STROKE OF INDIGO.

Chapter 3: Muddy

"Drink it."

"What?! Why? I won!"

"Do you even know basic math?!"

"I'm a musician!"

"Exactly!"

A game of darts in a bar had gotten Annelise and Sammi absolutely wasted. The prior thought that for a person who claimed they didn’t drink, he could hold his liquor fairly well. The latter thought she was too good at darts but only got drunk because she couldn't handle liquor at all.

They looked at eachother, and laughed.

Something they had in common was that they were having too great of a time.

"You smoke?" The tall man asked, guiding his hand to his back pocket. Annelise nodded. "Cool, let's go outside."

Sammy held onto Annelise, wrapping his arm around her shoulder and guiding her out and to a small alleyway next to the bar.

He put a cigarette between his lips and watched how Annie softly did so too - Sam felt in a trance ever since those dumb masks had come off.

She was beautiful. Too beautiful.

"Fuck, I can't find my lighter." Annelise whined, patting her pockets and looking through her bag with the stick hanging from her pout.

"Here,"

Being said so casually, Annelise didn’t expect for his thumb and index to clasp her face and for her cigarette to be lit with his own, hanging from his mouth.

She looked up at him briefly, and he was staring directly at her. For a second, Annelise was only thinking of one color: the blue of the eyes watching her own green ones, the pressure of his hand on her face, and the strong force of the entire situation.

Time stood still, and the energy could be cut with the poke of a needle.

"Uhm," Sam cleared his throat and looked towards the allyway. "There we go."

His voice was nervous, shaky and soft. His eyes couldn't dare to look at Annelise that way again - it felt wrong. That simply wasn't who he was.

But it was hard to resist it.

"So, you're into music production?"

She smiled at him sheepishly, aware of the conflicted thoughts in his mind because she was having the same. The couple hours they had been hanging out at the bar consisted of drinking and games, not much conversation - but still, Annelise couldn't explain what it was she was feeling.

She wanted to talk to him for a while and give herself time to clear her head, but there was no way anything could really be clear.

Chemistry is chemistry even when it's just exchanged smiles and gazes.

Annelise Moore couldn't bear the thought - it was so unlike her.

"Yeah," Sam answered, holding the smoke from the drag he had just taken and released it in his next phrase. "I mean, I have a band still, but production is what I'm in college for."

That deliciously tense silence covered them again, eyes locked, and the only movement was to bring the cigarette to their mouths.

Sam knew Annelise was helping him. He thought it was insanely attractive, albeit unnecesary.
Sure, he knew nothing about her other than her major and her name - but he knew, eventually, he'll know more.

In that moment, there was only one thing Sam Daniels thought was proper to do.

When she threw the butt of the cigarrete on her pocket ashtray, he cupped her face with his hands and kissed her.

Annelise thought it wouldn't make sense, but it did. She thought such thing only happened in movies, but they didn't. She thought the leaps in her stomach and the heat on her body were exclusive to love, but she was now sure they weren't - she just followed the movement of his lips softly, placing her arms around Sam's neck and letting her back rest on the brick wall behind her.

There were no streetlights near, but Annelise was seeing so many colors they were turning muddy. Sammi's lips were soft and delicate but his body was fervently getting closer and closer to hers, his hands now pressing on her waist.

They couldn't stop, they didn't want to. The heat of their bodies was perfect for one another, their lips fit like the final piece of a jigsaw puzzle - they wanted more. So much more.

So, with their lips barely separating, they hailed a cab.

"To Babylon Apartments, please."

Annelise was the one to talk, and Sam just caressed her thigh under her dress, drawing figures with his fingertip and looking at her with a smile.

They were confused. For the first for both, they were simply doing what felt right.