AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Can I join you?” She asks a little more timidly, and I turn back around once more.
“As long as you don’t talk too much.” She looks as if she’s considering something, and I can bet she’s gearing up to argue with me. But after a second, she purses her lips and nods, ambling over to me as I unlock the door. It’s several degrees colder outside than it was in the theater, and I shiver a bit as I lock the door behind us, crossing to one of the offices down the hall that has a fireplace and balcony.
We’re quiet, cautious, though I don’t know how caution matters now that we’re going out on the balcony. This one in particular faces away from the town and towards the mountains, so hopefully that’s safe enough. Nothing else really matters to me right now, nothing except for nicotine.
I stop when I’m at the ornately carved dark-wood door that I was forbidden to enter as a child. Of course, I still entered, but not when anyone else was around. After we’re both securely inside, I close the door behind us, making sure to lock it. Espie is looking around the room, and I head straight for the desk positioned diagonally in the right corner. It’s just as it always was when I was a kid.
She walks over to the fireplace that lights up the room in an orangey warmth, and she crouches down to it, warming her hands. I’m distracted from my task of rummaging through the desk to see if oldOtetsmight have kept a lighter in here that I can take for the remainder of our stay. Just watching her, sends something through my body that exhilarates me more than I care to admit.
I think it’s the work I’ve put into seducing her thus far. That feeling of hard work not yet paying off. It’s like a game, this back and forth, and I like the high it gives me— like the highshegives me.
My fingers touch something cold and metal in the back of the drawer after a moment of looking with my hands and not my eyes. I pull it out, hopeful, but that’s dashed when I see that it’s only a six-inch foldable pocket knife.
I shove it into my pocket anyway and cross to the fire, giving up on the hunt, to light my cigarette. Espie’s eyes are on me as I do this carefully, pulling it to my lips and taking a puff of it, feeling the satiating relief that only it can bring me.
I stand and head towards the double doors— glass with white crisscross strips over them that make it look like a little cottage. Espie is by my side as I unlock the door, glancing over at her eager eyes searching the sky.
“What are you doing?” I whisper as she grabs the handle before I can.
“Going outside with you.”
“No.” I near her a bit with my head, lower it more to her green eyes of fervor.
“Yes.” She whispers back, not budging. After a second, I sigh, shaking my head as I grab her hand on the handle and open the door, slipping onto the balcony. The shock, from warm to far below freezing, is intense.
I take a long drag as Espie shuts the door behind us, leaning up against the balcony railing and looking up at the night sky.
“It’s beautiful.” She smiles in a daze.
“What’d I say about talking?”
“Sorry.” She shakes her head before lowering her chin in thought and then tilting her eyes to me as I blow out through the side of my mouth. I can tell she wants to say something so badly that it’s causing her eyes to glisten, so I roll my eyes, palm to the clouds.
“Just say it.” I wave as I pull the hand back to me and take another drag.
“You apologized to me earlier.
“Yeah, don’t get used to it.”
“That was nice of you.”
“I’m not nice.”
“I’m well aware.” She looks back up at the sky. “But I think maybe deep down, you are.”
“Are…?” I think I know where she’s going, but I can’t believe it, so I have to hear her say it.
“Nice.” She concludes, glancing at my reaction.
I raise my brows with a nod like I’m intrigued, but I’m not because I disagree. And if she could see who I really am— know my motives, thoughts, intentions— she would feel the same.
“You don’t believe me?” She stands, taking a step closer to me and undoing one of the buttons of her nightgown as she does. I glance down at it, shocked.
“What are you doing?”
“Proving my point.”
“Don’t do that.” I shiver, not needing to fish her out from the cold again because she was stupid enough to strip in hypothermic weather. Her brows twitch up and she undoes another button. I watch her fingers continue this as she takes strides towards me, and I’ve stopped smoking. Just holding the cigarette between my fingers while my heart pounds at an unhealthy rate. She stops when she’s right in front of me.
