Oh. Oh! Yes. Well, of course I hadn't forgotten. But him saying it now made me feel... better? If he mentioned it, it must be important.
"Messages?" I asked, grinning. "More than one?"
"Indeed. I left you another while you slept. Something else came up that warranted further discussion."
"I'll listen to them," I said. Biting more of my granola bar, eating it fast, I nodded happily. "I'll listen to them, Lucent. I promise. Hurry, let's eat. I want to listen to them soon."
"Of course," Lucent said.
We ate. I ate fast and he ate slower, but it didn't matter, because we didn't have much food. He might be one of those people who doesn't eat a lot in the mornings, I thought. It made sense. That must be why he only brought a few things for breakfast, too. I'd worried before, thinking it odd, but I shouldn't bother myself with silly things like that. I overanalyzed situations sometimes and worried about the silliest things.
This wasn't that, though. Nothing to worry about.
...
We finished eating and then I dressed. Lucent wore all of his clothes already, but I wore none. Not that this bothered me, and I would have gladly remained nak*d if only we were staying in the library, but as we weren't, I needed to dress. Unfortunate, that. Oh well.
He offered to escort me to my car and I gladly accepted. Maybe... maybe more?
"Are you still hungry?" I asked him as we headed to the front library desk so I could fetch my purse and winter coat. "Maybe if you aren't too busy we could get some food at a diner? I know a nice place fairly close by."
Lucent smiled at me but shook his head. "I fear I have much to do, Miss Tanner. I typically never spend this long away from my work, regardless of if I have the day off or not. I need to push myself back on track, as it were."
"Fear, hm?" I asked, teasing him. Snatching up my purse and tossing on my coat, I rushed to his side and grabbed his arm. "Are you afraid, Lucent? I fear you might become famished if you don't eat more. What do you say to that?"
"Everyone knows fear," Lucent countered with a soft smile. "I won't go hungry, though. You needn't worry about that. I have a varied assortment of foods at my house and keep my cabinets well stocked in case of emergencies."
"Do you?" I asked.
He nodded, perfunctory. "Yes."
"If you'd like I could come over and make us some better breakfast? I don't know what you have, but I can figure something out."
Lucent breathed in deep, then sighed. "I doubt that's a good idea, Miss Tanner."
"Oh," I said. "I suppose I might distract you, yes."
Not that I would mind distracting Lucent; in fact, I'd probably enjoy it quite a bit. Distractions were never good for work, though. Or mostly not good. I was sure that quite a few distractions must have led to breakthroughs in something or other, but those must be the exceptions to the rules, as opposed to standard fare. Suffice to say, I doubted the distractions I had in mind--or, more to point, the distractions I hoped Lucent might have in mind--were of the exceptioned variety. An exceptional variety, perhaps, but that was different.
Lucent walked me to the door while I dreamed of exceptions and distractions. Outside, prim and neat, someone had shoveled a path to the street. It looked nice, as far as shoveled paths looked, I supposed. Clear. We walked along it, onto the street, and towards the parking lot. Everything was clearer today than it was yesterday, but the city still needed some time before returning to normal. Across the street, a sidewalk plow worked at doing just that. Down a side street somewhere else, I heard the thrum of a plow truck clearing away the back roads.
The library parking lot was... odd. More shoveling, another path, but this one went directly to my car and a little past it. Essentially, I had a perfect arrangement to pull out of my spot and get to the road, but nothing more. The parking lot still needed quite a bit of plowing, but I could escape with my car, at least. And, odder still, my entire car was cleared off. No snow atop it, on the side of it, anywhere on it, under it. Not even a speck of ice on the windshield or the body.
I had no clue how that worked. "Um," I said, staring at it.
Should I even say anything? I didn't really mind, but when we first left I expected to need to wait for my car to warm up and melt away the ice and snow while chipping at it with my barely adequate ice scraper snow brush thing.
"How fortuitous," Lucent said. He sounded weird. Odd, even. "The morning sun must be strong enough to have cleaned off your car completely."
"Oh," I said. "Really?"
He shrugged. "Perhaps."
"Oh."
Silence. I reached into my purse for my keys and they dangled and jangled in my hand. Unlocking my car door, I opened it wide and stared inside.
"It was a pleasure meeting you, Miss Tanner," Lucent said. "Everything seems in order. I'll be leaving now. I appreciate you housing me in your library during the blizzard. Thank you."
He nodded, bowing slightly, and turned to walk away.
"Lucent," I said.
He turned back, tilting his head to the side. "Yes?"
"Will you kiss me goodbye?"
He frowned and muttered. "Miss Tanner..."
I wasn't about to deal with him like this. I didn't know why he felt the need to be the way he was right now, but I disliked it. To get my point across, I swiftly closed the distance between us and wrapped my arms around him, holding him close. Pushing myself up on my tiptoes, I touched my nose to the end of his chin. If I had heels on, I could've kissed him fine on my own, but in my boots I couldn't quite reach.
Lucent watched me, looking at me with deep, observant eyes. What did he see in me, I wondered? What was he seeing right now? An obsessive, strange woman who wanted him to kiss her in the middle of the day in a snowed-in parking lot, probably. I was that, and I didn't even care.
He embraced me, squeezing me close, then lowered his head to kiss me. I expected something soft, more formal, and chaste, but Lucent exceeded my expectations. He pressed his lips against mine, firm and demanding. Desirous, needy, I kissed him back, hard. I closed my eyes and held him tight and hoped he never let me go.
He did, though. He did release me, but not before I felt all of him. His emotions and feelings, a sorrow and longing, yearning, passion, maybe a little obsession of his own. Attraction and compelling temptation, all of it. He did like me. A person couldn't kiss like that if they didn't like the other person, and so I just knew Lucent must like me, but then... why? Why were we leaving each other?
The message, I reminded myself. My phone.
"Goodbye, Miss Tanner," he said. His eyes gleamed, quietly sad.
I smiled at him and squeezed his hands in mine. "Goodbye, Lucent. I hope to see you again."
He nodded, but said nothing. Maybe that was a hard thing to say? He was like that sometimes; locked up in his mind and too private. That was fine. I convinced myself he must have opened up to me in his phone message. Once I charged my phone and listened to him telling me everything, I could replay the messages as much as I liked and listen to them over and over again.
For a moment, Lucent hesitated. A brief flicker in the overall stream of time, but then that moment passed and he turned and started to walk away. I watched him go, smiling to myself, hoping maybe he might turn around and smile at me and wave. Or turn and stop and run back to me and put his arms around my waist and lift me up and spin me around in the air.
Yes, he would say. Come to my house and make breakfast. I'll work while you do, and I need to work after, too, but... You have your college course book and you can study while I do what I need to get done, but let's stay together today because we want to, Elise, not because we have no other choice.
He didn't turn around, nor did he say any of that. I dreamed he did, though, and for now that was enough. I understood. Not everything could be as nice and lovely as the past couple of days. That wasn't an all-the-time kind of thing, but a once in awhile, sometimes thing. Occasional. Maybe next weekend we might do something similar? On our date?
He never asked me on a date, or at least he hadn't yet, but I knew he would. Or, he should, anyways. Lucent confused me.
I walked to my car and stepped inside, closing the door behind me. Breathing softly, sighing, watching my cold breath fog against the window, I smiled to myself.
Right now, the day was sad, but today was a good day. It would be happier, and I'd laugh at this moment later. I laughed a little now, wondering how I could worry about nothing. I did worry, though. My chest hurt a little, my heart constricted and confined. Lucent liked those BDSM things and rope and all of that, and I think he might have bound me up in more ways than one.
I put the key in the ignition and turned it. My car roared to life, greeting me with a friendly purr. The heaters warmed me with a gentle heat far too quickly, but I thought nothing of it. Making myself smile, I put the car into gear and prepared to drive home.
...
I arrived home and Vanessa greeted me, but I told her I was tired and needed to go lay down for a bit. Which was sort of true, but not entirely. Mostly, I wanted to charge my phone.
I tried. My phone pissed me off. What kind of junk phone was this?
Well, my phone was outdated and the charger was old, which proved frustrating. I plugged the phone into the charger and had the great idea of turning it on right then while it charged, but my phone disliked that. It did power on, but only for a few seconds, before turning off again. The display politely informed me that it was currently charging, though.
I tried again but it shut off again. Not enough power, I guessed. I waited ten minutes and tried once more, but this barely worked. The phone powered up to the main screen, with my picture of a cute kitten in the background, but then it shut off again.
I nearly threw it against the wall in annoyance, except I stopped because I'd never be able to listen to my messages if the broke the stupid thing. Not such a great idea, Elise, I told myself. Just let it sit. I changed into pajamas and flopped on my bed and pouted.
Vanessa had muffins like she always did, and I groaned and grumped in my room for a few minutes before joining her in our living room for our Sunday routine. She flipped through TV stations while munching on her cranberry orange muffin while I sat on our couch with my knees tucked up to my chest, feet on the couch, barely nibbling at my butter rum baked good. Mine was also a muffin, but somewhat malformed so that it looked more like a biscuit. It tasted nice, though.
We watched nothing on TV, because nothing good was ever on TV, and I sat there, fidgeting, antsy, sprung up, waiting.
"So," Vanessa said.
"Yes," I said.
"What did you and him do?"
Oh God. I couldn't tell her these things! "We watched a movie," I said. "We read books, too. There were sandwiches and we grabbed snacks from the vending machine, so that was fine. Um, the power went out for awhile, but there's a fireplace in one of the rooms upstairs, so we burned some books to keep warm."
"You just tossed books into the fireplace?" Vanessa asked, sounding impressed.
I laughed and rolled my eyes. "We used ruined books. They were going to be thrown away anyways, so it didn't matter, just nobody had thrown them away yet, that's all."