Sam--short for Samantha, if you please--has been living in Crawley, Maine for about a year in her grandfather's lighthouse. A promising advertiser, she works from home and the local coffee shop, where she gets her daily hot chocolate fix. For her, l...
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Andrei took the turns gently on the way back, and we made it back in time to see an impatient, crying Frankie circling around to the front of the house. Andrei grabbed the box of cat food and quickly snapped open a can. Before I could blink, he jogged around the lighthouse, bob-tailed Frankie weaving between his heels.
I shook my head and unlocked the front door. Placing the bags on the kitchen table, I started unpacking. After a couple of sharp knocks at the back door, I opened it to let Andrei in, and in burst Frankie!
"Shoot! Catch her, Andrei!"
We scrambled after the beast, dodging kitchen table, doorjam, couch, coffee table, and armchair. We cornered at the stairs. Andrei had gotten ahead of her, and I watched her bobbed tail flick as I crept towards her with a dish towel outstretched. I was a hairsbreadth away from her when my nose twitched.
Dammit. Dammit all to hell, I thought, and sneezed.
Frankie spooked and shot up into the air. I jumped towards her, towel ready, while Andrei held his hands out to grab her, too. Frankie, the minxy fox, darted to the side and left us two bumbling humans--actually, one human, one Fae--to crash headfirst into each other.
I felt Andrei's arms wrap around me as my arms, towel still at the ready, aimed for his neck. I heard an umph, and we landed on the floor.
We ended up in a tangle of limbs. Andrei's arms were wrapped around my waist, my legs tied with his. My torso flat against his own. My hands, however, hit the floor knuckles first and smarted hotly, while the towel I held draped tightly over Andrei's face. The sight of his distorted features through the towel looked so horrendous, and so different from his handsome face, that I burst out laughing.
My grip loosened, and I pulled the towel away. His affronted expression tickled my gizzard even more, and tears sprung to my eyes.
"Your face!" I gasped for air, "it was like this!" I pushed up my nose with the index finger of my right hand, resting my elbows on his chest, "And like this!" The fingers on my other hand pushed my upper lip inside out to show my teeth. I held that gorgeous look with my eyes uncomfortably open, looking up and to the side in a death grimace for a hot minute before collapsing into raucous laughter again.
I felt his own laughter through my contact with his torso. It was a deep, belly laugh, that rang with merriment. Our laughter subsided into giggles, then to chuckles, then into sighs, and finally into companionable silence.
It was starting to get hot, now. I realized that I could feel his every breath through my body. Every heartbeat, every movement. It was getting to be overwhelming.
"Sam." He mumbled.
"Huh?"
Genius, I know.
"Sam." He whispered this time, a barest hiss of wind.
