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Time Traveler

She opened her mouth then shut it again. She wanted to smile and reassure him that she'd loved it, because she had. Instead, the words that followed her second attempt were accompanied by a pensive expression, "It's like there's some sort of secret hidden in plain sight. One that maybe I already know."

Placing the book safely away, she sunk under the water, as if maybe the answer was hidden in that muted world beneath the surface.

Questionable Taste

"I had a Camaro," he said, because of course he did. "But it was falling apart. If we'd met on the road--but we wouldn't have," he realized. "The Camaro was long gone by the time you got that truck."

He ran his thumb over the steering wheel, glanced at her sideways, and allowed himself just a couple of wistful seconds: "Wish there was some way to get it through the ******** portal," he said, with one of those little self-aware barks. "Not that there's any roads to drive it on. More places to pull over, though," he said, turning down a tree-lined road, the shoulder half-buried in drifts of autumn leaves, and then down another.

And maybe he was in less of a hurry than she was, because when he threw the brake he paused to lean forward over the wheel, to gaze up, for a minute, through the windshield to the red-gold canopy tossing overhead with his fingers tangled up with hers, before he pushed his seat all the way back (more gracefully than she had and only because he'd rehearsed it once or twice before she got in the car) and asked her, flippant, if he ought to leave his sunglasses on.

Time Traveler

He turned away, to leave and go stand by the bedroom window and smoke, because he wasn't sure if the rising grin was appropriate for what she'd just said and because he never let her see them properly anyway.

Questionable Taste

She didn't bother with her seat this time, instead simply climbing over his. In answer to the question, she put her own on and laughed when they came together in an awkward clatter.

The Name Game

Turning over on her side, she considered the offer, considered the man, for a bit longer than maybe a joking threat really required. Eventually she crawled off the bed and bent down to wrap her arms around his neck, to say quietly in his ear, "Or you could call me Meri, if you wanted."

There was no smile as she said it in voice or expression, but there was nothing unhappy about her. Instead there was warm sincerity, a vulnerable openness that for once did not revolve her personal traumas.

The Name Game

"I do," she answered plaintively. A smile, and then, "Tell you right now, though, I'll only answer to the other if there's a cake in the room."

Questionable Taste (later)

He's spent, still faintly breathless and too lazy to let her take over the wheel, with a hand on her hip and one against the back of her neck to keep her where she is.

He is not given, in this state, to general professions of affection--it feels hackneyed and there's too much potential for insincerity in the wake of his most supreme vulnerability--but he'd murmured one against her shoulder anyway. It's strangely emotional, the car, the smell of fall outside, the little red mark across the bridge of his nose when he'd finally shed the sunglasses. He's embarrassed by how close to her he feels, and so he asks her the question he'd been saving. He'd been savoring the temptation of it, a lazy pleasure to be pursued when more urgent ones were satisfied.

Tell me a story.

"So how did you wreck the truck?" he asks her, and he shifts, just a little, a hint that if she tries to get up he won't stop her, but not exactly a request that she do it. "Because that sounded like an America tale gearing up. Tell me while you're driving."