flawed with benefits

Kissing Elora was like kissing a flower. Delicate and fragile beneath the touch, care needed in case she crumbles beneath your fingertips, but that wasn't what made Cal not want it.

No, he enjoyed kissing Elora a lot, but it was just like going through the motions.

It felt more like a fling than a potential relationship, a romance that meant nothing. Like a soft summer's breeze flowing through the leaves. Although it rustles the leaves, no lasting impact is left behind.

But that wasn't the only reason he didn't want it.

He didn't want Elora, he wanted Violet. He wanted to feel her heart beating against his as her lips left their berry stains on him because Violet was far from a soft summer's breeze.

Violet Griffin was a storm and she'd made her mark. It went right to the bone.

He'd been sat on the sofa with Elora in his arms, kissing her softly with one hand at her jaw holding her so she would never fall and break.

She smiled against him. It was a sweet smile. If it'd had a taste, it would have tasted like ice cream on the beach with the sun blaring down on your head like it loved you with all its burning heart.

But when the door flew open and Harry, Callux, Sarah and Violet came bursting in with laughter in the air, the sun's love was cut short.

Cal tore his lips from Elora and looked to the door, wide eyes as he met Violet's stare.

Now she did not laugh. There was not a trace of laughter within her expression as she ran her hand through her curls of dark hair and turned away to talk to Sarah, but Cal saw the smudge across her eyes that whispered a thousand words and more.

Honestly, she looked hurt and that was something Cal never thought he'd see.

It was always him seeing her with somebody else, not this way around and, now that it was happening, he could see the way she forced her smile and carried her head a little higher than usual.

As they sat down around the TV, he could see she wasn't really watching it. Violet was looking at him with his arm around Elora as she sipped her bottle of beer and grasped onto her mask for dear life.

And he found himself staring back, even as Elora nestled into his side clawing for his attention.

He didn't want to give her attention and, as much as he hated himself for thinking that, he knew exactly why: he had already fallen for someone else, and it was so incredibly flawed that he was sure his heart was going to give out on him if he looked at her any longer.

Averting to the TV screen was the only option, it hurt less.

-

and now he has seen the light