Black Velvet (55) (Patreon)

Suddenly, the thorns that surround Tobias don't seem so tightly wound. He smiles at me more, still not very often, but enough.  He occasionally laughs at a poorly timed joke, and sometimes when Nic teases me.

He stays until Nic leaves.  Then, he stays longer.

Tobias flicks my forehead when I leave for work a few days after the incident at The Sweet Spot, and with the sudden autumn chill, demands to know where my coat is. When I tell him I've forgotten it, he rolls his eyes, peels his hoody off from under his winter coat, and hands it to me,

"Take better care of yourself." He chides, and I'll never tell him that when I get home, I fall asleep in it, mapping out the lunar events for the next month at my bedroom desk.

He stays longer than a week.

—

And my crush becomes much more than that.

When the first bit of snow fell, Tobias showed up on my front porch, took my keys from me, and started my car fifteen minutes before my shift started.  He pushed me aside so he could scrape the snow from the top of my tiny vehicle.

I flushed, and it hadn't been the cold, smiled too embarrassingly small for him not to know that I thought he was the grandest thing ever to exist.

"Take mine," Tobias said, turned his face away from me, and I could see a flush that had traveled his cheeks as well. He shoved his ice-scraper into my hands, "I'll get another."

"You don't have to — "

"I'm leaving soon, and if you kill someone because you can't see through your windows, I'll make sure no one visits you in jail."

The dark-haired man stalked off to his car, shook his head a bit as he climbed inside the driver's side.

—

Ms. Amadeus is with Ms. Humbert, a woman who smells like cigarettes coated with the aftermath of spearmint gum. I can smell it on her jacket when she bumps by me on the sidewalk, but she's nice enough and smiles over her shoulder when she nods in recognition.

I nod politely back, flit my gloved fingers over the mail as I turn to watch them curiously.

Ms. Amadeus looks healthier lately, even more so with the layers she's draped over herself, huddled under her shawl.  Ms. Humbert is nodding along to something she's saying, wild curls bouncing with her steps.

Tobias doesn't hover around his mom like he used to.

I think it helps him.  I think — maybe.  Sometimes it's best to take a step back.

"Is there such a thing as a space addict?" My mail is being plucked from my hands before I can respond, startled.  I almost don't even react to Tobias' voice at all. It takes me a moment before I'm batting his away and grabbing my new November issues from his grip, "Can't you just read all of this online?"

I look up, watch his brows gather in amusement, dark eyes twinkling with the reflection of sun hitting the snow,

"Do you just appear, or what, like," I wrinkle my nose, shouldering his chest when he moves to grab my new issue of Cosmos, "you should invest in smoke bombs or something, really go all out for your dramatic entrance."

"Dramatic entrance," he scoffs, "You think checking the mail at the same time is a dramatic entrance?"

Tobias slinks one hand into the pocket of his unzipped hoodie.  His sweatpants and dark and gathered at the ankles, unlike my pajama pants that are damp and dragging through slush.

"See here?"  He jingles the keys in front of my face with his free hand, like proof, and a wry smile forms on my face,

"Oh, just so happened to be checking the mail at the same time as me?" I flap my magazine at him, grin growing when his smirk falters, "A-huh!  You wanted to see me, admit it,"

Tobias rolls his eyes heavenwards as my magazine flapping continues, his tanned cheeks gathering the slightest hint of a blush.

"And anyway,"  I tack on, for his sake, "everything is dramatic with you. You look like the leading man in a thriller film. You'll forever look dramatic no matter what; it's the curse of your genetics."

"What does that even mean?

"That you obviously need to watch more movies," I frown, eyes scanning the cover of the top Stardust issue. I jut my finger behind me, to where Ms. Humbert and Tobias' mom have wandered across the field, "Where are they going?  Ugly day for a stroll."

Tobias shrugs one shoulder upwards, eyes sliding to their distant figures,

"Don't care," He says but averts his gaze from mine, like he's still not too comfortable talking outside of teasing, "Richard is on a night job in Rhodan until tomorrow afternoon," he tenses, starting to back a bit from my space. "Probably just hanging out."

His discomfort is hardly noticeable, but I notice it immediately.

"I was going to tell you,"  I change the subject for him, "the honey moon is out tomorrow night.  It's been fifteen years since the last one."

I wrinkle my nose as he chuckles a bit to himself, thrown at the subject change, taps the top of my mail,

"What's so funny?"

"Why aren't you sleeping?" The dark-haired man looks cross with that. "Don't tell me. You're going to stay up to see this moon."

"Why aren't you sleeping." I avoid his accusation because it's true and bury the bottom half of my face into my scarf, "Many young adults appreciate naps.  This is probably the reason for your perpetual grumpiness."

"I'm checking the mail," Tobias' eyes lid, head tilting a bit as he strolls around me with his mail, like some sort of envelope-carrying predator, "go to bed, if I see you out watching that moon, I'm going to come out here and white-wash you."

"How is being covered in snow any more essential to my health," I feel my face grow pink, not for the cold, but the tender edge to his tone, "I'm pretty sure being thrown in the snow is worse than missing a couple of hours of sleep."

Tobias snorts.

"You know," I perk up a bit, hold the papers to my chest, "instead of torturing me, you could just come to watch it too."

There's long enough of a pause for me to hear the snow crunching under him, to watch his eyes slide between his house and me.

"You sure that's okay?"  Tobias asks, a hesitant lift to his lip and a sudden seriousness. I can hear it in his words, the silent, are you sure you want to spend it with me. He starts to shake his head, "the moon thing — it sounds pretty rare."

"It is," I push, walk the few steps it takes to bring us toe to toe, "That's why," I nod along as I let out a soft exhale of air, "I want to see it with you."

Tobias nods back, starts to back away, but only in place of following my steps back to the house. My nose is cold, my hands are beginning to chill through the gloves, and it's hard to remember the slight heat of mid-October,

And it's not that I expect him to say yes.

"We're not going to be able to see anything out here with the street lamps or the trees," Tobias turns to regard me over his shoulder, "So... let's go to Edmund's lake."

My brows lift.  I can't help it, this feeling of surprise, and my shoulders tense up with excitement. Tobias averts his gaze a second time, but I can see the smile forming on his face as he walks away from me,

"Is ten okay?" I ask, try to raise my voice a bit louder to travel across the street. He barely moves his head, but I take it as confirmation anyway and bounce up the steps to my own home in my plethora of layers, shouldering into the screen door happily,

"Only if you get some sleep!" He barks.

--

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