Page 16 of Marginally Yours
"Ah," I muse, stepping up to her and wrapping my arms around her waist. "So, thisisyour first rodeo?" Her eyes narrow and she glares up at me with faux ferocity. I pull her closer to me and press a kiss to her forehead. "That's okay, I'll let you in on a trade secret. I," I tell her, pointing one finger back at myself. "Am actually an atrocious bowler. The only thing I'm a professional at here is making snacks and talking shit."
She laughs, burying her face in my chest before pulling out of my grip. "Okay, let me try again." She grabs her ball from the return and mimics a line up that I can only assume she's seen in a movie. When she releases the ball, her fingers stick, and she almost goes flying down the lane with it. It takes everything in me not to laugh, but when she turns to me and starts cackling, I join in.
"Alright, I think bowling might not be for me," she concedes.
"Yeah, me neither." I plop back down on the couch. She grabs her ball from the return and puts it back on the shelf before sauntering over to join me. She climbs on my lap,straddling my legs with hers, and curls up against my chest. A yawn escapes her and prompts one of my own.
"I think it's probably time to call it a night," she mumbles against my shoulder. She leans back and stretches her arms over her head.
"Yeah, you're probably right," I agree. "So..." I haven't got the faintest fucking clue how to ask her if she wants me to take her home or if she wants to come to my place without sounding presumptuous. But what if shewantsme to ask her to come home with me? Luckily, she spares me from the agonizing decision with a hand laid gently on my cheek.
"Hey, you're off work tomorrow, right?" I nod, and her smile spreads. "Got any plans?"
"Not really," I shrug. "I was just going to write for a while. Maybe play some video games." I glance at the mirror wall next to the lane and cringe. "Coming in here before they open and cleaning handprints off the glass," I add.
"Well, don't feel like you have to say yes because I won't be offended, but, if neither of us has anything better to do, maybe I can come home with you? We can get some sleep and some breakfast, and we'll come back here first thing and clean up together and then you can bounce ideas off of me while you write? If you don't want to, it's totally fine, I just-"
I cut off her rambling with the pad of my thumb, slipping my fingers around the back of her neck and pulling her lips to mine.
"Callie," I mumble, pulling back but leaving my fingers tangled in her hair. "Would youpleasecome home with me tonight? And then spend the day with me tomorrow? I promise to feed you and water you and tend to your every whim and desire." I press a kiss to her forehead this time and her cheeks flush as I pull away.
"Every whim and desire, huh?" She wiggles her eyebrows at me dramatically and giggles. Oh, she thinks I'm kidding. Nowthat I've had a taste of her, this polite public flirting and texting could never be enough. I lean forward, eyes darkening, and slip my hand back around to the front of her throat.
"Every. Single. One." I punctuate each word with a tap of my thumb right over her pulse. I smirk as I feel her thighs clench around mine, but she's interrupted by another yawn, followed shortly by my own. "Alright, let's get going before we both pass out on this couch."
We gather the rest of our clothes and toss the trash from our snack binge before I head to the back and shut everything off. I drive us back to my apartment and find her the smallest t-shirt I own to sleep in. Seeing her standing in my bedroom doorway, hair mussed and legs bare, is poetically surreal. It's like she was plucked from a renaissance painting and dropped right into my apartment.
I pull back my blanket and hold out a hand to her. The second she takes it, I yank her into the bed next to me, my body curling around hers. I bury my face in her hair and pull the blanket over us, and she snuggles closer into my grip. Barely a breath later, we're both passed out.
When I dream, I'm back in the village. We've defeated the bandits who took over the town, and the party is celebrating with the townsfolk at what's left of the inn before the long work of repairing the damage begins tomorrow morning. Everyone heads out to find a safe place to sleep for the night, and the blonde warrior woman takes my hand. She leads me to the kitchen and lifts a trapdoor, grabbing a candle and descending into the darkness.
I follow her down and take in the musty wine cellar. There are boxes of food supplies in one corner, racks of wine bottles and large unmarked barrels along the back wall. In the middle of the floor is a nest of grain sacks covered in blankets. Some are singed on the edges, and I remember that she had disappeared earlier in the night. She must have been salvagingthings from the upper rooms that had been damaged in the fires.
I watch her from the ladder as she sets the candle on a crate and curls up on the makeshift bed. "Come, warrior," she whispers in her thick accent, patting the empty space next to her. "You did good today. Rest. There is more to do tomorrow." I nod and kick off my boots before settling in. She turns to me and lays a hand on my chest. Just as she opens her mouth to speak, I wake up.
Callie breathes softly, my arm still wrapped around her and her legs still twisted in mine. We barely moved all night. I gently pull my hand out from under her head and untangle myself. She stirs but doesn't wake, so I tuck the blanket back around her and go make coffee.
I drop into my chair at the desk in the corner of the bedroom and pull out my notebook, but I can't seem to drag my eyes away from her. She's facing me, her hair poking out at odd angles from under the blanket that she's got tucked up to her chin. Her mouth hangs open, and I can hear her soft little snores from here. I take a sip of my coffee and almost choke on it when she speaks.
'Quit staring at me, creep," she mutters, her lips curling up as she cracks one eye open. I roll my eyes at her.
"Yeah, yeah. Good morning to you too. Coffee?" She responds with an unintelligible grunt that sounds vaguely affirmative, so I head to the kitchen and return with a second cup. We stop at a drive-thru for more coffee and some breakfast before heading to Strikers to clean up from last night. After a quick stop at her apartment for a change of clothes, we end up back at my apartment just in time for lunch.
I stick a frozen pizza in the oven for us and offer the shower to Callie while it cooks. She grabs my hand and drags me in with her. The pizza is burnt to a crisp when we’re done, so we toss it and have cereal.
The rest of the afternoon is spent in companionable silence, me writing at my desk and her curled up on my bed reading a book she claimed from my shelf. I periodically bounce ideas off of her, and we talk through some decisions I'm struggling to make in my story. I'm writing the scene that I dreamt about last night, and I want to ask her if I should add some spice to this story or just fade to black. I'm going over the wording in my head so I don't sound like a fucking loser when it comes out of my mouth when Callie speaks up.
"Might as well add it," she mumbles, not looking up from her book.
"Uh... huh?" My eyes narrow in her direction, eyebrows bunching in confusion. Did I ask that out loud? No, I don't think I did.
The bookmark she's twirling in her fingers stops abruptly and her panicked gaze shoots to mine. "Um, I... Well, I'm not sure... " She stumbles over her words, like she's trying to figure out which ones will make me stop asking questions. She sticks the bookmark back in her book and sets it on the bed with a heavy sigh, but still says nothing.
"Callie," I say, my voice deceptively calm. "What just happened?"
She tips her head back and closes her eyes, another heavy sigh leaving her before she speaks again, just one word.
"Fuck."
