13 Flames | gxg

9 - red velvet

Lexa

When the show ends we walk back to the hotel together. My heart skips a beat every time our shoulders brush, her bare skin against mine.

We walk in silence, listening to the sounds of the city. I watch Palmer beside me, remembering the awe in her eyes as she watched the stars swirling above us.

Now, her hair falls down one shoulder, exposing the side of her face and neck closest to me. She glances my way and notices my eyes traveling across her features.

She gives me that half smile, one corner of her mouth twitching up. "How'd you know that was there?" she asks.

I return the expression with a slight smile of my own. "James and I passed it on the way to the hotel when we drove here. I remembered when you were talking about the stars."

She suddenly avoids my gaze, her eyes on the ground. "Yeah, sorry. I didn't mean to dump all that on you." Her voice is quiet, almost embarrassed. She kicks a pebble in front of her with the toe of her boot.

"I'm a good listener."

She laughs lightly. "Yeah, I guess you are."

I stop walking and she takes another step before glancing over her shoulder. "Thank you. For earlier, at the bar," I tell her. "I couldn't get away from that guy."

She shrugs. "It was nothing. And you already thanked me," she reminds me with a gentle smirk.

"Not properly."

She looks at me curiously, her eyes trailing to the necklace around my neck. She takes a step towards me but stops herself, quickly breaking her gaze.

Some tiny fraction of my mind has the urge to close the space between us. The rest of me screams in panic. This is wrong. I love James. I'm marrying James.

We stand in silence, the familiarity from before nowhere to be found.

Finally, she starts walking again. "It's late, we should head back." She turns away from me, not waiting to see if I follow.

I watch her walk away, her hips swaying in the tight dress. I look at my fingers, bringing my left hand into the light. The diamond sparkles in the neon lighting of the strip.

Frowning in frustration, I follow her back to the hotel.

---

We get back to the hotel twenty minutes later. We walked the rest of the way in silence, a greater distance between us. It makes me nervous. She makes me nervous.

It's hard to believe I met her just this afternoon. It's like she knows me better than anyone. Except James, of course. Still, there's something about her, a familiarity I've never experienced with anyone so quickly.

Hopefully our characters on the show are friends. I wonder what she'll look like in uniform.

We enter the lobby side by side, heading to the elevators. As we wait for it to arrive, she talks for the first time since she-well, I don't know what she planned to do. Come closer? It hardly seems as big a deal as it felt.

"Thank you. For showing that to me." Her voice is steady, but her eyes remain on the floor.

I give a small smile. "Of course. I'm glad I did."