A New Trajectory
Avery had paid attention the last time a doctor had put a splint on his wrist. It was after Grace had broken into the motel room he had been staying in. After the run-in with Thea, he had tried to approximate that as much as he could with rudimentary first aid supplies purchased at a drug store. In the days following that encounter, most of the bruises and cuts had faded. It seemed different to him, though. He didn't feel that same sense of defeat. In his opinion, the other vampire had come out the worse for wear. Of course, he'd be happier if she was in the custody of...whomever it was who dealt with vampires responsible for the crimes an innocent person was being accused of.

He pushed these things to the back of his mind, though, as he stood on Francess' apartment stoop after ringing the doorbell. He swiped one sneakered foot over the 'welcome' mat as he waited.

"Come in!"

Francess, head and shoulders into her closet, retracted herself long enough to shout it. She had learned long ago that it was best to say 'hold on a second, please' and use the peephole. That way, dangerous strangers weren't let it on accident. But she asked herself today, hey, what were the chances it was a vampire? And that was that.

Tossing a long braid over her shoulder, she dove back into the jungle of hangers, with their sheaths of orange and green and yellow fabrics, the earth tones that she favored. She was in search of a particular v-necked sweater, one that Beatrice had loaned her and never gotten back. It was blue like a robin's egg, with a neckline that plunged well into the 'red zone', as Fran tended to think of it: that crevice of soft flesh that required a camisole. Or maybe even a whole other shirt. But that was mostly if you leaned over.

Hearing the slightly muffled words, Avery turned the knob and pushed open the door. Crossing through the entryway, he didn't see a sign of Francess. "Hey, where are you?," the vampire called, slipping out of his jacket. Turning, he saw light spilling out of a room and took a step toward it. He didn't want to walk in on her if she was getting dressed or something. "I just thought I'd drop by. Is this a bad time?" There was a teasing note in his voice.

"No, I'm just changing." Normally under such circumstances, the sound of a male voice approaching would've thrown Francess into a spasm. She might have snagged delicate threads or ripped a hole in the armpit, forcing her long limbs into the sleeves. Today, she took her time pulling the soft sweater over her head and freeing the braid. It fell down her back like a brown, silk rope.

She stretched out a socked foot and nudged the door open wider. "Hey!" Fingers pulled the sweater hem down onto her waistband. "What happened to your arm?"

Avery looked up as the door creaked open. "There's a vampire I don't particularly get along with," he told her wryly. "Besides Grace, that is. This one's name is Thea, and I think she's responsible for these killings that my friend Faith is being blamed for. And even if she isn't the guilty party...I really hate her." He shook his head, trying to get back to answering the question. "So I shot her with an arrow and we fought."

He reached out and touched the material of the sweater at her shoulder. "And that was my week." A smile crossed his lips. "How was yours?"

Fran's eyes widened. "You shot her?" The source of her surprise wasn't because Avery had defended himself; it was the weapon that had never occurred to her. She shifted on her feet, the striped cotton of her socks sinking into the carpet. "With a bow and arrow, like a Native American buffalo hunter? Wow." Her gaze drifted away and landed on the carpet near a Garfield wastepaper bin. "Right now, I'm picturing you in historically accurate buckskins," she admitted, it not occurring to her that it could be a strange statement.

"Um," Avery laughed and ran his fingers briefly through his hair. "Not quite. Like a crossbow. More metal, less...Pocahontas. Or...the male equivalent because I wouldn't be wearing a skirt or anything. Although, now that I think about it, that still might be more respectable than the Village People rendition." He gestured inside her room. "Can I come in? I haven't seen this version of your bedroom yet."

"Oh! Yeah, come in," she said, giving a flourish. "Over here, we have a closet, where my sweaters and pants live in harmony." She withdrew the slatted door and swept her hand around its perimeter, as if featuring a product. "This way... and here, we have a bookcase and dresser, which is currently throwing up socks." Fran jostled the stuck drawer and crammed the knee sock into place, then leaned her hip against it and shoved. "In the corner, you'll notice my giant squooshy chair and bed. Ta-da!"

Crossing the threshold, he followed her visual cues, the corners of his mouth threatening to shift into a grin. "I like it," he told her, taking a seat on the edge of her bed, palms down against the sheets. "There's something missing, though," Avery mused, glancing around the room as if contemplating it carefully. "Something that was in your old room. Oh, I know what it is." The grin widened and grew. "Your underwear is put away." He remembered when she had been moving, catching sight of the garments but being too polite to comment on it. He wasn't even sure why he was bringing it up now.

"How is it, living away from your parents?"

Fran's mouth fell open. "You-- you saw those?" The apples of her cheeks flushed in embarrassment. "I thought I hid them in time." Tracing back to the memory, she identified the particular pair and supposed they would have been hard to miss; half of her undergarments were polka-dotted. "Yeah, well... so!" she said primly.

Marching to the dresser, she opened the topmost bin and quickly sifted through the contents, determined to take her power back. Francess swooped out the most feminine pair -- pink silk with red trim and tiny bow -- and dangled them from a fingertip. They landed on the floor near the vampire's shoe, a bold splash of color on the carpet.

She sat next to him and the mattress bowed. "I like it fine."

He looked down at the underwear, determined to remain unshaken. Surprisingly enough, it wasn't that difficult. "Well, you didn't have to go redecorating for my benefit," he told her, leaning toward her to close the few inches of space between them. The vampire glanced down on the pretense of brushing off a seemingly invisible piece of lint from his gray t-shirt. Avery smiled slowly. "So, had any pancakes lately?"

The proximity of Avery sent a ripple of exhilaration up her spine. Francess remembered hugs, sweet embraces that pressed their bodies together in new and thrilling ways but were innocent. The way the vampire leaned closer now felt different, just a little, on an aural level. Not that she could pinpoint why. She was hyper-conscious of her lips when she talked, and her sweater bagging open, but she wasn't nervous about it, for a change.

"Sadly, I've been deprived," she confessed. "I was just thinking earlier how I should have some. Not just any pancakes. With maple syrup and..." She scoured her brain for the aforementioned ingredients, "whipped cream, powdered sugar, and most importantly, chocolate chips."

Avery nodded solemnly. His foot bumped against her socked one, and he leaned back on his good arm as he studied her. "I like your sweater," he told her, his voice low and the words coming out in a slow, easy drawl. The clothes that Francess wore weren't usually the first thing that he noticed, but this garment held a different sort of quality. He was aware that he wanted to touch her, and instead of the urge going through his usual mental filter -- is it polite? is it appropriate? is it okay? -- he just reached out and did so.

His fingers ran lightly down her back, following the curve of her shoulder blade, feeling the warmth of the material and her body heat. He smiled at her, blinked strands of brown hair out of his eyes.

"Thanks." The words 'it's borrowed from my sister' died before being spoken. Why couldn't it just be hers? Out of all the clothes Beatrice owned, this was the one she chose to take. Francess felt her spine elongate, shifting as his fingers drifted. She watched him over her shoulder and pulled her braid aside. As she took on such a posture, she remembered a Waterhouse painting she loved, A Mermaid. That ethereal loveliness wasn't hers, but half of beauty was in how a woman carried herself, wasn't it?

At times, she felt silly attempting to carry herself with confidence; what an oxymoron, to 'attempt' confidence! She was often cautious, expecting a person to see through her and say something. Now she wasn't so worried. The voice of 'the worst thing that could happen', her frequent companion, wasn't around.

"This morning, I woke up and I wanted to do everything," she said. "I wanted to surf enormous waves in Maui and dive off cliffs in Switzerland and run the bulls in Spain." She pivoted a bit, so that her knee touched Avery's.

"Waves scare me," he told her, still smiling. "But I'd go with you." He slid onto the bed more, taking her hands and pulling her with him. "And maybe you can do those things," Avery added, leaning in so they were only inches apart. "If you can learn to control the etheric travel. I mean, it might not be as vivid, but you can see things that it takes others lots of money and many hours on a plane to see."

Francess was intrigued. "You think so?" Her own accidental travels had taken her no farther than Chicago; though she didn't initiate them purposefully, she sensed in her sleeping state that fear held her back-- that she was a passive participant in it, only because letting go scared her. There was an ever-present concern that she'd get lost, or that something unpredictable would happen to her physical body while she was out. She had considered asking Avery to watch over it, while she tried.

But he put it so simply. Maybe she could do those things, go wonderful places. The risk was miniscule. Francess felt uninhibited now, like how women became once they had too many drinks, only she was sober. "I'll try," she said, "Later tonight, I'll do a meditation exercise and try to go to..." Switzerland was pretty far. "Niagara Falls!" It was possible she'd only make it to the city limits, but that was okay.

She felt daring. Adrenaline began to work on her. "Why are you afraid of waves? You can't drown." Fran combed pieces of Avery's hair away from his forehead. She tried tucking them behind his ear, but they escaped. She left her fingers back there, drawing patterns behind his earlobe.

"I could get lost at sea," he told her seriously. "And then what happens when the sun comes up?" Avery's free hand traveled up her forearm, just below the wrist of the hand that was touching behind his ear. "Logically, I know that rip tides only carry you out about one hundred feet. But I can't swim." His eyes met hers, and he felt as if he could detect something different there. Sitting up a bit, the vampire's mouth moved closer to her lips. "But maybe I should do like you said. Just dive in."'

Closing the gap, he kissed her, her hand still touching him. Avery snaked one arm around her back as he sank down onto the bed, the gesture for her to follow.

Fran went with him, feeling like a fish that had been pleasantly caught on a hook; she didn't mind following its tug. She was uncertain, at first, where to lower her weight. Over top of him? To the side? She settled on the latter, resting alongside Avery on the quilt and pivoting towards him. Any uncertainty drifted into the farthest reaches of her mind.

"You could sink down and wait for the sun to set." While she kissed him again, Francess imagined him underwater, so far down that only mild sea currents stirred his hair, and shafts of light barely filtered through the rippling surface. It was just bright enough to see the sand and shells underfoot, the fish swimming in schools, the kelp swaying lazily.

She swallowed and touched his face. Fran's fingers were exploratory, skimming his nose and eyebrows and jaw. "I'd swim down and get you at night."

His arm still around her back, he pulled her closer, tilting onto his side. "What about sharks?," he teased. Avery's lips moved against her cheek. Resting his hand on the small of her back, he found a comfort there with her, on her bed, that he never found on his own. The fingertips of his other hand dipped experimentally under the hem of her sweater, brushing against the soft skin of her stomach.

She flinched, not because it was bad, but because his fingers tickled. Under her breath, Francess laughed and it was just a quiet sigh of air. "We'll grab onto their fins and go for a ride." She was aware of herself, her shape, the dip between hip and ribcage, the concavity of her abdomen. She wondered how it felt to Avery.

Mirroring him, she tucked her hand beneath his shirt. The vampire's skin wasn't cold, and it wasn't like marble, as stories would have humans believe. Avery felt the same, just as pliant, only a bit cooler. Fran's palm flattened. She was free enough to do what she wanted, no fear acting as restraint. She wet her lips and pressed her hand to his hipbone, going an inch inside the elastic waistband to do so.

Biting his lower lip slightly, he moved his hand in the opposite direction. It trailed upward, the material of her shirt bunching as he did so. Avery tried not to move or shift, not wanting Francess' hand to slip away, or for her to decide for some inexplicable reason to get up and walk away. The vampire tilted his head, his lips finding hers once more. The tip of his tongue traced over her lower lip, feeling the fullness of it, before edging inside her mouth.

Francess arched herself slightly and lifted her elbow, doing all she could not to impede Avery's hand. It was a simple thing to be touched, one others took for granted. She had seen her sister not blink when boyfriends walked up and reached for her, caressed like it was ordinary. What would that be like? She couldn't imagine not noticing or feeling special about Avery's hands. Not choking on her breath, as if air had become solid.

Pulling the elastic outward, she traced his hipbone with her thumb. The slow circles it drew matched the path of her tongue around his.

His palm ran over the curve and plane of muscle, the outline of her ribs, fingertips skimming the very bottom of the material of her bra. Her touch seemed to awaken every nerve ending in his body. Avery used each foot against the other to kick off his shoes, and they fell to the carpet with two decisive thumps. The shifting movement displaced her hand slightly, and the vampire guided it back to where it had previously been.

The muscles of her stomach quivered, as if the butterflies inside were close to surfacing. Fran liked that his fingers were cool; five not-quite-icicles drifting across her skin, though they grew warmer as her heat seeped into him. She liked also his hand guiding hers back.

Breaking away from his mouth, Fran opened her eyes to see Avery's from close range, how blue they were. When she went back to kiss him, she tipped her head the other way. Her uppermost leg bent and slipped over his. All the while, she kept drawing figure-eights and long circles, eventually going to his navel and then around to his lower back, where she scratched very lightly.

He smiled faintly when she pulled away, looking up into her eyes as she gazed into his. His other hand went down to her leg, traveling down her outer thigh even as his other hand swept further upward. Avery kept alert to any physical cue of discomfort; his touch was light and exploratory, instead of greedy and demanding. His back lifted slightly to accommodate her fingers, and after a moment, something occurred to him.

"Do you want me to...you know, take my shirt off?"

Yes, yes, a dozen times yes! Fran subdued her internal response to a nod, not wanting to seem like she might faint over her frequent-date-partner, even if she had secretly feared it before. "Would you?"

That sounded strange, like he'd offered to carry her heavy books, and old-fashioned Francess had gratefully given over the task. She withdrew her hands to let Avery wrestle with his shirt, bringer hers to her mouth in little fists. She bit her thumbnail and thought, 'What about mine?'

Probably she should ask first. Instead, she threw caution to the wind, sat up, picked up the hem of the blue sweater, and lifted it overhead. The braid fell against her back, heavy and restrictive, its end like the silky bristles of a new paintbrush.

As he pulled his shirt overhead, tugging it off and making his hair stand on end, it wasn't until he had set the garment down and blinked once or twice that he realized she was now shirtless, as well. The previously faint smile grew, until it had sprouted into a goofy grin. "Hey," Avery said quietly, before leaning forward on the bed and running his hands over her bare shoulders. He fell back onto the bed, pulling her on top of him as his skin made full contact with hers, and picked his head up to kiss her firmly on the lips.

She wasn't prepared for how it would feel to be stomach to stomach. Fran's kissing ability suffered for a few seconds while she got used to it, a kind of lip paralysis crippling her. His coolness could be felt through her clothes, especially through the thin fabric of her bra. Little by little, her limbs relaxed. She combed her fingers into Avery's hair and held on that way. For the moment, she was very still, just listening to the silence in her bedroom, the ticking of a clock, the soft noises of their kisses, and her own breathing.

There was a restless sensation of wanting to move, not away, but exactly where she was. Stop thinking so much, she chided, and told herself to remember the pancakes. Fran's legs shifted, going to either side of Avery's and there she stayed.

His hands went to her hips, his fingers hooking into her belt loops as he turned his head, pressing a trail of kisses up the curve of her shoulder, stopping at the junction where it met her neck. Avery just nestled there for a moment, feeling the way her weight settled on top of him, solid and warm. One hand left her hip, gliding up the length of her back. It was like a door had opened, and the hesitancy, the shyness, was absent from his movements. He didn't want to go back, he refused to.

The hand on her back felt amazing. Wanting to touch his chest, Fran leaned onto an elbow and created a pocket of space. She spread her fingers to capture as much of Avery as possible, and moved her hand in wide, concentric circles, making certain she covered all of his torso. From outside his clothes, he looked thin, but he had muscles she hadn't known were there.

"I like the way you kiss," she said, going a bit pink in the face upon hearing herself admit it. She felt like a passenger in her own body, watching herself say and do things she'd normally be too hesitant to try. She lowered her head and kissed the side of Avery's throat.

"I like the way you feel, and your scent," Avery told her, tilting his neck for her, "and the shape of your body." His fingers skimmed over her spine, the tautness of the skin there, sometimes brushing against her braided hair. Tracing up the strap of her bra, he dipped his head to plant a kiss on her collarbone, his tongue darting out a little against her skin. He could feel himself getting warmer from the close proximity and the bedding beneath him.

The rush of making out with Avery made Fran's skin warmer than usual, so that when he opened his mouth onto it, the temperature difference was a jolt. It reminded her of sucking on ice cubes. She breathed against the damp places where she kissed his throat, and went so far as to bite him, the slightest bit, up close to his ear, hoping she wouldn't offend him but not careful enough to stop. She was infinitely grateful for no longer having braces.

"I like your hands," she admitted, unable to keep from wiggling as his tongue hit a ticklish spot. What was making her so able to speak and act out her thoughts, which weren't new, but were usually trapped in worry over what he'd think of her, or how she'd look, or doing something badly.

"Really?," he asked, lips moving against her skin as his eyes shifted upward to look at her face. "I thought you liked my arms." He remembered the online conversation they had months ago, the goofy flirtation. Avery approximated a sigh, not of sadness, but a certain kind of contentedness. Shifting a bit as he felt her teeth against him, not out of discomfort, but because of the sensation that it sent through him. Leaning up so his mouth was level with her ear, he said her name, just to hear the syllables unravel aloud, before nipping lightly and playfully at the soft lobe.

Now Francess understood why they said everyone's favorite word was their own name. That had seemed ludicrous before, because she certainly wasn't in love with hers, but hearing it so close to her ear like that made a warm feeling bloom in her chest. "I like those, too!" she said, smiling. "I like the whole Avery."

Deciding to try something else, she rolled onto her back and encouraged him to come along, gently pulling on his shoulder. There were nice muscles there, the toned kind that weren't ostentatious.

He followed her lead, settling carefully on top of her, much in the same way she had. "And I like every part of you," Avery told her. Hovering above her, he felt even more bold. He slipped one strap off, and it slid down to her arm as he grinned at her. "You have faint freckles here," he told her, his hand cupping the point of her shoulder. "I like them." His other hand slid down her stomach, palm edging over her hip bone. He was very aware of his body pressing against hers.

"I do?" As she turned her head to see, the quilt rustled beneath her hair, making a mess of it. Fran saw the freckles. It seemed as if she was looking at herself for the first time, through Avery's eyes. "You don't have any freckles," she said, lifting her lower body up, so more of her hip was in his hand. "But you do have the best nose."

She traced her finger down the narrow bridge, then kissed it. Underneath his weight, she stirred and got her legs free. Experimentally, she drew one up alongside his ribs.

The hand that was previously on her shoulder caught her knee. "I guess because I haven't gotten any sun in awhile," he surmised. One thumb flickered under the waistband of her jeans. Avery caught her lower lip, his teeth grazing over it, before his tongue slipped back into her mouth. The kiss was deepened quickly, his hand squeezing her knee gently. He broke away after a moment, gazing down at her as he moved back up her stomach. Resting his palm lightly over her covered breast, he kissed her cheek in a contrastingly chaste manner. "Is that okay?"

Chewing on her lip, she nodded. There was no sign of hesitance on Fran's face, which was flushed, her eyelids heavy. She held onto Avery around the waist and tuned into the soft brushes of his hands and mouth. Every breath she took was exaggerated next to his total stillness; it made it harder to gauge whether the vampire was restless like she was. Restless in a really good way.

"You don't have to worry," she said, "I'm not worried." Francess looped her arms lower and held onto him by the seat of his pants. She grabbed the pockets and brought him in tighter.

"I'm never worried when I'm with you. Even when we're being chased by mutants." Avery kissed over her jawline, his hand cupping her more insistently. "It's like I'm not afraid to go after what I want anymore," he confided. "And I want you." With his other hand, he guided one of hers around to his stomach, back over his hip. "I like when you touch that spot."

His mouth reached her neck again, and instead of just resting there, he slid his tongue over the soft skin.

"Here?" Francess was surprised at how unfamiliar her voice sounded. She slipped her fingers inside his waistband again and touched the hollow of his abdomen and both indentations beneath his hipbones. She blinked, not really seeing the ceiling, and lowered her chin to catch glimpse of his bare stomach, her fingers disappearing inside the top of his jeans.

Lifting her mouth up to his earlobe, she nuzzled past his shaggy hair and kissed it, making a damp trail around the shell with her tongue. Francess wanted to tell him everything, like she always did. "Avery, I think you're gorgeous and..." The words got scrambled like eggs, because of how his hand felt. "And I want you, too."

His eyes slipped closed, focusing on the way her fingers felt, of her warm breath against his ear. He realized that he wanted to feel her hands everywhere, that no matter where she touched him, it would still send that thrill through his body. Avery lowered himself over her, moving to chest-level, and he kissed just above where his hand touched her. Her words kept replaying themselves in his head, and his stomach felt as if it were traveling up on a very fast elevator.

The downward slip meant he was harder to reach. Fran buried one hand in Avery's hair, sorting through the strands and cradling him close to her chest. Lower, she began to run her fingernails up and down his stomach, his ribcage, his back. It wasn't sharp enough to leave marks, just skim the surface.

"Is this okay?" By that, she meant the climbing of her knees on either side of him, hemming Avery in. She squeezed and felt his belt and his sharp hips pressing into the soft flesh of her inner thighs.

"It's good," he told her, his voice lowering in register. He liked being tangled up in her, her long legs and arms. Removing his hand, his lips brushed over where it had been, feeling the soft material. Avery enjoyed the way time seemed to pass when he was with her, seamlessly and fluidly. Just dive in. The idea was no longer unwelcome.

Moving lower still, his lips pressed soft, fluttery kisses down her abdomen, traveling south past her belly button and lingering there before he returned to his previous spot, eyes level with hers.

No one had ever kissed Francess that way. While he drew the path with his mouth, she combed Avery's hair aside and watched his lips meet her stomach. The whole thing was like confessing secrets to him without talking: the accelerated rise-and-fall of her breathing, the tiny shudders of her pale abdomen. Fran thought that if she tried, she could repress such physical giveaways to save face, to seem more experienced than she was, but why? She wanted Avery to know her.

Once he returned, she encircled the vampire with her legs again. All her life, Fran had felt gawky in shorts and skirts; she decided now that this was what they were for. She squeezed his shoulders with her hands. "Your voice is different, too," she said.

"Yeah?" He smiled and brushed some errant strands of hair that had escaped her braid away from her face. Avery's hips settled over hers as his fingers danced over her bare shoulders. He could hear the changes of her pulse, the variances of pace. The vampire imagined, if it were possible, his would be beating quite erratically, skipping and back-flipping with every touch. He placed his palm over the left side of her chest, feeling it beat against his hand. "You're beautiful," Avery told her. "And you make my stomach do choreography I never knew it was capable of. In a good way."

"Not in a Flash Taco way." Francess made delicate patterns on Avery's back, her fingers circling and looping, spelling out words in letters and symbols. She was happy; she felt effervescent, like a bottle of sparkling cider that might pop and bubble over. She didn't know why Avery thought she was beautiful and interesting to know about other girls. Ultimately, it didn't matter. She was self-questioning, but her self-esteem wasn't so poor that she doubted what he told her.

"You make me feel safe," she said. "You break me out of my shell. I could do or say anything with you."

He let out a short laugh. "No, not like that." His hand went to the end of her braid, carefully pulling off the tie that secured it and running his fingers through the plait. It was like skimming his hand through warm water. "I'm glad," Avery told her sincerely, smiling down at her, splinted hand journeying along her thigh that lay parallel to his body. Content to memorize her body, knowing the angles and curves by heart, even if he went blind.

"Rambo!" she said, eyes lighting up as she slapped his shoulderblades lightly. Long after the conversation about Pocahontas passed, she had finally come to an appropriate male counterpart. "He had a bow and arrow, and he was a force to be reckoned with. Although I think you're much better looking and you probably practice better personal hygiene."

The description of Avery as very good-looking reminded her to visually take in as much of the vampire as she could. He wasn't often shirtless around her. Fran ran her eyes and fingers along his arms and down his long torso. She was fascinated by the expanse of flesh between his belly button and jeans. "I would've said Robin Hood, except I can't see you in tights."

"I could do without the tights," he replied, fingers toying with her hair, the way it parted and flowed over his hand. "But I think I have the moral ambiguity down pretty well." Because he could, he dipped his head and kissed the tip of her nose. "You, on the other hand..." Grinning, his hand reached the top of her thigh where it turned into hip, and slid around to reach her back jean pocket. "You look good in tights."

Mental note, thought Fran, return to skirts with tights!

"What about knee socks?" she asked, smiling over the sudden ease they had with physical nearness and deciding she liked Avery with wandering hands. "I have lots of knee socks." Those, paired up with skirts, were Fran's one venture into what could be considered sexy clothing, in some circles. The fact that most were brown or gray or navy blue toned them down. But there was at least one pair that went up to her thighs; she had simply been too nervous to wear them. Even though they covered more skin, there was something more provocative about them.

Francess pushed her hand into Avery's front jeans pocket. There was a hidden tickle spot there. She wondered if vampires were ticklish.

He felt her hand slide into the thin material of his pocket, smile widening. "Those are good, too," Avery admitted. "And when you wear your hair down, and it's all loose and wavy. The way it tickles against my skin. Every time I think about you, it's always those little things that come to mind, first. Things that happen in the flash of an instant, but I never forget them." His hand mimicked hers, sliding into the pocket, making her hip rise up.

"Do you like what I wear?," the vampire asked curiously. "I know I don't put a lot of thought into it."

Distracted, Fran's eyes closed for a second and she dampened her lips. That was the best part, how they could be talking and he'd do the smallest, intimate thing and make it difficult to concentrate. Like when he pulled her upwards and she came into contact with his body. "Yes," she said. "Especially your hoodies and your shoes." Avery was casual but clean-cut and she liked that, liked how his t-shirts fit him so well, and how some of his shirts were button-down. He was also one of the only guys she knew that wore nice sweaters.

His gaze rested on her face, watching her closely and with fascination. Seeing this new side of her, he could feel himself going down a certain trajectory. He could imagine his body, the whole of it, wrapped up with hers. And it didn't scare him, and it didn't make him nervous. It excited him, in a way that wasn't exactly familiar but was very welcome.

His thumb brushed over her lower lip. "Tell me more about what we'd do in the ocean?"

"At night... we'd float on the surface and watch the constellations roll by." Fran kissed his thumb. "It'd be perfectly dark, so we'd see all of them and the Milky Way. We'd be so far out to sea, the waves would just rock us up and down." If she closed her eyes, she could imagine floating on the black, salty water, listening to the soft noises of it lapping against their limbs. "We'd hold hands so we wouldn't drift."

Fran's socked feet nudged against Avery's.

"It's like when I took you on the ferris wheel," he remarked. "You came with me, even though you're afraid of heights. I want to go with you, wherever you go. Into the waves, or even Lake Michigan, though it's a poor substitute. You make it not scary." Avery rested his head on her chest, his cheek pressed against her skin.

"But then, you're a water sign," the vampire mused, remembering the necklace at Summerfest's arts and crafts booth. "And I'm earth."

"You distracted me on the ferris wheel." Francess twirled pieces of his hair about her fingers. She was glad that it was long. He smelled like shampoo and soap, and she fanned a lock of his hair across her nose. "I think it's neat how we make things less scary for each other. It's counter-intuitive," she said. Who would figure that a regular girl would feel safest with a vampire, or vice versa?

Resting her head against the quilt, Francess closed her eyes and let her fingers drift through Avery's hair. She didn't care why her sense of caution had flown away. All she knew was that it felt like she'd turned a corner in her personality and found something unexpectedly pleasant on the other side.