Premonitions | ✓

twenty-two

"Bleach Blonde Bottled Blues" -Larkin Poe

The spring semester had come and gone all too quickly to Anna's liking. 

     It was a challenging semester for her, for spring always was, and the department chair noticed. Anna was even called in at the end of the semester to discuss her first year at Humboldt State. 

     Many students had great things to say, whereas a couple complained about deadlines and grading in which the English department head ignored. Overall, she passed with flying colors, but when it came to her in-class time, many noticed her depressive nature. 

     Her boss went easy on her when she explained that it was just run-of-the-mill family issues that got her down, that she had no intention of bringing it to the workplace, but some things slipped through the cracks.

      The department chair, along with a few other professors, wished her well and that she may want to take the summer semester off. Anna needed no more convincing. She was going to travel with Lars that summer. 

     After the last papers were returned to her students, finals were taken and graded, and her office was clean, Anna drove the twenty-minute drive with the windows down. 

     Root rock bands played loudly through the speakers of the Land Cruiser. She sang loudly without a care as to who was watching her. 

     Her long hair was down, and dark sunglasses hid her eyes from the sun. 

     Anna knew that Lars was working late for he was behind on a project. He was building a dresser for a little girl who lived a town over. Anna decided to surprise him with a surprise visit at the hardware store. 

      When the woman pulled into the back of the store, the garage was halfway open. Underneath, she could see the long legs of her man sitting at his workbench and heard a loud tool turned on. 

    Anna slammed her car door shut, leaving her bag and boxes from her office inside. Lars didn't hear the car roll up or the door closing for the buffer tool he was using was loud, and not to mention the old fan roaring next to him was loud as well. 

      Music played throughout the garage, loud enough for Lars to recognize the song when the power tools were in use. Anna came up behind him when he didn't answer her the first two times she called his name. When Anna placed her hand on his broad shoulder, Lars jumped, spinning around. 

     "Jesus, Anna!" Lars quickly turned off the power tool quickly while using his large body to hide what he was doing.

      "Sorry." She grimaced, "Did I scare you? I thought I would surprise you, but I should have thought about it first."

     "No," Lars cut her off with a quick kiss, "I just didn't think I would see you tonight. It's a good surprise, promise."

     Anna nodded once with a small smile before she tried to look around him, "What are you making? I thought you were building a dresser..."

     Lars cleared his throat, turning around to take the ring off the holder and hid it quickly from her view, "I was-am. I am building a dresser. I was just messing around with something else. But, how did your last day go?"

     "Good!" Anna welcomed the change of subject, "My department chair read me my reviews, and I got a lot of good ones and a couple of bad ones.

     "It was mostly just from the older guy I told you about who can barely speak English, the one who always had something bad to say and never did what I asked for his papers. But it's okay because I get the summer off!"

     Lars laughed when she squealed and jumped on her toes. He began to clean up his mess around the garage. The one thing he learned when taking over his dad and grandfather's store, was that he always cleaned up after his projects, whether they were finished or not. 

     Anna watched him, sitting on the stool he was just occupying. She watched as his muscles flexed under the fitted shirt he wore, how dirty it was, and how scruffy he looked. 

     Anna turned around to look up at the corkscrew board he had above his workstation. She lifted the sunglasses to the top of her head when the photo she had taken of him a few years ago was seen. Anna didn't remember ever giving him the photo, let alone telling him about it, so how he got, it was a mystery.

     "Hey!" Anna called back at Lars, "Where did you find that?"

     Lars looked over to where she was pointing before answering, "That one night when you were in school, and your old roommate called me because you had trashed your side of the room. I found it when I was cleaning up all your ripped-up posters."

     Anna nodded, "You don't mind that I take photos of you, right?"

     "Honestly, Anna," he took a beat that made her nervous, "I'm surprised you don't have a camera attached at the hip."

     She shook her head, "I stopped that a long time ago. A lot of people said it was annoying."

     Lars walked over to her, bringing her back into his chest while he leaned down to whisper in her ear, "Anna, I don't mind that you take photos of me. If anything, I wish for you to do it more. I want you to stop and smell the roses, taking pictures of them along the way. I want you to do the things that bring you joy, Anna." 

     Anna turned around on the stool. Lars let her as he got down on his knees so that he was eye level with her. Her heart fluttered at the action for some reason. Lars could do absolutely nothing but stand in the same room as her, and she would become hot and heavy. 

     Lars' hands wove around her slowly. 

     He felt his way from her knee up her thighs to around her hip, where he rested his hands on the back of her bottom. 

     "You really love me, don't you?" Anna asked. 

     Lars smiled at her, removing one hand from her ass to lightly push away a wavy strand of hair, "Anna, I have loved you from the moment I saw you whining in that grocery store parking lot all those years ago. I have never in my life felt the way I feel for you."

     Anna took all her courage and looked into his pale blue eyes, "You mean it?"

     Lars kissed her softly, the hand that was in her hair was now gripping her jaw, making sure she wouldn't pull away from him. He only pulled away from her lips just enough to whisper, "I promise."