Posted:
okay okay I know you guys are probably tired of reading so much but I'm sorry you guys I'm uploading everything I have before my schedule gets hectic.
Also this OS is not proofread so any mistakes should be blamed on my lack of sleep.
Lastly, I'm very grateful for everyone who commented and liked my previous OS.
Enjoy!
"Are you sure you don't want a beer?"
Avni looked across the small table at the sweating bottle in Neil's fist. "I dont like the taste of alcohol," she said.
"You didn't seem to mind doing shots during your college days," Ali pointed out. He was sucking on lite beer from the can, his third of the night, and his eyes were actually starting to wander. Impressive, Neil thought, that his beer goggles were starting to kick in before Neil's own. Truth was, the place was sort of a dive. He didn't see a pretty girl in the vicinity. There were some skinny bikers and a couple of round-faced and round-bellied thirtysomethings wearing fringe on their cowboy boots, but nothing that appealed. The one Ali was checking out wasn't bad, but she wasn't Neil's type. Too brainy-chick.
The liquid courage had apparently sunk in nicely, because Ali got up. "I'm gonna--" He finished his sentence with a grin and a swig. "'Scuse me, guys." He put down the can and turned, heading straight for Brainy Smurfette.
Neil laughed and lifted his bottle in a toast to them. "Go Ali, it's your birthday," he cheered.
Avni watched, waiting until Ali was out of earshot before leaning forward. "So he's going to attempt to--"
"Avni, if you say the word 'make Love' one more time, I swear I'm going to be sick."
Avni shut up quickly.
"Actually," Neil said after a minute, "this is a good trend. Ali needs to loosen up more. I mean, you have an excuse for being on your guard, but him? He's gonna get high blood pressure if he keeps this up."
He sat back, and together he and Avni watched Ali's flirtation. The girl arched forward, her eyes bright with interest, as Ali explained something, all smiles and sweeping hand gestures. She laughed and asked him another question, shifting her weight so her hip cocked out at him coquettishly.
"He's smooth," Neil said with an appreciative whistle.
Ali led the girl onto the dance floor, and they began to sway together. The girl looked even shorter next to him, and she had to loop her arms up around his shoulders and crane her neck so they could talk. Their mirroring smiles were dazzling. Neil cleared his throat. "Something tells me I'm sleeping in the car tonight."
"Why?"
Neil looked at Avni. "I don't have to explain that to you again, do I? It's about privacy. And my personal sanity."
"I mean, why don't you get another room?" Avni said.
Neil looked at her for a long enough moment of silence that Avni felt the need to blink several times "What?" she said finally.
Neil's expression was slack. "That's... actually a really good idea."
**
Actually, it was Avni who bought the extra room. They couldn't go home drunk in this state. She looked distinctly uncomfortable the whole time, but the teenage boy behind the desk said, "Don't worry.I'm sure your buddy just needs to sleep it off."
"I'do'need t'sleep anything off, y'jerk," Neil slurred.
"Right," the boy said with an arched eyebrow as he handed over the keys. Avni was holding Neil firmly by one shoulder, and Neil was trying at odd intervals to shake her off, with no success. He wasn't half as drunk as he was acting, but sometimes you just had to pretend you were having a better time than you were. Plus, if he didn't act nine sheets to the wind, the kid just might have made a snarky comment of some other kind. He looked like the type.
In the open-air hallway, Avni counted doors until she found the one that matched. She slid the key into the lock. "Was it all right to leave Ali without telling him we were going?" she wondered aloud.
"Oh, it was fine." Neil stepped inside. The room was well kept, with a queen-size bed. Light rock was playing softly on the clock radio. "The way he was dancing with that girl, he probably had forgotten we even exist."
"That's very strange." Avni hung up Neil's coat on the rack by the door. In her slightly drunken stupor, Avni looked bold and bashful and innocent, all at once. Neil liked seeing her that way. "What do you mean?"
"Oh, you're just saying that because you've never danced." Neil grinned and put a hand on Avni's shoulder. "Once you've got a pretty girl in your arms, with her hands on the back of your neck, looking up at you with big eyes--" He sidled up to Avni playfully and batted his eyelashes. "--it's hard to see anything else."
Avni's back had stiffened. "Really?"
Neil was feeling just silly enough to keep up the farce. "Here, pretend I'm a girl," he said. He grabbed Avni's hand and pulled it to place it on his chest, then put both of his own arms around her waist. "There, see?" He swayed his hips in an exaggerated roll. "Just close your eyes and think of someone. Or something." He grinned mischievously at Avni, adding in a falsetto with a Southern twang, " 'Oh, Avni, you're a wonderful dancer.' "
Avni didn't close her eyes. Instead, she looked down at the space between their bodies, at the spot wher her hand was curled around Neil's shirt. Her other hand had disappeared behind, pressing against the small of Neil's back. "This is dancing?" she said.
"Slow dancing," Neil said. "There's other kinds, too, but this is the best when you want to get close. Plus, it's all we have the music for," he added with a nod toward the incessant middle-of-the-road crap emanating from the clock radio.
"I see." Avni's eyes still stayed wide open, but her hand tightened on Neil's shirt. The music was just loud enough to be audible, and Avni counted in her head, trying to approximate some synchronicity with the beat. It seemed to come naturally to Neil, but it was hard for her. Her head began to bob up and down and her mouth formed around the numbers unconsciously.
"Dude," Neil said. "You're thinking too hard. Just feel it." Avni's eyes met his, questioning and a little afraid. But she stilled, forcing himeslf to quit counting and just shift in a little closer to Neil, as though that would give her a better feeling for the rhythm that was so intuitive to Neil.
"I got it," Neil muttered, "I'll lead. C'mon, just follow me." He began to move with some purpose, guiding Avni's body and feet with his hips, with tugs of hand on her shoulders and with small steps to the side and backward. Avni's eyes fell to her feet, watching and trying to keep in time, her jaw set to prevent himself from counting.
Neil's eyes began to droop. The movement and the alcohol were relaxing him, and his lids fell to half-mast. Avni watched his face carefully and saw the tension, the bravado melt away as the music guided his motions. A sweep of relief and gladness went through her and she tried to hide the beginnings of a smile.
Neil realized he was looking at the floor at the same time he realized the song had ended and a new one had begun. And he was still dancing with Avni. He'd meant this little lesson as a joke, right? Or at least as a helpful tip ? He wasn't sure of the purpose now. He just knew he was slow dancing with Avni, that they'd pressed together in an intimate flush of bodies, and that-- as Neil had predicted-- the rest of the world had just faded away.
He leaned forward, and his forehead knocked gently against Avni's. Something chimed deep within him. When he took a breath, the air was hot in his lungs. His heart was thudding, quiet but rapid, in his chest. Avni's hands were clammy, weighing him down, and the pressure made his knees shake. Now he had closed his eyes. When had he done that? He opened them again and his gaze fell immediately to Avni' mouth. Lips pursed, the red of her lips so defined, every freckle in focus against the blurred background. Neil swallowed, and he could hear his throat catch and release.
"Jesus. When did we..." His voice was low and rough.
Avni's answer mirrored Neil's voice. So low, so husky and jarring. "I don't know."
Neil exhaled. His breath blew against Avni's mouth. "I didn't think this was going to happen, Avni. I didn't--"
Avni's eyes, ebony stars in the pale set of her face, met his. "I am frightened."
The confession, brief as it was, made Neil's heart twinge. He was scared, too, but at least he knew what this was. It must be so much more frightening for Avni, he thought with a burst of pity and protectiveness.
"My heart." Avni winced. Neil could see the expression in exquisite detail, every crease that formed on her face in perfect focus. "It's in pain." Her eyes searched Neil's. "Why? What is happening?"
Neil brought one hand forward to touch Avni' cheek. He drew a hand across her cheekbones, his eyes steady, radiating calm into the trembling her features. "Don't be scared, Avni. It's okay. It's all doing to be okay."
"I want to..." Avni stopped to gulp hard. "I don't understand why this feels the way it does. Is this how Ali felt dancing with that woman?"
Neil touched Avni's lips with his index finger. "I think it probably is, yeah." A moment of panic flashed through him, and he experienced a sudden, total awareness of the situation. His finger on Avni's lips. Hand tucked under her chin. Avni's hands on his heart. Their frames moving together in a leisurely, steady rhythm.
"Avni." Guttural. Barely a voice at all. A scrape of the air against lips and teeth. "Avni, I'm gonna kiss you now. OK?"
"What--" Avni's face began to turn up, and Neil's hand guided it the rest of the way, met it with his own. Their lips touched. Avni's mouth was soft under his own, but that was all; the rest of her body went stiff. Her eyes remained open and rounded. Neil pulled away.
"Why did you do that?" Avni whispered.
"Why--" Neil's voice broke. His thumb pressed the length of Avni's lower lip. "I told you, I-- Jesus, Avni. Just... just close your eyes and relax, OK?"
Avni held his gaze for another moment. "All right," she said. Her shoulders stilled.
Neil took a moment to look at her. Dark lashes fluttered at the base of her eyelids. She licked her lips, a bright pink flicker of tongue. She was beautiful. Neil's heart contracted painfully. He leaned in and brushed his lips across Avni's again, then let them settle there. Avni swallowed, hard enough that Neil could feel it, but was trying hard not to tense up. Neil nipped at her bottom lip. God, she was unbearably warm, and beautiful and how could Neil not have seen that until tonight?
Avni's lips moved beneath his, just minimally, and Neil shuddered. He groaned, wrapped both hands around Avni's waist and pulled her closer. His tongue darted between Avni's lips. He thought he felt the hand on his chest clamp down.
The guttural noise he heard himself make was not entirely foreign to him, but it was rare. Neil made that noise, he knew, only when he was going out of his mind with desire, when someone had come along who knocked him off his feet. Avni couldn't know how special it was that he made that noise, could he? Or how devastating it was that he was making it with his lips pressed against Avni's , of all people, not just some random woman? To start something like this now just invited heartbreak. And Neil's heart was bursting already to think of cutting it off now.
He broke the kiss. His breath came quickly. His knees shook.
"Tell me why you did that," Avni said again. "I need to know."
"I don't know," Neil said, shaking his head. "I don't know, I just... You were there, and we were dancing, and I had to. I had to, I couldn't not." He kept moving his head from one side to the other, as though he might be able to shake out a sufficient reason.
Avni was trembling too, and Neil remembered then that she'd been scared. He forced himself together. "Look," he said. "This... this is good. It's a good thing, what's happening."
"But what is it?" Avni's voice was insistent. "I don't understand, Neil."
The words tumbled out. "You don't get it? I kissed you. We were dancing, and I kissed you, and I think, I can't believe I'm going to say this, but I think I'm falling..." He couldn't finish. He just closed his eyes and wrapped his arms around Avni, squeezing her tight. When he could manage to speak again, his words were, "I think I'm in real trouble."
Avni squinted, watching Neil's mouth carefully. "Is this trouble?" she asked.
"Hell, yes," Neil breathed. "But we'll be all right."
One of Avni's hands, sweaty from holding on, came up to touch Neil's face. An experimental caress. "I like it when you do this," Avni explained haltingly.
Neil had to smile. "I like it when you do it too," he said, turning to kiss at Avni's palm.
Avni's voice was bass-viola low, almost too low to hear. "I liked slow dancing, as well."
"Really?" Neil's smile widened. Avni nodded. "Because, you know. We don't have to stop."
A hint of a smile tripped across her steady features. "That's good."
When he leaned in to kiss Avni a third time, his mouth met an equally eager one. The song died down on the radio, and there was no noise in the room but the sweet wet sound of lips meeting and releasing.
When the radio piped up again, it was with a horrid commercial jingle. Neil groaned and pulled back to stare at it reproachfully. Avni lifted one hand, the barest movement, and stroked his cheek. The smile she got for her efforts was blindingly bright.
"No more music," Avni said. Her lips were plumped and her face flushed from kissing, and now she reddened further. "Can we still slow dance?" she asked timidly.
The answer was the same. "Hell, yes."
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