Supernova Souls - Ryan Upchurch

-58-

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A bitter breeze blew past the couple as they sat on the sidewalk together, the wind taking away the puff of smoke Ryan blew from his lips. It felt like a cold winter frost brushing against his face with the back of a hand sculpted from ice.

Delilah coughed, trying to inconspicuously cover her nose and mouth with her purple shirt sleeve. Smoke did not go over well with her. In fact, it made her want to curl in on herself and abandon the habit of breathing indefinitely. Obviously, he noticed it and stubbed out his blunt on the ground beside him, twisting it until the red light flickered out into nothing. He crushed it underneath his boot and watched gray ashes float away into the night. Delilah followed them with wide eyes, surprised.

That was his first blunt in months. Trashed, gone into the darkness to be swept up in a gust of wind, never to be seen again.

He'd forgotten she didn't like smoke. How it brought a tension to her body that usually wasn't there. How it seemed to make her choke and rile up her asthma. He'd gotten used to smoking weed, even with his own asthma. It never bothered him like it bothered her.

"Lilah darlin' I shouldn'ta been smoking here. Not around you. I know how much it bothers you. I'm sorry baby." He pressed a gentle kiss to the top of her head, a silent apology to follow his verbal one. She breathed out and the tension in her body seemed to flood out with that breath and dissipate into the winter air.

"If you want to smoke, smoke. It doesn't bother me that much. It's okay."

He shot her a playful glare, knowing full well that it in fact did bother her. The smell of it, the way the smoke seemed to wrap around her throat and strangle her, forcing the air from her lungs and refusing to let go—

"Really. I don't mind it."

"Your entire hand was over your nose and your mouth."

"Babe," she smiled, shaking her head ever so slightly and looking down at her feet. "I know it helps your nerves. You need it, I can put up with a little bit of it at a time."

Ryan looked down at her, awe sparkling in his pale blue eyes. She laughed and kept going, ignorant to his innocently admiring eyes. "A little asthma ain't nothing. I've got my inhaler." She said, punctuating it with a pat on the purse by her side.

"You look gorgeous tonight." He said suddenly. A shiver skated down her spine when he took her braid in his hand, twisting it over gently to look at the half hour of work that had been painstakingly put in. The back of his hand grazed the nape of her neck when he let go. She sucked in a sharp breath when his thumb grazed her jaw, eyes fluttering shut when he hooked a finger beneath her chin and tilted her head upwards and to the side, so she faced him.

She could feel his eyes on her, so she opened her own to meet them. "Lilah, can I tell you something sweetheart?"

"Of course."

"You know how I've been working on the new album a lot more lately?" She nodded, eyes searching his face, his features for something off but found nothing. "There's one song you haven't heard yet. I.. I wrote it for you. About us, about how you gave me the love I could've never gotten with anyone else."

Mud to Gold. Which song? The track list had been finished months ago and has since been set in stone. How did he write and record it with so little time?

A song about her. He wrote a song about her, for her. "Can I hear it?" She hoped her voice didn't betray her mind and become that one notch higher. She hid it well enough within her voice, but the shimmer in her eyes yelled from the rooftops with joy about this man.

"Course you can." His smile was soft when he pulled his hand away. She watched the blue light from his phone screen illuminate his face and accentuate his features while he scrolled through the unreleased songs on the album. Hitchhike flashed across the screen. She realized that by the time tonight was over that song would have lost its spot as her favorite off the album. "Wouldn'ta told you if I didn't plan on showing you, would I?"