Free Shimmers & Shrouds (Abstruse) by Scarlett Brukett Page B

lawn. This girl was a hard shell to crack, but I won't give up on my efforts.
"Can you do me a favour?" I called behind her.
"Go on, Orpheus." She turned to me and smiled, her head was still tilted.
"Please be on your best behavior." I used my hand to emphasize the sentence that I was trying to explain her or she would not take my words seriously as usual.
"What do you mean?" Oh... that breathtaking look again.
I took a minute to compose my senses, and another minute to divert myself so I wouldn’t sound like a duck.
"I have bragged a lot about you here, don't let me down. Okay." I exhaled and looked at her with expectant eyes.
"Okay." she came closer than required. I could almost feel her body right next to mine."Watch out. I am going to be your worst nightmare." She smiled crookedly. Freak!!  There goes my heartbeat again.
 I struggled to fight back the wave of emotions that crowded up my heart. The moon was up in the sky, we were standing and talking where my father had proposed my mom. The breeze was light, gently swaying her hair. She was bathing in the streaming moonlight. Her gaze was on me, intense and unavoidable. I prayed not to do anything stupid― like kissing her.
"Ocea―"
"Orpheus, I am kidding." She cut in. Thank god she stepped away.
I realized I let my breath ease away.  "This is a beautiful lawn!" She exclaimed. "What do you play here? Baseball?"
I was stunned again, the way she resurrected the entire atmosphere into something I was living just a few seconds ago was unbelievable.
"Oh.. You guys don’t play ball. Cricket is the favorite pastime of this country right?" She arched up her left eyebrow again, giving me one of my favourite smiles.
I nodded. Smiling at her absolute innocsence. When she was done with teasing me and admiring the outer beauty of the property, I escorted her to the main entrance. She misunderstood that to be something like a ball room. I chuckled darkly.
My house, like any other historical house was decorated like a sixteenth century castle. The stone carvings and huge paintings of the aristocracy were prime attractions of the media whenever they were invited for some occasions. The curtains were one of the antiques. The silk they were made from was imported from India, then the furniture and other things that were the pride of this fortress since a long time need no such descriptions. She knew about them in a detailed manner. I was flattered. I could see from her face that she was dumbstruck to visit my home.
"It is heaven." The words must have just slipped out of her mouth
"It isn't." I smiled
"That is because you have been here all this while."
She looked around as we walked towards my room. I indicated her to take the stairs if she was planning to follow me.
"No. Because I know heaven is nothing if it doesn't have good people to know it's worth." I was very gentle with her.
"You don't have good people here?"
"I don't know what to say." I shrugged my shoulders.
"Don't say anything." She whispered, and took the lead. She turned over to face me when we reached near the entrance of my room."Okay Mr. Guide." She put her hands on her hips. "Tell me everything about the house."
"You're always so information hungry." I leaned against the wall to have a better look at her, not that I was being deprived of that earlier.
"Like you're hungry for love all the time."
"How do you know?" I was surprised to see that she was way quicker at judging.
"Sixth sense." The tease in her voice was palpable.
I decided to play along. She stepped forward to stand near me. I knew she had the idea of how to trick things out of me. (By being extraordinarily close.) But what stunned me was the fact that I wasn't hiding anything.  "Oceana, you have sixth sense?"
"Yes. Common sense." She tapped her forehead with her index finger.
I laughed, despite of the enormous tension and stress that usually dominated the air when she was around. "You call it sixth sense?"
She glared at me