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Things of Interest

It is not a long walk: a few blocks, although he secretly takes her a longer way than he needs to when the rain stops, down an unnecessary street, milking a few extra minutes of conversation, of his arm around her waist, of being comfortable, for once in his life.

"--they'd be six feet under by now," he finishes. He's reading to her aloud from his phone, from Wikipedia, because she'd said something and he'd remembered, and said: there was--actually, wait, let me just read to you.

He could have just handed the phone over, but it gives him an excuse to hide his face, and he is, besides, always quietly pleased to glance at her when he is speaking and see her looking only interested.

Other People's Children

They waited at the crosswalk and there was no telling why a woman in a nice suit was carrying a toddler in her arms at this hour of night in the middle of the city, but there she was, looking exhausted under her umbrella, the little boy's head lolling sleepily on her shoulder as he watched America and Taym.

Taym, in the distracted way that people do when confronted with a nearby child mid-sentence, kept talking but provided for the boy's entertainment a cross-eyed, tongue-out face. At some point, probably, she'd turn around and see a scarred, gaunt, smoking man with a tattooed redhead in a skimpy dress on his arm, and see him making faces at her son, and she would very likely Not Be Happy. Taym was always vaguely disheartened, quietly ashamed, by the way mothers reacted to his inability to avoid playing peekaboo with babies in the queue in front of him, his inability to resist smiling back at small children holding their older siblings' hands on the sidewalk. But she hadn't turned around yet, and the little boy smiled shyly against his mother's shoulder and Taym without thinking tightened his arm around America's waist in subconscious fondness.

"We're thinking of taking it to Edith," he continued around his cigarette, and the grin was in his voice as he pantomimed picking his nose with his free hand. "Not sure if it really falls under our department's job description, but we're thinking of it."

Aversion

It became obvious afterwards, quickly, that the only thing stopping Taym from adding Kostya to his conversational blacklist was the realization that she would never abide by it--and that she couldn't, because to talk about herself was to talk about him.

Walk with Me

She laughed, more freely than she had all evening, and bumped her hip against his. It was dark and rainy and a city she'd never been in, but the longer they were out there the more vibrant and animated she became at his side. There was a distinct bounce in America's step.

(Tragically, this meant at certain points during their walk, she appeared a bit taller than him.)

Exception

Sliding her hand down his forearm then up again, fingers flexing against his torso (and there was that moment of quiet relief stored for later, for review of the part of her that held its breath in check for that one, most important promise that never quite spoken I won't do that to myself again) America took and explored the bits and pieces offered to her and tamped down the desire to push further.

(Freedom was nearly always attached to further restrictions, she was learning this, time and again.)

Three Worst Words

The humming stopped but the motion continued as she brushed her hair, picking out stray pins that had managed to survive earlier deprivations. "Of course, we can." When had she ever refused him conversation? Of the two of them, he was the one more likely to deny such.

Walk With Me

On the short trip up to the restaurant's door he'd held her close to his side like he could somehow infect her with the ability to be boring, to escape notice.

As the evening wore on, as he found more excuses to wind around one more block, he realized that he now held her close in the vague wish that he could instead, somehow, breathe in and assimilate the vibrancy she exuded even more than usual. A hopeless sort of wish, he thought tiredly.

An onlooker, comparing him before and after, might to the contrary have insisted that it was working.

Three Worst Words

"Come here then," he said, just as quietly--barely a whisper, for reasons he couldn't explain--but with an edge of irritation.