Honey and the Hatchet

Chapter 17: Oasis

Chapter 17 Oasis

Your legs feel like jello when Jane pulls the door behind him. It's still left ajar, which you appreciate, but it's enough for you to feel isolated. Alone. An entirely jarring feeling when you felt entirely too seen not even a minute ago.

You can't see your clothes when you look around the guest bedroom. Spartan is what you'd call it if you had to describe it, though it's clear someone's been using it recently. It's not hard to imagine why; you don't think you'd want to sleep in the room your family got murdered in, either. When you sit down on the chair by the bed, pulling at the hem of your loaned shirt, you can't see your clothes anywhere. Not that you wanted to get dressed; that would give the impression you'd want to go home, right?

You definitely don't want to go home yet. Not right now.

Though whatever half-awake, fragile moment you'd had with Jane before is pretty much gone with your sleepiness, there's still something nestled in your stomach. A feeling you wouldn't call uncomfortable, but definitely isn't familiar. The sound of the door creaking open nearly makes you fall off the chair.

"I did knock," Jane says, a little sheepishly. He stays in the doorway, though, hand on the knob like he's ready to go back out.

"I'm thinking too much again," you say quietly, with a huff of laughter. You glance up at him quickly before turning your eyes back down to your hands and the way your nails dig under the shirt hem.

You don't hear the floorboards groan when Jane walks up to you, don't hear anything when he couches in front of you. You don't flinch, to your own surprise, when his hands cover your in your lap and still your movement. He waits for you, because he knows just as well as you do, somehow. You're not even sure what's known, just that there's a vague sense of understanding. You take a deep breath, clear your head while you nod to yourself, and look up.

"There she is." His smile is small but god it feels radiant to you. Warm. Safe, against all odds.

"Yeah," you whisper, taking another deep breath and letting your shoulders sag, trying to let the tension out of them. You fight the urge to look away and fidget with your hands. "Yeah, I think I'm done with my thinking."

Jane hums and nods. "And what were you thinking about?"

"Wha—what I want," you stutter out. You can feel the heat burning in your cheeks, which in turn just makes you even more flustered. You pinch your lips shut though.

One of Jane's hands leaves your and moves to the outside of your thigh, just above your knee. If you thought the 'fragile' moment from earlier had imploded and vanished, you're quickly realizing that it very much did not and that someone—whoever the fuck had the gall to call Jane this morning—had simply hit pause.

"And what is it that you want?"

"I don't know if I have the words for it," you reply, a little too quickly. Jane cracks a smile and the hand at your thigh begins a slow motion upward. "I—no, I just. It's..."

"Uncomfortable?" He offers, and you offer a small nod. "What makes it uncomfortable?"

"Besides the overwhelming risk of rejection and humiliation?" You ask, voice pitched and quiet. When you start biting at your lower lip, the remaining hand covering yours quickly comes up to pull it from between your teeth.

"I won't humiliate you," Jane says slowly, and you can't help but notice that his eyes are very obviously not looking into yours, and his thumb is still just below your lips. The hand on your thigh is as close to your hip as his arm will allow, thumb rubbing circles into the skin. When his gaze does meet yours again, all traces of a grin are gone and—god, his pupils. "What are you worried is going to be rejected?"