If life was a cycle, he swore that sometimes, Mother Nature hit fast-forward.
Christ, what a woman.
Sometimes she couldn't help but look at those boots and hate them. ...Just a little bit.
Like porcelain gone rogue, it reminded him of her, of matured sweetness and tempered grace.
He hadn't been able to stop the flinch, to soften the squint and twisted expression as she picked her way through the bloody grass. Every muscle stiffened - drawing tight and protective – uncertain of what to do with himself as the scent of her rose, crisp and surprisingly clean in his most basic of senses.
One fourteenth of a share was simply not worth this kind of aggravation.
The morning of her sweet sixteen found her multi-tasking, trying to unhook her bra and brush her teeth at the same time. She was fixing her hair, trying to make sense of the reddish-brown tangle of sleep-mussed curls and an ill-tempered cow-lick when she saw it.
She balanced on her own for a handful of beats before she was falling again, a slumping dead weight as she melted into the closest set of arms – soft and sweet-smelling as the curve of a breast hushed across the small of her back.
It was a joining of souls. A twinned sense of self made stronger by a chance meeting and a tumble on the training mats. It was perfect code. Tranquil and easy.
"Would you change anything?" he finally asked, avoiding her eyes in favor of gesturing off into the sunset, keeping his expression neutral as she unfolded herself from his lap and leaned against his shoulder.
He hadn't had a shower since, what? The CDC?
A heady flush of pleasure and anticipation stole across her skin as he started to relax, his long day of hunting finally seeming to catch up with him as thin streams of warm water beaded down the jut of his hips. She adored him like this, in the scant moments before the mask started to dissolve - when he finally let his guard down and allowed himself to just sit back and enjoy it.
The Valar work in mysterious ways.
She held back a giggle as a particularly loud rasp echoed into the still. She had to bite down on the inside of her cheek as a soft snuffling issued. The sound was not unlike that of baby calf nosing for his mother's udder as the man shifted behind her, burying his face into the tangle of her ponytail before the soft snores resumed.
Her back hit the maple with a scraping thud – just painful enough that she arched – over-stimulated. Her fledgling curiosity wavered, if only for a moment, as Carol surged forward. There was a flash of silver hair in the moonlight before the older woman was on her.