The Ways He Warmed Her

Chapter 3

The next way was on their first date.

The street lights were dimming by the minute the farther away they got from Seoul, the city's lights flowing behind them as the stars began to reveal themselves in the sky. Millie watched from the passenger seat of Charlie's car, her hands resting in her lap as foreign music played lightly in the background.

"So where are we going again?" She questioned.

He wouldn't give in, and hadn't the past five times she'd asked; "You'll find out, Millie. It's a cute place, you'll like it."

"What's with the basket of goodies?"

"What basket?" Charlie gave her a stupid smile that made her stomach flutter. The ignorance in his speech did not go unnoticed by her, who only ran her fingers up the hand that was holding the wheel, smiling a stupid smile.

Charlie had picked her up around nine that night, a basket of something in the backseat and a face of cheer as she climbed into his car to go somewhere she didn't know. It was a date, one that took a week to get together; a week of becoming a wreck but not letting her date know. Yesterday was when he asked, so she got ready about half an hour beforehand; she hadn't been feeling the best lately.

"Did I ever tell you your glasses are adorable?" She asked, watching the divine glass reflect against the moon even through the windows.

"No," he said. "But thank you, it's nice of you to say that. Did I tell you yet tonight you look very stunning?"

She smiled in the way Charlie made her smile every time she thought of him, every time that he spoke to her over the phone as she was cooking or taking a bath, or just lying on the couch watching something on television and hearing his voice, not whatever was playing. It lit her face up brighter than anything she felt beneath her cheeks, which burned with an ember of attraction.

And he smiled back all the same.

"Thank you."

The car pulled into a parking lot in the middle of the country, the sunset hard and bright against her eyes and the reflection on his glasses as she watched the birds chirp. The two of them were in a park, she noted, one empty of human life. No houses nearby, no sounds of children playing, not even a child's park in the corner as she was used to. She hummed, the pink and orange sky lewd.

Charlie got out of the car and she followed, watching him as he grabbed the basket and a blanket she hadn't noticed, walking away. She tumbled after him, her jeans crinkling as her legs kept pace.

"A picnic?" She questioned him. He answered after they had walked a ways and set the blanket down, raising an eyebrow at her.

"Yes," he said, his voice as slow as the sunset, which shone a beautiful ombre of light on his unreal face. "Is this good enough for you, ma'am? I can take you out if you would rather."

God, he was a gentleman. "No, I love it." She sat down and he did the same.

The light of the air was a fire beneath her body, the blanket she lay on checkered in an ember red and white. Charlie's smile was lit under the dusk sky. How the man's eyes gazed across the blanket across from her was exhilarating, and she giggled. Charlie raised his eyebrow at her, the moon reflecting on his glasses; glasses that he wore anywhere but the club, he only told her earlier.

"What's so funny?" He hummed.

The question was asserted with peering eyes overtop his circular frames, lighting her own. She did not have an answer for the man, but she did have words that weighed a ton on her tongue

"You."

"I'm funny?" He turned on his side to rest against her, his body pressed to the other side of her own, figure against the chilled grass. He reached a hand out to breach the grasp she held tightly on her own. They connected and he smiled brighter than the reflection on his lenses, something that matched her own.