He'll have to break all the rules to keep her, but first she has to break just one and let him in...
It's taken four years, but Anna Fray has finally put the past behind her. Mostly. She fills her days working in a bar and her nights watching bad ro...
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The next morning, I woke to a soft knock at the front door.
I peeled myself off the sofa and rubbed my eyes. Nightmare —previously snuggled in the space between my legs and the sofa— admonished me with a sleepy meow. She wasn't the only one who was annoyed that our sleep had been disturbed.
My head pounded with the lack of sleep, and my eyes felt raw and gritty. I couldn't remember falling asleep, but I could remember seeing the grey haze of dawn before I did. I must have drifted off for a few hours at most.
Another knock, but this time I realised it wasn't the front door, it was the back.
I glanced out of the large sash window beside me. Book Boy was standing in my yard, at my kitchen door. I could just about make out his tall lean figure through the translucent film of the blind.
If I stayed impossibly still, maybe he wouldn't be able to see me, and I could pretend I wasn't in.
His calm voice sliced through the muffled silence, "Anna, I know you're there."
I called his bluff and stayed silent.
"I can see you through the blind." He sounded amused and, as I huffed and walked through to answer the door, I could have sworn I heard him chuckle.
I squinted as I pulled open the door, wrestling with it as the warped wood caught against the frame. It was grey outside —as usual— but the soft light still stung my weary eyes.
Book Boy filled my field of view. His hair was dishevelled as always but that was the only part of him that looked ruffled. His soft teal t-shirt hung off his wide shoulders, the fabric floppy and unwrinkled. The short sleeves exposed his toned arms and the v neck revealed a tantalising glimpse of his broad chest. One hand tucked casually into a pocket of his black jeans while another gripped an empty glass jar.
I felt my heart flutter with attraction. My walls hadn't yet gone up, and my mind was still sluggish from sleep. For the first time in a long time, I felt butterflies spark to life in his presence. They only lasted a second before my sense of reason awoke and crushed them. Stifling the sensation before they could truly take flight.
Briefly, Book Boy looked me over, a flash of a frown crossed his chiselled face. It wasn't there long before he held out the empty jar.
"We've ran out of coffee."
"And?" I asked as I admired how the thick swell of his bicep stretched the supple fabric of his top. The butterflies fought against their oppression.
"We'd like to borrow some of yours."
I scowled, but Nightmare didn't seem to hold any of my resentment as she circled his legs purring. She sounded like a Harley Davison. Her chest vibrating with a low recurring rumble. For a cat who always seemed so fearful of humans, she clearly had no issue with him.
