|CHAPTER SEVEN|

Bash was my haven. Somehow, he took me by the hand and set us flying into the clouds to a safe place. I loved to hear him talk in that strange slurred voice, but he had a way of making me talk too. He would stare at me with those sincere, inquiring eyes and have me undone before I even knew what happened. It was the most terrifying thrill to give him a piece of myself.

On our first real date he brought me to his apartment. We met at the library after his shift and biked to a tight-knit residential area I tended to stay away from. He lived in a large brick building that used to be single family home. A staircase that led up to the second floor had been added on to the outside of the building making it possible to rent either upstairs or downstairs. Bash was on the first floor.

He delicately threaded his fingers with mine and led me up the faded brick steps to a door that needed a fresh coat of paint. After digging in his pocket for the key and unlocking the door, he pulled me inside and gave me the grand tour.

The apartment had been redesigned for rental in a boxy way. Really, it was just one giant square with an L-shaped train of smaller squares lining the right side and back of the home. But, that doesn’t matter. What matters is that it was nearly one-hundred percent Bash. Nobody could convince me he had a roommate sharing the space.

Overflowing bookshelves lined open walls with leaning, sometimes toppling towers of books stacked on the floor beside them. Sticky note reminders were on the back of the front door so that Bash wouldn’t forget anything when he left in the morning. Unread newspapers and half-eaten takeout boxes cluttered the coffee table. Sunshine fell through large un-curtained windows to illuminate every piece of dust. He lived in his own personal library.

“Home sweet home,” he announced proudly and led me to the second door of the L-shaped train of rooms. “My room,” he told me.

I poked my head in. It was the same deal. A desk in the corner was all muddled with notebooks and pens and small cactus I presumed was the only plant in the whole house. His walls were blank and floor mostly bare beside a couple stray books. It was his bed that struck me as odd. There was no box spring. It was just a mattress on the floor.

“Interesting,” I commented, nodding at it.

He shrugged, but tightened his hold on my fingers. “No place for monsters to hide,” he told me coolly with a wink.

“You are...bizarre.”

He laughed and then seemed to remember something.

“You highlighted idiosyncratic,” he stated of my choices in his notebook of pretentious words. “Perhaps that word is better suited to describe my quirks.”

“I liked the way it sounded,” I admitted a little embarrassedly, “But I don’t know exactly what it means.”

His eyes turned up toward the ceiling in a thoughtful manner, like he was searching the archives of his brain for a definition.

When he found the right words he explained, “Just that I have habits or characteristics that someone identifies as individual to me. They’re my quirks.”

With that, he untangled our fingers and slipped past me to kneel down and sprawl out on his bed, sinking into the mattress as he stretched and relaxed. He even kicked his shoes off. “Join me?”

I nervously glanced over my shoulder and cleared my throat, contemplating his offer. I admit, it was weird, but after taking a prolonged breath I slid out of my flip-flops and joined him, leaving a considerable amount of distance between us. I laid down on my back and stared up at the blank white ceiling wondering why on earth we would just lie in bed. I underestimated what he meant by not being a traditional dater.

For a while I just listened to the sound of him breathing and inhaled the scent of his bedding which smelled exactly like how he smelled when he wasn’t in the library: amber and detergent. I wanted to wrap myself up in it.

“You use so many words I’ve never heard of,” I told him in the buzzing silence.

“Do I?” He asked breathily, like he’d been pulled back from dozing off.

“Yes.”

A moment passed between us.

“Well, good,” he finally replied in a cheery tone.

I tilted my head so that I caught a glimpse of the side of his face. “Good?” I wondered.

“Well, I'd hate to bore you with plain, overused English,” he told me with exaggerated facial expressions. “That's how people lose interest. They hear the same old things until they're tricked into believing that's all there is.”

 I exhaled lazily and then swallowed a sudden rush of nervous butterflies back down. “I guess I won’t be losing interest, then,” I muttered mostly to myself, but Bash caught it too.

He jerked his face in my direction and held my gaze. He could be so intense. Shivers tap danced down my spine and left my cheeks rosy. Experiencing all of this for the first time was overwhelming, and I absently wondered how people could let themselves fall into infatuation every day. I wouldn’t be able to do it. I felt vulnerable. This longing was desperate, maybe long overdue.

“What was it like, L.A.?” I asked suddenly, to steer myself off a dangerous path. It was a strange feeling, this time with him. A restless feeling in my bones was driving me to fill extended moments of silence with chatter. What was I expecting from this date? 

He released a puff of breath and turned his gaze back to the ceiling. “Loud, fast. Everyone moves at a thousand miles an hour. The people they pass are blank faces. Everything is just a blur.” When he finished talking, he shrugged as an afterthought.

“I thought I might like that—a big city,” I shared softly. I hadn’t planned on telling anyone that, but I couldn’t leave my inquiries empty if I brought it up—even if I brought it up out of nervousness. “Nobody knows or cares who you are, what you were. They’re so focused on the present, on moving forward and I want to get where I’m going as fast as I can.”

“And why is that, Jovial?” he asked, raising himself onto his elbow, giving him a little height over me. “Why are you so eager to get out of Ashwood Creek and never look back?”

I let my eyes fall closed, feeling pressure in my chest. This is why I didn’t like talking about it.

 “None of this matters. I’m not getting anywhere here,” I stated curtly.

My eyes were still closed, but I felt the bed sink as he leaned in closer to me. His fingers reached out to play with the baby hairs near my ear. My stomach twisted when obvious goosebumps popped up along my arms. “Is that why you’re so distant with everyone, why everyone is given a deadline?” He asked softly.

I bit my lip, hating that he could coax me into saying things like that—things I held back for so long, that I didn’t want to explain to people. Truthfully, I wanted to be a like a storm cloud. I wanted to let loose a torrential downpour of my most troublesome worries. But, if I did, I was afraid I would soak him. My fears would weigh him down until he had to crumple to the pavement, shielding himself from the relentless pound of my heavy rain.  I was afraid he'd run for shelter instead of brave the shower.

“I want to be your haven,” he murmured reassuringly. “I want you to trust me—even if this ends after summer.”

 My eyes fluttered open, and I rolled onto my side so that I faced him squarely. It was going to rain after years of drought.

 “I don’t want to care too much,” I began, keeping my eyes steady on his shining blue ones.  “I don’t want people feeling...obligated to do things for me or vice versa. I just want to do what I do and move on. There are things that don’t end up mattering in life, and I don’t want to get caught up in it. That’s why I’m distant.”

His finger trailed down the side of my face, falling to the mattress beside my arm. “Do you figure, then, that I won’t end up mattering?” I could tell he was trying not to sound wounded, but he’d sewn his heart onto his sleeve a long time ago.

I shook my head. “You’ll always matter because I’ve broken every one of my rules for you.”

The idea petrified me. I had always known that giving parts of yourself away is like burying treasure. Eventually, you’re going to have to go back to them, whether in body or spirit, to reclaim what they have: memories, photographs, awakened yearnings, wadded up underwear. One day, you’ll stumble back across it and dig up what you thought you almost forgot.

A warm smile parted his lips and he bent forward to press his forehead to mine, causing my heart to race and toes to curl. “I am sincerely honored.” He announced tenderly, and then paused to chuckle. “I am also grateful that you are not offended by the venue of this date. Most girls might find this—”

“Strange, inappropriate, cheap?” I supplied teasingly.

He clutched at his heart theatrically. “Ouch, Jovial.”

I laughed lightly and tucked my hands under my head. “Why are we lounging on your bed?”

He pursed his lips in thought. “I don’t know. I just kind of...did it. I spend my downtime in bed reading. It was just natural, I guess.”

“It’s nice,” I sighed, because even though it was a weird thing at first, I'd never felt more comfortable anywhere else.

For a few minutes we just laid there, taking each other in. I watched his eyes sweep across my face, and I noticed the stubble coming in on his chin and the ever-prominent angles that made his face exactly perfect. He wasn’t alien-like at all, I realized. He was simply angelic.

Bash had fallen back on his shoulder some time ago, but rose onto his forearm again. He pressed his lips into his bicep for a moment, eyes still steady on me, and then lifted his chin.

“I have a secret,” he confessed playfully while a blush grew on his cheeks.

A fire burned in my stomach, flames licking at my insides and turning my mouth dry. The uneasiness from before returned. “Do you?” I asked so quietly it might have been considered a whisper.

Gold hair fell in his eyes when he nodded, but he didn’t push it back into place. “I really want to kiss you.”

The confidence I feared I may never feel again after the night of the music festival suddenly surged through me. It sent a fog to blind the part of my brain that would shy away and ignited the fire in my stomach to reach new heights of scorching heat.

I reached between us to tuck the fallen locks of hair back behind his ear. “Then what are you waiting for?”

He licked his lips and smiled laughingly, slowly inching forward until our noses brushed. I held my breath when he snaked his hand between us and nearly jolted when he lightly gripped the back of my neck, his touch like an electric shock.

“You’re shaking,” he murmured, his breath batting my lips.

I nudged my nose against his and bit my lip. “What are you waiting for?” I asked again.

He didn’t need any further reassuring. My eyes fluttered closed as our lips met in a sweet caress, innocent enough and curious. He gently savored each short kiss, meshing our lips together and pulling apart slowly. I was wound tight with the urge to take more than I could give, and when he noticed this he gripped me tight and pressed a searing final kiss against my lips.  Even then, he knew when to stop me from toppling over.

His thumb stroked my jaw softly and he looked into my eyes. In them, I saw something much deeper than summer love. I saw nights under the stars and late night phone calls. I saw tearstained cheeks and spine-crushing hugs. I saw blushing, embarrassed laughter, bare moonlit skin, bike rides, long words, and takeout. I saw a future I hadn’t planned for.