The Track

CHAPTER 5: You, Me and Moonlight

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CHAPTER 5: YOU, ME AND THE MOONLIGHT

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ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TO KK

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When I woke up next, I heard the opening of the front door as he carried me into his house and placed me on his bed.  I was a little more awake and decided that I didn’t want to sleep in my nice dress.  As I sat up,  Zander threw one of his old, small contest t-shirts at me and my yoga shorts.  I had a section of his closet packed with my clothes so it wasn’t any surprise.  He knew me so well, words weren’t necessary sometimes.

I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror.  I was a mess.  So much for looking good on my birthday.  There were traces of blood on my arm, my makeup was starting to run and my hair was ridiculously tangled.  I let out a little sigh and began wiping away the traces of the night.

Zander’s room was on the second floor, kind of away from everyone else in the house.  His room was huge with wide open doors and tonight the moon was shining through it.  When I came back into the room Zander was standing on his balcony, his body silhouetted against the bright rays of the moon, he turned slightly and the moon only illuminated the lines of his face and the perfect planes of his body. 

Why didn‘t he have a shirt on?  

I could tell he was deep in thought and I hardly wanted to disrupt him, but I slowly padded across the floor towards him, stepping over the threshold onto the balcony.  He turned slowly towards me and the world seemed to slow indefinitely.  Half of his face was covered in shadows, but his eyes were bright with an emotion that I couldn’t place.  They shone silver with the blue hues slightly alight, and I was enraptured.  

He reached out his hand towards my arm and studied the bandages in the moonlight.  He twisted my hand slightly until my palm was facing upwards.  I watched in wonder as he bent his head and kissed the soft skin of my wrist.  His hair falling gently across face as his lips traced a burning path across my skin.  My breath was caught somewhere between my chest and my throat.  I knew how I must have looked then, like a deer caught in the headlights.  But he just raised his eyes as he kissed across the bandages, boring a hole straight through me.  I had never seen him look at me like this, it was both unsettling and yet it set my heart on fire.  

He stood upright and I watched his hands glide across my upper arm, up further still until I was forced to look back into his eyes.  I could feel his hand on my neck, gently caressing the soft skin there.  He stopped for a bit and a sad smile touched his lips as he viewed the scratches the bottle had cut into my cheek.  I met his gaze and that smile made all of the butterflies in my stomach flutter away, gone without a trace.  He bent forward and touched his lips to my temple, my eyelid, my cheek and then to the corner of my mouth before he pulled away.

I opened my eyes suddenly.

“I’m sorry.”  He said, dropping his hands from my neck and from my hip. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

I just stared at him.  I wasn’t sure what to say.  I knew I had done something wrong, surely.  

“It’s… ummm…” I stuttered.

“You’ve been through so much tonight, I don’t think… that is that… ummm… we should… or shouldn’t…”

My heart dropped.  Wait!  I thought to myself.  It’s my birthday.  For once, I was going to take the leap, tonight I was going say what I wanted to say.  I looked straight up at him.

“I’m not sorry.”  I said boldly.  

“You’re not?”

“No… I’m not.  You see, there’s something that I have to tell you Zander.”  I said looking away from his eyes.

“Zander… I…I… I-”  

He cut off my train of thought as his lips descended towards mine.  I closed my eyes.  

Zander is kissing me!!!

His lips were amazing, like water is to parched parched lips.  They traced across my upper lip before they urged me to deepen the kiss.  It was like magic and perfection, a moment of pure blissful feeling, and I was aware of everything.   

Oh my God!!!  I’m kissing Zander, my best friend is kissing me. The voice in my head was screaming. 

Before I could savor the thought, he pressed his body closer to mine and I was engulfed in his warmth, wrapped in the heat of his strong embrace.  I felt his hands slip around my waist and then my back, pulling us impossibly closer together.  

He finally pulled away from the kiss and I noticed that not only was my breathing ragged, but his was as well.  His lips were glistening in the moonlight, and they were so close that I tiptoed and brushed them against mine again, feeling him smile.  I pulled away and bit my lip slightly.  

“Rory?”

“Yeah?”

“Why the hell didn’t we do this sooner?” He questioned, running his thumb across my bottom lip.

I let out a little laugh, shocked. 

“I don’t really know.” 

He stepped closer and then suddenly lifted me onto the railing.  I giggled, I couldn’t help it.  He stepped in between my legs and I pulled him close so that his face was resting on my chest.  He wrapped his arms around me and I held him close as we looked out over the balcony, past the forest to the moon and the stars above the tree line.