Page 105 of Drawn Together
He would’ve liked to stay like that for days at a time. Stayed there until they were both nothing but tongue and teeth and lips and hot, limp bodies against cool sheets. Until he held her so close she could have been a part of him.
Wherever Flora Anderson ended, Fletcher Harding began.
Thirty-one
Wordoftheday:Kairos
Definition: Greek noun fora perfect, delicate,crucialmoment
Exhaustion pulls at my eyes, heavy lids but a lightened heart. Fletcher stole my paperback copy of Jurassic Park from my nightstand about an hour ago, and I like watching his entire body read. The way his chest starts heaving at the height of the jump scares, how it slows in between scenes. How when less-frightening scenes come along, his thumb trails my neck and shoulder slower, lighter. A tender graze across my skin in rhythmic circles. I could write a book on how Fletcher reads books.
I can tell when he reaches the big plot twists, because his breath hitches, the hand on my skin pauses, and I know I need to reread the moment with him.
He shifts me so we can both see the book and have a pillow to support our necks, only his is an actual pillow and mine is hispajama-clad thigh. We stay like that as the sun rises behind us, the early chirping of morning's arrival playing as a soundtrack to our day’s beginning.
My head on his lap. A book propped on his knee for us to both read. His fingers twirling a lock of my curly hair, tugging ever so gently. His thumb pushes the page to turn, and I tap his thigh. “Wait.”
He does, because he always does for me. I finish the page, and he must know the exact moment, because he flips it over and lets me keep reading alongside him. I can tell when he’s done reading, too, because I feel his gaze warming the side of my face, like a soft touch dancing over my skin.
“Hey.” He closes the worn paperback and sits up, so I am laying across him and he’s looking down at me.
“Hi.”
“Hi.” He smiles, and this one time I can’t help myself. I reach my hand up and stick my pinkie finger in his right dimple, twisting side to side like it could curl its way in there.
“I love this dimple.”
“But not the other one?”
“Both of them. The first time I saw you smile, I thought how nice it would be to just climb right in them.”
“I would’ve let you.”
“No, you wouldn’t have.”
He laughs, and I delight in the sound. “Maybe not back then. I was a little scared of you.”
“Scared of me?”
“You’re a little scary.”
I sit up now, his hand still on my thigh. “I am not. I’m the furthest thing from scary I’m…a koala bear.”
“Koala bears can be super scary.”
I scoff. “Not this one.”
“Especially this one. All big eyes and little nose, curly hair and a kind heart. It’s a little scary. Specifically, when you yelled that I was a lothario.”
“It was my word of the day that morning. It was the only thing I could think of.”
He nods. “Ah, well that makes more sense. I looked the exact definition up that night and kept thinking ‘in what world would this girl consider me to be a debauchee?’”
“I could see it. With this hair,” I reach over and play with the scruffy mess on his head, “and the dimples,” my fingers slip over his chest, a soft caress, “and this heart. This really great heart. Fletcher, I need to tell you something.”
He leans down and plants a slow, soft kiss on my lips. “Tell me tonight. After the party. We can go out to eat or go to the park or something. I’ll take you wherever you want to go, and you can tell me tonight.”
I nod with a smile. “Okay.”
