Spellbound

Intimacy (Larry - Part 1)

The shrill ring of her cell phone cut through the haze of sleep and slammed her back into reality. Without opening her eyes, she reached out blindly and snatched her phone off of the table beside the bed. She swiped her thumb across the answer button and brought it to her hear, still refusing to open here eyes and shatter the last shreds of the dream that still flashed in her mind.

"What?!" She snapped, her voice somewhat muffled by the fact that she was face-planting her pillow.

"Belle?" The instant she heard that growling voice with its thick French accent, her head popped up, eyes immediately open and alert.

"Larry?" She questioned, confused as to why he was calling her. Pulling the phone away from her ear, she glanced at the time. It was one in the morning. Why was he calling her this late? "What's the matter?" She had been friends with him and his twin brother Laurent for a couple of years now. She had met them at a workshop in New York that they had been hosting. She had sat in one of the chairs of the studio, watching them teach as she drew them in one of their emotional dance moments. They had been so impressed with her work that they had commissioned her to pain murals on walls of their home. Since they, they had hit it off and hung out as often as their schedules allowed.

"I...I..." He seemed to hesitate and she could hear emotion leaking into his voice.

"Lar, what happened? Are you alright?" She was fully alert now, sitting up in her bed as she waited for his response.

"Oui...non." She heard his accent grow thicker, his voice nearly watery as he tried to hold his tears back. "She cheated on me."

It was all he said, sounding defeated and broken. Amanda had known that Larry had a girlfriend named Melissa, but had never met the woman. As many times as she had hung out with Les Twins, she had never once set eyes on the girl, but Laurent had vented to her often about how she was using his brother for his money, on how she was married. This wasn't the first time something like this had happened and she couldn't, for the life of her, understand why he kept taking her back.

"Jesus, Larry, I'm sorry. Give me a few minutes and I'll be right over." Before he could protest, she hung up the phone, all but tossing it onto her bed in her haste to get dressed. She threw on a black hoodie and sweats, swiftly stepping into a pair of white Nike's. She was throwing her long black hair up into a messy bun as she nearly ran down the stairs, grabbing her keys. She held them with her teeth as she twisted the elastic around her thin dread locs one last time before sprinting through the downpour of rain that had shown up during the past couple of hours that she had slept.

It didn't take her long to reach Larry's. She was staying in a rented condo not that far from him. She had been preparing for the opening of a gallery of artwork featuring the Twins themselves as her inspiration. She practically whipped her car into the driveway behind his, leaping out the instant she shut it off and all but ran to the door. She rang the bell, but before the first ding of it could even finish, it was ripped open and she was pulled inside, crushed into a tight embrace. She felt his tall, lean frame shake. He was more broken about this than she had thought. Instantly, her arms came around him and he sank to his knees, burying his face against her chest. Amanda tangled her fingers into his fluffy soft afro, holding him against her as he broke open like a flood gate. His head tilted down, pressing against her stomach as he wept.She didn't say anything. Words would not offer him comfort when it was obvious that his heart was breaking. She was surprised that he hadn't called Laurent. She lost track of time as they continued to stand in the foyer like that. It could have been minutes, or hours. The only sound was the rain and Larry's quiet breaths. He had stopped shaking, but he still clung to her as if she was his life line.