I Love You to Death(55)

"What are you doing, shouldn’t you be packing up?" I ask him.
He looks up at me. "Oh hey Ash, nah I gotta get some things done tonight so I can take tomorrow off, big show remember?" he says smiling.
Yes, the big show tomorrow night. The one Luke nervously asked me to come and see the other day. I don’t know why this show’s any different from all of their others, but it must be a big deal if he’s taking a whole day off work to practice. It makes me think that maybe I shouldn’t go in case I mess it all up for them. But I know I’m kidding myself with that idea because I really want to go and I know in the end I will. He asked me to go, he wants to me to go. I want to go.
"So, you’re going to cook all night?" I ask him.
He smiles up at me, "Yep, for a couple of hours anyway. Do you wanna help me?"
I stand there looking at him. He’s turned back to the cupboard and is busy getting everything ready and doesn’t notice me staring at him. I should go. I should walk away and go home and leave him to it. Staying in here with just him will almost be too much. Staying in here with him and not touching him will be excruciating. I should go.
"Sure."
He looks up from the cupboard he’s crouched in front of, a tiny smile on his face. "Great," is all he says and something inside of me flips.
Everyone else has gone home, so I move away to finish closing up the shop, turning off all of the lights out front and making sure the door is locked. Suddenly, I realise I’m very nervous. I know I shouldn’t be, I’ve spent so much time with Luke before, a lot of it with no one else around. But deep down I know it’s because now, everything has changed. Now I’m allowing myself to feel things. Now I’ve admitted, at least to myself, how I feel about it all, and especially how I feel about him.
That he might possibly see all of that when he looks at me, that everything I feel is written all over my face. That’s what’s making me nervous.
When I come back into the kitchen I take a deep breath to try and calm myself down. Luke has put some music on and there are two open beers sitting on the bench. I put on the chef’s jacket he hands me. It’s miles too big and I realise it must belong to him. When he turns away I smell the fabric. Yes it’s Luke’s and it smells amazing, just like he does. It feels incredibly intimate to be wearing his clothing while we are both locked away in here. I don’t know if he’s noticing what he’s suddenly doing to me. I feel electric. The whole room feels electrified.
We’re standing in a lit kitchen at the back of a darkened shop. There is no one else here. No one else is going to come in for the rest of the night. Outside, life is going on as if we don’t exist. Inside, it is just the two of us. It’s just after nine o’clock on a Friday night.
We move about in silence for a while, the only sounds are Luke’s occasional instructions or his soft singing to the music that’s playing. It feels like my own private concert now and it’s so much better than listening to his CD. I savour it. I try not to mess anything up but I notice my hands won’t stop shaking. I think Luke sees it too. When he reaches for something, brushing past me as his hand lightly rests on my waist, I nearly drop the bowl I’m holding as a jolt of electricity shoots through me. I go to the cold room and get us a couple more beers just so I can breathe again. Inside I press my forehead against the back of the door like I’ve done so many times before, trying to cool myself down.
I need to cool down.
When I come back out, Luke has his back to me and I can see he is up to something. I put the beers on the bench and when he eventually turns around, he says entirely seriously, "So what do you think, a good look for tomorrow night?"
I look up at him and can see he has painted his face with flour, only he’s drawn on a nose and whiskers like the cat make-up the guy in Kiss used to wear.
I can’t help it, I burst out laughing. I don’t know if he’s done this to break the tension that I know we are both feeling. But when he looks at me with utmost sincerity as though he really wants my opinion on it, all I can think, is how hilarious he looks with a cat face on….in flour. He’s smiling at me now as he asks, "So maybe not then?"
I can’t stop laughing, it’s just so funny and so cute what he’s done. Tears are streaming down my cheeks now, but they are tears of laughter and although I can barely stand up straight, I feel so incredibly alive at this moment. I haven’t laughed like this in forever.
When I finally get myself under control, I look up and Luke is still standing there, looking at me now with a strange look on his adorable little cat face. Another giggle escapes me as I ask him, "What?"
"It’s really good to see you laugh like that," he says quietly.
I look at him, still smiling. "It feels good to do it again," I say honestly.
And there it is back again.
Electricity.
Tension.
Something.
I’m standing here, looking right at him.
He’s standing there, looking right at me.
We are both looking at only each other and suddenly, I notice just how close we’re standing.
He reaches out to brush the tears from my face, an action I have become so familiar with from him. Only this time the situation is different. This time he is not comforting me, I am actually happy. This time his touch sends tiny shivers all throughout my body. This time I smile and lean into his fingers. This time he takes a step closer, looking at me in a way I haven’t seen him do before. This time I reach my hand up to him, curl it around his neck, against the softness of his hair and pull him towards me, my other arm encircling his waist. This time I know exactly what’s going to happen when Luke’s hand slides into my hair and he takes another step, finally closing that distance between us.