Frankly My Dear, All's Fair in Love and War

10: Crisis (not) Averted

Cassie was holding hands.

With a boy nonetheless.

Cassie had never held hand with anyone before. Not even her parents. She stopped doing that when she was four. Not with her nanny. Stopped when she was eight and got badly ridiculed for still needing an adult's guidance as she entered the elementary school.

The only comparison she could draw was from holding hand with herself. Yes, she had tried it before, and probably a million of lonely teenagers had done it themselves, too. She had tried to detach her mind from her left hand, and it didn't really work. She still had felt sensations on both of her hands. She hadn't been able to trick her mind that she had been holding hand with someone else.

But this was real. And Tristan's hand was a whole different sensation than her hand.

First of all, it was big. It didn't make her feel small, because she knew that standing at 5'7, she could hardly feel like a petite princess waiting to get swept off her feet. But the feeling of his wide palm against her did made her feel as if she was... delicate. As if she could count on him to protect her. As if having her hand enveloped inside his made her more feminine than before. It was a silly thought, and once again Cassie blamed her lack of experience when it came to dating and boys and love. IRL love.
Tristan's hand was a little rough. Definitely rougher than her, with chapped skin all over his fingers. He must had a really bad habit with his fingers. His nails were cropped extra short and his thumb was very wide, with short nailbed. Cassie had never saw another person's nailbed in such detail, but it fascinated her. Every lines and wrinkles and specks of golden color in his hand sent waves straight to her chest.

I'm holding hand with this guy. I'm holding hand with this guy. I'm holding hand with this guy!

And then of course Tristan had to go on and ruin it.

"I've never held hands with a girl when she was walking beside me."

"As opposed to?"

"On top of me."

There it was. It was happening inside her head, but she still could hear it reverberating around her ear. Crash! The sound of the romantic image shattering into a million pieces.

She wasn't doing this for real. It was just a business deal. They were using each other.

"Your hand is very soft," Tristan commented. "Kind of sweaty, too."

"Bet not as sweaty as what you've experienced prior."

He actually had the gall to really think about this. "True."

They were nearing the school gate, so Cassie had to put on her professional front and shove back the emotional sludge that only ever slowed her down. "You should be walking closer to me."

"Like this?"

"A little bit more. Our shoulders need to touch."

They bumped bodies with each other. Cassie put a hand over her chest to calm down the involuntary drumming that her heart was making.

"Are you nervous?"

She rolled her eyes inwardly. "Yes."

"Me, too."

"Really?" She couldn't believe it. If anything, Tristan looked like a ball of serenity and practiced charisma. He never really drew too much attention when he wasn't fighting, but Cassie was sure that he must be used to all the stares he often got. After all, he was Desmond Arrington's controversial half brother.

Tristan took her hand, and put it on top of his chest. What happened underneath his shirt was almost as bad as hers. Maybe even more. It was thumping, and Cassie wondered how come she hadn't noticed this before.