse of the villagers came into view, Gill let his hand fall apart from mine.
Ozzie and Toby manned a booth, the rich aroma of piping hot squid and roasted corn wafting across the salty breeze. My best friend's silvery blue head bobbed up and down, an apple in clear water, as he hurriedly attended to the multitude of orders being dumped on him. I giggled inwardly at his obvious frenzy.
"Need some help?" I called over laughingly to Toby as we approached the stall, milky fish soup stewing in a large charcoal pot by its entrance.
"No, no," he managed to rasp between wheezes, "You just go on your date, I'll be fine." Purposeful emphasis on date, just so he could paint a layer of coral onto my cheeks.
"Alright, I'll just have twenty roasted corns please. Freshly roasted, by the way," I jested. The mere thought of the pile of work sent his jade eyes into wide dishes, his supple lips parting to gape fearfully at me. "Just kidding, buddy," I hastened to reassure him, lightly touching his shoulder before leaving him to his stand of chaos. He smiled that familiar dewy smile in response.
"The two of you are close," Gill remarked simply, hands tucked into his plaid pants pockets.
"That might be an understatement," I admitted, proud to showcase the fisherman as my best friend, "But yeah, we are."
"Hm."
"What?" I probed inquisitively, twisting my head to sentinel his expression. His unfailing stoic face plastered itself onto his features. Lips held in a straight line by solemnity, eyebrows arching upwards in their furrowed resting position. Ice blue eyes swathed in their glacial veil. "Are you jealous?"
"You wish."
"Why should I wish that?" I delved deliberately, daring to dangle my foot above the imbibing freezing waters, "I mean, it's not like you're my boyfriend or anything."
"Right."
The weight of my boot broke the flimsy layer of ice, and I fell right into the bitter river.
I rapidly shook the stinging cold off, speedily flittering over to a different subject before the frostbite creeped into my veins. "Hey Paolo, how's business?" I directed at the eleven-year-old boy, whose cocoa tuft of hair splayed slackly against his clammy forehead.
"Pretty good, Molly," he grinned back, humming as he contentedly counted his small stack of fern green paper. The electric blue of his baseball cap was dazzling in the summer sunbeams.
"He's getting so big," I mused aloud to Gill, as the sour aura around him quickly ebbed away, "I feel so old."
"Evidently, maturity doesn't come with age then. I can only pity your poor children. They'll probably have to be the ones mothering you."
"Please, I'm not even close to getting married. I think children are the least of my concerns right now," I hinted again, the ominous question tap-dancing in the glaring gaps between words. My hazel eyes scouted intensely for his reaction, a soldier clutching his rifle to his chest and standing anxiously on guard.
The day languorously transitioned into crisp evening, the full-bodied scent of decadently creamy stews and blistering baked potatoes being replaced with the sharpness of the salt-laden sea and the faint perfume of Meyer lemons that summer nights seemed to carry with them; lingering at the back of your nose. A blanket of indigo quiet came to rest on Castanet's tense shoulders, held breath and anticipation saturating the inert atmosphere. The sound of waves caressing the delicate shoreline's jaw, her thick eyelashes intertwining as her eyelids fell in delight, washed through the charged air.
"I know what you're doing, you know," Gill whispered into the shell of my ear, as Hamilton gleefully announced that the fireworks show would be commencing in a few minutes.
"What am I doing?" I repeated, all the innocence I could muster brushing along my face.
Nobody could ever truly maintain a perfect poker face; not even the master himself. Gill's mouth was his tell. Annoyance: his lips twitched ever so slightly downwards on the left, contorting the grave line of straightness for the most solitary transient second. Amusement: his pale lips pursed together, one corner lifting higher than the other – his stubborn refusal to submit defeat in a competition of wits. Apprehension: his flawless teeth, carved from gleaming ivory, dug into the waxy skin of his bottom lip, preventing his heart from leaping out of his throat.
A combination of all three melded onto his mouth, his palpitating heartbeat almost visible in the still evening ambience. "You're so annoying," he came to spout, retreating from the front lines, back to safety. Once again, taking shelter from the detonating bombs of what am I to you? and where do we stand?
"And you're a chicken."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"You think you're pretty clever. You can figure that out for yourself," I sneered snidely, disappointment and impatience growing steadily within my chest.
"I don't think, I know," he retaliated wittingly, before letting his precarious words spill out from between his golden lips, "You've been dropping hints all day, okay? I'm not a simpleton like you. I know what you're getting at." He snorted. "Besides, your hints are more like glaring pitfalls instead of subtly laid tricks."
The first firework exploded in the centre of the night sky, glowing neon orange – orange, his favourite fruit – the colour of crackling flames whipping in a hearth. I raised my voice to combat the deafening bursts of vermillion exhilaration.
"You're so full of yourself," I rebuked, letting the unsaid syllables drag my sentence down with the invisible weightiness; our pride is destroying us.
"You're not exactly Miss Humility either," he jeered, ice blue eyes reflecting the brilliant sparks in the sky, shimmering with candied warmth. He hesitated, before finally, finally, relinquishing his weapon and holding his hands up in guilty surrender, "But I'm trying not to let my pride get in the way of the things I want to say."
"It's my fault too," I admitted, placing a crumpled white flag in his palms and wrapping my renounced ego gingerly in his hands, "I didn't want to lose." First to crack, to let the question tumble out of their trembling mouths, landing teeth-first onto the concrete pavement, was the loser.
Magnificent cobalt blue blasted into the sky's clear canvas, metallic steel blue confetti erupting against the backdrop of untainted deep navy, raining luminescent tears across the sea of night.
"Technically, you were the first to give in, what with all your lousy and incredibly obvious hints." So much for letting go of his pride.
"Pompous jerk."
"A pompous jerk that you have feelings for," he challenged deliberately, piercing eyes observing me intently.
"Against all odds," I rolled my eyes, childishly sticking my tongue out at him in order to camouflage my bashfulness. Ruby burned on my cheeks; the illumination from the fireworks deemed it just bright enough so that my sizzling blush could be seen, damn the fireworks.
"You're so immature," Gill ridiculed, grabbing my nose between the joints of his slender index and middle finger, pinching it ever so slightly in his berating. Deep tomato shades painted his entire face. He self-consciously averted his gaze, before begrudgingly bringing it back to rest on me. "So, would you do me the tragic dishonour of being my girlfriend?"
"Oh? But I thought you just called me immature?" I purposefully taunted, cruelly dragging out the obvious torture he was submerged in.
Elation swelled in my heart, choruses of euphoric giggles gushing the very same way the fireworks in the sky were exploding. Gill likes me. Garish fuchsia sparklers seared against the pumping organ. Gill wants me to be his girlfriend. Glittering white iridescence burst against my ribcage, begging to be set free.
"That's why I said tragic dishonour, idiot," he rushed out all too swiftly, painfully aware of the mischievous game I was playing. His fair hands dropped to brush against mine, the thin softness of his fingertips stroking along my calloused palm.
His scorching face slowly inched closer to mine with a fiery determination and blazing embarrassment. I could feel his pulse thumping against my wrist.
My heart caught in my throat, his public closeness momentarily dizzying me; the flying sparks ascending from my chest and escaping to behind my eyes, blinding my vision.
Our hearts were beating so loud, neighbours could hear them through the walls, when all we were trying to do was find the nerve to touch the other's face.
I could hear the gallop of my heart ringing through my ears. Drowning out the booming of the spiraling explosives.
"Fine," I conceded, before his lips met mine, as they smirked at his undeniable victory, "It would be my greatest displeasure."
Disclaimer: I do not own any of Shane Koyczan's or Andrea Gibson's work.