“Anything is yours if you ask.” I trail my hand down the buttons of her shirt, and she watches with a soft stare. Our breathing is slightly deeper than normal. I’ve got one knee next to her thigh and the other leg steadying me on the floor. She looks at both before staring at the buttons on my slacks.
Surely, she doesn’t want this now, I haven’t even thoroughly prepared, and I would have wanted it to be so much more than this.
“Scout, I don’t think—”
“You saidanything.”
“I know.” I lick my lips as her eyes reach mine again.
“I want you.” She grabs at the back of my neck, lightly pulling me towards her. I drop a bit lower, studying her expression.
“This isn’t what I meant by making it special for you.”
“I can’t think of a more perfect scenario.” She brings my lips to hers, and I breathe her in, wanting to get swept away, but knowing this just isn’t the best she deserves. We’re on a pile of dirty laundry, for Christ's sake.
“I want this,” I assure her, scoffing a bit at how even that is an understatement compared to the longing I feel for her. “But let’s—” I barely get out my sentence before her phone rings again. It’s in her skirt pocket, but she doesn’t reach for it.
“Are you gonna answer that?” I ask as she bites her lip, her eyes darkening with anger that was not there a second ago. Is it something I said?
“I’ll be back,” she mumbles, and I roll off her to let her leave. She pulls her phone out of her pocket as she stands, answers, but doesn’t say a word. After she heads down the stairs, I think she goes outside, and now I’m beginning to have an odd feeling in the pit of my stomach. I push it away because I think she’s just on the phone with her mother, and if anything, this time helps give me a chance to set things up the way they should be.
I quickly rise before sprinting out of my room, crossing the hall to Olive and Espie’s room, and begin knocking. In fact, I don’t stop knocking until Olive answers the door, a toothbrush in her mouth, looking like she’s ready to stab my eyes out with it. She always did have a bit of a temper on her.
“Sorry,” I say quickly before she can take any anger out on me. She rolls her eyes in response, waiting for me to get on with it. “I need some help. Are you and Espie free for like ten minutes tops?” She narrows her eyes for a moment before putting up her index finger and shutting the door in my face. There’s some quiet chatter behind the door before Espie opens it back up.
“What do you need?” She smiles politely in typical Espie fashion, while Olive continues her look of slight disinterest. Moody, this one. I glance back at Espie with a pressed-lip grin.
“Just a few minutes of your time to make my room more….” I grimace, trying to think of a better word than the one on the tip of my tongue. But I can’t find another word, so I quickly get out, “Romantic.” Espie raises her brows, a slight grin growing across her implicit expression.
“Okay, let’s do it.” She steps out of the room, grabbing Olive’s reluctant arm, and I lead them to my room. In any other scenario, I would just do this myself, but I require the extra hands if I’m going to do this quickly enough.
In a flurry, we tidy my room and light a million candles that kind of make me think, “fire hazard”rather than “romance,”but I guess they look good. I also order a ton of things from the kitchen that I know Scout will love.
I know this because I’ve ordered all of her favorites. Well, all that I know of, chicken tenders, fries with cheese, wonton tacos, M&M cookies, and water with those little pellet ice cubes because that matters to her. It’s everything she’s ever obsessed over at lunchtimes or long nights working alone together. It would be remiss of me not to go all-out.
Olive dips as soon as she sees that we’re done, wishing me good luck as she slides out of the room. Espie takes one last look at our creation, mismatched candles we found around the second level, lit on every possible surface without being too close to the bed and floor space for walking. She smiles at it before turning to leave and adding, “She’s gonna love it,” just before she disappears out the door.
I try a few positions as I wait, hands behind the head, laying sideways with my hand resting on my jaw, sitting with one leg up and swinging my arm over it. After a while of this, and I won’t say how long because it’s too embarrassing to admit, I grow frustrated with myself that I’m even thinking this much about it. Instead, I decide to just sit like a normal fucking person on the edge of the bed. It’s a waiting game now, and I wait so long that the food in its entirety arrives before she has. The sun is down fully, but my room is still bright from the surplus of candles, making me feel like I’m in the center of an oven.
Before I realize it, an hour of over-thinking ticks by; should I go see if I can get her, I could just peek my head out of the door, or perhaps it's better to just call her cell. Nothing ends up panning out. I’m simply trapped in a spiral of possibilities, and then I hear her. Footsteps padding up the stairs. They head towards my room, but they don’t stop at my door; they continue on across the hall, and I see only the back of her shutting herself in her room. I look at the food just waiting for us on silver carts, then at the candles, then back to her closed door.
“Well, fuck.” I throw my body back on the bed and look up at the ceiling. I still have an embarrassing amount of glow-in-the-dark stars just stuck to my ceiling. There’s a moment where I want to give up and leave her alone, but then another part of me believes I should know what the hell this is about. The latter part grows strong as the minutes pass by, and her door remains closed.
I click my tongue and sit myself up, glancing at the door just before standing up and crossing to her room. Before I’ve raised my hand to knock, it opens, and she seems startled by my presence.
“Hi.” I study her face as she blinks up at me.
“Hi.” She folds her arms over her chest.
“Hungry?”
“Starving.” A small smile lightens up the sadness in her eyes for a moment, and I can tell she’s been crying. I hold out my hand, and she looks at it for a moment like she’s considering if this is worth it, if I’m worth it. Then she takes my hand, and everything feels right in the world. I lead her to my room and hear the soft gasp when she sees it in the state it should have been when she first came into it.
“Tito…”
“I just wanted it to be… nice. You know, for our marathon.” I glance back at her. Every flame collects in her amber eyes as she studies them in awe.
“Some marathon,” she breathes, shifting her eyes to me, and I can’t help but smile. We hold a gaze so intense I nearly pick her up and bring her to the bed all over again, but there’s a hesitation that I sense from her since taking that phone call, and I want to know why. So, I quickly look away, though it’s hard and feels like pulling away from the pull of gravity. I point to the food to change the mood, and she follows where I’ve indicated with her eyes.