The champagne is in her refrigerator. A black vase on the island holds the deep red and orange roses. In the living room, Sandra grips onto the knee of her jeans, rubbing her fingertips across the rough denim to distract herself from the uninvited invasion of his soap and leather on her senses. Back and forth, back and forth, until the friction warms her finger. Think. Think. Think, she chides herself, weighed down by the heavy silence.
His gaze is unwavering as he relaxes into the weight of the air, all initial signs of nerves dissipated, now. He is watching, waiting for her to speak on her own time.
Eyes darting back and forth, she scans the room for a topic to fill the space when a plastic crinkle noise breaks the tension.
They both turn toward the noise and find Gesine, red cellophane on the floor and the opened box of truffles in her lap. She has a chocolate morsel between her thumb and forefinger and the look of guilt written all over her face.
Sandra snickers.
"What?!?" Gesine is unapologetic, "You know how much I love chocolate."
The moment brings a welcome reprieve from the tension. Sandra turns so her deep, luminous eyes can finally take him in. The world dims around the edges for a moment.
Maybe I can do this. The thought sneaks into her mind without pomp and circumstance as he holds her there with his eyes.
He drops his view to her striped toe. "You part tiger?"
"I wasn't finished," she nods to the bottle on the coffee table.
He holds his hands out flat in the air, as though preparing to start a slap bet, and shrugs. He has long, sensitive fingers — artist's hands. She can picture them wrapped around the fret of a guitar as easily as she can around the handle of a hockey stick.
"Alright," she agrees, moving into a criss-cross applesauce position and reaching for the bottle.
She removes the small brush from the black liquid, scraping the sides on the mouth of the jar, and pretends to be unaffected by his hands which are now planted on top of her thigh. She carefully draws the ebony lacquer across his wide fingernails, one nail at a time, studying the soft ridges like a treasure map. She barely notices her sister picking up the remote and turning the television on, settling on a rerun of the popular new sitcom, Friends. The laugh track provides a familiar background noise, allowing her to bathe in the growing sense of ease in the moment, as though she'd done this with him a thousand times. On screen, Ross is clumsy in his flirtations with Rachel at a laundromat:
**Ross: Okay, let's do laundry.
Ross holds a machine lid open for Rachel, who squeezes in front of him with her basket of dirty clothes.
Rachel: That was amazing. I can't even send back soup!
Ross: Well, that's because you're such a sweet, gentle, uh...
Ross pauses as Rachel piles her clothing into the tub, item by item, wisps of her blond hair blowing with the ventilation. He closes his eyes and dreamily inhales her scent. He is lost, for a moment, in his desire for Rachel, until she turns, wondering why he went silent. He jumps away, stumbling, knocking a box of detergent onto the floor and the laugh track plays again.
Sandra finishes the last stroke on the last digit of his left hand. Bringing his fingers close to her mouth, she blows a steady, soft stream of air on the wet tips, her long lashes framing those beautiful doe-eyes he remembers so well from the first time they met.
YOU ARE READING
The Beginning
Fanfiction"Come here," his voice is gentle again. She gives in, placing her small hand in his. Lifting the cloth, he sees her blood spill out from her palm. He inhales sharply through his teeth and presses the rag back down. They sit there like that for abo...
