The Fates (Book I) - 2014 Watty Award Winner!

1.6 - Victory

Dear Readers: Sooo who was that gorgeous man of mystery by Cloe's garden?? Here we go back to Commencement Day at Veriton...

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Scene 6: Victory

A.D. 2015

Not anymore?

What the hell was that supposed to mean? And where in heaven was he from?

Cloe softly cleared her throat. At least she hoped it had been softly.

A subtle twitch rippled the marble statue's lips. Was that silent laughter? Cloe wondered. She swallowed again, blinked again. Bells were ringing. The damn bells of the campus church just wouldn't stop. Wait, were those flowers in his chiseled hands? Why was he holding a bouquet?

Oh, right-commencement, she remembered. Flowers would be appropriate today.

Her stupefied silence, on the other hand, was not so appropriate.

He spoke; she was saved. "Locked out," he uttered simply.

They were standing in front of a wrought iron gate. She'd not noticed till now, naturally.

To the side of the garden opposite the little library, a far taller building towered, offering welcome shade. Some sort of university administrative building. This gate opened toward it, though the little red light by the latch indicated authorized Veriton access only.

"Hoping to be let in," he added.

In a moment of stark clarity, Cloe saw that she could be of help to him. Something about that fact brought her breathing back to semi-normal, her blood simmering down from the boil.

"Oh, how long have you been waiting?" she questioned calmly, reaching for her keys.

Was that his lip twitching again, or just her field of vision twitching in his presence? Probably both.

He raised his stately shoulders in a sportive shrug. "Only..." he breathed a shallow pause, "...forever."

Cloe wondered if he'd paused for reasons parallel to those that made her melt beneath his bay-blue gaze. How silly. He looked at least in his late twenties, far too mature to be aflutter.

"Well," she sighed, swiping her college key fob by the little red light, "today the gates open for you."

His smile widened, as did hers.

"Then today is a victory," he declared.

The red light turned promptly to green, the lock giving way with a click and a beep.

His left arm swept forward to swing the gate open. Her gaze was transfixed for a minute on the lean bulge of his bicep.

She watched it flex, firmly yet fluidly, as he plucked a pink flower from the bouquet. She watched as he extended the flower to her. Luckily, her body was more graceful and more gracious than her mind and knew to lift her hand toward him to accept it.

As the frail stem passed through their momentarily twined fingers, she raised her eyes up toward his face. She could have sworn that all the blush rushed from his cheek, down through his arm, and up her own into her soul. As if the flower were the vessel of that precious pink.

Holy fuck. This had to stop.

But the poet in her was inspired, on fire today.

He spoke again and stoked the fire, his voice of harp strings soaked in honey. More resonant than the bells ringing close by. "They crowned victors with these in Ancient Greece."