**Author's Note: I'm really, really sorry if this chapter sucks. A lot of things have been going on lately, so it may very well be affecting my writing. This felt well enough, but who knows… read and feed the monster.**
CHAPTER NINE- Objective Interviewer
She breathed in slowly through her nose, exhaled through her mouth, utilizing the patience that was most often second nature to her. Now, she wanted to jump, wanted to leap and shout, but she didn't know whether for joy or in anger. What was he doing to her? This wasn't her, this unfocused, scattered young woman. Other people saw her as a dreamer, as daft, as odd, but she was simply observing, soaking things up, gathering material. Of late, she'd only observed him, and of late, she'd missed a great many other things.
Her friend Genevieve, for instance, was clearly going through something big, and Lucia could only make a guess as to what it was. And her father-when was the last time she'd taken the time to see what he was working on, read over his shoulder, fruitlessly offer to help him edit copy?
It had been long days, and all because she'd been wrapped up in the young man she knew stood behind her.
Lucia Lovejoy could tell anyone and everyone she had only been honing in on a story, but she knew the truth, and she thought others would, as well.
She had been honing in on him. And now that he had come to her willingly-didn't he come to you willingly on Saturday?-she wasn't certain what to do with him.
Rob wanted to fidget, but each movement sent lances of pain zagging through his sweetly aching legs. It felt good to have worked that hard, but he had no wish to further tax himself. He saw her reach for her notebook with slow, deliberate moves, her finely-shaped fingers closing around the binding after a single flutter. She still hadn't said anything, and for a moment, he wondered if perhaps she'd toss it at him. He certainly deserved it.
"Have a seat," she said, looking at him through her lashes. "And we can get started."
For a moment, he stood utterly still, wondering if he'd misheard her. That was it? Have a seat and we can get started?
He'd rather hoped for something a little more dramatic, something like You bastard or Thank you.
Though he supposed saying "Keep up the good work" wasn't quite what she'd wanted to hear, either.
But Rob was nothing if not well-trained, and his manners had him immediately sitting in a chair beside her, his long hands clasping and unclasping between his knees. "Er… all right then," he said, unnerved by the way she kept staring at him, not saying a word. She'd nattered on endlessly before, why couldn't she say something now?
Lucia was wondering the same thing. Her tongue felt pasted to the top of her mouth, all the questions she'd written neatly in her notebook had turned to meaningless jumbles of letters and scribbles.
"What are your hobbies?" she blurted, knowing she'd asked him that at least once before-hadn't she? She flipped through her notebook with unsteady hands and scowled unseeingly at the pages before her. She didn't want to be this giggly, idiotic, typical girl. With concentrated effort, she gripped her pen in her fingers and steeled herself to write.
Hobbies.
He had to redefine the word in his brain before it would really stick, and even then he was having trouble coming up with an answer.
"Football," he said, and on the heels of the declaration came a sigh. "Obviously," he added, running one hand through his hair nervously. He wanted to flip up his hood and pull the strings tight, but somehow he thought that might be a wee bit awkward. "I don't really know… I spend all my time on that, really. I'm not really a good student, and… I'm really bad at this." He stood, no longer caring about his aches and pains, and paced the floor. "This is why I didn't want to do this!" he said explosively, turning on his heel and looking at her.
Now she was looking at him. She couldn't look at him when he was composed; no, she had to wait until he'd come all unhinged, and now she was looking at him with those wide blue eyes like she expected him to say something of importance.
Like… keep up the good work.
"Ask me something else," he said pleadingly, just needing to be off the subject, to get this over with. He'd have rather taken twenty footballs straight to his head than try and answer these questions, but he was going to do it.
He owed her at least that.
She hadn't planned on it-then again, she hadn't really planned on any of this-but the words slipped from her mouth quietly as she watched him pace the floor. "Why did you kiss me?"
Had she really allowed herself to admit it before then, or had it been easier to think he hadn't done it at all? She didn't understand other people, especially didn't understand men, and most especially didn't understand the young man standing before her. But as he looked at her, obviously miserable, fidgety as a caught mouse, all long arms and big hands and bright hair, she thought again of bravery.
He didn't want to be doing what he was doing, but he did it anyway because it was the right thing.
She just didn't have it in her to be upset with him.
"'s that for the paper?" he asked, laughing a little and wincing at the edge of panic in it. She was looking at him like…
Like that drawing. Like he was truly that person.
She shook her head 'no' and he nodded jerkily, balling his fingers into fists and relaxing them repeatedly. "Okay," he said, taking a deep breath. How had he gotten here, exactly?
How had he gotten from thinking she was crazy to trying to prove to her she was worth kissing?
"Because it felt right," he said in a rush. "And because… you were looking at me like that." He crossed to her and looked down at her as though to try and decipher that look, to dissect it and figure out exactly what it meant.
Lucia blinked, surprised, and sat back in her chair, her cheeks suddenly hot. If she'd been looking at him like she'd been thinking about him, then he should have been afraid she'd eat him alive.
And that thought merely made her cheeks burn hotter.
"Like what?" she asked, her voice coming out unsteadily.
She needed a drink of water. She needed a sanity check.
She needed him.
Rob threw his hands in the air, wondering why she couldn't simply take an answer and keep it as an answer. She had to elaborate. What was he supposed to say? That he'd kissed her because he knew how his hands felt around her ribs, around her wrists, knew how her hair floated in the wind?
That he kissed her because she was the first and only person to persist in any sort of interest in him?
"Like you wanted me to kiss you," he finally said, his mind circling back to that look she was giving him. "Did you want me to?"
He was certain other people their age didn't have this much trouble progressing into courtship.
She stood then, pleased that he didn't step back when she stood toe-to-toe with him, and she tilted her head, looking him in the eye and letting her hair fall down along her back. "You don't get to ask the questions," she said, nearly having to catch her breath at the giddy, unfamiliar, out of control bubble that was rising in her chest.
And this time, she didn't think about whether or not she was doing it right, or why he was standing in front of her, or how he'd pushed her away, she only thought brave and beautiful and let the feeling spin through her, touching one fingertip to the soft fleece of his sweatshirt and kissing him like she'd wanted to the night he snatched her back onto the curb, her heart jackrabbiting against his palm, her breath backed up in her lungs.
He bent his head without even realizing it, leaning into her even as she was standing on her toes to reach him, and he put his hands to her hips, more out of protectiveness than possessiveness; for a moment, he'd been afraid she'd stand so high she'd simply tip into him.
It had the same punch as Saturday, but wilder, lacking the nerves of the first encounter, adding the confusion and anger and testosterone he'd sulkily packed around all day.
He inhaled deeply through his nose, changing the angle of the kiss and taking control of it, stroking his tongue over hers and wondering why he'd spent so damned much time on the football field.
Lucia felt her head reel and knew what it was like to be treated with the same sort of intensity he directed at football, knew what it was like to be the recipient of the forthright gaze she'd sketched in her notes.
He clung even after she leaned back, big hands covering her slight swell of hips, and he licked his lips, feeling the back of his neck heat up.
He wasn't about to forget that anytime soon.
"I have another question," she said frankly, as though the kiss hadn't affected her at all. She had resolved to lose control later, reserved the right to press her hand to her chest and feel how quickly he'd made her heart beat, but at that moment, she'd regained the upper hand along with her composure.
He couldn't do anything but gape at her, trying to think straight. Another question? For God's sake, she'd just wiped his mind clean and now she wanted an answer?
He hoped it was a simple yes or no question.
"There's a masque a week from Friday. Will you take me?" She wasn't supposed to ask him, she was sure-it was improper, probably-but she so badly wanted to do it.
She so badly wished she had a mother to ask for advice on the matters, but she didn't.
So she stuck with impropriety.
The masque? The what?! Rob's mind stumbled over and around the fact, rounded back for another sniff at the thought, then bayed in recognition.
The masque. He had to go, if only because it was a football team tradition.
But go with someone?
Well, he'd wanted a simple yes or no question.
"Yes," he said, finally letting his hands slide from her hips, thrusting them into the front pocket of his shirt and gripping his fingers together tight enough to make his knuckles ache. "I'll take you."
And then she surprised the bloody hell out of him by making a satisfied little 'hmph' noise she'd learned from her father, turning her back, and sitting back down.
"Don't you need to ask me more questions?" He sounded lost, and hated himself for it, but he felt as though he were drowning.
And then she made it worse.
"No," she said, tapping her fingers consideringly on the keyboard. "I finished your article a long time ago."