Plight(51)

Elliot draped his arm over my shoulder and hugged me to him. "Come on, you perve, we're done."

"Oh no we're not!" I dug my heels into the ground to stop him from pulling me in the wrong direction. "We haven't been in the butterfly house yet."

"It's closed."

"What? Who says?" My heart dropped; it was my favourite exhibit.

"There was a sign at the entry gate that said it was under maintenance. Didn't you see it?"

"No." Narrowing my eyes at him, I spotted his eye twitch. "You're lying!"

"I'm not."

"Yes, you are. If memory serves me correctly, you were never the biggest fan of butterflies."

"Do you blame me? They taste with their feet. What sane creature tastes with its fucking feet? That's just disgusting."

"Oh please. We're going to the butterfly house. You're going to the butterfly house."

"Fine. But I'll wait outside while you go in."

"No, you won't. I went into the reptile enclosure and pretended to blow a kiss to a hideous python for your photographic amusement, so, you, my dear friend, are going to see the pretty, harmless, butterflies with me."

Moments later, we were entering the humid butterfly house, the raised temperature prompting the removal of Elliot's jacket and my cardigan. I took a few steps and stopped, arching my head back and looking up toward the glass roof as hundreds of butterflies of varying shapes, sizes and colours fluttered all around us, some landing momentarily on plants, flowers, and suspended limbs of people standing as still as statues.

"Isn't it beautiful?" I said, quietly, taking in the magic of nature.

Elliot didn't answer, and it wasn't until I turned to see why that I realised he was still standing by the door.

"Come on." I held out my hand. "It's not so bad. I promise."

He looked at my outstretched fingers, the expression on his face, not one I'd encountered before. "You're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen, Danielle Cunningham. And the only thing that's missing right now is a Cheezel on that finger of yours." 

My jaw dropped as he removed the space between us, his hands finding my face and cradling it with silken urgency, his lips and mouth touching mine with the softest desperation. Butterflies exploded - not real ones - in my stomach, and my heart near hurt with the realisation that I was in love with my best friend and ready to face my fear and risk everything to be with him.

Closing my eyes, I let go, our bodies melding together, my arms resting on his shoulders while my fingers gripped his head. My mum once said to me that true love can't be seen, only felt. That it sleeps inside us all and is woken once or twice in a lifetime, and when it wakes we know. We know because our universe flips on its axis and leaves us wondering which way is up or down.

My universe just flipped. Elliot had tilted it many times, but here, in the butterfly house at Melbourne Zoo, he just flipped it like a fucking pancake.

Lifting me up, he spun me around, our lips still pressed, their only separation two glowing smiles.

I giggled, dizzy from the movement, dizzy from the heat  …  dizzy with love. "See? The butterfly house isn't so bad, is it?"

He shook his head, kissed my nose, and hugged me tighter. "Just keep them off of me."

"Why? You're so tasty. I can't blame them for wanting to land on you."

"You're tastier. They should definitely land on you instead."

"Are you going to put me down now?"

"No. I figure if I'm holding you the entire time, they are less likely to land on me."

"Elliot," I laughed, "put me down."

"Nope. Not gonna happen."

I placed my hands on his cheeks and peered into his crystal blue eyes. "Do you trust me?"

"That's a trick question."

"No, it's not. It's a closed-ended one."

"That's what you'd like to me to think. You seem to forget I make a living out of asking questions." Shit! He does, too. Damn him and his solicitor ways.

"Fine. Do you want to trust me?"

"Yes, of course."

"Good, because you have a butterfly on your head."

His eyes grew incredibly wide and stationary, as if they'd iced over and froze. Unblinking. Unmoving. He was unmoving.

"Breathe," I whispered, smiling at the beautiful creature.

His nostrils flared.

"It likes you."

"I don't like it," he bit out, his voice barely audible.

Elliot's grip around my waist tightened.

"Ease up, boa constrictor."

"Get. It. Off."

"No. It's tasting your hair."

He shook his head like a dog post bath time, let me go and hurried off, ducking as if he was in the process of being swooped by birds.