Part 6: Expose
<Needs editing>
Once lunch was done, after escaping the silent tides that threatened to come in every time their eyes met, they went back to their coach. When she naturally expected him to take the seat opposite her - for he reminded her of school kids when tag teamed went everywhere together and did everything as if they were joined at the hip - he instead stopped at her row without entering. Her brow slightly furrowed in question, her feet going cold over the prospects of an afternoon that wouldn't involve him as a distraction.
"My phone is running low on charge, let me get the charger" He said and her lips eased into a smile.
Having found him in the same coach as hers, after she'd returned from her search of him that morning, she'd assumed his luggage was in the overhead compartment two seats behind. When she thought he was taking longer than necessary to join her, she twisted around to find him open the door that gave way into the next car. She instantly got up to follow him and found him enter a roomette. It occurred to her that this is where he must have disappeared to when she'd been looking all over the train for him.
These were essentially two sleeper berths – one on top of another - placed behind a folding door to allow privacy. She noticed that she was in the sleeper car and the hallway along the length of the car was lined with roomettes on both sides.
Finding her right behind him – altered to her presence from the bells in her kurta top that had sung along with her movements - as he was bent over his suitcase searching for the power cord, his lips stretched into a smile, wondering if even those few minutes of solitude were unbearable for her. But he'd wanted the reprieve to shut out the unsuitable thoughts he harbored from lunch and had lingered a little too long. He'd wanted his roomette to serve as a sojourn that would give him a clear head before he would walk out and face her once again for the rest of the day…and if god-willing a very long night.
Toying with her emotions was not his intentions and that was also the foremost reasons he strived to leave some impulses unacknowledged. Like the time a wild curl had swept into her face and she'd ignored it for the entire time they'd gobbled lunch. Or when a speck of bread crumb had stuck to her cheek, teasing his fingers with an imposing itch to reach it that he'd forced himself into thinking his limbs had to be severed from his body to continue surviving the instant without inaction.
Did she do this every man's life she stepped into? It was so easy for him to get lost into those searching eyes that lacked luster and that dull restrained smile of hers, than hold back. And that made him ponder what it would be like to have all of her wholly present in that moment, instead of the shadow of her former self that she gave him a glimpse of.
He felt warned from having spent that half hour, barely inches away from her. He perceived new life filling him from the attention – however imperceptible - he got after the painful rejection of his last relationship. Rebound or not, he would give anything to give into the desires - that was slowly springing into action, taking root like it had no plans to leave him without his acquiescence – that promised a solace which could only come from a woman. If only it had been any other woman, he could have nursed himself with a casual fling.
He wanted her as a fellow traveller; he wanted a few shared coffee house sessions if he was ever that lucky. But what he didn't want was complications with her. Not when she was another hailing heart, who might end up caring for him; for she was more of a woman who naturally had it in her to genuinely cherish and avidly nurture a man who would come into her life and accept her for what she was. The problem was she just might…do all that, but he didn't want to indulge when he didn't know if there would ever be a time they would get past doubts and never question if it had simply been a re-bound that was gravely misinterpreted as something significant.
"This is nice…cramped…but nice" He heard her exclaim while she continued to stand outside the door and he heard loud sirens go off in his head, sounding as a foreboding that was about to enter his life.
The rail through which the folding door extended, lay limp on the floor and it occurred to her that it was by design a symbolic reminder of the partition, there must be between them. Her presence there was proof enough that she was mindlessly dragging herself behind him, having lost her wits sometime between eating a sandwich and paying the bill.
She wasn't stupid to not know the difference that had come into being ever since the mention of the one word that had collaterally demolished the nascent, harmless and comforting nameless thing they had formed in the long hours of the morning. It no longer existed and she didn't understand what dangerous, self-immolating path she was taking now, where she had everything to lose.
He plugged in his cell phone to the outlet and the phone came to life within seconds, while she scanned her own mobile.
"Oh! they moved MUTEMATH to Feb at the Regency…" She sounded disappointed.
"I cannot picture you, shaking your head like a possessed person at an alternative rock show…" He sat back on his seat, and gave her a patronizing smile.
She had a cute little frown and showed no intentions of entering the little confining space with him in the mix.
"Don't judge a book by the cover" She said, without taking eyes off her mobile screen, "I have every one of their songs…"
"Here…" Upon incited by a stale anger, she thrust the phone into his face a little too close for him to get a good read. He drew his head back and when that still didn't help, he held her extended arm at the wrist, with both his hands and pulled it down, just enough to peruse her list without any strain.
His creased forehead smoothened as the beginnings of a smirk showed up at the corners of his mouth. But she couldn't focus on that dying drive to prove him wrong; that she wasn't a prude as he'd prematurely assumed she was. Those few seconds when he held her hand like it was ensnared in his hold, it was impossible to not identify with every sensation that shot through her while his fingers made even the slightest movement on her skin. A cold sweat came up on the inside of her palms that held the phone and her hand started a slow shake which was beyond her to steady as he checked her list.
Before she knew she'd dropped the phone down and it first landed on the berth and then sprung to the floor, breaking open into two parts.
"What happened?" He looked up while he still held onto her wrist "It's….not….even…cold…" His words dragged on at edge, while he watched her give out a shiver and divert her gaze to a far corner on the ground. Thankfully, a lock of hair that had struggled to stay by her temples, slid down and gave her the much needed cover to prevent him from observing how visibly affected she was.
He looked at her unflinching, his hands unyielding - as he learnt of his effects on her which amused him to no end. Everything had happened within seconds of each other that he'd failed to register the feel of her soft skin under the nubs of his fingers. And just like that all those carefully thought over edicts in how not to approach her went up in smoke. As if he intended to mark that strangely liberating instant, his thumb unknowingly - and in a subtle move - pressed against the spot where he felt her hammering pulse.
If she'd fairly carried herself without giving much away, the entire time, she'd been around him, the simple delicate touch had been her undoing, creating an avalanche of awareness that she could not contain while she still felt him so close. She jerked her hand back and the swift move thrust her back onto the opposite roomette's door. She held his gaze for a brief moment, wanting to know if he was just as mortified as she was. When at the same time, she admitted she was perhaps looking for something more at their expose, she turned to hurriedly walk away in the direction of her coach.
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