‘What? Em, this is huge. How come you haven’t told me?’ Lucas’s voice raised, shocked.
‘Not many people know. Only Abbie, she introduced me to her friend who is the owner of a couple of them. She showed him my work and, well, he wants to showcase a couple of my pieces and a new one that I am working on, which is currently hidden under that cloth,’ I said, pointing to it.
‘What? This is incredible, you have to let me see them,’ he said, walking up to the paintings ready to pull off the white sheet. But I ran over standing in front of them.
‘No, no. You have to wait; you can come to the opening. It will be special. I promise.’ He smiled, wrapping his arms around my waist, and kissing my forehead. ‘I can’t wait, Em. I’m so proud of you.’
We took a seat outside on the lounge and Lucas passed me a roll of sushi.
‘I think I want to showcase them anonymously,’ I said. He narrowed his eyebrows onto me, coughing up a bite from his sushi roll.
‘Why? Don’t you want to receive praise for all the hard work you have put in? There’s nothing better than hearing the roar of the crowd at a concert or watching the club jump to your tunes. That’s why you do it, to see the way it moves people, to see people love it, and to see what it does for them.
‘I don’t think that’s the only reason you do what you do. You do it because YOU love it, yeah?’ I said. I knew that he did, but I also knew that he craved to be seen.
‘Yeah, of course,’ he said, biting down on a prawn sushi roll.
‘Hear me out for a second. Let’s pretend Lucas Jones is anonymous. There’s a big music festival on and your music just plays with no one else behind the decks. It’s already been mixed perfectly for the night. The crowd roar and everyone there is dancing, jumping high in the mosh pit. Maybe you’re at the festival, standing in the back of the crowd. You can watch from afar. Hearing the people talk about how much they loved the music. How it made them cry, laugh, dance move. A girl next to you tells her friend that she lost her virginity to this song. A guy to the right of you says it’s his anthem. And you just get to sit back, be still, taking it all in from afar, watching how your creation had impacted the world. To me, that’s what it would mean to create anonymously,’ I said.
His eyes never left me. ‘I can’t say I’ve ever thought about that. Even in the creation process, I’m thinking about people’s reactions. Not just if they will like the music for what it is, but if they will like me, the person creating it.’ I stayed locked in his gaze. ‘The way you see the world is so individual.’ He said.
‘I wasn’t always like this,’ I said. He smiled because he knew. I had forgotten about all the different stages we had lived through together.
His eyes stayed peeled on me, looking at me as though I was magic. There was only one other person who had looked at me like this in my life, and I still grieved her. His eyes stained mine like I was wearing permanent glasses of his gaze. I was completely clothed, yet the most exposed I had ever been.
He leaned in closer to me and I met his kiss, his lips were soft, pressing, and powerful. I breathed in his strong presence, as he wrapped his arm around my lower back. He lifted my whole body off my chair and sat me carefully on his lap. His hands wrapped around me grabbing my whole body tightly, yet with ease and grace. My chest pressed deep into his. Our tongues tasting lust. With brief moments of our lips parting, for our eyes to meet, to be present, to say‘I’m here’with no words.
I stayed in that very perfect moment, letting my heart finally feel at home for at least an hour, until he scooped me up off the couch. Took me inside, tuck me into my white sheets, and snuggled in next to my clothed body and open heart.
Chapter 14 — Him
I think today was the first time I didn’t want to go to a gig. I wanted to stay with her, be wrapped up in her aura, and stay tucked up in her world. Is this what falling in love was? When I was with her, nothing mattered. Anything that didn’t lie between our bodies or radiate on our frequency disappeared into the abyss. How could I have found something so perfect, when internally, I still felt lost. It seemed contradictory. It left me confused. But it didn’t stop me from wanting her.
I ripped up the handbrake of my car. I parked in my usual spot outside of the gate, waiting for her to finish work. I didn’t have to fly out until tomorrow. I changed my flights to Emma’s local airport. I wanted to spend a night with her before I left for a couple of days.Knock, knock,Emma was outside tapping on the window of my car laughing. I wound down the window.
‘Oh, hey you,’ I said, smiling.
She continued to laugh. ‘I’ve been standing here for a while just watching you deeply lost in thought.’
I opened the door and hopped out of my car, throwing my arms around her. ‘Sorry I was lost in my own world. I’ve missed you,’ I said, leaning in to kiss her, holding her until she pulled away.
‘Come inside,’ she said, ‘I’m sorry I didn’t finish till late.’
‘That’s okay,’ I said. I opened the back seat to my car and grabbed a backpack filled with fresh clothes for the morning. I held her hand as we walked up to her apartment. ‘How was your day?’ I asked as she unlocked her apartment door.
‘It was good, but it was exhausting. We’re working on a pretty big campaign now and it’s great but it’s a lot. To be honest I really just want to switch off from it,’ she said. She looked even cuter exhausted. Her eyes were a little droopy and the bright bubbly energy that she usually exuded was now just a half-smile. I came in to hug her around her waist again and she threw her arms around my neck.
‘You look like you need a nap, you hard-working girl.,’ I said, as she was wrapped up in my arms.
‘Do you know what I really want?’ she whispered into my ear as her face was nuzzled into my shoulder. I felt her breath on the back of my neck. Her voice was soft and sexy, I felt her words move through my body. I moved my lips softly down the side of her face and kissed her right ear lobe.
‘What do you really want?’ I whispered into her ear, squeezing her in tighter to me as she giggled.
‘I really want a bath,’ she said.
‘Ohhh,’ I said, ‘I thought you’d never ask.’ I squatted down, picking her up from her bum and carrying her to her ensuite. She had a spa bath in her bathroom that I had never seen her in before, but each time I was at her house, I eyed off the bubble bath and bath salts that sat on the edge. Thinking about her having nights alone in the tub, soaking until the skin on her fingers wrinkled. She laughed as I carried her to the bathroom and laid her down ever so gently into the tub. I crouched down on the tiles next to her. ‘I guess we better fill this with water.,’ I said.
‘Are you going to join me?’ she asked, lying in the tub staring at me.
