Sleep Magazine (Completed)

The Fight: 3

"You should get this thing tuned," he said nonchalantly, having noticed Grace's presence.

She held her breath. "For what?"

He looked up at her with an amused expression. "So that it's tuned?" The condescending tone of his voice made her ears burn.

"Who do you think is going to play that here?"

Stephan began to interpret the displeasure on her face and softened his voice, hesitating. "Don't you ever play?"

"I haven't touched a piano since high school," Grace responded coldly. 

She wondered what possessed Stephen to sit down at the piano in the first place, surmising that he must have believed she would find the act endearing, that perhaps he thought she might even sit beside him on the old antique bench and join him in a duet, and her stomach began to twist in nauseous, raging waves.

Stephen only nodded slightly and lowered his gaze. Then suddenly, he stood and pulled her into his chest, kissing her feverishly. 

She froze against him for a moment, then wrapped her arms and legs around him, her hips slamming down onto the keys as he leaned her back against the piano. So they moved to their previous position on the couch, breathing heavily between the desperate connection of their mouths, and passed the remaining time of the movie there until through passionate bouts of kissing and several alcoholic seltzers, Grace had resigned her convoluted emotions over to the numbing release of pleasure.

"I don't want to wake up my sisters," Grace whispered as she crept up the tips of the stair treads in her shiny new black boots, avoiding the creaky spots in the centers of the wide, painted planks. 

Stephen followed behind her closely, pecking his lips at the back of Grace's neck and glancing down between kisses to make sure he stepped on the invisible footprints she left behind. When she reached the landing, she spun on the balls of her feet to face him.

"What's the password?" she teased, blocking the landing with a wide stance.

"Oreos," he murmured against her lips.

"Try again."

"Cookie Crisps?" he frowned.

"That's strike two."

Stephen inhaled sharply and darted his eyes around the dark stairwell. In an instant he wrapped his arms around Grace's waist, pulled her up off her feet and carried her into her bedroom, slamming the door shut behind them.

Nowhere near falling asleep and startled by the sound, Ava sat up very still in her bed. 

Her eyes fixed upon the shared wall between Grace's room and her own as if looking at it intently would help her hear through it. Sliding out from under the mass of blankets, she tiptoed to the wall and slumped down quietly onto the floor, pressing her ear against the plaster.

"Shh," Grace exclaimed softly between giggles as she straightened her legs down and regained contact with the floor, wobbling on her heeled boots. Stephen released her from his arms too soon and she toppled backwards against the radiator, causing Ava to jump back from the other side of the wall, covering her mouth to muffle her squeal.

Grace bent her head over her knees laughing as Stephen dipped down to pull her back up onto her feet. He smiled widely as she raised her head up to meet his eyes, glancing down at her boots to notice how pretty they looked on the wide-plank pine floor, light from the kitchen coming up through the cracks between the boards.

"Those are some cool shoes," he said softly against her temple. Grace smiled and looked down at the dozens of wide cracks in the floorboards, admiring how the glowing lines highlighted the floor.