A/N; Spring break is almost over! Well, mine's been over. Whatever.
I'm not bitter.
Chapter 7 - Friday & Fear
He woke up scared.
Sweating, as if a wild lion was chasing him throughout a darkened prairie, and despite his own agility, the predator was catching up to him, about to capture him and inescapably swallow him alive.
He was terrified.
Not from nightmares, his dreams had been more than pleasant.
That is, for the few hours that he had actually slept.
Just like a relapsing smoker who had recently quit, he hadn't been able to have just one drag of his poison. She was apparently not just his air but also his nicotine.
And he was already ready for another cigarette. Or possibly even the whole damn pack.
He had woken her up in the middle of the night for round two, her teeny tiny sleep shorts sleeping on the floor for the rest of the night, as he was making her scream and shout, to the point where it would have kept her roommate and probably the rest of the dorm up at night, turning her bed into another crime scene in his sexual slaughter spree.
He wouldn't mind having the whole damn dorm closed off for investigation.
No, no, he wasn't scared from nightmares.
The fear was of her current state of mind.
Was he going back to prison? Perhaps a half-way house? He wasn't quite sure. His sentence was yet to be determined, and his judge was still sound asleep, not next to but under him.
He was hoping, praying, for a few hours of community service, hopefully to be served with her by his side.
Or with him inside her.
Whatever worked.
...
She woke up and he was on her, not just embracing but fully blanketing her.
Like a cage.
As if she was a wild lion.
He may drive her wild, but she was a domesticated beast.
She enjoyed being captured.
It was funny, really, because in reality, he was unknowingly a reversed cage, protecting the lion from the world and not the other way around.
She lingered for a few minutes, his body heat not just keeping her warm but making her blood boil.
Hot.
In a very good way.
Her mind drifted off, back into the midnight hours when he had made her his again.
That had been some night.
When he was on her, in her, her heart felt whole, almost as if there were no cracks in there.
She turned around, facing him, at first with a neutral expression on her face as she was trying to decipher what her head was thinking. If she was thinking.
Nope, seemed pretty quiet. No dominating voice of regret.
"Good morning, Pickle", a hoarse whisper in her ear.
And he felt his imaginary chains of captivity burst broken as she looked at him and smiled.
Genuinely, happily, blissfully.
The smile that dreams were made of.
At least his dreams.
The smile of freedom.
He kissed her, lightly, lovingly, non-expectantly.
She rose and got out of bed, reluctantly so but the restroom was calling. The sun rays were reflecting in her hair, creating natural highlights and making her skin glow. She looked so perfect standing there, in her teeny tiny underwear. He couldn't tear his eyes away. He wanted to be stuck in this vacuum of time, letting this very moment continue on forever. She looked carefree, beautiful, the smile on her face one of satisfaction yet a hint of self-consciousness soon creeping in as she realized that he was observing her. Or rather, devouring her with his eyes.
Damn nicotine. So darn addictive.
"So last night was...fun. I mean...maybe...it was great, you know...I had a good time and..."
Tongue tied.
She was rambling.
It was adorable.
She was quiet for a minute, as if she was trying to untangle her jumbled thoughts.
"Can you do me a favor?"
He nodded, hoping for one of sexual nature.
"Can you drive me to pick up my car?"
...
He drove her to the bar, instantly reminded of a few days ago when he had done the exact same thing. Only a short period of time had passed, and it was the exact same route, yet it felt as if he was driving towards a brand new location, as Shame-city and Lover-ville were located miles apart. Almost in different worlds. She leaned in and kissed him, swiftly, before stepping out of the car.
Holy hell, he wanted to take her in the backseat.
...
She knocked on his door a few hours later, using an improvised picnic in the park as an excuse for seeing him, in case he would be bothered by or question her by now almost constant presence.
He didn't question her presence, he internally celebrated it. With fucking fireworks.
Truth be told, he was having a difficult time concentrating.
He was trying to write but he was stuck. On her.
Jimmy had offered him to perform at the Bar every night for the rest of the week, doing whatever songs he wanted. It would be a great opportunity to try out some new ones. If he had had any. The problem wasn't that he didn't have any motivation, it was that he had too much inspiration. He didn't know where to start, his head was bubbling with lyrics yet nothing came together.
"Want to go for a walk? Lunch in the park?" She was dangling the plastic bag that she had brought with her in in front of his face, as if using the prospect of food to lure him to agree. As if that was necessary.
He noticed that she was carrying her notebook in the other hand.
"You're going to write?"
She nodded.
"Do you mind if I bring my basketball and shoot a few hoops? I usually think, and write, better after exercising. Maybe we can have lunch by the court?"
There were other types of exercises he surely preferred but that wouldn't help him. In fact, that's probably what had gotten him bubbleminded in the first place. And he needed to clear his head. If that was even possible when she was around.
She nodded. Did she mind? She almost had to stop the drool from seeping out of her mouth from the mere thought of him sweaty and panting and... No. The answer was no. She did not mind.
The nice, south Florida weather had once again returned, a few small puddles on the still close to abandoned parking lot the only sign of last night's rain storm.
They walked in silence, letting the light breeze soothe their slight hang-overs.
A day like this was when he questioned anyone who had made the decision to live anywhere else. It was beautiful, mother nature at its absolute finest. He could almost smell the future in the air, he could feel it everywhere, almost as if it was not just a spring breeze but a wind of change.
They passed the dining hall on their way.
"Only two more days until we get to savor their fine cuisine again."
She laughed, but her laughter got stuck in her throat as she processed his words.
Shit, the week was almost over.
The break was almost over.
Her week of non-thinking and his week of heavy thinking was coming to an end.
Soon.
Complication would be coming back.
Other people would invade their fragile bubble of bliss. And possibly, probably, pop it. Because after all, that's what bubbles did. After living for a short period of time, blissfully floating in the air, they popped, breaking into nothingness, leaving a space that only those who saw the bubble in the first place would be able to label as empty.
She hadn't asked him anything about it. Mostly because she was fearful of the answer. But she desperately wanted to, needed, to know.
Fuck it.
This was the week of overcoming fears, after all.
"When is Barbie coming back?"
Her voice sounded as weak as she felt.
Shit.
Right.
Barbie.
"Sunday."
He hadn't responded to any of her text messages or calls. It had been quiet for the first few days, her undoubtedly trying to punish him. When that didn't work, she had sent several messages per day until she finally caved in and called, leaving a few drunken voice mails that were still left unreturned.
He knew he was an ass.
It was just, he didn't know what to say to her.
Any lose ends that may have been there had inadvertently been tied up the second he met Pickle. Tightly tied up. As if a boy scout troop that he had never been a part of had visited to practice before competing in and ultimately winning a tie-knotting competition.
A text message just didn't seem to be the correct way of telling her that the break was undoubtedly and non-discussingly permanent.
She didn't say anything else. He knew she was thinking and he was fearful of what.
She settled on a small patch of grass adjacent to the outside court.
She quicklyrealized that she had brought her book but nothing to write with.
"Did you bring a pencil?"
He rummaged through his bag, pulling out a permanent marker. "I've got a Sharpie."
"Who writes with a Sharpie, you can't erase anything or make any changes."
He shrugged. "Once I like something enough to write it down, I won't erase it anyways."
"What if I make a mistake?"
"Scratch it out".
"That will look ugly".
He shrugged again. "Then don't make any mistakes."
And she reached for the marker.
She was starting to believe that she maybe, after all, had been mistake free since she met him. Their first night together started to look more and more like a necessary intervention, an unconventional form of shock-therapy for her body contact phobia. And apparently an effective one as she had gone from terrified to obsessed with the feeling of his skin against hers in the matter of a few days.
She had brought an old bed sheet that functioning as a blanket, pretending to focus on her writing but sneaking eyefuls of him as he was engaging in an intense basketball game against himself.
He noticed. And he really didn't mind.
"Come! Play with me!"
Oh, he wanted her to play with him. And he wanted her to come, indeed.
She looked at him as if he was a stranger. "In case it wasn't clear, I'm not athletic. Like, at all."
"I'll show you how to do it".
Oh, she knew he could show her how to do it.
She was still reluctant.
"Come on! What are you so freaking afraid of? That the ball will hit you in the head?"
She was soon on the court and his arms were wrapping around hers as he demonstrated how to shoot.
She missed. And missed. And missed again.
And then she made her first basket. And neither of them had ever cheered as loudly before.
"Let's eat." He was starving.
She couldn't finish her food.
There was eating and sweat.
Two fetishes at the same time.
Two fetishes that probably shouldn't mix.
But still.
Too much to handle.
Too hot to handle.
He finished and leaned in to hug her, pushing her down on the flower patterned sheet completely by accident as she was trying to push him off.
"Eww, you smell". She was pretending to sound disgusted. As if she could ever be disgusted by him.
"You know you like it" And he embraced her, kissing her, soon making out with her, him forgetting all about the sure to be delicious food and her forgetting all about his smell, which quite honestly, he had been correct about. She did like it.
He broke away, sitting back up before he would hit the point of no return and take her in the park in broad daylight for anyone walking by to see.
He ran his fingers through his hair. "So, are we performing tonight?" His voice was pleading before she had even answered.
He didn't expect her to perform with him, he knew she had taken those shots the previous night to gain courage and he wasn't going to make her do that again.
Didn't mean he wasn't going to try to convince her to do it sober, though.
She shook her head vigorously. "Nope."
Ok. He got it. Kind of. He knew she loved it, he had seen her face the previous night. But he also knew she was scared.
"At least help me write another song. Pleeeeaaaassssssse."
She looked hesitant. "I'm kind of a perfectionist when it comes to lyrics and we don't have much time."
"Don't you have something laying around in that notebook of yours?"
"Maybe. But I'm not really sure of what you're looking for."
He thought for a minute. "I only see one solution. Let me read your notebook".
She didn't even bother shaking her head, just looked at him with the face of a scolding mother.
"Come on, what's the worst that could happen? Your worst fear?"
"That you'll laugh and tell me that all my lyrics are ridiculous."
"Ok, so I promise not to do that."
"Yeah...no. Not going to happen".
He thought for another minute. "Ok, let's bet."
She was already shaking her head. She was not falling for this again.
He added puppy eyes.
Shit.
She could feel her determination falter a little more with each of his eye battings.
He walked away from her, soon walking off the small court and standing a few years behind one of the baskets.
"I give you a good one. If I make it, you let me read your book." He pointed towards the far away basket.
"And if you don't make it? Sorry, when you don't make it?"
"I'll switch my major to music".
That was fair. There was no way he was going to make that shot. And she couldn't think of anything else that would make her happier than him pursuing his dream.
She nodded and he didn't hesitate, throwing the ball almost as if he wasn't aiming, forcefully, and she watched in disbelief as the ball flew through the sky and landed perfectly inside the non-net metal ring.
And he looked at her in disbelief because he knew that that was a once in a life time shot and he had not expected to make it.
"You get five minutes" as she handed him the book, her hands shaking a little.
"Im doing it because i am a woman of my word. It's not because I...trust you. "
But it was.
"I know you don't"
But he knew she did.
He hesitated for a moment, knowing that this was something monumental. He was going to reach her book.
And then he dug in.
Her fear of him laughing was ridiculously unfounded as there wasn't much in there to laugh about. Her handwriting was neat, but periodically difficult to read, as if she hadn't been seeing clear and he unwillingly pictured her writing some of the pieces while crying. If he looked closely, he could almost see the rings of the dried up tear drops on the thin paper. The beginning of the book was...dark. He flipped the pages, instinctively knowing that she would prefer him to read toward the end of the book. The darkness faded with each page.
She was watching him read and simultaneously observing a construction site. A house was being built. A teeny tiny cardhouse of trust. Small, fragile, one small wind gust and it would crumble. But a house nonetheless, and another card was added for each page that he finished with an adoring smile of approval on his face.
And then he found it. A song. The song.
He didn't know when she had written it, but there was no way it wasn't about him. It felt as if it was written not just about him, but for him. Because it reflected him and his emotions flawlessly.
"Sing this one with me tonight." and he pointed to the book.
Head shake.
"What can I do to get you to perform with me? Just one time. Just one song. One more song and I'll move on, I promise."
She was still shaking her head. It was starting to hurt.
"Come on, we are so good together. You know it. You know that we are better together." She couldn't deny that.
A look of resolution colored his face. "You know what? No more bets. Just do it because you know you love it and because I'm asking you too. Do it because you don't want to waste any more time being scared."
She was no longer sure he was just talking about the performance.
Neither was he.
After a few minutes of doing what she did best, namely excessively think, she smiled and nodded I agreement. "If you change your major".
For the first time, he hesitated. "My dad will be pissed".
"So?"
She was right. There, on the small, beat-up basketball court, he realized that his biggest fear wasn't his father, nor ending up like him. His biggest fear was to lose her.
And umbrellas.
But mostly the first one.
He wouldn't mind being successful, bored, doing something he didn't love as long as, at the end of the day, he would come home to her. A minute, heck a second, per day of her and he would still be less bored than anyone else.
He would even consider working at an umbrella factory.
If he had too.
"Ok, Ill do iT. But you have to perform sober." And then he kissed her, because she was obviously the one who had a way with words and he had no clue as to how he could convey his feelings for her in plain spoken language. So he spoke with his tongue. Until the rest of his body wanted to speak to her, too, and he had to break away before he was giving her a full-blown speech on body language.
He played for a few more minutes before jogging over towards her.
"Ready to head back?" and she started to pack up her things.
They started walking and he sighed. "That was fun, I'm going to miss it".
"You're not quitting the team just because I sang with you, right?"
He shrugged. "A bet is a bet, I'm a man of my word." And he really meant that.
She looked guilty and he broke out laughing.
"I had already made up my mind before we performed last night."
Her guilt turned into mock anger.
"So you tricked me?"
He shrugged.
"That's not fair".
"All is fair in love and war".
They continued walking, him periodically bouncing the basketball on the pavement with one hand and holding her hand with his other.
"Do you regret not going somewhere for Spring Break?" She sounded nervous, as she in some ridiculous way was expectimg him to answer yes.
Could he tell her that she was his getaway, that she was his favorite place?
There was nowhere he would rather be.
"I got the drinks, the music, the partying, the food, the...sex, the beach, the midnight swimming. But most of all, I have got the best company. So no, I don't regret staying, because this has been the best spring break ever. Best week ever. "
All she could do was nod in agreement as he pulled her into yet another kiss.
"Oh, by the way, my sister is coming to watch me perform tomorrow night. I want you to meet her".
She nodded, almost as if she was frightened.
Guess she was nervous about meeting his family.
They were almost at the dorm when she spoke again.
"I have a new nickname for you." She had just thought of it.
"What's wrong with Dimples?"
"Doesn't fit you, it's too cute."
He smiled. Revealing dimples. That were too cute.
"So what is it?"
"Sharpie" and he laughed, her letting him believe that it was because of his preferred tool of writing.
But it wasn't.
It was because he was permanent. She couldn't erase him even if she had wanted to.
...
The bar was packed, as was to be expected for a Friday night.
She had agreed to sing one song with him, her song, it would be the last one of the set and she was already shaking from nerves.
They had practiced it in the girls lounge for the last few hours. She had felt confident there. Not so much here.
No liquid courage. No liquid courage. No liquid courage.
He had given Kira clear instructions not to serve her any alcohol.
Even if she threatened her.
Or offered to pay her large sums of money.
He took the stage, and she was unable to focus as she was too nervous. She was positive that the performance was amazing, because he was amazing, but she really couldn't recall.
And then it was time.
And she couldn't move.
He walked off the stage, doing his specialty of eye darting her. Bullseye.
"We worked too damn hard for this just to give it up now."
"I know, but..."
"If you don't swim, you'll drown. And I know first hand that you're an excellent swimmer".
"But I don't want to swim".
"Yes, you do. No more fear, remember?"
And he reached his hand out.
And after a few seconds that felt like hours, she took it and joined him on stage.
He strummed the first few notes on the guitar, and she forgot about everything except for him and her, getting lost in the nirvana that was music. Her music. Their music.
And once again, the truth of the lyrics hit her.
When you're on your own
Drowning alone
She wasn't drowning. She was swimming.
And when you're afraid
That you're gonna break
She wasn't breaking anymore, either.
And even when it hurts the most
Try to have a little hope
She did have hope. He was standing right next to her.
He was her shoulder, her smile, her sky, her ladder, her road, her anything-you-need.
And as her eyes met his, she was hit by two realizations.
One, she kind of, maybe, perhaps, had fallen for him. Hard.
And two, she was more scared of him than of anything else.
Her instinct was telling her to run and hide. Love was a battle, the survival of the fittest, fight or flight and, like a scared bird, she enjoyed flying. But for once, she wanted to ignore her instinct. Maybe she was more of a lion, after all. She was determined to stick around and check out the cage. And improve her fighting skills.
The fragile cardhouse suddenly seemed sturdier, as if the base had been strengthened as a few more floors had been added.
And at the end of the song, their lips we're on each others before the massive applause had even began to simmer down.
...
They walked towards to his room, hand in hand, as if there was no question whether they were to spend the night together. The door had all but closed behind them before he was kissing her, slowly, deeply, all his senses on high alert, as he was indulging in her by tasting her, watching her, hearing her, smelling her, feeling her. Skin to skin had never been so agonizing yet so perfect.
He outlined her clothing with his lips, his tongue setting her body on fire as he removed them piece by piece, until she was naked, trying to control her breathing but failing completely.
He gently pushed her down on the bed, his tongue trailing all over her, languid licks in a chain-like fashion as he engaged in a slow-motion relay-race across her body.
Tonight, he wasn't a sprinter but an eager excursionist, willingly touring her landscape, lingering over the hills, his fingers traveling through her valleys, to her lake...
She returned the favor. He was her map and she was joyfully exploring new paths to her preferred destinations. Using both her hands and her lips.
And when none of them could hold back anymore, he entered her, slowly, her hips meeting his with every move, deeply, intimately, heavenly, for god knows how long but yet too short as it didn't last forever.
They came undone together, her name not a scream but a loving whisper from his lips as he released himself into her orgasmic pussy.
...
He was snoring, lightly, his chest heaving behind her, occasionally pressing into her back and making her feel alive, almost as if his heart was pumping hers as well.
She was smiling, because whether he knew it or not, she had just made love to him.
And when she was positive that he was fast asleep, she whispered a quiet "I love you" into his ear, nowhere near ready to say it to him and not at all expecting him to feel the same.
But she needed him to hear it. One way or another.
And then she couldn't go to sleep.
Because she was still scared.
Terrified, even.
He had finally done it right and now, she had only one fear left.
She was starting to develop an unhealthy phobia of tornados.
Tornados that would not just break the now high-reaching, fragile cardhouse of trust, but also scatter the cards around the world and making reconstruction impossible.
And she had an odd premonition that the next few days would be windy.
Perhaps, even stormy.