Alone with You in the Ether

by Olivie Blake

Focus looked right on her, vibrant and bright. She had her lip caught between her teeth, pink tongue slipping out every now and then in concentration, and Aldo was so fixated on her that he didn’t notice what she’d done to his hair until after she’d stepped back and looked up, meeting his eye in the mirror. She’d cut it short enough that it was more tousled now than curly, trimmed safely away from his eyes and forehead. He hadn’t necessarily cared about the outcome, but he found the results satisfactory; he’d been right to trust her eye, running his fingers over the subtle fade. “There,” she murmured to herself, mussing the cropped waves atop his head and smoothing them back to eye her handiwork. “Now it looks like somebody cares about you,” she said, and her hand stilled, eyes rising up to his in the mirror again. Aldo leaned his head back against her torso, resting it there for an experimental moment. In response, Regan ran the pad of her thumb over his temple; then lower, brushing the bone of his cheek. He slid a hand behind him, curling his fingers around the back of her knee; she ran her own through his hair again, her breath quickening beneath the weight of his head.