Chapter Thirty-One

"I've managed to get my bag even smaller," Ginny called, shoving the lid of her suitcase down with her elbow as she tried to force the zipper to close.

"Nice," Oliver called back. He was in the kitchen making breakfast while Ginny tried to pass the time until she could sneak down and help without him noticing. Usually Oliver only let Ginny make the coffee, as he had some strange idea of hospitality meaning that his guest didn't have to do anything, but Ginny had snuck in a few table sets and orange juice pours.

"Just let me cook something," she said from the doorway when she made it to the kitchen. She'd been planning to creep around, but somewhere on the stairs this plan had hit her as being rather childish.

"Look, you're staying in my house, insisting on paying rent and such, the least I can do is cook the eggs," Oliver said. "But if you really want, you can do the toast. And then the coffee - yours is better than mine and I'm getting rather used to having it."

"Then I'll make it every day," Ginny promised, her mood unusually sunny for a morning.

"Will you keep delivering it to me after you go?" Oliver asked, and although his voice was light, it felt like there was something a little heavier behind it. "I've gotten used to you being in my house, lass."

"Stop calling me 'lass,'" Ginny complained, although she didn't really mind it. Honestly, she thought it was rather sweet. "And I'll be here for another three weeks. You can keep drinking my coffee and painting my portraits until you're sick of me."

Oliver had insisted on painting portrait after portrait of Ginny, all quick, magical studies that he refused to show her until he was "done." He claimed that, since he never had girls hanging around, he needed to paint as many pictures of her as he could, and, as Ginny felt rather like she was imposing on him at home, she was happy to oblige at work. The best aspect of the recurring portrait sessions, however, was that Oliver didn't want her to just sit statically.

"Paint," he said. "Dance, read, look through the cabinets. I want to capture real life. I've been working a lot with fruit lately and I'm tired of knowing that my subject will still be in the same place when I look up from the canvas."

So, weaving in and out of the spinning orbs, Ginny spent one day cleaning the studio (a useless endeavor, since paint splatter seemed an unavoidable consequence of Oliver's painting). Another day, she sat and whirled her own paint, trying to feel whatever emotion seeing Oliver painting her was. Her portrait came out rather nicely, at least. Oliver's brows in particular, furrowed in concentration, stood out in detail and life-like quality. When Oliver saw it, he laughed, which initially made her nervous but he explained that he liked the meta-quality of the painting. He asked if he could put it outside the studio and Ginny acquiesced.

On Thursday night they went together to the final painting class of the semester. Hermione was absent. Ginny guessed she was trying to avoid any potential confrontation, but Roger and Oliver were in good moods and Ginny found them infectious. Class was productive and ran long, and although the idea of drinks was bandied about, Ginny was happy when the men decided that they needed to head home.

Ginny and Oliver went home together. She liked it. She liked walking in first, hanging their coats on opposite sides of his hat rack-style jacket tree. She liked locking the door behind them while Oliver wrapped his scarf around the bannister. She liked turning on the dim entryway lights and seeing the beige walls come a little alive in the gloom. She liked breathing the sigh of relief she heaved every time she came into the house.

Ginny had been worried when she moved in. She'd worried that she would miss Harry (and she had), she'd worried that the tension with Oliver might be noticeable (and it had been), but nothing so far had been enough to make her wish she hadn't left, or wish that Hermione had been willing to take her in. Truth be told, she'd been rather happy about the whole arrangement. Hermione might have played comforter to Harry too often to be okay with having Ginny around, although she was okay with talking to Ginny every day. They'd had lunch, dinner, or at the very least a phone chat every day of the past week. Things on Harry's end had been amicably quiet, and when she'd returned to get her things he'd even helped her pack with uncharacteristic gentleness. Everything was going well.

That is, it was. Until she turned around, opening her mouth to ask Oliver if he wanted to grab a beer from the fridge in lieu of the planned drink with Roger. Oliver was right behind her, his stomach almost touching her back, his breath hitting her face as she turned around. Nothing like this had happened since she'd come to his house; he'd respected her boundaries, even boundaries she didn't know she'd had, and things had been peaceful. Ginny's heart began to beat a vigorous and somehow welcome tattoo.

"I wish," Oliver said, his accent more noticeable as his voice roughened, "you understood how much walking in that door after you makes me want to kiss you again."

Ginny heard a roaring in her ears, and for a moment she thought she would faint. She didn't quite know what to say - well, that wasn't quite true. She knew what she wanted to say. Things like "I've wanted to kiss you too," "Then why don't you just do it," and sighing sounds floated through her head and seemed to vanish. She couldn't speak. Somehow she'd wanted this confrontation with herself, but she'd dreaded it too, afraid of the results.

"Why didn't you want to go out with Roger?" she asked, breathless. Why, out of all the things she could have said, why was that the one that came out? It didn't even make sense, logically it didn't follow anything … Ginny felt strangely like crying for a moment.

Oddly enough, Oliver seemed to have a more positive reaction. He looked at her for a moment, face unchanging, eyes burning. Then a grin broke over his face. "Oh, Ginny," he growled, moving so he was fully pressed against her, snaking a familiar hand over her cheek and into her hair, "can't you guess?"

Time slowed down long enough for Ginny to breathe in, but then it seemed to jump around unpredictably. One frozen moment Oliver's lips were on hers, the next her hands were at his waist, the next he was kissing her neck, the next her skin felt extremely hot…

Before she knew exactly what was happening, Oliver had somehow turned them so her back was pressed against the wall of the entryway. Their panting echoed slightly around the foyer and Oliver pressed his lips to her neck again. "Do you want to keep going?" he whispered against her heated skin, her loose hair twitching with the movements of his mouth.

Yes, moaned Ginny's body. Yes sighed her hot skin and her grasping fingers and her arched back.

No, whispered her fresh wounds and her common sense.

Ginny sighed, and Oliver read her sigh correctly, without anger. He moved away slightly, kissing her cheek gently before pulling back so only his fingers at her neck and waist touched her. "Sorry," he murmured. "I just got a bit carried away I guess."

"Me too," whispered Ginny breathlessly.

"It's just been such a dream having you," Oliver said. "You're still my dream girl, even in close quarters. It's going to be a shame when you have to go," he added ruefully, brushing his thumb over her jaw.

Ginny felt her skin prickle pleasurably under his touch. She felt in her stomach that she was going to say something silly and unrelated again - but then it had worked out well the last time. She didn't let herself stop the words spilling from her lips. "I don't want to have to go," she said, her voice a little stronger. "I want you to travel with me."