Zoe Thanatos(28)

“Hope you don’t mind,” he called out to her. “You should get in; the sun isn’t as hot in cold water”

“Maybe layer,” she replied with a half-smile. She opened the garbage bag with a loud whoosh and bent down to pick up the discarded plastic wrappings. She could hear Evan lackadaisically swimming laps across the length of the pool and considered getting in with him after cleaning up.

She stood up to tie the ends of one garbage bag when she noticed a black spider the size of a quarter on her stomach bunched in the fabric of her top.

“Oh my god! Get it off! Get it off!” She screamed and hastily pulled the tank from off her shoulders and threw it to the ground with a shriek.

“What’s wrong?” Evan climbed out of the pool and ran up beside her, chlorinated water dripping from his body as he looked her over for a visible sign of her torment.

“There was a HUGE spider on me!” she yelled, pointing to the discarded top on the ground. She winced and took a small step backward as Evan bent down to examine the garment. He picked it up by the hem and shook it out, a dark object falling lifeless from the fabric.

He picked it up between his fingers and held it in the air in front of her. “Is this the offending item?” he asked.

When held between his fingers it was clearly a scrap of dark colored tape and not a spider, bug, or any other sort of creature. She was both relieved and embarrassed at the same time, knowing she had screamed like an idiot for no reason whatsoever.

“Good thing I got here before it stuck to you to death,” he joked, clearly holding back the urge to laugh at her expense.

Zoe breathed deeply and shook her head. “I thought it was a black widow or something. You probably don’t have those where you’re from but here they can be quite dangerous.” She crossed her arms over her chest before realizing she was standing in her bikini top and shorts, having thrown her tank top to the ground. She held her arms tighter across her chest and considered whether she should retrieve the top and put it back on or just retreat back inside and give in to humiliation.

He stepped in closer and put his hands on her shoulders as if to comfort her. “It’s okay, Zoe.” His hands moved up and down her arms leaving trails of water on her skin. In an attempt to not look up at him her eyes moved to his chest and saw that he was also topless with droplets of water falling down his toned chest. She looked instead to the redecorated backyard and hoped to god he would stop sensing her discomfort.

“Thank you for helping with everything. It would have taken me a week on my own”

“You’re welcome,” he smiled. “How exactly do you plan to plant all those flowers if you’re afraid of spiders?” he asked. She knew he was just teasing her but felt her cheeks blush anyway.

“I just assumed they would wait and hide in their little spider dens until I was finished,” she joked.

“A likely story,” he replied softly. His hands moved from her arms to her neck, his thumbs gently tilting her head back so that she was no longer looking at the ground but at him.

His hands felt intimate on her skin as if they had been welcome there before. Embarrassment forgotten, she knew that she wanted him to kiss her and at once wondered why he hadn’t yet. Maybe there was a reason why?

“Is there someone besides the Queen and King waiting for you to come home?”

For a moment he seemed confused by the question, as though it were the last thing he was expecting. “What do you mean?” he asked. His eyes were heavy and potent, searching hers for a meaning behind the question.

“Someone you love or who loves you?” She wondered if ‘girlfriend’ or ‘wife’ would translate.

His eyes dropped from hers and she felt a sting of disappointment. Did she even have a right to ask? Sure there were moments of closeness in their brief time together and there was no mistaking that he liked her in some capacity, otherwise he wouldn’t be with her. However, there was always the possibility he was simply a nice guy and that she had mistaken that quality for something more personal.

“Why do you ask?”

Because I’m dying to know why you haven’t kissed me yet, His thumbs moved softly along the sides of her face, tracing along each side of her jaw. It tingled and warmed at the same time, resonating through every nerve ending down to her neck and shoulders.

His eyes grew dark, all the charm and ease draining from his face. “Zoe this is very complicated,” he said, settling on that particular word. “I’ve never been involved with someone who wasn’t from Terra. I don’t know how it would work.”