golden

thirteen: paper money, paper hearts

That night, he dreamt of orchids. A sea of ruddy colored tea that smelled suspiciously like jasmine. Velveteen skin under cloud touch. Licks of fire threaded through his fingers. A dream so divine, he was thrown into forthright despair upon waking and realizing she wasn't next to him as he had dreamt.

No, she had bid him farewell during the late hours of the night, maybe the earliest of the morning hours? Sorbet kisses and melting touches. Exactly seven goodbye kisses, the last puddling into a silent embrace before he pressed a quick peck to her cheek, and she forced the door closed between them to ward off an eighth farewell.

After, he had laid awake in his bed. The taste of her lips still fresh as the first kiss. A bright haze he now recognized as passion ablaze in the dark of her eyes. Gentle sweeps of her fingers through his hair. He replayed every moment twice over, relishing and trying to find the part where his reality shifted into dream, only to realize that it had in fact happened. He kissed her. She kissed him. They had truly spent hours tucked away in his hotel room, door locked and curtains drawn, delicate words traced in with licorice fingers entwined together. Her legs over his. His head in her lap. That damning midnight laugh echoing in the room as she ran her hands through his hair and traced the slope of his nose and brushed over his mouth with the pad of her middle finger.

Sleep didn't retrieve him until well past seven in the morning, sun rising and his heart finally slowing down.

No one can know.

Perhaps it was a warning. A thinly laced heeding that he couldn't ignore even if he wanted to.

No one will.

And perhaps it was a promise. One so grand and encompassing, it could only end for the better.

Even then, with no intuition that he was to see her during the remainder of the day, his heart thudded in its cage just at the slightest possibility he would be graced with her presence. He was a man giddy in the ideals of his heart and nothing had ever felt better. Not even, when the phone blared out a ring and when he answered, he was greeted with her gossamer voice.

"'Lo?"

"Are you just now waking up?" A hint of an unusually schoolgirl giggle trailed her words.

"You left at three. I didn't pass out 'til seven or eight." He glanced over at the clock. Past noon, very well near one in the afternoon. He'd have to make do with around four hours of rest. And it was. The first true night of peace he'd encountered since meeting Elizabeth. "How're you up so early?" The ball of his fist rubbed against his eye as he sat up.

"I never fell asleep." Her breath caught, as if she had just revealed to him a deep secret or a treasured desire. "We were supposed to film today but Gregory's come down with something, so I've wound up with an unexpected off day and-."

"I'll be there in an hour."

"I'll cook you breakfast."

It went without rhyme or reason that Elizabeth didn't sleep a wink last night. She snuck into her own home somewhere between the hours of three and four in the morning, careful to make no noise so as to not wake Howie. When she attempted to force sleep on herself, it refused to make an appearance. Instead, she peeled from the bed at five, spent a hateful amount of time in the bath where her mind wandered and relived each glorious moment of her last encounter with Harry. The traitor of her heart did not cease its gallops even as the bath water went cold, and the bubbles became nothing.

It was only upon her sixth or seventh pace of her room that she noticed the wad of cash nestled on her nightstand. And only upon fingering through it did she realize Howie had given her more than the last time. Almost triple. He was just as eager to get out from under Lloyd Claymont's finger as she was. She stashed the money somewhere safe to keep until the next time she ventured out to repay his debt. Her stomach somersaulted at the thought of being faced with those scummy creeps yet again. Hopefully, for their sakes, they heeded her warning and kept their distance.