Page 71 of Tilly in Technicolor
I hear Oliver swallow, then I feel his nod against the pillow, the dark hotel room making his face nothing but soft shadows and glinting eyes.
Moving slowly, I reach between us, pulling his hand out from under me. I hold him by the wrist for a moment, teetering on the edge of some great big decision I don’t even know the question to. Then, I place his palm on my shoulder.
Ollie releases a breath, the warm heat of it caressing my cheek. I feel little pulses and jumps in his fingers. Carefully, he slides his hand up, moving over the curve of my neck to the angle of my jaw. His fingers brush against my cheeks then tunnel into my hair. He lights up every nerve ending in my body as he runs his fingers against the locks, tracing a strand to its end. Curling it around his finger. He repeats the movement like now that he knows what it feels like to touch me, he can’t stop. He finally brings his palm to rest at the back of my head, holding me, the slightest pressure bringing me closer. He doesn’t have to tell me twice.
I cuddle nearer, and he tucks my head under his chin.
I breathe him in like it’s my first taste of oxygen. He’s warm and heady and I feel like I could pass out from the smell of him alone.
My own hand starts moving, and I wrap my arm around him, sliding my palm across his waist to his back. My middle finger rests between the muscles on either side of his spine. I drag my hand up, feeling him suck in a deep breath as I do it. My wandering fingers finally stop at the nape of his neck, the ends of his hair curling between my fingers like cool silk.
We stay like this for endless moments, our breaths moving together, our chests touching with each inhale.
I didn’t know it was possible to feel this much all at once.
“This is really nice,” I whisper into the hollow at the base of his throat. I feel him swallow.
“Incredibly,” Oliver says, squeezing me gently in emphasis.
“I don’t think I’ll be able to fall asleep,” I say.
Oliver laughs, soft and silent, but I feel it reverberate straight through me. “I don’t think I will, either, but we both ought to try.”
It could be minutes or it could be hours, but, eventually, Ollie’s breathing turns deeper. Steadier. It sounds like the tide going in and out.
I’m gladhe’sable to sleep. Couldn’t be me. No way. Not when Oliver freaking Clark has his arms wrapped around me. I think I’ll be awake forever. There’s no way I could ever sleep and miss a moment of this. I’m feeling too much. It’s all so perf—
I fall into the deepest sleep of my life.
Chapter 30Just Kiss Already
OLIVER
The next few days are a bit of a blur. Mona and Amina collected us in Stockholm after striking a decent deal in Amsterdam, and the refreshed capital has breathed new life into the second half of the tour, making them squeal with a giddiness I didn’t think either was capable of. The only person louder in all the excitement was Tilly.
Mona rented a car in Stockholm, driving us to Hamburg, then Berlin, and finally Prague before we went back to air travel. I usually hate car rides, all the buzzing mechanical sounds for hours on end making my skin crawl, but even a ten-hour trek across the continent wasn’t too bad with Tilly crammed in the backseat with me.
We still found things to bicker about every few hours, but it’s somehow different than before. Like we’re both holding back a smile as we annoy the other. And between the arguing, we’d talk, Tilly listening to me ramble about color, her talking about her writing. Other times, we’d be silent, periodically texting each other songs back and forth in some sort of modern equivalent of a mixed tape.
Ruhe secured another boutique vendor in Prague, and from there we boarded a cramped flight to Granada, Spain.
And, wow, do I love this place. It’s hot and dry and gorgeous, every shade of beige and green surrounding the landscape, making me buzz with excitement in the subtle differences.
And, somehow, Tilly makes it all the lovelier with her wide smile and booming laugh as I photograph her through the city.
We’ve wandered our way to the outskirts of the town, where thick tangles of plants hug the old white stucco buildings.
An intricately carved door has caught my interest, pulling me deeper into the richness of the dark wood and the precise angles of the design.
“It’s Pantone 483 I believe,” I tell Tilly, whose head is tilted to the side as she falls into the pattern with me. “A rich brown but with obvious rusty red notes. The contrast of it with the white is rather astonishing, isn’t it?”
“Hell yeah,” Tilly says, taking a step toward the door and dragging her finger over it.
At first, I think she’s only humoring me, and the heat of embarrassment swamps me, but then she looks over her shoulder and gives me one of those grins that Shakespeare probably would have written an entire book of sonnets about.
“It reminds me of your hair,” she says, looking back to the door.
My jaw falls to the dirt because, now that I think about it, the color is very similar to my hair. But I can’t believe Tilly put that together. That she would see me in colors like I see the world. It shoots a nearly painful surge of feeling through my chest and up my throat.
