Page 4 of Sparks Still Fly

I know she’s trying to play it cool, and it’s adorable. Every time I engage with her, she leans in a little closer to the screen.

I ask if the weather’s been nice, because apparently nothing else worth saying wanted to leave my mouth. She nods, and that lock of hair comes loose again. I don’t think I can take it anymore. I need to look at something else. Anything else. I didn’t expect my little sister’s roommate to be so distracting. She’s a nineteen-year-old university student. I’m a twenty-three-year-old currently deployed active duty Marine. We’re not a match.

Lainey is going on about one of her classmates and how annoying she is, but my eyes keep going back to Maeve. She runs a finger up her forearm absentmindedly as she listens to a story she’s likely already heard with a smile on her face. It’s not lost on me how much she cares about my sister.

My mind goes back to the day I met her as we walked to their dorm after dinner. She nearly fell, but I caught her, and as my fingertips grazed her skin, I felt the surge of electricity between us. My heart lurched as if an actual bolt of lightning had struck me.

A moment later, she nearly walked into the back of her sister’s head. I stopped the collision, grabbing her around the waist, and the memory of those touches has me feeling a little dizzy. This is not the time for my body to have a reaction to a woman. Nope. Definitely not the time.

november, 10 years ago

“Tell me something good, Maevey,” I say. I’m so fucking tired today, and as much as I wanted to talk to my little sister, there was a big part of me that was hoping that Maeve would be the one to pick up. I know Lainey asked her to do that when she’s not home so that I have someone to talk to, but on more than one occasion, I’ve called when I know Lainey has a class and Maeve might be home. Of course, I call Lainey more, but some days I just want to hear Maeve’s voice. The way she says bollocks and tosser repeatedly anytime she brings up her theater studies professor always makes me laugh.

“I had an audition earlier, and I think I nailed it! Then on my way home, I stopped to get a celebratory donut, and when I looked in the bag, there were two, so it feels like a sign that today is a good day.” This girl and her sweets. She probably eats one of Lainey’s chocolate chip muffins every single day.

“What was the audition for? And then tell me about the donut. Fuck, I miss donuts.”

I miss a lot of things. Donuts are low on the list, but if donuts also mean some sort of connection to Maeve, then I miss donuts a fuck ton.

She giggles at my answer. “It was for a low-budget rom-com a classmate told me about. Something light and sweet. The guy I auditioned with made it easy.” My eye twitches at the mention of her auditioning with a guy.

Did she like him? Will she see him again? Did he ask for her number? He’d have to be an idiot not to.

Fucking college guys only have one thing on the brain, and it doesn’t take 20/20 vision to see that Maeve is a knockout. I want to ask about this fucker she auditioned with, but it’s not my place. Maeve and I are just friends. At least I think we’re friends, or on our way to becoming that.

“I always choose a sprinkle donut. It’s the happiest donut and makes me feel like a little kid when I eat it.”

I smile at the way her nose scrunches up, and we move on to talking about other things. Audition guy doesn’t come up again, and I’m glad for it.

Before we hang up, she sends me off with her usual line. “Please stay safe.” And once the screen goes black, I always feel a sliver of disappointment that she didn’t kiss her fingers and press them to the screen again. I wait for it every time, but it never comes.

All I have is the memory of that moment.

That day, I learned that she cared whether I came home, and that knowledge felt heavy, like a boulder straight to the chest. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. When I looked into the camera to say something, anything, the call had ended. I missed my chance.

I close the laptop and walk out of the trailer and back into my very bleak reality, willing my brain to forget about her glossy blue eyes and the way her lips molded around her fingers when she kissed them that day. Just for now. I need to focus.

december, 10 years ago

“Favorite episode so far? And you can only pick one.” Her eyes widen at my question, as if picking only one episode of The Office as a favorite is completely illogical. It is. But I want to see how she answers this anyway.

“That’s—no, I can’t answer that! I mean, how do you choose between the one where Jim and Pam finally become a couple or the one where they run a 5k and Michael carb loads right before, or the one when Michael and Jan host a dinner party or...You know what? I’m going to stop. It’s not possible.” She crosses her arms as she shakes her head, eyebrows scrunched together because she takes The Office very seriously.

“That dinner party one was pretty fucking awesome.” I sing part of “That One Night” from the show, and that gets her arms to loosen at her sides and pulls a loud laugh out of her. The more loudly I perform, the more she laughs, until her head is thrown back and her skin is flushed.

It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. I want to bottle up this sound, bring it out when the nights here are long, when shit gets dark, when everything hurts and I need a ray of sunshine.

3/

shania or faith?

maeve

february, 9 years ago

“And you really think Faith Hill could out-sing Shania?” He winces at the shrillness of my voice, even thousands of miles away, but it’s immediately followed by that crooked smile that tells me he’s toying with me.

Mmmm. Owen toying with me—NO! Quit it!

---