DAZED

Chapter 10: The Balcony

"Your aura's been very positive and jolly lately", Brandy smiled poking his head on my desk.

"Oh~, the woman's inlove. Can't you tell?", Miriam teased looking our way and chuckled.

"You better up your game Brandy", she added laughing and ignoring Brandy's retorted remarks of denial.

I wasn't fully aware but I've come to notice how he, Brandy, have been keeping such close attention to me from the very first time I stepped in that office. Though, I shrugged it off, not giving an ounce of hope on the man and wishing that his little crush would fade eventually.

I simply shrugged them off and readied myself to go home, early for once, excited for an upcoming dinner plan.

Two months has passed since Alexis' and I's first interaction happened, and nothing came of it but some simple plans outside and getting to know how our lives have been going since we both decided to part ways. Still, no delicate topics ever came to the conversation that might ultimately ruin those moments.

It eventually came to mind that pushing those delicate topics down at the back of our minds would eventually surface more painfully than tackling it earlier on.

So far, I've come to think she's opening up to me more than ever, inviting me to her apartment for dinner.

I stood frozen outside her door, preparing the words that was scattered in my mind before pressing the doorbell, my whole body filled with mixed jittery and excitement. The door flung open with the most gorgeous human being I could ever find, even though casually dressed with only a shirt and pants, she still looked like someone that came out from a different world.

"You're here", she breathed deeply, opening the door wide enough for me to enter.

"It hasn't changed a bit", I looked around, taking in every bit of information and remembering how it once was and what it still is.

"Yeah, well, it holds a lot of memories", she whispered in her breath. It made me silent for a while, thinking of what her words meant. Does it mean the memories of us in here? That was what prompted her to stay in the same apartment for this long and had never thought of moving? I wouldn't know.

I followed her steps towards the open terrace, feeling the cold wind of the evening pierce through my skin. She stood there, watching the lights open on the streets below and settled her wine glass down when she heard me approaching.

"It's nice out here", she handed me a glass, half-filled and smiled.

"Dinner's in the oven, it might take a while", I nodded and sipped on the wine. It was sweet, much sweeter to my liking. I left it down the table and accompanied her wandering eyes, though mine, looking over at the looming sunset. I could feel that her eyes found mine, staring interestingly, somehow smiling stupidly.

"We never did watch the sunset, didn't we?", she spoke after sometime, her smile fading and her gaze moving away from me and towards the coming darkness in the horizon.

I sighed,

"No, I guess we didn't"

There was a huge amount of silence after, complete silence as we stood there, me with a blank mind and her, clearly in thought. It was as if something delicate had come into that talk quite suddenly that we didn't know how to react, she took a deep breath after a while, looking down at her uncovered feet.

"I never actually thought I'd see you again, and if I did, I made a thousand scenario of how it should be but not how it actually happened"

I looked at her confused, she met my eyes, though not quite reading my expression.

"What do you mean?", I asked, wanting for her to expound her statement in order for me to understand clearly and maybe think of where we stand.

She was silent for sometime, looking directly at my eyes and before I knew it, she had leaned in and kissed me. I was stunned for a moment, startled by how and why she had acted that way and her actions leading to an unexpected kiss. For now, I brushed it off my mind, I accepted her kiss and responded quite willingly. I could feel my heart starting to pound rapidly and the familiarity of her lips, her kiss and everything else about her came flooding in that moment, as we parted gasping for air. Her hands still on my cheek and our foreheads pressing on each other.

"I mean, this", she whispered smiling and enveloped me into a hug. Her chin resting on my head as my ears were pressed into her chest. I could hear the pounding of her heart, which made me smile like a child knowing that we were both feeling the same thing that very moment.

The oven timer went off, ending short our moment,

"I guess it's time for dinner", she chuckled breaking off the hug and ushering us towards the kitchen.

The hunger I felt on my stomach vanished as the hunger lingering and expecting more from that kiss fell upon my body, as the temperature rose to a hundred degrees. From all the preparations I made and the scenarios I've thought of before setting foot at her door, I've never expected that there would be a sudden kiss, happening especially on the same spot I walked away from, years before.

For once it felt like a dream. I felt my mind rejecting it somehow. It made me think that maybe, I was still at the hospital unconscious and was living inside my head barely holding on to reality.

I found myself watching her, busying herself plating the newly cooked chicken as if avoiding to think of the kiss as much as she wanted to admit. Even messing with the sauce for a second, sighing. Everytime, I've come to observe her sighing more often than I want her to be. It was frustrating in my part not knowing the cause of it but I dared not to ask.

"I'm famished", she spoke suddenly, pulling me away from my thoughts. Serving me with a food, its quantity, far more than I could eat.

It was silent, the unexpected kiss earlier made it awkward, but not uncomfortable to the point that we would find ourselves choking on the tenderly baked meat. Though, she claimed to be famished, the way she's chewing her food slowly like a snail says otherwise. I can't seem to find the exact and right words to utter so I shut my mouth and accepted the silence.

I was looking down the plate, observing every bits and pieces that filled it when I heard her speak, faintly, not enough to be deciphered. I looked at her baffled, empty in thought but, she, like me was focused on her plate, not eating the piece of chicken that has found its way on her fork.

"Pardon?", I asked, in a tone a bit more professionally than I intended it to be.

'WHAT is the word idiot!'

"How's the chicken?", she repeated, her gaze now resting on me. Allowing herself a smile, biting her lips seductively, maybe unknown on her perspective that she's somehow showcasing something that is rather not appropriate at the moment.

I coughed lightly by the gesture, gulping the heat rising on my face. She noticed and looked away, taking a sip of water, thinking that it would wash the hot atmosphere away. Yet again, another long silence ensued, engulfing me with nothing but the loud pounding of my heart.

For a moment, she gave out a long deep sigh, letting go of the fork in her hand on the process and looked directly on my face.

"For fucks sake", she stood up and pulled me up from my seat, crashing our lips into a deep needy kiss.

"I can't hold back anymore... I want you Sammy...", she whispered when we broke it off, demanding but pleading, all the same.

Before she could say anything more, I kissed her, roughly, unlike how softly she had kissed me. I wanted it more than she ever wanted. I wanted it ever since we sat down on our first dinner date. I was just afraid to make a move, thinking it would disappear by the time I wake up in the morning.

But this time, for sure, I wanted her, more than anything, I wanted her.