I keep a book of the names

ReD · Jan 23, 2017

He couldn't help but be drawn to the movement of her curling and uncurling her hair. When she let go, it was the perfect lead in to look at her very nice lips and then the way they smirked.

“Well, sure Lochlann, I can think of a few things people might do just for pleasure’s sake.”

Despite his reputation, Lochlann blushed.

He was rather glad that she rescued him from that one because he would have been dangerously close to giving a lame one liner. He listened to her hobbies with interest and perked up, his shoulders rounding and his head tilting up with undisguised interest.

"And this?" Lochlann tilted his head down to her homework, rather than pointing at it, because to point seemed to suggest something else. He wasn't sure what, but the head nod was more casual and gave him an excuse to lean closer.

"Do you write like this all the time or just for certain situations?" he asked. He did not confess that his penmenship was terrible. It probably had something to do with not holding a pen until he was almost ten.

Her hand was on top of his own and Lochlann felt it again, that little shiver of excitement. He wasn't sure if she felt it to, or if it was just a product of being so lonely.

"That sounds good," he said. He smile was small and soft now, as if he was trying to squash down some nervousness. Was he? Lochlann wasn't sure.

When she asked him about the book, Lochlann blushed again. He couldn't quite meet her eyes and the words came out in a slew.

"I'm looking for the works of Pablo Neruda," he said.

This was much harder to ask for now that they'd been talking.

I am J · Jan 23, 2017

His blush didn’t go unnoticed but Cat was a lady and so she did not mention it, though she did savor it as a win and, well, it was adorable. It was also adorable, and very flattering, to see the naked interest on his face as she described what she loved but considered benign in the grand scheme of other people’s lives. He gestured at her notebook and something in her knew, before he said it, that he wasn’t talking about passing time doing homework. She smiled fondly at her pages, as if at an old friend.

“No. My handwriting isn’t nearly as lovely,” she replied cryptically. She quirked and eyebrow at him in mischief, then nodded at the page. Near the bottom in the blank half of the page, letters larger than the rest on the page, his name was written in looping letters that seemed to glide impossibly, gleaming in still wet cerulean ink: Lochlann. Satisfied to have had a chance to sate the need to see his name written, she watched his face. “It’s why I’m here,” she spoke softly. After all, normal people didn’t attend Starlight Academy.
Writing had been a passion long before her talents had awakened, but once they had her love had been less for writing and more for the writing itself.

Her stomach flipped when he agreed to meet her outside of the door, even though she’d known that this was going that direction and even though she had even helped the suggestion along. Something about confirmation made anticipation rise. But suddenly, he wouldn’t meet her eyes. She frowned a little but brightened some upon mention of the author’s name.

“Neruda? The poet?” Instead of typing the name into the card catalog on the computer, she stood from the stool, smoother her jeans down her legs, and came around the counter. She cocked a finger at him to follow her. “Sure, he’s back this way. He’s difficult to find because some of his work is in poetry and some of his work falls in with biographies over in History.”

ReD · Jan 24, 2017

Lochlann watched her create his name with undisguised interest.

He was fairly good at hiding expression on his face, but he had to be conscious and deliberate about the action. It did not come easy to him and right now, the fascination would have been hard to hide even if he wanted to.

She wrote his name without moving a pen in looping letters. It was the first time he thought it looked beautiful.

It's not that he hated his name, but whenever he wrote it, Lochlann was all awkward angles and an uneven circle that looked as though someone had crushed it. It was a name that looked like it was written by a monster.

"It's," Lochlann said. He couldn't find the words, but he glanced up to her face, meeting her eyes while he tried to express what he meant.

Instead, he smiled and flipped his hand so her hand was lying in her palm and gave it a gentle squeeze.

He wondered if this was the only reason she was at the academy but he did not ask. He couldn't find a way to do so that didn't cross that invisible boundary. Plenty of people were here because they'd made a mistake somewhere else. Lochlann had several mistakes that trapped him here, all of them at the bottom of a river.

Instead he said, "Thank you."

He was still thinking about her handwriting and what that meant when she came around the counter. He was rather pleased that she knew her Neruda was so he didn't have to say the word poet aloud.

When she beckoned, he came without hesitation. He followed and watched the sway of her hips when she walked. Not for the first time, Lochlann felt hungry.

He had a sudden intake of breath that he tried to cover up by elaborating on his request.

"I'm looking for a volume of his works," Lochlann said. "I had no idea what category it would be in. Thank you for helping me. Have you..."

He bit off his next question and then caved. She was in a bookstore. It would be a normal question here, right? "Have you read Neruda?"

I am J · Jan 24, 2017

Speechless. She rendered him speechless with her writing. That was something worth doing just for pleasures sake. It was also something she was quite passionate about. He squeezed her hand and her stomach fluttered at his gratitude. She couldn’t think why inking his name would or should garner that reaction but no reaction to her talent after this would match up. To be appreciated for something that was so simple to others but meant so much to her was truly breath taking.

“You don’t have to thank me. I’d write it again and again. Your name has great structure.” It was true. ‘L’ made a beautiful sweeping loop, ‘N’ was the perfect, hopping break in loops. ‘Caitlin’ was a choppy name and not one she would have chosen for herself to write for the rest of her life. Maybe Allison or Clarissa, or Isabell.

She lead him down the main isle and the left into the more narrow isles. His sudden intake of breath drew her interest and she peeked over her shoulder, about to ask him if everything was ok, but he looked fine and he was still following her so she returned her eyes forward and continued onward. Now, though, she was acutely aware of his gaze on her back. It was as though his gaze created a hotspot in the middle of her spine.

She turned her head slightly to speak over her shoulder. “Only a few pieces of his work,” she replied, coming to a stop at the section. She drew her finger across the spines, starting at one half way through the shelf and nearly to the end, indicating where the volumes began and ended. There were very few. “Most of his work isn’t translated and I don’t read in anything but English, I’m not that talented with language. But he wrote in the most beautiful green ink.” That, and possibly only that, is why she really knew of Neruda. The ink.

“This is all we have but if you don’t find what you’re searching for I can put it on order.” She stepped back awkwardly, with nothing to do with her hands, she pushed her finger tips into her back pockets. She found that she didn’t want to walk away, returning to the desk. “So…you like poetry?” she asked instead.

ReD · Jan 24, 2017

When she glanced over her shoulder, Lochlann let her see his eyes raise from her hips to his face. This was always a bit of a gamble. He was a predator and this technique either let the person he was behind know they were prey, or, ideally, let them know of his interest.

He gave her another very soft smile.

He watched her finger draw against the spine of the book and Lochlann had a sudden, vicious desire to know what it would feel like to have her finger trace like that against his skin. He was embarrassed by this, which was relfected in the quick way he brought his eyes back to the titles of the book.

"I only read English, too," Lochlann said, and then frowned because that wasn't entirely true. "Well, no, but I mean, I can't read his works in Spanish. Have you ever heard them read in Spanish, though?"

Lochlann ran his finger down the book she'd signaled out first and pulled it from the shelf, gentling fumbling with the pages to look at the contents.

When she asked him about poetry he looked at her from the corner of his eyes before dropping them back to the book.

"Yes," he confessed, and it sounded like a confession of some great crime.

'But if you tell anyone--" It was an automatic answer and he stopped it there because he realized there was really nothing to do if she told anyone. He gave a short shrug and said. "I would just prefer if you didn't tell anyone. It's not something people need to know about me."

He flipped through the book and stopped on a poem as if producing it for an explanation.

"This is why I like Neruda," he explained, and he flipped the passage over to show her and mouthed the words silently.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example,'The night is shattered
and the blue stars shiver in the distance.'

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

He didn't finish it because but would let her read it, if he chose, because Lochlann was not the sort of person to whisper poetry to a near stranger in a bookstore, no matter how much he was interested.

"It's the most obvious of Neruda's," Lochlann said. "But I like the way they don't sound like they're translated. My moth--Someone I knew used to read to me in Welsh, and I tried to translate the Welsh into English and it just ruined the effect. The effect here doesn't seem ruined to me. The words still have the right pattern."

He shifted from one foot to the other and then leaned slightly against the shelf, watching her face for ques as to whether he'd drifted too far into the stereotype territory. There was a lot of things that Lochlann pretended to be, but this wasn't one of them. This was genuine.

I am J · Jan 24, 2017

“I can’t say I’ve ever even bothered to take the time to listen to something read in Spanish.” Her tone implied that maybe that was something needing rectified. She watched him turn the pages, leaning forward slightly to peer over the text as he did so.
Because she was leaned in towards him she caught the look from the corner of his eye. She didn’t drop her eyes away but held his even when he didn’t return the gaze. His confession sounded morose instead of passionate. Cat would have thought that if it was something that he quite enjoyed that he would sound more enthusiastic about it.

Yes, but if you tell anyone…

She bristled. Her smile faded at the edges, and then she frowned, a crease forming between her dark brows. Her eyes looked sharp. The sounded an awful lot like a threat and Cat did not like to be threatened, she did not like to be bossed. What was it he had said earlier? That he thought she was someone who only did what she wanted, right? He’d been right.

“You’ll what, Lochlann? Put me in time out? It’s not like I’d go around discussing your interests with other people.” She scoffed again, this time the sound was annoyed instead of amused. She crossed her arms across her ribs again, her entire body seemingly to tighten before softening again to address his next words. “Besides,” she continued, her tone a little more gentle but still clipped around the edges, “there isn’t a single thing wrong with enjoying poetry. If it isn’t something people need to know…” the rest was left hanging on the air: why confirm it to me? He could have said it was for school and she would have believed him.

When he turned the book to her she thought about holding the standoff, her annoyance faded but lingering. Instead, after a beat, she sighed and regained the step she’d distance, then stepped closer still. She didn’t read the words right off but watched his lips move silently. For a moment, she couldn’t take her eyes from his lips, the last of her annoyance slipping away. Then she drug her eyes down to the pages he was offering.

“I can see why you like it,” she told him softly, lifting her eyes to look at him again. He was watching her and she suddenly felt like she was standing too close. She didn’t move away but spoke again, more quietly: “You do know there isn’t anything wrong with that right? Loving poems?” The bell tinkled over the entrance making her jump a little. She moved away quickly and went to the end of the isle, heart racing and simultaneously relieved and annoyed to have an excuse to move away for a moment.

“Hi, I’m Cat, if you need any help I’m right over here.” She glanced back down the aisle at him, offering a half of a smile. “Anything else you’re looking for, Lochlann?”

ReD · Jan 24, 2017

He saw her bristle and Lochlann knew that he was in the wrong but it was too late for him to take back what he said. He wasn’t sure he could, though.

When she crossed her arms and scoffed again Lochlann felt his heart flipflop again. He almost responded to her with a flirtation. Almost. The temptation was there. He could feel the shitty one-liner on the edge of his tongue.

He stopped himself.

He couldn’t quite meet her gaze again now. He forgot how hard this was, being human.

“There’s nothing wrong with it, no,” Lochlann acquiesced, but he sounded like he almost didn’t want to. It was more difficult to explain than right or wrong. It was blackmail versus safety. It was old habits that may have not helped him, but they certainly stopped things from getting worse.

The bell rang and Lochlann realized he’d have to apologize later.

“No,” he said. “Thank you, I’ll be able to find the rest here.”

He did his best not to watch her walk away, but he was weak.

Ooc:
Did you want to do a time skip? Its up to you!

I am J · Jan 24, 2017

Cat spent the next two hours neglecting her homework. She sat on the stool with her elbows on the counter, reflecting, or doing the numb work putting the discarded books back in their proper spot, which freed her mind to think about Lochlann. He had put her on the defensive right there at the end, but that one little blip wasn’t enough to cast shadow over their short exchange. What was she thinking? Caitlin Rebecca was not the sort of girl who went off on a date with a man she’d just meant. Usually, she put her school and her work ahead of men and when a good man did come around she made him work hard for her. Lochlann was different, which was off putting since he seemed to be nothing like his reputation. She’d just have to be cautious. She wouldn’t have the wool pulled over her eyes.

Before her shift ended, Cat took her purse to the bathroom and refreshed her lipstick, pinched her creamy cheeks until they had some pink, and let her hair free from its ponytail, allowing the dark locks to cascade down, nearly reaching her waist. Then she’d stared at herself in the mirror in disbelief. Was she primping for him? What on earth had gotten into her? She left the bathroom in a huff and as she left the bookstore, barely glancing at her associate, she gathered her hair and snatched it back up into a ponytail again, pushing through the front door with her elbow.

ReD · Jan 24, 2017

After purchasing his books, Lochlann had thanked her and left to head back to the motel he was staying at for the time being. He'd only been back for a few days and the situation with his old flat was kind of up in the air.

He showered for the third time that day for no other reason than wanting to feel water on his skin. maybe it was a mistake, because when he stepped out of the shower, he was feeling...better. Flightly. Like he had all the energy in the world.

It was probably why he hadn't been able to sleep more than a few hours each night.

Lochlann was hungry.

He ignored this sensation and picked up two coffees from the coffee shop instead. They were both plain, but he'd brought packets of cream and sugar in with the little cardboard holder.

He was approaching the door when Cat opened it with her elbow first and Lochlann was surprised that he was quick enough to step back and not drop the coffee.

"Hey," he said. "Did you still want to do...something?"

He held the coffee out to her as an offering.

I am J · Jan 24, 2017

“Oh!” She cried out, startled. “I’m so sorry!” her arms came down quickly and her hair tie flicked to the ground sending her long hair flying around her face. She reached with one hand to hold the door from swinging back on her and her other hand reached out to rest on his arm. “I didn’t hit you, did I?” Her eyes flicked over him once quickly. He was holding coffees, neither spilled, and he looked unharmed. She let her eyes move over him one more time, more slowly, a second time before stepping all the way out onto the sidewalk.

“Of course I do,” she replied, “don’t you?” Cat stooped down to pick up her traitorous hair tie and quickly gathered her hair back up into a ponytail. “Oh, you brought coffee, you must be a saint.” She grinned, taking the coffee he offered her and wrapping both hands around it, savoring the heat in the cup. “So, what do you want to do?”

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I keep a book of the names

ReD

Sex & Death Everywhere

I am J

Well-Known Member

ReD

Sex & Death Everywhere

I am J

Well-Known Member

ReD

Sex & Death Everywhere

I am J

Well-Known Member

ReD

Sex & Death Everywhere

I am J

Well-Known Member

ReD

Sex & Death Everywhere

I am J

Well-Known Member