In the early afternoon, she woke him with her mouth and her hands and they made slow, unhurried love before bringing the rest of the chocolate cheesecake upstairs and eating it in bed. It was quiet and peaceful, neither of them in a hurry to delve back into the abyss that was reality. There was no discussion, no decision to not talk about it yet. Instead, they spoke of some of the things that people in new relationships do.
Her favorite color was blue, and his was black. He’d always wanted to go to college and study literature. He wrote horrible poetry and no she most certainly could not read any of it, hadn’t he just said it was horrible? The guest bedroom was decorated with paintings and drawings from before she stopped doing any such frivolous thing. Her mother had owned an art gallery, and she used to tell people that at least she knew she’d have one show in an actual gallery one day. She hadn’t touched charcoal or paints since the morning her mother died. Not because she decided not to, she’d just fallen into the habit of being too busy. She doodled on the edges of napkins and loose sheets of paper, but that was all.
But eventually, when it started to become obvious that she was hesitant with her questions because she didn’t know which ones would bring them back around to the things that surrounded Drusilla’s death, he slipped it into the conversation as if he was saying the sky was blue or something.
“Name was Hamilton. Before. William Rupert Hamilton.”
Her lips twitched. “Rupert?”
He glared. “Yeah. My father’s name. Rupert.” His expression dared her to laugh.
“You don’t talk about him. When did he die?”
He shrugged. “Dunno. Can’t say as he did. Never knew him. Didn’t even know where the name came from ‘til after mum passed. Got her journals, and found out his name and that he’d never known she was pregnant. His father didn’t like her, didn’t think she was posh enough or whatever. Gave her a great big honkin’ check to leave Rupert and cut off communication. She found out later on she was pregnant with me. Gave me the name.”
“Wait a minute. So your father doesn’t know you exist?”
He shrugged. “Not as far as I know. She never spoke to him, as per the agreement. Moved with no forwarding address and all that. If he found out, it had to be from his old man. If that one even knew. She got paid off to leave an’ she did. Doubt she ever told either of them about me. They had money, she was afraid they’d want custody. Now, if her brother had known what was going on, woulda been a different story. He’d’ve gone for every penny he could get. But he was already in the states by then, and she told him my father’d died and the check was insurance money. According to her diary anyway.”
And later, sitting on his chest and trying to get to his chocolate cheesecake mustache with her tongue while he squirmed under her, she said, “I hated being a cheerleader. I wanted to be in the band, but I wanted to be popular more and I so very much didn’t want to be a band geek. So I was on the cheerleading squad instead. But at least it made me flexible.”
She laughed halfway through proving how flexible she was, when the laughs turned to moans and screams.
She’d never equated laughter with sex before.
They’d dozed for a while when she went back to an earlier topic.
“You know, I bet your father would be really proud of you.”
“Never thought about it.”
“Never?” She raised an eyebrow, and he ducked his head, actually blushing a little.
“Maybe not never. Used his last name, too. Still, guy doesn’t know I exist. Or he knows and never bothered to look. Figure he ever wants to find me he can. Not lookin’ him up, though. I mean, what would I say? Can’t just knock on the man’s door and say ’hi dad’. He’d probably think I was after his money or something. Probably has three or four little upper class brats and would be mortified his youthful slumming produced a bastard.”
“Yeah, well, my father’s a secretary shagging mother leaving child neglecting asshole. Knows where I am and hasn’t called in years. And you’re not a bastard.”
“I meant the word literally, pet.”
“Oh. Well, still -”
“Nope. No getting ‘round that one.”
“You’re a love child.”
“Lust child, more likely.” He was laughing at her, rolling his eyes and seemingly completely unbothered by the conversation. She was more bothered by her father than he was by his lack of one.
Go figure.
“Nope. Going with love. If it was lust, your grandfather wouldn’t have been worried enough to pry open the wallet.”
He was looking at her funny, and she was afraid she’d gone too far, until he said, “Wait a mo’ - did you just say shagging?”
Now she was blushing. “You’re rubbing off on me.”
“Wanna rub on me?” He wiggled his eyebrows at her.
She decided she did, actually, want to rub him a bit.
It was nearly six in the evening and they’d just had a shower when she caught him staring at her with serious eyes.
“You’ve decided to do it, haven’t you?”
He nodded. “I have to. I want to. It’s crazy and stupid and probably a mistake, but I don’t think I can live with myself if I don’t do this.”
And that was that. She couldn’t argue with that. He had to. She didn’t want him to.
“How long?”
“I don’t know. I’m not planning on it being a long time. There’s a couple - well, I’ve got some ideas that might speed things up a bit.”
“No. Nothing risky. You do only and exactly what you have to and get out.” She blinked back tears, trying her best not to show just how much she didn’t want him to do this.
“Could be a couple of months.” He was holding her. She didn’t want to wait months for him to hold her.
“Okay. But you can come by sometimes, right?”
“Maybe. Don’t want any of those people to know about you. Ever. And it’s not like you work in a shop at the mall. Better not to risk it just in case.”
“Yeah.” She sniffled. “When are you leaving?”
“Got a meet tomorrow night to go over some stuff with the detectives on the case.”
“I think this sick I’ve got is a forty eight hour bug.”
He grinned at her. “Yeah. You’re all sniffly. Make the call, and I’ll put some dinner on.”
And then that was it. She still had a thousand questions, things about his past and his dead wife and his family and - just a thousand questions that didn’t even touch on what exactly he was about to be doing. But there was no time for the former, and he couldn’t answer the latter anyway. So she called in sick two days in a row, and tried to shove as much as she could into the time before he left.
She didn’t even notice that she’d stopped worrying about whether she should be seeing him or not.
But he did.
They’d spent the first day alternating between talking and marathon sex, but the next had as much business as pleasure. In the early hours of the morning they drove to LA and picked Elizabeth up a prepaid cell phone that they then initiated with a Los Angeles phone number. Will bought an obscene number of minutes for the thing, saying that he was going to call her every chance he got and wanted to be sure they didn’t run out of time.
Then they drove back and Elizabeth ordered Chinese while Will started carrying bags out of the trunk of his car.
“What’s that?”
“Stuff I need.” He stacked the bags on the dining room table, then wrapped his arms around her from behind and started nibbling on her neck.
She fumbled the coffee filter, nearly spilling grounds all over the counter, and he laughed at her.
“Stop that. The delivery guy will be here any minute.”
“Let him have a show.” He turned her around, and she had to dodge to keep his hands from finding the buttons of her shirt.
“No. Absolutely not. After we eat.” She was laughing now, backing away and looking for an escape route.
“Come on. Gonna be gone tomorrow. Want more Beth now.”
The laughter stopped and he looked almost pained. “We need to eat. And you’ve got bags stacked everywhere.” She said, turning her back on him as she went to finish making the coffee.
“Sorry. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
“Well, it is true.”
“Yeah, but spoiled the mood.”
The doorbell rang before she could think of an answer to that.
After eating, Will grabbed one of the bags off the table and shoved it at her.
“Okay. That’s all of it.”
Elizabeth blinked at him, waiting.
“Mum’s journals, a couple of mine. A few other things that I didn’t want around the apartment just in case. Was hoping you’d keep this stuff here.”
“Sure.” She went to set it down next to the couch on the floor. “It’ll be here when you get back.”
“Yeah - see, I thought, maybe, you’d read them.”
That stopped her cold. “What?”
“Well, it’s none of it stuff you wouldn’t find out eventually anyway. Only I’ll not be here to tell it, so I figured you could maybe set a time and - oh, balls. It’s like the dating without all the fun parts. Just if you want.”
She looked at the bag, then back at him, then back at the bag again. “That’s - um - really private stuff.”
“One way to look at it. Or, you could say that this way you know all about me without me having to actually talk about it, yeah?”
“Will, I’m not sure…”
“Last one’s got you in it.” He teased.
“Well, I’ll read that one first, then.”
“They’re in order. Read ‘em that way, or you won’t get the references.” He lectured, then pulled the remaining two bags off the table. “Now, I’ve got to borrow your bathroom for a bit.”
“Okay?”
He grinned at her. “Got a reputation to uphold, don’t I?”
She raised her eyebrows and tried to peak into the bag, but he was too quick for her. The next thing she knew, he was laughing at her from behind a locked bathroom door telling her go put a movie on or something.
Instead, she wandered over to the computer and started up the web browser. It wasn’t like there was much of a chance of her finding anything. And just looking wasn’t an invasion of his privacy or anything. It didn’t take much self-convincing at all to type the name into the search box and start looking.
Well, that wasn’t very helpful at all. Apparently, the name was less unusual than she thought. She exited the program, her eyes drawn to the bag of journals on her floor. Okay, what the heck. It wasn’t like she’d actually find anything, and it would take her mind off of the fact that this was their last afternoon together. She dug until she found the oldest of the books, then started skimming. It didn’t take long. She grabbed an old sketchbook with empty pages in the back so she could jot down notes, then started reading. She got the eye color right away, and had made several other notes before she heard the bathroom door open and shoved had to hurriedly shove any evidence of her new project into the desk drawer before she was caught.
She was sitting on the couch watching Animal Planet by the time she heard him coming down the stairs.
“That was the longest solo shower in the history of -” she broke off, her mouth hanging open.
Will was - not Will. She saw the boots first. Then sinfully tight jeans that would give anyone looking far too good an idea of body parts she found herself referring to as ‘mine’. Tight black tee shirt. And - she couldn’t hold back the laugh if she tried.
“What?”
“Will - what on God’s green earth have you done to your hair?”
He looked nervous, and she was suddenly afraid she’d hurt his feelings.
“It’s not like I can have everybody who’s seen me in the past ten years stopping to say hello, now is it?” He defended.
But she didn’t really hear him. She was still looking at this new Will. Eyeliner, black fingernails, hair so blonde it was almost white slicked back and hiding all his adorable curls. There was an earring, thick silver rings, and a heavy chain around his neck that brought on thoughts of padlocks and handcuffs. She wondered if he’d think she was a pervert if she made him swap the necklace for a nice leather collar. With a little tag to dangle from it with her name on it so everyone would know who he belonged to.
She could tell him it went better with the look, and would keep other people’s hands off him. No, she would say it would give him an excuse not to partake of any offered treats from the ho-bags he was undoubtedly going to come across.
The fact that now it was his mouth hanging open while he blinked at her in silent shock clued her in to fact that she’d said that out loud.
The next thing she knew, she was hanging over his shoulder halfway to the bedroom.
It was hours after that she woke at the feel of him sliding out of the bed.
“Time to go.”
No. Too soon. Not yet.
“Okay.” She was not going to cry.
He leaned over and kissed her. Told her to stay exactly where she was because he wanted to remember her rumpled and flushed, her lips swollen and her eyes heavy with sleep.
She did it, because he asked, and because she couldn’t do the not crying part if she walked him to the door.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
This chapter is written in a slightly different style than those previous to it. The idea is that in these circumstances, one never remembers every look, every word, or every action. Time seems to speed up, and what is left in the memory is more a series of small moments that make an impression. I'm hoping to have captured that. Please let me know if I was even marginally successful. Or also, if you would have rather had three chapters telling every little thing. This will help in future works.
Chapter End Notes:
Pretty please review. This is an older story, and I'm fighting the temptation to take the whole thing down because I think I'm a better writer now. However, I detest it when people do that to a story I'm reading so if you're reading this and think I should post the whole thing, let me know. If you think I should take it down and re-write, let me know that too. Believe me, you won't hurt my feelings. Feedback is for improvement.