by Laila Blake
Annika’s breath huffed out her nose, and she crossed her arms over her waist. She didn’t seem convinced but, in Emily’s eyes, wasn't quite as annoyed now, either. It was, at least, a start.
“He’s trying to show how grateful he is… we both are.” She looked down but then forced herself to look up at Annika again, to smile at her. “You’ve already done so much—he’s just trying to do something for you, and he’s really bad at communicating this, but I’ll talk to him…”
Annika raised her eyebrows, Emily thought she saw a hint of humor.
“He’ll listen,” she added, with a small smile. “Promise.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Aaron was no expert in construction, but he had an idea of what was and wasn’t working in a building and, for the most part, the house Annika’s husband had inherited from his grandparents was in relatively good shape.
The roof needed work, shedding shingles on the lawn, and the porch was sagging, but, outside the mold that had grown in the unused toilets and some cracks in the plaster of the walls, his appraisal found the place safe and solid, and well-maintained long before anyone had gotten back to it the year before.
The bedrooms were arranged along the upstairs hallway so that no one was ever really that far from one another. With Lani’s help, they painted the room on the end blue, from a gallon left over from years before. It was to be Song’s room, and Emily’s, and the old window looked over the yard towards the chicken coop, and the stream beyond it.
Emily painted clouds over the blue, and a sun, and then climbed up on a rickety ladder with dark blue paint she’d mixed, and yellow and white, and produced the evening sky spilling down from a corner. She worked somewhat obsessively, slavishly, and Aaron caught himself watching her, finding excuses to be in the hallway to peek in on her, more than he could admit out loud.
She wore her hair in a ponytail, cut-offs and a t-shirt, her feet bare, and her brown freckles were joined by blue and yellow ones. She’d not overtly selected a bedroom but she had shared Song’s for the first few nights and it had stayed that way, neither Aaron nor Emily willing to risk any budding friendliness and sweetness all over again.
He brought her tea, covered in a layer of dust and muck himself, though he’d wiped his hands clean. It was approaching late afternoon, and clouds were rolling in, but Emily had been lost to her painting for hours, and, for a moment, he was loathe to interrupt her.
“Don’t fall,” he warned her, wrapping a hand around one of the ladder legs to keep it steady, looking up at her. “You got your head in the clouds,” he added, smiling at his own dumb joke.
Emily couldn’t help it, she beamed down at him—even all that way on the ladder, she was hardly more than a head taller than he.
“I’m painting,” she whispered as though that explained everything—it did to her. Their lives had been so sparse and gray for so long, she had forgotten the feeling of paint and materials, of creating something, and she could hardly believe how she had lived without it for so long. She knew she was overdoing it, too, but there had been a mural in Song’s room in New York and she wanted nothing less for him here.
Catching sight of the tea in Aaron’s other hand, her smile turned sheepish. He had done that a lot lately, she realized, taken care of her, when she had her head in the clouds.
She carefully stepped down the ladder and with him holding onto it, found herself all too close when her feet touched the floor, like she’d stepped into a cloud of his scent: moist and musky in the warmth of the day. She breathed it in once and then accepted the tea as he stepped away.
“Thank you,” she said, voice at a low and quiet pitch.
“Welcome.” He tipped his head back to look at the progress of her painting, at the details she was adding in, like layers.
“You’re amazing,” he said, honestly, without any reason to cap his commentary: he wondered about that, art, the ability to do something like that, when he frequently joked he couldn’t even draw a line across a paper without fucking it up. She was almost supernatural to him, with her drawings that nearly spilled out of her pencils, the paint that went from viscous liquid into something grand, amazing, as much as the universe.
“I’m wasting too much paint,” she answered with a shake of her head. It was quite obvious to Aaron, though, who knew her all too well by now, that she didn’t truly believe it a waste, that it was just her British sense of self-deprecation.
“I just... I always wanted to him have everything. And I don’t know what that is now, but—I want him to have a beautiful place all his own.”
“I think you’re managing that,” he replied, glancing down at her. “Don’t know that I ever had a room with anything other than white walls.”
“I think Annika will hide any other paint from me...” she said with a winsome little grin, “but—I am very easily convinced and commissioned, just so you know. Lani’s already hinting pretty strongly that she wants a lot of birds on her walls.”
“Don’t know what I’d put on one,” he said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “I guess I’ve never much thought about it? Haven’t had my own room in years, ya know?”
“Camouflage?” she teased, chuckling while at the same time looking sweetly apologetic.
“Then I might get lost trying to find the bed,” he replied, without missing a beat, his smile real and wide and eyes twinkling. He was beautiful like that, she thought, and looked away for a moment before her mouth might run away with her and cause her to suggest she could always help him find it.
“Maybe something from Georgia,” she said more gently.
His smile tightened, but then dissolved into something tender, that acknowledgement that she was allowed to move into that space, as sore as it always was.
“You’re the artist, not me.”
“Peach blossoms?” she smiled and then frowned a little shyly, “that’s Georgia, right? Peaches?”
His smile made his eyes crinkle at the corners. “Peaches, yeah. On the license plate and everything.” He poked her in the shoulder. “You’ve been paying attention to geography.”
“You mentioned it...” she admitted quietly. “We’d need to find more colors of course, reds and more blue. Yellow, green.” Before she knew it, of course, she had an image of a bedroom that made her think of an orchard.
“It can’t be that hard, can it? It’s not like people go bulk-buy paints when an apocalypse strikes...”
“Bet we can look in the cellar?” he suggested, nodding in the vague direction of the stairs, and the set that continued down into the dankness below.
“You haven’t been down there?”
“Not really,” he said, raising a hand to the back of his neck, still sunburned, and rubbing there sheepishly. “I... I'm not too fond of cellars, basements. Enclosed, dark. It’s silly,” he added, quickly, but a flush had already hit his ears, turning them red.
Emily grinned, then held up her little brush, still light yellow from the stars she had been painting—realistic ones, not with five points.
“I’ll chop the head off any zombie who might hide there and try to bite you,” she grinned and, before he could defend himself, she'd pushed the brush gently to his nose, leaving a yellow dot.
He went cross-eyed for a moment to inspect the mark.
“Now I look like a very sad sort of wild animal,” he remarked, focusing on her again, though his vision swam for a second, making her into a blur of white and brown, blue and yellow and pink.
“Not quite yet,” she smiled shaking her head, “More like Aaron who stuck his nose too deep into a dandelion blossom.”
“What’s the one? Where you hold a daffodil under your chin to see if you like butter?” He snatched the brush away and deftly swiped it over the curve of her chin, coloring it bright yellow.
Emily squeaked, though more in surprise than protest. Her eyes dilated and her breath came in shorter, hoarser gasps. She sucked the pink flesh of her bottom lip into her mouth and slowly
dragged her teeth over it as she let it slip back out, aware that Aaron was watching her.
“Everybody likes butter…” she breathed far too softly, mouth on auto-pilot.
The moment hung in the air, and then he tapped her on the end of the nose with the paintbrush, coloring that yellow, too. “Now we match,” he said, though his voice was lower than it had been before.
“Not yet...” she whispered and slowly this time, brought her finger to the brush, colored it and reached up to his chin. He could have stopped her at any moment but Aaron let her brush the wet paint over his stubble, his eyes never leaving hers.
He was still holding the brush when he kissed her, and when she reached to wrap her arms around his neck, he let go of it, splattering dots of yellow on both of their shirts and not noticing at all. The kiss smelled like paint as the liquid warmed and smeared from their noses and chins to their cheeks and into their hair. Emily pulled him backwards against the one wall she knew to be dry and he trapped her between his warm, tall body and the painted surface, one palm flat against it just next to her face.
They’d not kissed since the night at the decrepit house, had barely touched since she held his hand the night on the road. It felt like it had been longer, and much more recent at once.
There was a far-off roll of thunder, the herald of another spring storm, and Aaron’s fingers found the skin under Emily’s shirt, exposed by her lifted arms, warm against his hand.
She whimpered the moment his fingers made contact—this was another thing she couldn’t help but long for: art and sex and laughter, however much everything was suffused in guilt. Her hand caught hold of his shirt, trying to pull it free from his jeans almost a little too hastily. He let her wrest it away, his hands pushing further under hers, where the outlines of her ribs were finally starting to diminish in their stark appearance against her skin.
The kiss broke, and neither of them spoke, nor moved, for a beat, for a fraction of a second, and then, in some silent agreement, both pulled their shirts away and over their heads before their mouths crashed together once more.
Emily could feel her nipples harden as they brushed against the fine, wiry hair on his chest. She leaned back and, too starved not to, rolled her back to create a space in which her hands could find his belt, his stomach caving in tandem so her fingers could grasp at the button. It popped open with no resistance, loosening around his hips, allowing her to work the zipper down even as he kissed along over the line of her throat. She could still feel the paint, his nose drawing yellow lines down her neck and she shivered, whimpered and slipped her fingers into his boxers.
Aaron let out a low noise of his own, hips jumping forward at her touch, mouth pressing hard at the junction of her neck and shoulder. He stayed stock still as her hand closed around him and, then, abruptly, pulled away.
Emily’s mouth fell open; she had a distinctly heavier bottom lip that seemed to fall open in a pout all by itself.
“I...” she whispered, her heart still thrumming in her chest.
Aaron’s chest rose and fell with his ragged breaths.
“I can’t do this,” he said, after a moment filled with only the sound of their breaths and the rain that was starting to patter on the open window sill.
She opened her mouth, then instinctively crossed her arms in front of her chest; she shivered and couldn’t quite look at him, biting down hard on the inside of her mouth.
“S... sorry,” she muttered finally, fighting the onset of tears so hard, her ears felt like they were about to pop.
He shook his head and threaded his fingers through his hair, his other hand holding his jeans up around his hips, even as the front was punctuated by the bulge of his unwaning erection.
“Don’t be,” he said, finally, eyes going to the window, the black clouds that were settling in as the rain started to come down harder. Emily reached down for her shirt and pulled it back over her head, sniffing only once.
He sucked in a breath and got his jeans buttoned again, only looking back to her once her shirt was on again. She seemed smaller now, shoulders curled, and he folded his arms over his bare chest to resist the urge to hug her.
“I’m sorry,” he said, this time, dropping his gaze to her knobby knees, which shouldn’t have been cute, or alluring, but were both, all the same.
“Nn...” She clenched her teeth and then didn’t finish the word. The angry, hurting part of her refused to be that big a person. She wanted him to be sorry, and she quickly looked away as though he’d be able to read her thoughts through her always too-expressive eyes.
“I just can’t,” he tried to explain, but it was futile in every way. Whatever he said made no difference, not when he still couldn't catch his breath, even staring at her feet, not when his entire pelvis ached just to be near her.
“Right, yeah,” she stuttered, voice growing colder. “I understand.”
“Emily.” Aaron sucked in another breath and closed his eyes to pass a hand over his face; his palm came away yellow.
“This isn’t who I am,” he said, finally, voice dropped with his eyes, back to focusing on the floor, her paint-stained toes.
“I said I understand.”
“And you hate me for it.” He’d told her he didn’t hate her, but he wasn’t sure that the reverse wasn’t true. This time, Emily shook her head quickly and forced herself to look up at him again.
“No.” Short. She didn’t think she was capable of anything else.
An utterly unhappy smile flittered over his mouth.
“Sure.” He finally reached near her to snag his shirt with just the tips of his fingers, standing up quickly enough to cause a breeze to stir her hair. It sent a cold shiver down her spine and she hugged herself, turning away from him.
Pulling the shirt over his head left a yellow streak and, for a moment, he felt dizzy: weren’t they having fun a scant few minutes before? After weeks of awkwardness, they’d found some way to talk, and hang out, and even laugh with each other, and now they could have been standing on opposite cliffs over a miles-wide canyon.
“Should go check on the tarps,” he muttered, an excuse as much as anything else, a way to get out of the room, tossed out without thought as he turned for the door.
She watched him, his strong back, the way his muscle and sinew moved under the threadbare shirt, then quickly looked away. Just a few more steps and she’d be able to let go, and then the pressure headache between her eyes might stop.
When he did reach the door though, actually opened it and left, something clicked inside of her. Gall rose to her throat and she dashed after him, down the stairs, not thinking of the kids, of Annika, of anything else.
“So that’s it?” she called angrily, standing in the doorway, one foot on the porch and not quite stepping out into the rain. “Now you’ll go back to ignoring me?”
He stopped, stood there, before he even looked over his shoulder. “Those the only options?” he asked, voice weary but gaze sharp.
“Well it’s your M.O. isn’t it?” she spat, her nose feeling sticky and wet.
He faced her fully. “What is?” His jaw pulsed slightly, and his hair was getting wet, but he didn’t move, closer or further away.
“You—” she started but whatever had caused her to stop wasn’t strong enough when her anger rose out of nowhere. “You know—fucking and ignoring... like I’m the big bad she-devil thing with the temptation and you just can’t help yourself, you poor, poor man, so it's okay to treat me like crap!”
Whatever had been keeping Aaron in check for weeks snapped. Over his face registered something like hurt, and then pure and complete anger that had been shoved down for too long.
“How the hell is this all my fault?” he asked, finding his voice much louder than he’d expected, but he didn't bother to lower it, once he heard it come out of his mouth. “I stopped. I stopped myself, because I can’t do things like this. I’m not blaming a God-damned thing on you, but I get to take it anyway?”
“You think just because you don’t say it, you don’t blame me?” she growled, her face contorted in something like hatred, except that she was already crying. It was hard to hear her over the splatter of rain that was dousing his shirt, diluting the yellow paint as it dropped from his face into the fabric, but he didn’t step closer as though her very atmosphere would halt any attempt. “You are blaming me with every glance, or the way you look away, you blame me because you’re hurting. Fuck you, Aaron, I’m hurting too!”
“I love you!” It was out of his mouth and crashing against the rain and the thunder that rumbled, somewhat ceaselessly, over their heads. “You think this is easy? You think I want to feel like this? Every fucking day—” Aaron rarely cursed, and particularly not in front of her, and he swallowed roughly.
“Every day I spend all day with you, and it’s absolutely the best and worst way to feel, to be near you and have to be near you at the same time.”
There was a pause, a short one where they stared at each other, but then Emily’s face darkened in spite of herself, in spite of the bubbling, blossoming need in her chest. Tears were now running down her cheeks, unchecked, like the rain.
“You think you are the only one who's ever been in love and it wasn’t just bloody rainbows and kittens? You think this is hard? You really fucking think this is hard?”
“I’ve done everything for you,” he countered. “I’d give up my fucking right arm for you, I’d get shot for you. I’m not asking you to suffer, or love me back, but I'm not—” He stopped himself, shoved his fingers into his wet hair and pushed it back from his face, clutching at the strands so the pain might anchor him in place.
“Don’t you get it?” she sobbed, shaking her head. “I don’t need you to get shot, I don’t need your stupid arm! What the fuck does that even mean—you say that word love like... like...” She shook her head, sniffing and choking on the feeling of something in her chest roaring and clawing at her insides, ready to tear her to pieces.
