Scandalized

by Ivy Owens

I am eager to leave and get a room, but also dreading losing this warm, vibrating feeling I have being so close to him.

“In my defense, I haven’t slept in…” I calculate. “Well over thirty hours. You have no idea the stuff that’s reeling through here.” I press my index finger to my temple. “I really should just go to bed.” He glances over my shoulder and then pulls his sleeve back to check the time. “Try me.” “You’re asking to be scandalized.”

I wrap my free arm around his neck, pulling his head down until he rests his forehead against mine, and like this, with eyes closed, we breathe in jagged, charged tandem for a handful of seconds.

We may have changed a lot in the past fourteen years but just as with renovations…” I grin up at him as we both register that he’s committed to the terrible metaphor. “We’ll always be part of each other’s foundations?” I guess. He nods, laughing in self-deprecation. “That was bloody awful.”

A kink for the words, this one.

“You’re going to make me love you, aren’t you?” He doesn’t even falter, in step or breath. He says only, “I’m sure going to try.”