August 15:
7 o'clock finds him curled up on the living room couch, a stack of professional journals on the coffee table beside him. He's twirling an old keychain in his free hand and trying to read the journal propped on his knees. There's an article about patterns of victim-luring behavior by team killers that looks to be of some possible work use.
He keeps stopping to check the clock. Where is she? It's going to start without us at this rate.
Just as he gives up and reaches for his phone, there's noise outside: a dull thump, quiet, muffled cursing, and then a staccato knock. He grins and goes to open the door. Maeve is standing there, slightly flushed and looking very exasperated, purse over her shoulder and a large folding lawn chair clutched awkwardly under each arm.
"Sorry I'm late." She comes in and leans the chairs against the wall next to the door. "These things turned out to be a bit harder to bring on the Metro than I anticipated."
"No problem. We won't be able to see much till it's fully dark, anyway." She's wearing a T-shirt he's never seen before, black with a design of a vivid white comet. The angle it's printed at takes it on an interesting path through her cleavage. Then he notices the scrapes on her bare knees. "You're bleeding."
Maeve looks down at herself, quizzically, then nods. "Oh. Right. I tripped outside trying to wrestle these things up the building steps."
"Why didn't you call me? I would have come helped you."
She gets a sheepish little smile on her face. "I guess I'm still not used to being able to do that. Definitely next time."
"There's first aid stuff in the cabinet under the bathroom sink, if you want it. I'll take the chairs up."
"Okay. The problem is, they open up suddenly sometimes while you're carrying them. Watch out for that." She heads down the hall.
There's a box of crackers, the thin sesame-seed ones, and two thermoses waiting in the fridge. He puts them and two plastic cups in his messenger bag, slings it on, and picks up the chairs.
Wrestling them through the stairwell door isn't so bad. Lugging them up three flights is another thing. He drops one on the second-to-last landing, and barely manages to grab it fast enough to keep it from sliding back down the steps. The heavy door out onto the roof slams on the messenger bag as he's shoving the chairs through. He has to drop them to get the bag free.
The sky is almost completely dark now, as dark as it ever gets in D.C., anyway. Little glittering pinpoint stars are starting to appear overhead, in a moonless sky slightly copper-tinted with light pollution. The horizon is blurred with the delicate white glow of the city lights.
He looks around. There's no one else up here, so he could set up anywhere. Probably not too close to the edge,though. The roof is bordered by a brick wall a few feet tall, but it's still high up enough that it might give Maeve trouble.
"Spencer?"
He turns around. Maeve is standing in the doorway, flashlight in hand. In the dimness, he can only see the pale blurs of her face and limbs, and the comet on her shirt, now glowing a luminescent green.
"Hi."
"Hi. I locked up." She edges through the door, and stands with her back against the brick wall of the little hutch where the stairwell emerges.
"Thanks. I was trying to figure out where to sit."
"How about right here?" She's trying to sound casual, but he can hear a small tremor in her voice. "There's a good view here. Almost three-quarters of the sky."
"Sure."
The chairs are alarmingly loose when unfolded. He settles carefully into his, anticipating it caving in on the cement any second. Maeve gets in hers just as cautiously. There are dark squares on each of her knees, large-size bandages, he assumes.
"What's in the bag?" she asks.
He'd forgotten it was even there. "Oh." He starts unpacking, putting things on the ground between their chairs. "Crackers - I think they might've gotten busted - and the thermoses, the plain one just has soda and the plaid one is soda with bourbon. Wait. Is - is that weird? I mean, I thought this was kind of a special occasion, but I've never even asked you if you like bourbon, or even drinking and it probably sounds bad that I assumed anything – "
"Breathe, Spencer." He can't see her expression in the dark, but she sounds amused. "A drink once in a while is nice, yes." A pause. "The last time I had one was before...you-know-what started. I had to keep a clear head at all times during all that."
He doesn't know how to respond to that, so he doesn't try. He hears a thermos being opened and briefly poured, then a small cough and sputter. "Hm."
"You okay?"
"Yeah. I'd just - forgotten the taste."
"Maybe you should - wait!" Out of the corner of his eye, he's just seen a quick flash overhead. A plane headed for the airport, or - ? No, there's another, a brief streak of translucent white light. Then another. Then, two more in rapid succession, lower and brighter. "It's starting."
He hears an excited little squeak from Maeve, and feels her hand close around his.
The astronomy magazines had promised an unusually bright and productive Perseid meteor shower this year. He'd been wondering what that meant for visibility here, if maybe they should have gone somewhere outside the city where it would be darker. But even with the light pollution, the view from here is beautiful. Needle-thin streaks of light higher up alternate with lower, wider ones, three or four a minute, white and green and very occasionally purple.
Maeve takes out her camera and starts fiddling with it, aiming it upward and taking a few experimental shots.
"Any luck?" he asks, feeling around for the thermoses.
"No. They're just coming out as blurs. They could be anything. When I'm working again - if that ever happens - I'm buying a camera that can do night sky photography." Rustling as she opens the crackers. "I keep expecting there to be some kind of noise with a meteor shower like this, like fireworks. Seems like with all that light, you should be able to hear something."
"I can, actually."
"I meant besides the Interstate traffic."
"So did I." The drink he's poured himself is obviously from the bourbon supply. It burns very slightly and leaves an odd taste. Maybe he shouldn't have used the store-brand soda. "When I...see lights like this? I hear chimes."
"You do?"
"Really high, thin, silvery ones, the kind you hear in the background of 80s music sometimes. I hear them with any kind of flashing or sparkly light."
"Synesthesia?"
"Exactly. It works the other way round, too. If I hear those chimes in music, I see this sort of glittering gold and silver light."
"That must make watching Fourth of July productions interesting."
"Only on TV or from a distance. Otherwise they're too loud for me to hear it. The sparkly neon signs in Las Vegas, though, when I was a kid I could watch those endlessly. I almost got hit by a car once, stopping to watch one."
"Well, try not to do that."
He laughs a little and takes the crackers.
Two and a half hours later, the food is gone and the meteors have slowed to a brief streak or two every few minutes. The night is turning cold and damp for August. Even with long pants on, he's still getting goose bumps by the time they pack everything up and go back downstairs.
They end up on the couch, stockinged feet next to each other on the coffee table. Maeve slides down, so she's slouched against the cushions, and sighs. "This is nice. I miss my couch."
"Have you gotten it all out of your place yet?" He knows she's been taking the old, broken one apart and throwing it out in her apartment building's dumpster piece by piece.
"Not quite. There's a big metal part left from the frame. I might try selling that to a scrap merchant." She laughs, but there's no real humor in it this time. "Yeah. Dr. Maeve Donovan, unemployed junk dealer. Not exactly what I expected from my early thirties."
"You'll work again." That sounds so clichéd, but it's the only response he can think of quickly.
"After three failed interviews in the past two months? I don't know. I'm totally willing to take something temporary while I keep working on getting into teaching, but there's no benefit in taking a job that pays less than unemployment. I looked into substitute teaching. K-12 experience is still teaching experience, and it's been a while since I was a TA. But I just wouldn't make enough to pay rent, unless I got a long-term contract somewhere."
"Maybe you could move." There's cracker crumbs down his front. He sits up straighter and brushes them off, hoping she doesn't notice.
"I'd love to. I hate that apartment now. Being stuck there..." Maeve shakes her head a little. "Bad memories. But even if I could find a place with lower rent in a reasonably safe neighborhood, no landlord is going to give a new lease to someone with no job or secure income. And I don't think I'd qualify for Section 8. Well, not the housing kind of Section 8. Maybe the military-code-for-crazy kind."
"The military Section 8 meant certifiable. You're not anywhere near that point. I know."
Maeve winces. "Your mom. Right. Was that insensitive of me? It was, wasn't it? Sorry." She sinks down into the couch a little more.
"It's okay. I mean, that - situation - it's just a fact of my life."
She folds her arms around herself and presses the back of her hand against her mouth. When she speaks again, her voice is very quiet. "Does - that - help you put up with me?"
"What?" He turns and stares at her. "No! I mean, I - don't put up with you, I - " The words are sticking somewhere between brain and mouth. He moves over as close to her as he can and puts his arms around her.
She leans her head against his shoulder. "I just - my anxiety and phobias and everything, it can't be much fun to deal with, wondering if I'm gonna freak out any time we're out together, and it's got to be a mood-killer playing therapist to your girlfriend."
He puts a hand up to cup the back of her head. "The...only thing...that bothers me about it is its hurting you."
"Mm." Her hands are on his shoulders now.
"Maeve? Are you drunk?" She hadn't seemed drunk, but if she wasn't used to it -
"No. I only had two drinks." She looks at him, her eyes shining faintly with tears, and smiles thinly. "So. Change of subject needed, ASAP. Visual-auditory synesthesia, huh?"
"Yeah."
She starts tracing along his collarbone with her fingers. It feels slightly ticklish. "Maybe I should wrap myself in the right kind of Christmas lights and dance around for you, and we could see what you hear."
"Interesting." He puts a finger under her chin and tilts her head up so he can kiss her. It's the first time he's ever initiated that. It feels a bit clumsy, but she's not pulling away. Once it breaks, she looks at him, brow furrowed.
"Are you drunk?" she whispers.
"Was it that bad?"
"No. It wasn't bad at all." She's smiling for real now. "I just wondered."
"I'm not drunk." He's feeling a little more warm and relaxed than usual, but that's about the extent of it.
"Good." She kisses him, and starts nuzzling his neck in a way that makes him sigh and lace his fingers over the small of her back. He closes his eyes and concentrates on how she feels, warm and her hair soft against his skin and the gentle press of her breasts and legs against him in the position they're in.
He moves his hands around to her waist, thumbs stroking the spots just above her hipbones. She moans and squirms, then they're kissing again, legs entwining and tactile input all over and he's starting to get intensely, obviously aroused. Fleeting embarrassment - she must be able to feel it, she's practically in his lap - and then that, along with all other coherent thought, goes right out of his head because she's moving against him -
"Spencer?" Maeve's voice is very soft in his ear. "Question. Any answer is fine." A tiny pause, her breathing faster than usual. "Would you...like to take this to the bedroom?"
A great swooping drop in his stomach, anticipation and nerves in equal measure. The words are definitely gone now, so he just nods. She starts disentangling herself from him, then stops, looking at him.
"You know what I mean, right?" The small tremor is back in her voice. "You're sure?"
He nods again and takes her hands. She's very still for a moment. Then she's standing, tugging gently at him. "Well. Come along, then."
Once they're in the bedroom, he shuts the door. There's no real reason to do that, but doing - this - with the door open would feel too exposed, somehow. Maeve turns the nightlight on and stretches out on the unmade bed, a faintly lit silhouette marked by the green glow of the comet on her shirt. She puts an arm around him as soon as he lies down beside her.
It's not quite like he expected. Admittedly, all he has to go on is things he's read, most of which were slightly more technical in nature and had never addressed things like the initial disrobing. He ends up fumbling with her bra for what seems like forever, till she just removes it herself. He jumps and pulls away reflexively when she tries reaching under his shirt.
"Sorry," she whispers. He takes her hands and moves them to his hips instead, and she relaxes back into him.
He ends up leaving his shirt on, just to minimize the full unaccustomed amazing impact of her bare skin on his. He's oddly glad he can't see much. With some of the extra sensory input gone he can focus on her reactions, where she's guiding his hands and mouth, how she moves and makes soft, increasingly urgent little sounds in response. Like learning to read her just from the sound of her voice on the phone, only a thousand times better. He expects this part to take a lot longer, too, based on previous research, but he must be doing something right because it's not long at all before she goes tense and then shudders and cries out.
They finish with her on top of him, moving together slowly at first, then fast enough to make the bedsprings creak. He's looking up at her, a shadow against the backdrop on the ceiling, her and stars and sudden sharp release making him gasp and moan.
She lies sprawled atop him for a long time after, her head tucked neatly under his chin and their limbs entangled. He stares up at the glow of the false stars, blissfully overloaded, concentrating on her breathing and its gradual change to slow and deep and relaxed.
He's not even really aware of slipping into sleep.
He's awakened by prickling numbness in his right arm and something warm and solid moving against him under the bedclothes. When he opens his eyes, he sees Maeve's sleepy blue ones looking back at him.
"Hi," she murmurs.
"Hi." It's just barely morning outside, the light in here dim and gray. At some point during sleep, they'd rolled over on their sides. Maeve's shoulder is pinning his arm against the mattress firmly enough to cut off circulation. He rearranges himself so he's on his back. She props herself up on her elbow, head on her hand, and smiles.
"How're you feeling?" she asks.
"Extremely...content. You?"
"Likewise." She looks down before blurting out: "FYI, I'm on birth control, just so you know, I should have said something last night - "
"I already knew."
She stares at him. "How?"
"A couple of months ago, when I was over at your place? I opened up the bathroom drawer, I was looking for soap, and I saw the packet in there."
"Oh." She rolls over on her back, so they're cocooned in a messy tangle of sheet and blanket with just shoulders and upper arms touching. "What did you think?" Her voice has the small lilt of teasing in its tone.
"I thought it'd be weird to ask. I didn't know if you were taking it for something medical or if you had...plans...for us, or what."
"I didn't have a specific timetable for it or anything. But I thought it'd be better to be prepared, so when things were right it could just, you know, happen. Some of the generic versions of that stuff are pretty cheap, thankfully."
He squeezes her hand in response.
"Spencer?"
"Mm?"
"Was last night the first time you'd ever - well - "
He'd half-expected that question. "Was it that obvious?"
"No." As far as he can tell from her voice, she's being sincere. "Not from performance. But you said I was your first girlfriend, and you just don't seem like the type to, oh, have had drunken one-night stands in college."
"Well, when I first entered college, I was thirteen, so I'd hope not. But I know what you mean, and you're right."
She laughs and kisses the side of his neck. It makes him shiver. "Then I am...honored to be your first. As for technique? Solid A minus - B plus. How'd you manage that with no prior experience, by the way?"
"I paid attention to what you wanted me to do. Besides, after I found your pills, I looked some things up. Did some reading. You know."
"Wait." Maeve sits up, propping her elbows on her bent knees. It's a great view, considering that she's shirtless. Her face isn't the only place she has freckles, he notes. "You researched how to have sex?"
"I figured it couldn't hurt. Might help. Um. Just in case." He can feel himself blushing. "That's probably strange."
"Not strange. A good idea, actually. It's just that it's also so you."
He can't argue with that. "So. A minus - B plus. Where do the deductions come from?"
"We seriously need to practice your clothes-removal skills. Especially bras. Or maybe I should just stick to the kind that hook in the front."
"They make those? Then definitely, yes."
She grins. "You want the first shower?"
"Go ahead. I need more time to wake up first."
"You have some clean clothes I can borrow?"
"In the closet."
He keeps his eyes open long enough to enjoy the sight of Maeve, nothing on except the bandages on her knees, getting up and picking out clothes. Once she leaves, he moves over and burrows down into the blankets where she'd been. Her warmth and faint scent are still on them. The sound of the shower running, then her splashing and humming wordlessly to herself, filters down the hall.
I could get used to this, he thinks.