Free Outside The Lines:: Third Person Narration by Bella Love

 
    “You.” Stupid confessions. “I didn’t mean that.”
    His silence was unnerving.   The way his eyes almost gleamed at her was even more so.
    “I just…you can be so…you loom,” she explained lamely.
    He looked surprised.   “I loom ?”
    “You loom.”
    “I didn’t know.”
    “Now you do.” She downed the rest of her drink in a single swallow. “Are you going to stop?”
    He reflected a moment. “Probably not.”
    “You shouldn’t,” she agreed glumly.   “It makes people do what you want.”
    He snorted. “Is it going to start working on you anytime soon?”  
    She gave a half-hearted shrug. “I’m oppositional.”  
    He laughed softly.
    She swiveled around and peered at him.   “What about you?” she demanded, since they were clearly acting like drunks and sharing secrets and saying things that shouldn’t be said.   “You and your hot prospects and your movie star girlfriends and your perfect teeth, what else are you scared of?”
    He looked taken aback. “I have perfect teeth?”
    “Yes, dammit, you do.”   The words were tumbling out.   “And perfect hair and perfect….”   She made a swiping motion at his whole body.   “It’s very annoying. You know some people work extremely hard and never have teeth like that?”
    He gave this the thoughtful consideration it deserved.   “People work hard at having perfect teeth?”
    “People work hard, period.” She tapped the tabletop in an illustrative, menacing way.   “And they don’t have perfect anything.   Period. You, you have it all.”  
    He shrugged. “I work hard for it all.”
    She shrugged back. “So what?   Lots of people work hard.”
    “You mean you work hard.”
    “I mean me.   No, wait, I mean—” She stopped short. She needed to remember he was a lawyer as well as an accountant; best not to talk too much. She made an immediate vow to that effect.
    “You’re jealous,” he surmised.
    “You bet, I am,” she retorted sharply. So much for vows.   “I have the same degrees as you. I work just as hard as you. I work just as late as you.”
    “You don’t work as smart as me.”  
    She narrowed her eyes at him.   “That’s helpful. Thanks.”  
    He took another sip of whisky. He looked perfectly relaxed, like he was enjoying himself. She felt like a tiger ready to pounce.   “You’re too tense,” he said helpfully.   “You need to loosen up.”
    She closed her eyes and forced herself to inhale. “I’m well aware of that.”   She leaned her head back until it touched the back of the chair. “That’s why I’m here. I’m loosening.”  
    He laughed. Her eyes popped open. He was looking around, at the work papers strewn across the table, at her empty fifty-two ounce refillable coffee mug and her stupid, pathetic rolling suitcase, because she didn’t even want to spend one night out in the world.   Had to hurry back home to all her nothing.  
    She tilted her head down slightly and looked at him. “I’m trying.   A person can’t just… let go. ” She waved her hand around.
    “Sure she can.”
    She straightened and pushed to the edge of her seat, all pounce-y. “Did it ever occur to you that maybe I don’t know how?”
    “Oh yeah, it occurred.”
    “I need practice.”
    He sipped his drink. “You need headbanging sex.”
    She straightened with a snap. “Sex?”
    “Headbanging sex,” he clarified. “The kind where your body takes over, and you’re so hot your skin burns, and you pant for breath and forget your name.”
    “Oh. That kind.” And here she’d thought she needed a hobby.   She put her hands to her face. Her fingers were cool stripes against her hot cheeks. “You do know, you’re the one who brought all this work up here?” She nodded toward the papers.   “If anyone’s hyper-focused on work, it’s you.”
    “Yeah, but I know how to have sex.”
    She gasped and dropped her hands. “I know how to have sex.”
    He smiled.