amberfocus | A Sky Without Zeppelins: Chapter Six

Chapter Six

She’s holding his hand. She’s holding his hand! Jonathon Smith can barely keep his feet on the ground; barely keep himself from bouncing up and down like a child because Rose Tyler is holding his hand. He had been so very afraid that she wouldn’t take it when he offered it to her back in the flat, when he’d wiggled his fingers experimentally in her direction. It is so early in their relationship, they haven’t even been on a date, because that would require him being brave enough to ask her on one, and he’d never really dreamed she’d take his hand the way she has. Now, now before this day is over he will ask her on one.

Rose hadn’t even seemed to hesitate, not so he’d noticed anyway. She’d simply wrapped her hand around his. And now they are riding down in the lift, walking past the startled woman at the reception desk, past the smirking doorman, and out onto the street and every person who passes them by, every person who has to weave or bob to go around their linked bodies knows–knows!–that they are together.

Okay, maybe it isn’t together in the conventional sense, but nobody knows that. They’ll see this man and this woman and they’ll assume they’re a couple and it pleases him far beyond what it should that other people will think that about him and this amazing girl. They stop at the zebra crossing and wait for the light to change and he looks over at her just in time to catch her sneaking a glance up at him and she smiles that beautiful smile that takes over her entire face and makes her eyes sparkle and he wants desperately in that moment to lean down and brush his lips against hers, but instead he contents himself with a gentle swinging of their hands and a brilliant grin of his own back at her.

The light changes and they hurry across and it takes them very little time to walk the additional distance to Temmel’s. Rose leads him to the escalators and they go up to the fourth floor and she takes him over to house wares. They start in china and he immediately gravitates towards a set of octagonal white dinner plates and oddly-shaped bowls with medium blue and yellow triangles scattered randomly across them. “What do you think about these?” he asks her.

Rose traces the outline of one of the triangles on a plate with the index finger of her free hand and he thinks how it might feel against his hand, the same way he’d done it to her earlier. Would it make him shiver as it had done her? He thinks of her tracing the same pattern against his chest and sighs. She gives him a brief look and he hopes that what he is thinking is not written across his face.

She glances at the funky shape of the bowls which are more diamond-shaped with sloped, raised edges. “I like them,” she says and her fingers reach for some nearby glasses that are tinted blue but still translucent. They are somewhat squared off on the top and are made to go with the set of dishes he fancies. She holds one up and he nods enthusiastically. A few mugs for coffee, cups for tea and matching saucers follow, along with several serving dishes, a gravy boat, butter dish, and a sugar bowl. He has a strong aversion to the salt and pepper pots on display and Rose suggests they pick up grinders at the grocery store instead.

Jonathon decides on enough to serve eight and Rose beckons to a salesman to start setting his purchases aside for them. They move on to silverware, and he settles on a simple set with a handle that has chevrons on it. This he gets in twelve place settings with four additional spoons from the open stock section, and several matching serving pieces. They move on to find storage containers, choosing a practical set that has various sized containers, but all with the same size of interchangeable lids that can move from the freezer, to the microwave, to the dishwasher without incident.

After that it’s on to buy small appliances, pots and pans, and a very good knife set, Jonathon leaning towards items in burgundy or blue if available, sterling silver or black if not. This is followed by a trip across the floor to find sheets for the bedroom and towels, a shower curtain, and bath mats for the loo. He surprises Rose a bit by going for towels and mats in turquoise and lime green, a tropical shower curtain with a big palm tree on it, and matching rubbish bin, soap dispenser, a toothbrush holder and after a brief glance at Rose, two cups.

He chooses a dark teal Egyptian cotton sheet set and a sky blue one for when the other is in the wash. He buys several large pillows and she blushes when he asks her to double check them for comfort. Still he can’t help himself because if she’s going to end up in his bed, and he very much hopes she will, he wants her to be able to sleep there. That part he keeps to himself, but she still knows why he’s asking it. What other reason can there be?

The duvet he decides on is silky and a shade somewhere in between the two sheet colors and it works quite well with both and two sky blue micro fleece blankets for warmth in the cold season. “You seem to be getting the hang of choosing things with color,” she teases him lightly. He nods sheepishly.

“Not everything has to be brown,” he says. She smiles and squeezes his hand which he has relinquished only twice throughout their shopping trip both times finding it again quite quickly. He chooses a large luggage set, and give her a sheepish look because this time it’s brown and she laughs. It’s a new set exclusive to Temmel’s and is pin-striped.

Jonathon purchases the items and Rose arranges for delivery of them to his flat later that afternoon. Unlike the items from the ware house these can be delivered on the same day they are bought. As they leave the store Jonathon asks casually, “Can I take you to lunch?” Despite his nonchalance his heart is racing a mile a minute. Rose tilts her head and glances up at him and nods.

“I’d like that,” she tells him. They leave Temmel’s still hand in hand.

Rose suggests Atallo’s, the restaurant Georgie told her about that morning. It’s a small, quiet place on the first floor of an office building. It serves Italian food. It’s a bit fancier than what she’d consider a reasonably priced restaurant, but a bit shy of posh. Rose is glad she’s wearing her best trousers and pretty green blouse and not her old jeans and ratty pink hoody, though. They are seated at a small square table that is covered with a green tablecloth that in turn is covered in glass. Red Linen napkins rest beneath the silverware and the tables are set with white plates and bowls, covering the spectrum of colors in the Italian flag.

Out of habit Rose finds the least expensive thing on the menu, spaghetti with meatballs, and orders it. Jonathon chooses a chicken, spinach, and mozzarella ravioli dish. “Would you like wine?” the waiter asks.

Rose shakes her head no. “Not me. We’ve got a lot to do yet today and I’d like a clear head.”

“No, thank you,” Jonathon tells him and they order soft drinks instead.

Rose misses the feeling of his hand in hers as her hands sit in her lap. She wonders if it would be forward of her to reach across the table and offer him her hand. She’s trying to work up the courage when the waiter comes back with a large bowl full of salad and sets it on the table. At Jonathon’s request he grinds fresh parmesan over the top of the bowl and then leaves, returning with their drinks a moment later.

Rose serves herself first, filling her salad bowl from the larger one then filling his when he holds out his bowl to her. It is delicious, cool and crisp lettuce, red onions, carrots, purple cabbage, Roma tomatoes, olives, croutons and a whole pepper of some sort that Rose sets to the side. It is dressed in a house Italian that tastes mildly of vinegar and is delicious.

They chat idly over the salad, Jonathon asking her questions about what she is studying in school and listening with rapt delight as she tells him about the robot cat she is building for her final project. “And if I’m lucky,” she finishes, “it’ll be able to leap up on counters and climb up the curtains and chase a mouse on a string and everything.”

“Not just walk across the floor and meow,” replies Jonathon.

“Nope, not a children’s toy, this. It’s more of a pet replacement. It’ll have fake fur and everything. A perfect cat, capable of purring and showing affection, but never needing a litter box changed or to be fed or watered. And if you don’t have time for it that day, you can flip a switch and it’s none the wiser,” Rose tells him.

“Until the day you install artificial kitty intelligence. Then it would know you’d been turning it off,” says Jonathon.

“I think we’re ages from that at the moment. The technology doesn’t really exist.” Jonathon is quiet and Rose looks at him quizzically. “Or does it?”

He shrugs. “You’ll have to come work for Illuminate after graduation and find out, won’t you?”

“That would be my dream job. We’ll have to see. The field of candidates vying for entry-level Illuminate jobs is enormous.” She sighs.

“But they’re always looking for brilliant minds. There will be a job recruitment fair in six week’s time at your university. You ought to apply,” he tells her.

“I was planning on it.”

Their food comes then and Rose makes a deep sound of pleasure in her throat on her first bite. “Oh, that’s goooood,” she moans on her second. Jonathon flushes deeply and his eyes darken. She realizes what she must have sounded like and offers him a forkful of her food as a distraction. He takes it with a grin and has to stop himself from echoing the noise Rose had made on tasting it. The rapturous look on his face is still close enough to nearly undo her right then. She wonders if that’s at all what he looks like when making love and blushes fiercely when her next thought is that she hopes she gets to find that out some day.

He bites into his own dish with similar results then offers her a ravioli which she eats daintily from his fork. “This is so delicious,” she manages when her mouth is empty again. “No wonder Georgie raved so much about the food.”

“Indeed. We are so coming back here.” He meets her eyes, realizing what he’s said. “I mean, if you want to. Come back here. With me.”

She looks down at her plate, hiding behind a curtain of long blonde hair. “Yes,” she says. “That’d be nice.”

They fall into silence again and Rose tries to concentrate on the food in front of her and not on the fact that her knees are touching his shins under the table, that one of her feet is resting between his and she can feel the slight pressure of one of his ankles making contact with hers. She has an urge to kick off her shoe and find her way up under his trouser leg with her toes and she has to force it away. She should probably move her seat back a little to avoid contact, but she doesn’t want to. What is it about him that just makes her want to touch him, even in just this small way?

“Rose?” he asks suddenly.

“What?” she asks. She doesn’t look up, instead winds more spaghetti around her fork.

“I want to date you,” he blurts out.

Her fork clatters onto her plate and she blushes again for the umpteenth time that day. Her eyes fly to his and his expression is scared and hopeful and a bit like a puppy afraid he’s going to get whacked down with a rolled up London Times for piddling on the carpet.

“All right,” she manages to say.

“All right?” he repeats.

“Yes.”

“Is tomorrow too soon?” He rushes the words out like he’s afraid he’ll lose them if he doesn’t say them.

“I have to work tomorrow,” she tells him. “I work from noon to eight.”

“When’s your next day off?” he asks her.

“Tuesday. Well, I have classes all day, but I’m home from university around four.”

He frets. “That’s a long ways away. I don’t want to wait until Tuesday to see you again.”

“You can meet me for my dinner break, if you like. It’s generally around 5:30 give or take a few minutes,” she offers.

“And Monday night?” he asks.

“If you like.” She smiles softly at his eagerness.

“Then Tuesday we can go somewhere nice,” he says.

“You sure you want to spend all this time with me?” she asks him.

“Oh, yes,” he says without hesitation. “Can’t think of anything I want more right now than to be with you. There’s just…there’s something…”

“There’s something there,” she says and he nods.

After lunch Rose leads him several streets down to a local grocer and Jonathon calls a cab to take his purchases back to his flat. They load themselves down in bags and manage to struggle up to his home in one go. Rose helps him unpack and put away all of the food and cleaning supplies and as they are just finishing up there is another knock at the door.

The delivery men bring everything into the center of the living room and leave and Rose helps him sort all of his purchases. She carries the dishes and silverware into the kitchen and unwraps them, placing them into the dishwasher. She starts a load going on quick wash and while she is doing this Jonathon removes the cardboard packaging from and sets up his appliances in a row on the countertop. A blender, next to a toaster, next to a small combination drip coffee/espresso machine, next to a mixer, next to an electric wok and a countertop grill. He decides they are too close together for practical usage and moves two items to the other side of the sink and puts the wok in a cupboard.

Jonathon goes to start a load of laundry, the sheets for his bed, and then returns to the kitchen. Rose fills the sink with hot, soapy water and proceeds to wash his pots and pans and knives by hand, handing him each piece to rinse and dry and find a home for. It is all very domestic and yet it feels perfectly right because she’s right there doing it with him. She talks more about school as she does the simple chore and before he knows it they are done and he has put everything away where he wants it.

They return to the living room and work quietly at removing all the tags from the towels and preparing them for the wash. “I’ll have to get a laundry basket,” he says. “And a hamper.”

“You should probably start a list and add to it as you remember things.” The washing machine dings and he transfers the sheets to the dryer and Rose loads the washer with towels.

“I’m sorry there’s nowhere to sit besides the floor,” he tells her. “The rest of the furniture won’t be delivered until next Saturday.”

“There’s the bed,” Rose says. He turns startled eyes on her. “I didn’t mean…I meant for sitting on.” Her face is on fire. “It’d be comfortable.”

“I didn’t think you meant…I mean, not that I wouldn’t…but we’ve only just…and I--.”

“Just for sitting on,” she repeated. “Or, since everything’s been delivered, we could go do something. Take a walk. Or something.”

“I kind of liked the bed idea,” he tells her having recovered his equilibrium. He stands up and holds out his hands to help her up. “Unless you’d rather go for a walk?” She takes his hands and he pulls her up and she loses her balance and crashes into him. His arms go around her to steady them both and for a moment they just stand there. He can feel her heart beating so fast both against his chest and beneath his hands.

He can feel every curve of her body where it presses into his. The softness of breast and hip and thigh causes a delightful tingling to race through him and he feels himself getting aroused at the proximity of her body to his. He lets her go when he realizes she hasn’t raised her arms to hold him back and that though her breath has quickened she isn’t actually leaning into him, is trying to pull back just a little bit.

“You okay?” he asks her as he drops his arms and takes a step back.

“Yeah,” she manages to whisper. “I’m fine.” She takes a few steps away from him and scoops up a couple of pillows and the shower curtain and heads into his bedroom. She tosses the pillows on the bed and the two of them move into the bathroom. Jonathon takes down the shower rod and they begin to attach the curtain and its liner to the little rings on the rod. Rose sneaks several glances at him. A few minutes later the rod is back in place.

“That looks nice,” Rose says. She backs up a bit and into him. Her back is against his chest and she leans against him. “Nice work.”

It is all he can do to keep from encircling her waist with his hands or brushing the hair from her neck and leaning down just enough to fasten his lips on the skin he’d expose. His erection starts to rise again and he backs away from Rose before she notices. He leaves and returns a minute later with the things they’d bought for the room and sets them about where they belong.

“It’s starting to look like a home now,” he says.

“Just wait until you get everything else in,” she says. But with Rose standing there, he already feels like he has everything he needs to make this place a home.

Ch. 7: http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/121965.html

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From:

jayaydee.livejournal.com

You have officially turned me into a hopeless romantic!
I keep thinking I can't enjoy this any more than I already am, and then you prove me totally wrong. Thanks for that :)

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Not Rose-Colored Glasses

A Sky Without Zeppelins: Chapter Six

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