Sea

Sea ~ part 2

Both screaming about the aggression of the rain and laughing about the ludicrousness of the situation, they run together, her hand in his, to a solitary wood-built beach-house, close to trees and a rocky outcrop. He kicks open the door and pulls her inside out of the deluge and chaos, leaving the door ajar and calling his dog, who still sniffs around on the wet beach. They lean against opposite walls of a narrow hallway and laugh uncontrollably, until she feels her face and chest will split. The sound of his laughter, so boyish and full of mischief, echoes around the space, and she realises that tears are spilling from her eyes. She wipes them clear with the back of her hand, uncertain if they are from hilarity or overwhelm of his presence, hoping he has not noticed.

       He looks at her, still breathless, his dark eyes sparkling and his lips turned up in amusement, and parted slightly as he catches his breath. She feels blood rise in her cheeks with his dark gaze locked on her and she lowers her face, strands of her soaked hair curtaining her eyes, and droplets tipping from their ends to form pathetic excuses for puddles on the wooden floor near her feet.

       She senses movement before she feels his fingers touch her wet hair. She is frozen in surprise as he traces the drenched strands of hair downwards, his fingertips glancing against her cheek and chin. Her breathing, now shallow and blood humming in her ears, she lets him turn her face upwards, but is certain that she will truly melt or dissolve if she dares to look back into his knowing eyes.

       With a thump of the door hitting the wall, his dog gadavants into the hallway, jumping excitedly between them, and promptly shakes the rain off his coat onto them both. The moment shattered, his hand drops to his side, he pushes the door closed against the lashing rain, and she is uncertain now if she imagined the touch of his hand on her skin which prickles as if charged with electricity.

       She surveys her surroundings, hoping her wet hair will cover her confusion and her reddening cheeks. His beach-house is sparse, lacking the sleek tidiness needed to be minimalistic. A single sofa stands in the middle of the main room, items of clothing roughly hanging off it, and a television facing it, sitting on the floor. Two suitcases lie open against the right wall, a muddle of clothes, technology and belongings tumbling from them onto the polished floorboards. Against the other wall, his dog is snuffling and rubbing his face against a large blue cushioned dog bed. Empty bowls and mugs and chopsticks are randomly scattered and the floor around the sofa. Ahead of her, almost the whole wall is a floor-to-ceiling window which she assumes should be displaying golden sand rolling off down to blue ocean and bluer sky, but it is pebble-dashed with streams of lashing rain and an ominous grey, bleak scene which fades quickly into mist.

       He scampers into the room, grabbing up used bowls and mugs and kicking cables and items of crumpled clothing, an attempt to tame the snaking muddle on the floor.

       "I'm sorry," he mumbles, "I didn't..."

       "You weren't expecting company," she finishes his sentence. "Don't worry. My room looks like this right now too." He disappears, with an armful of collected items, through a door, and she hears the clanking of bowls into a kitchen sink. She steps into the main room. Behind the sofa, pushed up against the window, lie two mattresses, piled on top of each other, and dishevelled white pillows and sheets. Involuntarily she laughs, unable to hide her reaction.

       "What?" he asks, behind her in the doorway, and again she's unable to cover up or lie.

       "The mattresses thing..." she giggles. "I'm sorry I couldn't help it..."

       A look of recognition falls over his face, "Oh... that mattresses thing... well yeah, that's two of them..." he smiles, "only pretend you've not seen how messy this all is..."

       "I'll pretend I've seen nothing," she says, and she smiles about the discrepancy between the money she knows he must have in his bank account and the way the room reminds her of student accommodation on a disorganised budget. He is looking at her again, and she's suddenly hyper-aware of her dripping hair and sodden dress clinging to her legs.

       "You need to get dry," he says. "Wait. I'll find you something." Rifling through his cases, making more chaotic mess on the wooden floor, he surfaces with an oversized t-shirt, a hoodie and a towel, looking perplexed. "I don't know what..." his voice trails off in flustered embarrassment.

       "Those are fine," she tells him. He awkwardly hands the bundle to her, and she drapes the t-shirt against her. "See? It's as long as a dress on me."

       She locks his bathroom door and rests with her back up against it, her breathing uneven and her head swimming. She giggles to herself about the ludicrousness of the situation, and what her friends would say; even though she knows she is bound by some unspoken agreement to never tell them. She struggles out of her wet dress and cardigan and into his borrowed t-shirt and zip hoodie which both fall almost to her knees, sleeves trailing down way past her hands. She is sharply reminded how much taller and broader he is than her, and she shakes her head to dispel her thoughts. She tries to detangle her hair with her fingers but gives up, reaching for his comb from the sink and dragging it through the matted strands. Some has already begun to dry and is curling around her face and shoulders in the unruly way that she loathes. Trying to remove the tell-tale signs of long red hairs from his comb, she returns it to the sink. She dabs at her run mascara with a piece of toilet roll and sighs resolutely at the state of her bedraggled reflection. Far too late to affect well-groomed beauty or false glamour in his presence, but she feels unexpectedly calm about this.

       "Don't laugh please," she announces, as she leaves the bathroom. And he doesn't, but she detects something deep in his eyes which floors her to breathless again: is it amusement or secrecy or uncertainty? She cannot read him.

       He disappears into the bathroom, clutching a bundle of towels and clothes. She perches awkwardly on the cushion of the sofa and flicks meaninglessly through her phone, not really digesting notifications, or even what the time is, and avoiding group chats. His dog circles her and she reaches to tickle his face and stroke his head.

       When he reappears, dressed in a dry set of black clothes, his hair, shower-damp and hanging down over his face, she realises she is staring at him, her eyes glazed and her phone in her lap.

       "Don't worry," she tries to divert his attention from her momentary shut down in his presence, "I'm not posting photos of your place on Instagram," she laughs.

       "I know you aren't," he replies and hesitates. "I trust you," he adds, and it seems the strangest thing, that he would trust her with this place, his time, his company, but she doesn't question him.

       He disappears and reappears from the kitchen with a bottle of wine under each arm and two coffee mugs dangling from his fingers.

       "Red or white?" he asks, and she is amused by his presumption, and the way the whole day seems to be unfolding like a surreal drama show.

       "Don't you have coffee?" she retorts.

       "Yes but..." his voice trails off, he shrugs, and something devilish and yet innocently pleading flashes in his eyes.

       "Okay then, but white," she says, "you don't want to be around me with red wine..."

       He sits down on the other cushion of the sofa, caught up in opening the wine bottle, and hands her the mugs. She struggles to hold them still as he pours, and she's unsure if this is from trying to hide laughter or because his closeness is making her nervous.

       "No wine glasses, again, right?' she murmurs, daring to glance upwards at his face to gauge his reaction. He grins, and sits backwards with his mug, holding her gaze.

       "No, none here either," he smiles, sweeping his damp hair backwards from his face and shrugging, seemingly unfazed by the way she knows so many tiny details about him. Her stomach flutters like trapped moths at the way wet strands of hair have fallen down again by his eyes and onto his cheeks. She is utterly frozen as he sits and sips his coffee-mug-wine, peering knowingly at her over the rim with his huge brown eyes; and she feels as if he sees right into her soul with that gaze.