She shakes her head, a growing smile on her face.
“I run, too. I figure whatever’s chasing him is chasing me now, I was too wasted to think straight. So he flies by me, and I just start running with him, the two of us kicking up dust to whoknows where. We end up on some farm at the end of the road, slip down a hill into the manure pile.”
“No!” she gasps
“Yes. There we are, covered in horse shit. He’s lost his pants down to his ankles, I’m drunk as fuck, but we don’t say a damn thing until at least ten minutes pass and we’re sure whoever was chasing us is gone.”
“I think I have an idea about who that was,” she says, wryly.
“And you’d probably be right.”
“Someone’s father or boyfriend?”
Theo nods, and they both erupt into a fit of laughter. “You win the prize.”
“What’s the prize?”
Her voice is slow and sweet like molasses, the small bottle a fourth gone between them. If he thought some liquid courage would make his words work faster, he’d be wrong. He stalls, tripping on his own tongue, but she doesn’t seem to care. Just takes another sip and eyes him sideways.
“I like your smile,” she says, barely a whisper. “And you smell good.”
“We both do. I could swear there are apples in your shampoo,” he blurts out, like that’s a logical thing to say.
She squints. “No apples, just flowers. You saw the bottle.”
“Yeah, I saw it, but I’m smelling apples right now, so I dunno what to tell you.”
“Come on, smell me again. You’ll see.”
She’s dead serious, even tilts her head and waves him over, offering the soft expanse of her neck like a willing donor to a vampire.
Makes perfect sense to him that he should sniff her again. It doesn’t even occur to him how different this could go until he’s already leaned closer, pushing his face into the space behind her ear, the tip of his nose brushing her hair as he inhales.
Yep. Apples, he thinks to himself, ready to claim victory, but then she’s breathing deeper and faster, her chest heaving at the edge of his view, and her whole body shivering when he slowly pulls back, his exhale tickling her skin.
“Apples,” he says, dumbly, staring right into those blue eyes only inches away. “Do you have any drunk stories you want to share? Gotta have at least one.”
He hasn’t moved, and she hasn’t either. He’s running his mouth from nerves, and her reply threatens to set him on fire.
“No, and I’m not drunk now, but I feel it just enough, so this one’s ranking at the top.”
He’s about to have a fucking heart attack or a seizure. Maybe an aneurysm.
“Theo?”
“Hmm?”
Her hand finds the side of his face, thumb stroking the scruff on his cheek. She remains silent, but there’s encouragement in her eyes that says it’s okay to kiss her.
It’s okay to want it.
For the first time, he can see how much she does, too. That’s what spurs him on to close the space between them, hovering there just before any contact is made.
He hasn’t kissed a woman in years. Then she brushes the hair off his forehead and runs her fingers across his scalp in the most gentle stroke. She’s so careful, like he’s something precious she has to handle with care, and that’s got his emotions going haywire.
He’s starved for that type of affection, but accepting it remains difficult. He wants to trust her, and maybe the majority of his brain actually does, right before muscle memory overrides his desire, and he pulls back an inch, denying himself everything he wishes he could have. Everything being offered to him for the taking.
What he only partially processes is the fact that she pulled back at the same damn time.
