The last time they met, Avery drove two hours north on a whim and let herself into Calden's house with that key he'd given her. The house was dark and its occupants already asleep, though Patches woke as Avery was slipping in the bedroom door and raised her head and thumped her tail so frantically that Avery was all but obliged to come over and pet her.
Avery's boyfriend, on the other hand, doesn't wake until she slides under the covers with him. By then she's stripped out of whatever daywear she had on; slipped into whatever pajamas she'd brought. Or nothing at all, perhaps. He startles a little when the mattress dips, but it's only because -- well. He wasn't expecting company. He turns, though, sees her over his shoulder. Smiles sleepily, lazily, flopping slowly over onto his back to open his arm and welcome her against his side.
She sprawls half over him. He doesn't mind. He's large and sturdily made; her weight on him doesn't bother him. He is still smiling when she kisses him, smiling when she strips off whatever she'd put on, smiling when she climbs over him and pulls his boxers down and reaches for him.
The smile dissipates when she strokes him. Enjoyment, pleasure, rapture: these things map themselves unmitigatedly onto his face. He holds nothing back, neither out of fear nor out of shame. He kisses her again, hungrier, when she sinks down on him
and sinks down on him
and rides him there in the dim, familiar spaces of his bedroom. His groans are soft and low. His hands are rough, but they touch her gently. Gentleman-ly. When she's finished with him he's thrown the covers back, he's sheening with sweat and smelling of her, of himself, of sex and satisfaction. He's smiling again when she curls up next to him, kissing her temple, stroking her naked back.
Am I going to wake up tomorrow, he asks her, moments before they sleep, and discover I've imagined the whole thing?
When he wakes tomorrow, she's still there.
--
So they set a date for a date. It's been a while, it seems since they've actually planned to meet. It's nearly Christmas. The pedestrian mall down on 16th street is all decked out. Lights and holly, streamers and wreaths.
There are highbrow steakhouses aplenty here, but it's a comfort-food barbecue joint they've settled on. Boney's Smokehouse, it's called -- a humble, homey affair of low ceilings, clothless tables, and wood accents tucked into the basement of one of the larger buildings in the area. In the summertime they have a food cart out on the mall, but now, with temperatures regularly dipping below zero outside, it's a bit of a hunt and a hike to find it.
Plenty of customers, though. There's a wait. Calden, who picked Avery up at her house like a proper suitor, holds her hand as they wait for their number to come up. There's no seating open, so he leans against the wall.
Calden White"I have to warn you," he says, smiling down at his lady-friend, "you may have to eat with your hands here."
Avery ChaseShe came to him in the middle of the night, after handing over a skull in a hatbox to a pink-haired Theurge and thanking her for Calden's life. She parked her car and came to the door, slipping inside as quietly as she could and locking it again behind her. She shed a bit of snow from her boots and crouched there to unzip them, slipping out of them, setting the flat-soled, supple leather items aside next to the far filthier, far larger boots and shoes of the men who live -- and sometimes just drift through -- this house.
Avery waited until she had gone softly up the stairs in socked feet, the edge of her long skirt brushing the carpet, before she began to undo her jacket. She undid the zipper there, outside Calden's room, and began unwinding her scarf as she opened the door quietly with her other hand. It closed, with a soft click, and Patches perked up. Avery doesn't know that once upon a time, Patches was not so spoiled, and did not get to sleep in Calden's bedroom beside Calden's hearth most nights, much less ever crawling onto the foot of the bed with him.
"Shh," she whispered fondly to the dog as her tail thumped happily, tip-toeing over and bending at the waist to scritch behind the dog's ears, only to find her wrist being adoringly lapped at. "Shh, girl," Avery added, giving the collie a firm stroke down her scalp and neck. She shed her jacket and laid it over the arm of the couch, dropping her scarf atop it. She checked on Calden, seeing how deeply asleep he was, and ducked into his bathroom to quickly brush her teeth in the dark. Her clothes came off, top and skirt and socks and bra and panties, all laid on some surface or another where Patches wouldn't decide to drag them to the floor and roll around in them.
Then naked, warm, she lifted the edge of his covers and slipped in with him, and finally he stirred, feeling his bed move with the new weight. But it was only Avery, and she was luminous in the dark, warm against the cold, sliding in beside him as he rolled to his back and wrapped his heavy arms around her. She kissed him, slowly and gently, not intending to wake him further for her own ends, but he
kissed her back, his fingers threading into her hair, his lust a sleepy, welcome thing. So she touched him, thinking of turning over, of the tender-rough, animalistic way she might have him, thinking these mammalian and primal thoughts, only to find her heart touched by his drowsy kisses, his lazy smiles, his apparent surprise to find her stroking his cock even though he surely had to have known it was coming when she tugged his boxers down. She was so endeared. She was smiling when she kissed him again, sliding over him, opening her legs and guiding him into her.
She was smiling when she came, her soft cries almost laughs in the dark, her expression delighted and ecstatic as she laid over him, arms and legs wrapped around him, which is where she stayed while he nuzzled her, asking her that silly whispered question, which is where she stayed until they both slept. Sometime a little later she rose, she went to the bathroom, she came back and wrapped herself around him from behind, holding him like that, perhaps a little too tightly at first, gentling as they both drift off again.
In the morning she was still there. They spent the day as they often spend days at his ranch: Avery in jeans and flannel and a new shearling-lined coat, Calden working, Avery riding some even-keeled horse alongside him.
--
But it has been a long time since he came to Denver and they simply went on a date. So Calden asks her out for one, as a gentleman should, and he chooses the dining establishment and comes to get her at her penthouse. She dresses in a sweater-dress and tall boots and subdued jewelry that she once wore for a dinner with her good friend Erich, because it is warm and elegant but not too refined, and dressed such, she leans against him on the wall, her head resting on his chest and lolled slightly against his neck, her back to his front. She has, some time ago, gathered his arms around her to hold her like that.
She twists in his arms, looking up at him, smirking. "I implore you to recall the first meal you witnessed me enjoying," she tells him, teasingly curt.
Avery Chase[EDIT: DEY NOT RIDE HORSES IT TOO COLD. :[ POOR HORSES. THEY RODE AROUND IN TRUCK LISTENING TO AUDIOBOOKS.]
Calden WhiteWell; that is all right with him. It is just fine with Calden if Avery wants to lean against him and wrap his arms around her. It's just lovely. And like this, she can feel when he laughs, feel the rumble of his voice in his chest.
"Oh, you implore," he gentle-mocks, laughing, endlessly amused by her choice of words. "And, well," he continues, dipping his head, nuzzling his jaw along her temple, "I just thought I'd give you fair warning. Seeing as how we're in public, and you're such a demure lady and all."
And then, a server: "Mr. White, party of two?"
"There's our cue," Calden says, straightening.
Avery ChaseHer nose wrinkles as he mocks her word choice, and she teasingly snaps her teeth at his jaw. The moon is waxing into her phase; she is animal and excitable and just a little savage. "You act as though I'm --" she begins, before she hears them approached, swivels her head to the server who addresses them, even if that server hesitates to walk all the way over.
Avery, whose will and whose rage are still not as powerful as they were before she and few others convinced a Wyldling to stop terrorizing a mall, straightens up and smiles. She slips her hand into his as they leave the wall.
Calden WhiteThey both have such winning smiles. They are an attractive couple, active and charismatic, both of them tall and straight of limb, strong of body and mind. One can imagine them playing tennis in the spring, skiing in the winter. Raising pink-cheeked children one day, maybe, piling the whole family into minivans for hockey practice and lacrosse.
Yet the server has trouble meeting Avery's eyes. She smiles mostly at Calden, and the smile looks just a touch false, as she chit-chats with them on the way to their table. The weather. The bitter cold. An awkward joke is made about the temperature of the hot sauce, and then they are seated and handed their menus.
Calden takes off his coat and settles in across from Avery. They're both in knitwear today. His sweater is thick and warm and cabled. Under it he wears a longsleeve t-shirt, which isn't a thermal but serves the same purpose. Here in the restaurant it's a bit warm. He pushes his sleeves up his forearms, then reaches across the table and takes Avery's hand.
"I act as though you're what?" he prompts: still smiling.
Avery ChaseShe has momentarily forgotten what it was she planned to say, as she walked with Calden hand-in-hand to the table and allowed him to pull out her chair for her, slipping to her seat as he tucked her in to the table, waiting until he sits before she even reaches for her menu.
They do look lovely together. Both so fit and clear-eyed, the one just a bit older than the other, yet without the slightly seedy implication of being her Big Strong Protector, since she carries herself like a woman who is probably a CEO. They are equals, even in the way they look at each other, so endeared just because the other one graced the world with their existence.
He takes her hand. She smiles, and he asks her to finish her sentence, which reminds her.
And Avery, being Avery, cuts right to the quick when her smile falls a bit, softening away from her face instead of simply disappearing, and she squeezes his hand. "I think this evening I would prefer not to be teased about being... demure and 'fancy' and so on. I do love our banter, darling, you know that. But you also know there is more to me than that. I suppose tonight I would just like to feel that closeness, more than enjoy our wit."
Calden WhiteCalden's smile falls with hers. His brow furrows; he aches somewhere inside. That hand that squeezed his finds itself brought to his lips. It doesn't matter that they're in public; that the dining room is busy and full of other guests. He kisses her hand and it is adoration; it is apology.
"I absolutely know there's more to you than 'fancy lady'," he says, "and more to me than 'rugged cowboy'. And more to us than whatever elemental attraction might brew between those fabled opposites," a faint hint of a smile reemerges, "even if there is quite a bit of elemental attraction in play.
"I'm sorry, Avery. Please accept my apology. I didn't mean to reduce you to a stereotype, or one of our rare evenings together into a superficial banter of wits."
Avery ChaseWell. That was certainly unexpected.
Avery is visibly a bit startled, if endeared, by the sincerity and depth of Calden's apology. His ache is evident. His formality is a gentleman's way of coping graciously with that surge of emotion, as opposed to the defensiveness and anger of a child or a barbarian. It is a rare thing, these days, to find anyone who chooses this path.
He kisses her hand, and she furrows her brow gently, her dark brows tugged together on that face that turns creamy with winter, an equally luminous version of her usual golden features. Her hand permitted to his mouth is tender, and the lift and stroke of her fingertip across his cheek as he holds onto her hand is the first hint of her acceptance.
"My darling," she calls him again, and says something that sounds like a recitation: "the promise of my forgiveness lives inside the telling of my displeasure." With him, at least. There are those for whom the telling is only a warning of when that forgiveness, that patience, will run out.
As he lowers her hand, she tips her head, watching him. "You mustn't be heartbroken by a request," she says softly, "and that is all it was, of no more import than saying I am momentarily tired of steak and would prefer... tapas." She smiles. She squeezes his hand. "You did nothing that needs forgiving, you delirious man."
Calden WhiteCalden's expressive mouth flickers a smile when her fingers caress his cheek. Again, and more lingeringly, when she says what she does. Before her hand withdraws, his squeezes. Lets her hand slip away gradually, reluctantly.
"I adore you," he says quietly. He wants to say something else - some praise of her graciousness, her wisdom. None of it seems right. None of it seems to encompass what he wants to say so readily as what he did say.
A smile, then, breaking the gravity of the moment a little, and a little deliberately. "Let's order so we can eat like barbarians, hm?"
Avery ChaseThere's something almost erotic, and certainly something undeniably sensual, about the way she strokes her finger along his cheek like that. It's so delicate. So refined. So -- despite those things -- unabashedly physical. And this is what and who Avery is. She is unashamed of slaughtering an elk and gorging herself on it in front of him. She is unbothered by jeans and flannel and shearling as opposed to silk or cashmere. She does not care what fork her guests use, or if her packmate wears the same old clothes until they fall off his body, or if there was, for some time, a human skull sitting in a hatbox in her closet. Avery is what she is.
The only things she is ever ashamed of are her own failings of judgement, of control, of graciousness towards others.
But not what she is. Lady. Animal. Both.
--
He adores her. She smiles, amused and terribly fond.
"I love you, Calden," she murmurs in response, softer than his words, almost a ghost, a memory of speech.
--
In the end, she just smirks at him, leaning on the table with her arms folded. Yes, elbows on the table. Perish! But no matter. "I hope you know I do not intend to eat baked beans with my bare hands," she informs him. "Ribs, however, cornbread -- these I will not bother to abuse with cutlery. Also, when I ask for a 90 Shilling, I want you to be sure to note that this is not a cocktail, but a beer."
Her nose wrinkles at him as she grins, and bumps her boots against his under the table.
Calden WhiteDelicate. Refined. Undeniably physical. Such words could define Avery herself, though not encompass her. To attempt that, you'd have to throw in words like noble. Heroic. Glorious.Some of the Garou in this city already nearly idolize Avery. At least one of them has said, flat-out, that his life is worth less than hers because she is just so amazing. She punched him for it. He stopped saying it, but the truth is, in his heart of hearts he might just still sorta-kinda believe it.What Calden feels for Avery, though, is more complex than idolatry. It's adoration, as he says. It's love. It's admiration as well -- though he tries, and he tries hard, to avoid the pitfall of placing her on a pedestal. Of making her something more than human, more than wolf, more than Garou. Out of reach and infallible.She is not. He has seen her fallibilities. He loves her anyway. And this: this is crucial to the longevity of their relationship.--What she says makes that smile of his grow tender. Makes him lean across the table and kiss her, quick and gentle, before sitting back.What she says next makes him laugh outright. "You have to admit," he says, "it would've been a grosser error if you'd asked for the cocktail and gotten the beer. Then I would've looked like some sort of tasteless boor. And on our second date."First, actually," he amends a moment later. That smile turns smirkish, "That first encounter was more of a ... lightning strike."
Calden WhiteDelicate. Refined. Undeniably physical. Such words could define Avery herself, though not encompass her. To attempt that, you'd have to throw in words like noble. Heroic. Glorious.
Some of the Garou in this city already nearly idolize Avery. At least one of them has said, flat-out, that his life is worth less than hers because she is just so amazing. She punched him for it. He stopped saying it, but the truth is, in his heart of hearts he might just still sorta-kinda believe it.
What Calden feels for Avery, though, is more complex than idolatry. It's adoration, as he says. It's love. It's admiration as well -- though he tries, and he tries hard, to avoid the pitfall of placing her on a pedestal. Of making her something more than human, more than wolf, more than Garou. Out of reach and infallible.
She is not. He has seen her fallibilities. He loves her anyway. And this: this is crucial to the longevity of their relationship.
--
What she says makes that smile of his grow tender. Makes him lean across the table and kiss her, quick and gentle, before sitting back.
What she says next makes him laugh outright. "You have to admit," he says, "it would've been a grosser error if you'd asked for the cocktail and gotten the beer. Then I would've looked like some sort of tasteless boor. And on our second date.
"First, actually," he amends a moment later. That smile turns smirkish, "That first encounter was more of a ... lightning strike."
Avery Chase"I see," Avery says mildly, eyeing him. "You were playing it safe." The corner of her mouth curls slyly, and then curves into a smirk. "I suppose, lightning strike or no, it depends on how you define a date. See, when we met we shared a meal, we drank, we played a game together, we talked."
Her head tips, her eyes regarding him gently. "We liked each other."
Calden White"No," Calden admits, smiling, "I just thought you wanted a cocktail."
And then -- laughing a touch, his shoulders moving with it. He reaches across the table again. Takes her hand in a lazy, easy grip, his thumb tracing gently over her knuckles.
"You're right," he says. "We're both right. It was a lightning strike, and it was a date."
Another beat. Then he nudges the menu toward her with his other hand. "Now," his smile turns into a grin, "let's order something disgustingly, deliciously unhealthy."
Avery Chase"You order," Avery says, her boots still resting comfortably against his beneath the table. She is resting the side of her head on her shoulder, lazy, just watching him. "I'm going to sit here and stare at you."
Her hand has not released his. She strokes the softness between his thumb and forefinger with her own thumb as he strokes her hand. And she seems quite serious about just staring at him while he orders -- beers, including the 90 Shilling she asked for -- and whatever food he likes. She trusts him. And he has seen what she eats, he has seen how she can eat when she's hungry. The way she will tear at the meat with her teeth, the way she unabashedly asks for more if she's still hungry, the way she will,
as she has at a few of their breakfasts,
look at food on his plate and look into his eyes in silent entreaty, and smile when he feeds her bites, because it endears her terribly that he permits this, that he trusts her, that he shares with her.
She does, after all, love him. And after they order and their waiter departs, she pulls his hand to her mouth this time and kisses his rough knuckles, her eyelashes falling once as she presses her lips there. She cannot explain why she feels the way she does tonight, unwilling to be physically apart from him, hopelessly intimate, sweet, gentle, close. Perhaps it is the moon. Perhaps it is her. And him. Together.
Calden WhiteUnder the table, his boots bracket hers. Their lower legs overlap a bit. They are both lounging, languid, loving, their hands laced across the smallish table.
She's just going to stare at him, she says. He smiles at her, laughter in his eyes. Then he glances down, picks one of those laminated menus up, studies it for a moment. By the time the waitress comes, he knows what he's getting for them. Heaps of wings and ribs and coleslaw and buttery biscuits; enough calories in a single meal to feed a small host of medieval villagers.
Their waiter departs. This time it's Avery who draws Calden's hand to her lips. He goes willingly, sitting up, leaning across the table. He understands why her fingers opened, stretched to touch his face. He does the same now. It's hard not to. He likes her, loves her, wants her so very much.
His hand turns over. His thumb brushes her lip. His eyes follow the soft indentation of her mouth to that gentle pressure, then rise to hers.
"Let's get it to-go," he says, impulsive. "Let's get a hotel here."
Avery ChaseAvery laughs at him. She laughs breathily, her smile reminiscent of one who blushes but she is not blushing at him. She can still feel his thumb against her lip, and his eyes on her mouth, as he looks at her again and suggests -- to her bemusement -- that they get it to go, and get a hotel.
"Darling," she chides, but oh, she is laughing. "I live all of two miles from here, and you can't wait to finish dinner?"
Calden White"I can barely wait to drive two miles," Calden replies -- but he's leaning back again, their hands stretching across the table. "But I suppose, for the sake of a real dinner date, I can wait until we've devoured an obscene amount of meat and barbecue sauce."
Avery ChaseThat stroke of her finger across his cheek must have, she thinks, set something off. He leans back, but there's still a certain color and light in his eyes that she recognizes. And Avery smiles at him from across the table while he says that so they can have a Real Date, he'll wait. To eat. And then two miles.
"What's gotten into you?" she asks him, shaking her head, though that smile stays on her face.
Calden WhiteCalden lets out a laugh, open and easy, his fingers giving hers a squeeze. "I'm joking, Miss Chase. For the most part. I do adore you. I do want you. And -- there is a certain appeal to the thought of whisking you out of here to some hotel room a block away; the best of a night out on the town and a night in with you combined. But I'm not going to wither away and die of longing, nor explode from impatience, if we have a proper dinner here.
"Which we should," he adds. "We just got here. I should stop behaving so boorishly."
Avery ChaseThey have not let go of each other's hands.
They have not stopped staring at each other.
--
Not a person in this room fails to recognize that Avery is somehow different from them; they imagine her so much colder than she is, though, unsure of how otherwise to reconcile her beauty with the sense of blossoming anger under the surface; in their world, rage in women turns them foul, rage in women is only insanity, rage in women is only more weakness. They cannot, or do not want, to look at her glory, her carriage, her lovely eyes and adoring smile, and also see a howling fury that they must acknowledge as power. They would have to see then, that she is not a woman as they know women. They would have to ask themselves: what is she?
They see she is different, and turn their eyes away.
--
Not a person in this room fails to recognize that Avery and Calden are lovers. Familiar ones; he's certainly not trying to impress her by bringing her here. Not very old in their relationship, though; look at how he shaved for her, how she dressed for him, how they hold hands and stare at one another as though they still can't quite believe the other one is there and real and looking back at them.
Avery can't. She looks almost aching at him, smiling more softly.
"You're not a boor," she says tenderly. Her thumb goes back to moving across his hand as he releases his squeeze. "I like that you... don't lean so heavily on formality. I like that you aren't put off that I drink beer and eat ribs, and bring me places like this. I like that you can hardly wait to eat dinner, much less two miles."
Her voice softens a touch. "I like you better in my bed than in a hotel, though."
Calden WhiteIt's a small litany of the things she likes about him, brought on by the evening or, perhaps, by the slight and subtle hitches in that evening. What he said earlier. How he apologized. How she forgave him. And the small, almost-misunderstanding -- harmless though it was -- that they just rode over.
They are new lovers still. They've known each other the better part of a year, but in truth the time they've spent together probably amounts to less than some human couples would spend in the span of a month. Sometimes, despite their almost shocking chemistry, they are still new to each other. They still don't get it right all the time.
This makes up for it, though. The tenderness; the way they can't seem to let go of each other's hands. The way they look at each other, all-but-starry-eyed, as though they could hardly turn their gaze away.
"I remember how we met," Calden quips, only it's not really a joke. He does remember. He remembers who she was, and who she is. And then his eyes soften as her voice does. His thumb traces her hand again.
"Because the bed is yours," he replies, "and so am I?"
Avery ChaseAvery actually goes a bit still. Her eyebrows draw together, the statement unsettling to her. She shakes her head, her hand still as well. "No, Calden," she says quietly.
Calden WhiteThat draws him out of his indolence. Calden sits up, brow knitting. He sees at once why she's unsettled. He doesn't even have to ask. "I didn't mean it that way," he says, aching. "Not ... as though I were property. I know you don't see me that way, and never would. I just phrased that poorly."
Avery ChaseShe eases. And truthfully, Avery adores that she never has to lecture him. A tug of her brows, a stiffening of her demeanor, and Calden sees it instantly. He is warmer than most men who have courted her, small as that number may be. He is not afraid to notice an emotion and address it directly, but without a blowup, a meltdown, the end of the world as it is known. He sees she's upset and though they're still learning each other, he understands immediately.
Her brow smooths a bit, though some ache is still there, and she squeezes his hand again, life returning to their touch. "Thank you," she says, as their beers come, with a basket of warm cornbread with a bowl of butter pats in gold foil. It smells delicious.
The waiter departs, and she smiles gently.
"I think it was because the bed is my property, and your phrasing equated --" she says this only because she is analytical, she is thoughtful about these things, about eloquence, about how things are said. She huffs a soft laugh at herself.
"I like being with you there because the bed is mine. The penthouse is mine and mine alone. Only you and other wolves have visited me there; I do not even share it as a home with my blood-kin or my packmate. It is... so solely, entirely my own, and I like that you have a special privilege there. I like that you have a special privilege with me. I like that you are the only one," she adds quietly. Bravely.
Truth be told, of the two of them, Avery has always been the more reluctant, the more careful, the more afraid, when it comes to the vulnerability they share with each other. Calden, when it comes to his heart, is much more courageous than she is. Or at least more fearless.
"I love that I can trust you there, in such a safe and sacred space for my solitude, even when I am at my worst. I love you quite dearly for that, Calden."
Calden White"I know," Calden says softly when she explains her discomfort: and he does. He saw at once the inadvertent parallel he drew between that inanimate bed and himself. Saw it, saw how it hurt her and -- because he is warm, and because they are both, plainly and simply put, mature individuals -- apologized. Took back his mistake the best he could.
The rest of it he doesn't know. Or at least, he doesn't know it the way she says it: clearly, distinctly, laid out and laid bare. It touches him to the core; not only what she says, but the way she says it. The braveness, which he knows takes effort for her, at least in this arena. She is golden and shining and sometimes she seems perfect, but she is not. It is her imperfections that make him admire her and love her all the more.
She alludes to those imperfections, then. His brow furrows; his emotions are complex, vertexed between love and ache. He takes her hand between his as though he might warm her fingers, protect her flesh and bones. His eyes are downcast for a moment, lashes dark, brow open, face intelligent and expressive. He brings her hand to his mouth with both of his, kissing her again as he raises his eyes to hers.
"I love you," he says. "And I am yours. Not the way a piece of furniture is yours, but because I choose to be and want to be."
Avery ChaseBrave as she is, Avery can't quite say what all this really means: that when she is 'at her worst' -- that is, when she cannot stand the company of even her family -- she is comforted by his quiet presence. She can endure not truly being alone even when she craves isolation to the point of nonexistence, so long as it is Calden. So long as he is steady and silent and patient and a million other things she has no right to ask of him or anyone, then she does not have to run from him, or cast him out. Avery can't tell him what that means to her, how significant and singular that is in her experience, how much hope that gives her that she knows she shouldn't have in the first place, because like all of her lineage and all of her tribe,
she knows her madness is only going to get worse. It will never get better.
But she is brave enough to tell him that it matters to her, all the same. That he is... special.
Calden kisses her hand for it, again. She huffs a breath, not quite a laugh, and that breath goes still in her lungs when he tells her that he is hers. Because he chooses to be hers. Because he wants to be hers. And still: Avery shakes her head, not in hurt or anger but simple truth. She quotes: "Say of nothing: it is mine. Say only: it is with me."
Her hand lifts from his, brushes against his cheek, smooths over his chin, turns so that her warmer palm can cup around his jaw. She draws it back -- propriety, you see -- only after she tells him: "I am so happy you are with me."
Now. And times that are not now.
Those, most of all.
Calden WhiteI am so happy, she says, and this is when he... well. Not so much interrupts as overlaps, his voice a rich, low counterpoint to hers:
"I am with you, then."
You are with me.
And he smiles, the corners of his eyes crinkling with it. Her hand drawing back is caught again. It's like he can't let go of her. Can't bear to not be touching some small aspect of her. In some ways, he thinks, with you means even more than yours because of her unique, extenuating circumstances. Her madness, if we must put a blunt phrase to it: to the fact that she cannot stand to be touched sometimes, cannot stand to be see, cannot stand to exist in the company of others. All others. All except Calden, at least that one time, when she panicked and he followed, when she was hiding and he was patient, when she was comforted and he was steady, and warm, and
with her.
Calden lets go her hand after a last, gentle squeeze. And he unfolds his other arm from the table's edge where he'd leaned it, looks over at that basket of cornbread. "Let's eat," he invites gently, holding the basket up to her so she can select the piece she wants.
Avery ChaseHe is with her. Which means much more than simply existing in the same space. He is present. He is her companion. There are those among the nation even now who would follow her into Malfeas if she asked it of them. She might go to Malfeas
for him.
Calden finally, finally, can bear to let go of her hand, and Avery just smiles, warm as ever. She shakes her head. "We need to get a booth next time so I can sit beside you," she muses aloud, and plucks a square of cornbread out of the basket, inhaling its scent before she reaches to butter it.
Calden WhiteThat brings a crooked little grin to Calden's face. He sets the basket down, picks out a piece of cornbread himself, and stands. Holds it in one hand as he swings his chair around with the other. Sets it down. Sits himself down.
Now they're not longer facing each other. Now they're sharing a corner of the table, so close together that their knees touch. That their elbows brush as he drags his plate over, picks up his knife, scoops a healthy helping of whipped butter from its bowl to scrape over cornbread.
"I'm sure we'll manage somehow," he says. And a little later, he looks up, smiling, as the waiter brings them their barbecue ribs; their jerk chicken.
Avery ChaseOh, now that is just improper. She blinks at him as he moves his chair, glancing around at the other diners. Her look is not strictly reproachful but it is surprised. Her eyebrows lift as she looks at him, dragging his plate over. She is still staring at him, pausing only to thank the waiter with eye contact, and just shakes her head at him.
"You're delirious," she says,
not for the first time.
Calden WhiteThe look on her face makes him laugh: head back, open-throated. Not for the first time, not for the tenth, his hand covers hers.
"I'm sure no one minds," he says. "Let's eat."
--
And so they do: with forks and fingers, tearing teeth into juicy meat off the bone, crunching their palates clean again on cold, tangy-sweet coleslaw. Dabbing up barbecue sauce with their cornbread, drinking beer and cherry cream soda. Conversing as they do, warmly, and this time of inconsequentialities. The patterns of life on his ranch. Her brother in high school. Christmas and New Year's -- the former of which they agree to spend with their families this year, because it's still so early in their relationship; the latter of which they talk about spending together.
It gets later. It gets late. The restaurant fills up around them. Dozens of conversations fill the air. They eat and they drink. A small pile of bones grows on their plates. They drain their beer and they get refills, and then Calden gets one more, and then there are half a dozen empty bottles on their table and he's leaning an elbow on the table, a cheekbone against his wrist, buzzed and happy and
the restaurant starts to empty out. One table after another getting up, laughing, putting on their coats and sweaters, their scarves, their gloves. Filing out, climbing the stairs to the pedestrian mall. The waiter comes around for the thousandth time to ask them if they needed anything else, and finally,
finally,
they get the hint. Calden asks for the check. They bicker a little over who gets to pay it; it escalates to Calden holding the check out of Avery's reach, and she thwaps him on the chest, and he laughs and -- really, in the end it doesn't matter who pays it. Someone does. The other gathers up their things, divvies it up. His scarf and hers. His gloves and hers. His coat and hers, which he helps her with, like a gentleman.
They have leftovers. They bring them along in a doggybag because, wealthy as they are, they are not wasteful. Calden puts his arm around Avery's shoulders as they climb the stairs up to the street,
pausing at the landing to curl her close to him and kiss her, softly and sweetly. Just because they can.
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