“Good morning, Evangeline.” God, even her name feels seductive whenever I say it. Like every letter licks my tongue in a passionate kiss.
She smiles, almost a shy smile before nodding toward my laptop. “Are you writing?”
“Yes,” I answer, scrolling up to the first chapter in case she gets a peek. Because what I've been writing since I met her isn't something I want her to read right now. If she reads those words aloud, the things I wrote all the while picturing her, I don't think I'll control myself before doing something stupid. Like lifting her into my arms and fucking her against the wall of her parent’s guest house.
“I'd love to read it, but I guess you don't want me to.”
She's sweet when she's nervous.
“Not before I finish it. No,” I answer.
Like I've just given her some kind of hope, she smiles brightly and sits on the chair opposite mine.
I want to ask her about the bedtime story she wrote, but I don't have the heart to open a sad topic while she looks so lively today.
“You're up early,” she says.
“You were, too,” I fire back, remembering the pressure of her gaze as she checked me out this morning.
She goes red. Swallows and moves her eyes away from me.
I chuckle, but decide to offer her mercy, "I asked for breakfast for two, and your cook sent out breakfast for twenty."
She giggles. “She always does that.”
“Let’s have breakfast quickly, so you won’t be late to school,” I say and suppress my smile when her eyes do another take over my body.
We start our breakfasts and busy ourselves with the food without talking. The silence isn't uncomfortable and opposite to girls at her age, she doesn't try to fill it with words. But like we have no control over the attraction between us, our eyes meet far too many times to be appropriate. The look we exchange then, and there is like some kind of foreplay.
She must sense the buzzing electricity in the air, she breaks the silence. “Do you have siblings?”
"Yes, three girls," I answer, smiling with the mention of them. "All younger than me. Eighteen, twelve, and a five-year-old."
“Are you close with them?”
“Yes. We can’t see each other as often as I want to with all the distance, but we Skype every week. The oldest will come to Seattle this year I hope. She applied to WSU, so she can stay with me instead of some dorms.”
She smiles. “I’m sensing some protective big brother vibes.”
“Of course I’m protective. My older brother would’ve been much worse. She’s just eighteen.”
“You have a brother?”
I swallow. “I had. We lost him in Afghanistan.”
Her smile drops. “I’m sorry.”
I reach for her hand and squeeze it with a smile.
She softly smiles and changes the topic. “I’m eighteen too, you know.”
I snort. “And that makes me a hypocrite.”
She frowns. “Why?”
Fuck. Did I say that out loud?
I rub my neck to find an answer. Because any answer would be better than ‘because when I look a