The rain was coming down in sheets now. The lightening played within the gray rolling clouds as the thunder clapped and banged in the skies. The energy in the room seemed to increase tenfold. It must have been the room itself, as it was always his favorite place in the whole house and now that he was back, it was once again, as it used to be. It seemed that everything around missed his presence. Everything but her. She almost laughed at her own thought. She missed him as if he had been the sun to her moon. Those nights crying until no more tears came were hell on her. That would be something she would never let him know. Now here he was on this night of storms back where she always knew he belonged.
She wondered, as she sat down regaining her throne of dark blue velvet, if he would notice that his books were still where he left them. She looked at the first three shelves of combat treatise. All feudal, hand to hand and hand to weapon manuscripts, most first editions save but the older ones. It was his pride and joy. She would walk in here when he first left just to touch the books. It was her connection to him. She could feel him through those pressed pages of wood and glue. After all, paper was made of a once living thing, and those who touch the pages of any book will leave their energy. No one had thought that he would have left so much of himself and she still did not know why. Did he know he would return someday? Was this just a test of her love for him or was it something more. She wanted answers. She needed them. She demanded them for her closure, or so she thought. Would she allow him back after she even received the answers (that is, if he was willing to tell), or would she go on as she had been, a broken soul just trying to concrete the cracks and close up the holes?
He walked on over to the bar, getting inside the cabinet to get a glass. “Want one?” he asked as she debated on another drink. “No. I think I’m going to need all of my wits about me to hear what you have to say.” She looked away once again, trying not to make eye contact with him. She knew that was her ace in the hole. Never looking him in the eyes. He had told her once that the eyes were the window to the soul, anyone not being able to look another in those eyes had something to hide. It wasn’t that she had anything to hide from him. She just didn’t want him seeing into her soul again. She laid it bare upon the buffet table once for him to rip apart like King Henry at dinner. No more. She was shielding herself from anything that he could possibly say to her.
He knew when he came here tonight that it wasn’t going to be easy with her. Nothing ever was. She accepted things too easy. If something went wrong, she would just let it go and say something about how it wasn’t meant, Karma could handle it, they weren’t meant to be in her life. She would shut down, analyze, disseminate, autopsy her emotions like a dead body and then write it all down neatly printing it out and filing it away. This was Reigne. That was what she did. In all of her glorious Aquarian ways, she would pull a right-brained move, throwing the free love and flowers aside and turn to gaze upon Medusa turning her into the hardened statue her heart had become.
He bent down unlatching the cabinet to retrieve what he hoped would be a bottle of The Balvenie 21. He rattled bottles of Jack Daniels and Jim Beam. Surely, she had some! He took out a bottle of bourbon , a bottle of unopened Cadenhead's, Powers Gold, Old Inverness (no one saw that coming he thought sarcastically), but no 21. What the hell? He popped his head up from behind the large dark red bar and stared at her. “Where’s… where’s the 21?”
“Vegas?” she smirked. It was there. She had hid it far back on the other side in the darkest part of the liquor cabinet. There were some things she could do to alleviate her hurt and exiling his whisky was one of them.
“Come on Reigne. You always kept me 21.” He bent down again tearing out even more bottles, some half full others unopened. He had to hand it to her grandfather. The man knew his Scotch. She sat and watched with slight amusement as he dissected everything in the bottom part, and finally , “Damn it I KNEW you had some!”, finding it, once again bringing it forth from the exile she had placed the bottle in.
She sat in quiet contemplation of what was to come. She could sense his emotions and right now, all of his attention and happiness was on the bottle of 21. He knew she could read him, and he had his shield up. This was going to be one adventurous night Reigne thought. She heard another clap of thunder, making her jump in the seat, and grabbing Shane’s attention albeit for a split second.
“Something wrong?” he said, as she heard him placing all the bottles back into the respective order, making sure his beloved 21 was out in front where it rightfully should be. “No. Nothing’s wrong.” She said, a bit loud for the large room as her words echoed around the vaulted ceiling landing right back in her own ears. He gazed at her, her legs swung over the arm of the chair, her hand cradling her head on an angle. Her long brown hair shown in the lightening as if Pixie dust had been sprinkled on her.
Again, he encountered her intoxicating perfume as a breeze blew through the library from some other window that had been forgotten and left open.Reigne gazed at him through half closed eyes as he made his way to the other side of the room where the overstuffed leather couch was. He sat down as the cushion made a whooshing sound before quieting down again. He bent down, taking off his boots one at a time hearing them thud on the floor as he scooted around, finally lying down on the couch like a contented cat. He squirmed making the couch sound like a high-pitched squeaky mouse. He loved that couch. She hated it. She should have burned it after he left. Oh well, tomorrow is another day, she surmised.
There was another roll of thunder this time deeper and louder than the last. It seemed that this storm was never going to end. Not that those kinds of storms here ended quickly in the heat of summer, but were as if the Heavens knew her feelings. She guessed in a way, they did. They cried every time her heart cried. They would smile when she was happy. Tonight? They knew it was inevitable that the storms that raged within her soul was coming to the surface, slashing at the heart, whipping around the mind and rending all of her emotions upon the craggy shores. His very presence was unnerving her. This wasn’t right. Her body longed to have him touch it. Her mind replayed all of the moments of love making with him. Each time he touched her body, he took away a minute piece of her. When he left, he left with all of her. There was nothing left now but the shell that once housed a vivacious spirit,
She waited as he sipped his drink, savoring each as it went down his throat, as smooth as the silken drapes in the dreams of sailors. She knew he was watching her. Waiting for her to say something, but this was HIS moment not hers. She had nothing to say. She had said it all after he left her. She may have said it to Tommy John, Gods love him, but she would never say it to him. Tommy John had heard all the rants and raves of every woman who ever lived there for nigh on 160 years now. He was used to what he heard, nodded and smiled and went on about his business. He was a loyal servant and a loyal listener to everyone who resided there. She could use Tommy John around tonight. A distraction, someone to occupy her time right now instead of sitting here, sitting and waiting for him to speak when she knew in his heart he wouldn’t.
He observed her motions. The way she sighed. How she was unconsciously twisting her hair in her hand. Her fingers pulled through a grabbed strand and wrung it like a dishtowel. He knew he was in the wrong, but he would never admit this to her. No. You NEVER admitted anything like that to her. That was something that was banked on and brought up with interest when the timing was right for an all-out brawl of words. He found that out early on in their relationship.
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