Infinite Us(6)

"He a good man?" It was out of my mouth before I could think about how stupid it might sound.

Without skipping a beat, her face lit up with the most beautiful smile. "The best."

There was no doubt in her reaction. She believed no one had a better grandfather and I could understand the feeling. I let the moment chill, and when her face started to settle again, I cast around for something to say. "Remind me to tell you about my granddaddy one day." My sister Nat and I only got to live with him for four years after our mother died, but those years had made an impact. My mother's father had been a good man. He'd been the best, too.

It was an invitation I didn't mean to make, telling her I'd give her that story, but again, something had spoken for me, some weird, stupid thing that had me itching to let this woman know I'd be back around. She didn't miss it, and it seemed like my suggestion had pleased her, even as she tried to distract herself with the tassel on one of her bright red blankets. "Does that mean you'll come back?" Before I could answer, she shrugged, fronting like it didn't matter, but there was a wisp of teasing in her voice. "That mean my chanting music or my aura cleansing didn't completely scare you away from ever speaking to me again?"

She went back to fiddling with my aura, all business, or at least pretending that she was. Long, thin fingers moved over my arms, again not touching but coming close enough that I could feel the heat of her body on my skin. She moved closer, and again I saw something a little hungry come into her eyes, a look that housed a thousand legends. Something thick bubbled in my stomach the closer she came and when she glanced at me, reaching forward as though she would touch my face, I realized I hadn't answered her question. "Maybe."

She smelled so good and the heat between us grew, ran into something that felt like memory, familiarity that made no damn sense to me. Something old and primal seemed to move her and she came closer, leaning on an elbow to bring herself near enough for me to catch a whiff of her breath-spearmint from her toothpaste, gum maybe, enough of a distraction that I didn't think of those lips for almost half a second. We moved together like magnets, the force unbreakable, undeniable and out of our control. But at the last moment the scent of her breath and proximity of her body jarred me from whatever small spell we'd been under, enough that blinking to clear my head did the job, brought me out of whatever fog I'd stepped in the second I had sat down on the sofa.

It was as if the air had cleared, and a kind of understanding came to me. After all, pretty women aren't all that uncommon in New York. There are models and actresses, folk coming in from all parts of the world, adding to the melting pot. Pretty women are everywhere and I was sitting right in front of one of them, but she wasn't what I wanted, not right now, anyway, not with everything else bearing down on me. Yes, she was beautiful. She was sweet, weird and bossy as fuck, but she wasn't for me.



       
         
       
        

Maybe it was me moving back, maybe it was just the spell breaking for her, too, but she went still and stiff, as though realizing where she was and what she was doing. Then suddenly she jerked her hands back, staring at them as if they belonged to someone else.

"I don't … " Her gaze didn't leave her hands, as though she half expected lightening to shoot from her fingertips. There was a hard line between her eyebrows and when she closed her eyes, scooting back to put distance between us, I thought maybe I'd done something wrong, had said something that put her back up.

"You alright?"

"What?" she said, distracted, waving her hand, looking like she wanted to shake something that ached her from her limbs.

She moved her gaze over my face like she'd only just realized there was someone else with her in her apartment. The confusion was plain, though that expression, the low dip of her mouth did nothing to take away her sweetness of her features. Still, she seemed unsettled, continuing to stretch her hand, extend her fingers as though her joints ached. And when the seconds lengthened and she went on without speaking, without doing a damn thing but looking worried and confused, I figured it was time to make an exit.

"You want me to go?" Before she could answer I left the sofa, moving slow, cautious, only a little worried that she was a dramatic chick that would act a fool if things didn't go her way.

A few more blinks as she watched me move toward the door and she finally got to her feet, holding her arms over her stomach like she needed to keep herself together.