Page 7 of Marginally Yours
"As much as I'd love to stay and hang out, you have work to do and I enjoy having kneecaps, which I will most likely not have if I come in late again."
"I suppose that's fair," she says with a laugh. Then I shock us both and reach up, brushing my fingers against her cheek before sweeping a stray hair behind her ear. I feel like I licked a defibrillator paddle. By the stunned look on her face, I think she does too. If I don't get out of here now, I'm never going to leave, but I'm feeling inspired to be a little bold today for some reason. Instead of taking my hand back, I cup the side of her jaw and swipe my thumb across her cheekbone. She visibly shivers, her eyes darting back and forth between my eyes and my mouth.
"I'll pick you up at six," I whisper, and then turn on my heel and strut up to the register. Eddie is never going to let me live this down, and I can't even bring myself to care.
It isdefinitelya date.
I'm so distracted by whatever that was that I almost forget to check the book for those little purple scribbles. I thumb through some of the pages in the middle and find nothing but plain black print. Despite the last fifteen minutes, I can't help but feel a small flash of disappointment as I hand the book to Eddie. I glance behind me while herings it up, desperate for one more look at her before I go. My gaze finds her immediately. She's standing right where I left her, her finger running across her cheek right where mine had been a few minutes ago. She's looking in my direction, but her eyes go straight through my chest, a faint smile playing at her lips.
She must feel me staring at her because she looks up suddenly, her cheeks flushing when she realizes she's been caught.Oh, this is going to be fun.I arch an accusatory eyebrow at her, and she huffs, glancing around the store before sticking her tongue out at me and following it up with a middle finger.
I think I'm in love.
I send her a quick text as soon as I get in the car.
Hope you enjoyed the view.
When I get to work, I see that she responded with another middle finger, in emoji format this time. I stick with the emoji theme and send her back a kissing face. A bolder choice than I would normally make but I’m feeling brave. I'm getting settled at my desk when her reply comes in.
Keep it up and I will definitely kick your ass at the arcade tomorrow. No mercy.
You couldn't reach my ass if you tried, you little troublemaker.
Watch me. Spite is a powerful motivator.
Looking forward to it.
I'm beaming like an idiot, resisting the urge to kick my feet and giggle at this point. We flirt back and forth for a bit before I finally take out my new book. I take my notebook out with it, just in case I get some ideas. I almost drop the book when Iflip it open to see that familiar purple ink scrawled on the first page.
I know I wasn't particularly thorough when I flipped through it earlier, but there was nothing on any of these pages. Now, almost every page is written on. The ink is bright purple, bold and clearly visible. There's no way it was a trick of the light, and definitely no way I just missed them. Maybe it was some kind of weird invisible ink or something?
Curiouser and fucking curiouser.
I'm not one to look a gift book in the mouth, though. I flip my notebook open to a fresh page before sitting back in my chair and starting the book. The reappearing ink situation is weird as hell, but there has to be some explanation for it that I just can’t think of at the moment.
Callie and I text back and forth throughout the night while I read, and I consider asking her about the writing. Would she think I'm insane? Or is she the one behind it? Once is a coincidence, but this is two books in a row that she's given me with the same annotations.
No, I'll wait until after our date. At least then I'll have had one good date with her outside of the bookstore before she runs screaming.
By the end of my shift, I've finished reading the book and also managed to finish tweaking my outline and start my first draft. I was feeling particularly inspired tonight, and I think my story is really developing. I've got some character descriptions and backstories written out with rough sketches of them in the margins. I'm not much of an artist, but I'm particularly proud of one of them. The blonde woman from my dream, clad in riding leathers and a fur-trimmed cloak, twin swords strapped to her back and a smirk on her face that tells the world she's survived purely out of spite. Someone recently told me it’s a powerful motivator.
I don't spend too much time thinking about why she’s my favorite.
By the time I get home, I’ve got another dozen pages or so written and I finished reading the book. I strip down and curl up in bed, setting an alarm just in case. I want to be up early tomorrow, so I have enough time to get the panic attack out of my system before I pick Callie up for the arcade.
Tonight, I dream of a battle. I'm in that little wooden village, but it's a bloody hellscape now. Brutish men slash at us with worn swords and corner us against a flaming building. We're surrounded, barely hanging on by a thread, when the blonde woman comes up behind the horde. With a dagger clasped tightly in each hand, she sneaks up behind the bandits two at a time before sinking a blade into their throats. They fall silently, one by one, and half of them are bloody heaps on the ground before the rest even realize she's there.
Now that her cover is blown, she tosses the daggers into the ground before me and pulls a longsword from a sheath on her back. She takes on the remaining bandits with expert strikes, moving so fast that they can barely keep up. I yank the daggers from the ground and come in behind the horde to assist, and we clear the battlefield together.
She's strong and fast and more skilled than I could ever hope to be. She wipes a hand across her bloody face, and I can't help but think she's the most radiant creature I've ever seen. Like an avenging angel. She takes a step towards me and graces me with a blinding smile. She opens her mouth to say something, but I wake up just before the words come out.
Chapter Five
I'm lucky I set an alarm, because I definitely wouldn't have woken up in time to get ready. I feel like I really did fight in a battle last night rather than just dreaming of one. I had planned on deep cleaning my car, but I barely manage to toss the trash and wipe down the dash before I run out of steam.
I head inside to trim the sides of my undercut and clean up my beard before hopping in the shower to soothe muscles that shouldn't be sore. The fun part begins when I start digging for something to wear.
She's only ever seen me in my work uniform, so hopefully she's into "nerd casual". I pull on some jeans and one of my favorite black t-shirts, and then a long sleeve button up. The shirt has a graffiti print of Gandalf on it in white, and the button up is black and dark green plaid. I neatly roll the sleeves up to my elbows and head back into the bathroom.
