Astrophile

17Mysery

Their walk around the beach ended at the water’s edge when they sat on the firm wet sand and the air was clean and moist with saltwater.

She dragged out the last cigarette stick; the grey smoke rose to her face, blocking her bright eyes from his incessant scrutiny. The smoke itself, inside the mouth, had a repeated sharpness that stung the tongue and travelled the trachea to the lungs.

He wanted nothing more than to pluck it from between her plump painted-red lips and chuck it at the water. Instead, he focused on the beach. He saw dead water hitting land in senseless waves of noise. The moon in the sky was half-revealed, and the millions of stars that dotted the night sky twinkled over the waves. The sand was beautiful; little individual grains in the light of the night.

A gale blew and she shivered unintentionally. The stick had burned out and she threw it across the beach where it drowned soundlessly in the inky dark waters.

“Astrid.”

The way he said her name added a new sense of feeling to the already beautiful name. He said it in a breathy whisper and her name hung in the moist salty air that surrounded them. She turned to look at him. They were three feet away from each other, but when her light blue eyes met his dark grey-green ones, it felt like all distances had been crossed and they were one.

That was when he saw how pretty she was. The light was not bright but he could clearly see that she was smiling. He had always known that she was gorgeous, but that night it came to him in a different way than others. The beauty, as always, was there in her face and in the outline of her body beside him on the beach. But htere was a gentleness on her face that was entirely new to him.

Wordlessly, he rose and crossed the three feet of distance that separated them. She stared at him, neck cocked to the side to get a clear view. He stretched his feet on the sand in front of them and his hand went to her back.

She looked at him in surprise. The warmth of his palm seeped through the polyester fabric of her white shirt and it made her skin flush.

“Zeke,” she called out. He voice was throaty but had an undefined warmth within, which he did not miss.

They had known each other for years; always as best friends. She had never thought of him as anything more than a friend, but the way he looked at her that night. She could see in his eyes, desires that ran deeper than friendship. The grey-green eyes unlocked something in her and she suddenly felt alive with emotion.

The water came in long slow movements, stretching back and the land always answered the movement. Her eyes turned to his and in that second, when their gazes locked, the air between shifted and emotions sizzled.

“We should go back,” she said, staring at him through her lashes.

His hand dropped from her back and hovered over her. He stared at her for approval and she didn’t seem to mind. Their fingers interlaced on the sand. Neither of them made any attempt to move.

“We should.”