Eeeaaap, slight fluff warning :3 I was positively full of fangirl writing this. And thanks so much for all of the reviews! Happy reading (:
With a little mental coaxing, for the fear of looking like an idiot yet again, Audrey managed to firmly put her feet to the dewy ground and stand with all the awkward grace she imagined a drunken moose might have. His smirk caught her eye, even as he tried to turn away, and her train of thought frittered off into oblivion.
Without waiting to see if she would follow suit, Matt turned heel and began making his way down the street, with risen sun to his back, and when Audrey did pop up beside him, he hid the tugging at the corner of his lips behind a cigarette. The instant he exhaled smoke from his pale, parted lips, Audrey had to bite down on her bottom lip and turn away for two reasons. One, the cigarette smoke that drifted over to her was enough to make her give up her whole cancer-free day, and two, the sight of Matt's slender neck holding up his head as it dropped back so he could blow smoke into the clear morning air was going to drive her insane.
One of the two would have to give, and the cigarette was within reach. When Matt let his hand drop to his side, Audrey reached out and plucked the forgiving cancer stick from his willowy fingers. He whipped his head to her and jerked his hand back. She met his wide-eyed stare with a cool "Relax, Matt. I'm not trying to hold your hand," and smiled on the inside for having said something snappy and witty on the spot. Audrey put the cigarette to her lips and dragged deeply. The feeling of smoked filling every capillary of her lungs was lovely enough for her eyes to flutter shut.
She held the smoke in for a moment before exhaling and letting her eyes slide to Matt with a smile and a shrug. "You owe me, remember?" Matt shook his head at her and chuckled at her, and while it wasn't at all a threatening gesture, Audrey suddenly felt so small next to him. He was a good head taller than her, and maybe then some. But his quiet laughter was like a symphony of her favorite sounds, and she had quickly forgotten her intimidation.
She never really was one for words, Matt thought as he tried to look at her from his peripherals. But his goggles made it impossible to sneak a clear look without turning to face her full on, and taking them off in the now blinding sunshine was out of the question for him. Smoke was pushed out of Audrey's mouth as she sighed. She looked at the cigarette between her fingers. "If it didn't feel so right, I would quit already."
Matt looked at her with an unreadable expression and mumbled "Yeah, I know what you mean."
Her pretty mouth dragged on his cigarette again, and Matt found himself craving her more than the cancer, for which he made a mental note to kick himself over later. "So where are we going, anyways?" Audrey looked up at him with the remnants of smoke coming out from between her lips as she spoke. Matt shrugged. "My apartment is a little more interesting than the city life."
Audrey felt her eyes widen, and she quickly reminded herself to wipe the expression from her features. Now isn't the instant to turn into a quivering little schoolgirl, she chided herself. "Oh, okay." She cleared her throat and put the cigarette up to her lips, dragging it down to the cherry.
Matt noticed her apprehension with a smirk. "You really haven't changed a bit," he said through a slight laugh. Audrey flicked the remnants of the cancer stick into the street with a chuckle. Keeping her eyes trained on it as it was run over with a car as opposed to looking up at Matt again; she shrugged, and couldn't help the smallest of smiles. "I guess..." She glanced up for an instant and only barely met his gaze before wishing she was that cigarette, smushed into the pavement, and all she could think of was how if she could, she would bottle all of her awkward, unintentional angst and send it off to someone else. You'd think one could grow out of this.
Audrey ran a hand through her hair and began to tug at the ends of it. Matt pulled out a new cigarette.
"It's not much farther," he mumbled with the cigarette hanging from between his lips. Audrey looked down at her shuffling feet with a nod, not really noticing how Matt cocked his head to see her face. With a slight grimace, he realized he was thinking about the lovely ivory of her skin, almost wishing to reach out and trace the curve of her cheekbone with one of his slender fingers. And it didn't help his case that a slight breeze kicked her scent at him. He drawled on his cigarette, clenching his teeth. She was something unreachable to him; always had been. And the fact that she was now right beside him after a handful of years, as charming and unattainable as ever, made him want to move closer to her and run as far away as he could at the same time.
Audrey chewed her bottom lip raw and tugged at the hems and sleeves of her sweater, finding any loose strand she could to occupy her hands with, praying they would get wherever they were going sooner. Matt sighed out the smoke, Audrey watched his lips move. "It's here," he gestured across the street with a slight jerk of his head. Audrey followed his gaze to a tall apartment complex, much like the one she stayed at with Near. Audrey had to tilt her head back and shield her eyes to fully see the silver, shining floors that stretched into the clear sky.
Matt led the way across the street when there was a break in traffic. Audrey felt her breath catch in her throat when he pushed open a heavy glass door and ushered her inside. Cold air bounced off of the sleek walls; goose bumps almost instantly surfaced on Audrey's pale skin, but she digressed enough to follow Matt up a few flights of stairs that she hadn't before noticed.
The halls were a labyrinth of sorts, one leading to another to another, one turn to the next, and Audrey found herself quite dizzy by the time Matt stopped in front of a plain-looking door, the brass numbers 713 fading and rusting in the middle. He pushed open the door with a mumbled "Home sweet home," and Audrey followed him into the dark.