Jason

 

 

I carry her down the stairs, curled up in my arms, a soft robe wrapped around her dainty body.

"I can walk," she protests, but I ignore it.

"You don't have to."

She sighs and lets it happen, her arm loosely wrapped around my neck. I gently place her on the sofa in front of the fireplace, and the smile on her face widens when she realizes how warm and cozy the room is, now that the fire has been burning for a while.

"Take it off," I say, pointing at the belt of her robe, "I want to see you."

She slips me a curious glance, but does as she’s told.

"My turn?" she wants to know, once she's gotten rid of the robe.

I shake my head. "You already came twice yesterday, remember? Now, give me the robe."

Her eyes narrow, but she follows my request and hands over the robe. I've seen her naked plenty of times now, but she still curls up timidly, trying to hide her nakedness from me when I sit down next to her.

I wrap an arm around her and pull her closer. She's tense in my embrace, and I don't like that.

"You're really good at this," she says, pointing to the fireplace. "Maybe you can chop some more wood for me later."

She winks at me, suggesting that she's joking, but I nod nonetheless.

"Sure," I say. "I can do that for you."

Lena laughs, as if the idea of me chopping wood was the most ridiculous idea she's ever heard.

"There might be squirrels out there, Mr. Big City, are you sure you'd be okay?"

"Go on, just continue teasing me like that, you know you're going to regret it," I tell her.

"That's future-Lena's problem."

"It will be."

She shifts around in my embrace, cuddling up against my side while she traces the lines of my pelvic muscles with the tip of her finger.

"You know, I feel small next to you," she whispers after a while.

I look at her with a teasing grin.

"You are short compared to me-"

"That's not what I mean," she says. "I mean... I guess I'm just trying to explain to you why... what happened yesterday."

I nod, even though I don’t fully understand where she's going with this.

"You mean your reaction when I told you my full name?"

"Yes, that," she says. "It's weird to have someone like you here. Someone like you - with someone like me."

"Someone like you," I repeat.

"Yes, I'm a nobody compared to you," she utters. "You're so accomplished, and I'm just..."

"You focus on the wrong things," I say, unwilling to let her finish that sentence. "I'm not accomplished. I'm just the offspring of someone accomplished. The offspring of that offspring, actually, because my father inherited everything, too."

She shakes her head, her hand now resting on my naked pelvis.

"It's still different," she argues. "You are someone."

"So are you," I say. "You're Lena..."

Crap, how can I not know her last name? I've had so many chances to ask, but yet I haven’t.

"Shafer," she says. "At least that's how you Americans butcher the pronunciation."

"You Americans," I repeat, with a laugh. "Aren't you one of us?"

"Only when I choose to be."

"So, you're pretty much shaping your own little world as you please.”

She sighs. "I wish. That sounds so proactive, very unlike me."

"Are you calling yourself lazy?"

She sits up straight, distancing herself a bit, but her eyes seek mine.

"I don't know if lazy is the right word," she says, her expression hardening as she speaks. "It's more like... I want things to be different, but I don't do anything to change them."

"Like what?" I prod. "What do you want to change about your life?"

She bites at her lower lip, and turns away from me then, her eyes roaming the room as she ponders her answer.

"This, for example," she says after a while, gesturing around the room. "My grandma has been dead for almost a year, but - as you pointed out - it still looks like she's living here, and I'm just a guest."

"Grief takes time," I say, trying to comfort her. "Some people don't change anything in their homes for years after someone dies."

She shakes her head. "It's not that. Her death wasn't sudden, or a surprise. I had a lot of time to prepare for it. There’s something else."

She bites her lower lip again and avoids my gaze as she fights back tears. She jerks when I place my hand on her shoulder. It's a clumsy attempt at comfort, a clear indication of how long it's been since I've done this for anybody. I don't know what to say or what to do to ease her pain.

"You don't have to tell me, if you don't want to," I say in a low voice, unsure whether this is the right thing to offer, or if it comes across as a lack of concern.

"The thing is," she says eventually, sadness clouding her features. "She made me promise something. Shortly before she died, she made me promise. And I... I haven't kept that promise."

I look at her expectantly, watching as she nibbles on her bottom lip and her eyelids sag.

"A promise?" I ask.

She nods. "She made me promise that I would get out of here after she was gone. That I would sell the house and go to college."

Her voices breaks, and she tries to gloss over it with a helpless chuckle.

"She was always very adamant about that, about me going to college," she adds. "Or to the city. 'Where the young people are', she used to say. She was never happy about me staying with her after I graduated from high school."

"Why did you stay here then?"

Her eyes have a haunted look when she looks at me.

"Because she was sick," she says. "She got very sick during my last year of high school, and she needed me to take care of her. I couldn't just leave her, not after all she'd done for me after my parents died."

I nod. "I understand that."

"I mean, I'm not gonna lie, it wasn't easy," she continues. "It was different when I still went to school. I had a circle of friends, but they all left to go off to college or the city for a job. Hardly anyone stayed here, so I was left all on my own, with Oma. I continued working at the diner, and in my free time, I took care of her."

"That sounds tough."

A smile skirts across her face, lifting the shadows for a split second.

"It wasn't all bad. I loved Oma, we got along great," she says. "It was comfortable. Safe. A home."

I like how she refers to her grandma as 'Oma'. She hasn't done that before, but it sounds so loving and cute when that word rolls over her lips in that weirdly sharp accent.

"Is that why you're still here?" I want to know. "Because it's comfortable? Safe? Home?"

She nods. "I must sound like such a coward to you."

"Why would you say that?"

"You don't think I sound like a coward? A small town girl who's afraid of the world?"

"You crossed an ocean when you were fifteen," I add for consideration. "Most people don't ever do that in their lifetime."

She lets out a chuckle, and her face brightens.

"That doesn't count, silly," she retorts.

"Silly?" I say, giving her a dirty look. "You're calling me silly?"

The sass in her gaze as she beams at me sends a bolt of desire shooting through my chest. It's that cute smirk, one from a girl who knows she's treading in dangerous territory, about to awaken the beast inside.

And she wants it. She's calling out to that side of me.

"What if I was?" she teases. "Would that get me in trouble?"