Farraway Mist ?A Wattpad featured story?

Chapter 13: Awkward AF

Fuck.

She sighed and pulled on her undies and pjs, her oldest and softest, shaking out her hair to speed up the drying process. Jesus, it was really getting shaggy. She needed to cut it. She caught sight of her reflection in the mirror.

"You're pathetic," she said to herself. "And you look like a lesbian man." This politically incorrect statement made her laugh out loud. She needed a drink.

She quietly headed downstairs for a glass of wine before bed, noticing that it was already dark. Where had the day gone?

She opened the door to the lounge and stopped.

There was a fire, and Jess and Bandit were sitting in front of it. They raised their heads to smile at her, tails thumping. George turned to look at her in surprise, holding a glass of wine.

"Oh, sorry," she said, embarrassed. "I thought you'd gone to bed." She turned around. "I can go." She felt awkward as fuck.

"No, no, please, come in," George said, smiling. "I thought you wanted to go bed as well?"

Scout gestured to the wine. "I guess we had the same idea," she said with a little shrug.

He poured her a glass and held it out to her, gesturing to the spot next to him. George, who was on his second glass, noticed as she sat down that she smelled absolutely amazing from her bath, and nearly swooned. He also noticed that her pajamas were threadbare and nearly sheer, though that could just have been the wine, and the fact that she was sitting so close, and he found her so charming and dear.

She sat back and took an appreciative sip of the wine, which was another thing George liked about Scout. She really liked wine. She wasn't pretentious about it, but she knew her stuff, there was no fooling her.

They sat and drank in uncomfortable silence for a while. Scout finished a first, then a second, with George wordlessly refilling her glass for her, opening a second bottle from the sideboard. She leaned her head back, inadvertently putting her hair on George's arm where he'd laid it along the back of the couch. She jerked her head up.

"Sorry," she murmured, taking another drink for something to do.

"It's okay," he said, stroking her hair meditatively with his hand, finally pulling her head back down. "Scout, I had my dick pressed into your back for most of last night, I think I can deal with your lovely hair on my arm, you know?"

Scout snarfed her wine.

"I can't believe you said that," she said when she could finally talk.

"It broke the horrible tension between us, didn't it?" he asked, turning to her.

"Look," he continued, setting his glass aside, taking her glass and setting it aside, too. "I never meant to misunderstand anything. I think that, on some level, assuming--what I assumed--made things easier for me," he admitted. He took her hands in his. "I've been living here for the last ten months like a wounded animal in a cave, growling at everyone who got too close, you know?"

He took a deep breath and looked around before letting his eyes land on Scout's. In the firelight, she noticed, his dark blue eyes glowed like sapphires. "When my wife died, I was very unhappy, and I thought I was going to be unhappy for a long time, maybe forever, you know? I thought--I thought that maybe I deserved it, that I'd earned it, somehow.

"Then you came along."

What?

George saw the expression on Scout's face.

"Is that so hard to believe?" he asked softly.

The wine, fatigue, and just plain surprise made Scout tell the truth, and she nodded.

"Why?" George looked at her in intense concentration. "I mean, look at you. You're so clever, and kind, and funny, completely amazing in every way. You speak, like, a million languages, you play the piano, and you're so brave. You've been so plucky about all the weird shit that's been going on since you arrived at the house, and the way you dealt with what happened yesterday, just so plucky, you know?" He let go of her hand so he could brush her nearly dry hair back from her face. "You're just a bloody marvelous girl, Scout Lawson, and hearing that you weren't a lesbian was just about the best news I've ever heard in my entire fucking life, if I'm being perfectly honest."

His words made Scout laugh, so hard she had to release his hand and turn away.

"I'm being serious, and I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't laugh at me," George said, hurt.

"Okay, so, well, we've established that I'm not a lesbian, so?" She looked at him expectantly.

"So?" He looked back at her and gulped.

"What are we going to do about it?" she asked with a smile.