The Closer (18+) ✓

| 8.3 | termination

❝I need your loving all night
I need your loving all day
Said only you can hear the words I mean to say
Give me all your love please.❞

Chapter Eight:
Termination
(cont'd)

"I'm still finding it hard to believe that you ordered only one main course."

"Shut up Tim," I laughed, hitting his chest with the back of my hand. He was walking me back to my building which was only a small distance away from the Italian place he'd taken me to for dinner. It had been nice to get away from the office but as much as I tried to not think about the events of the evening, it kept haunting me throughout dinner. Hans' apathetic gaze had been etched into my mind and I spent most of my time fake-laughing at Tim's jokes and picking at the food on my plate, something Tim was observant enough to notice.

We neared my building and I stopped at the foot of the steps leading to the entrance, turning sideways with the same fixed smile I had been giving him the whole time.

"Well, this is me."

We stood there, with I a little more on the nervous end at the way Tim was scrutinizing me. His eyes were glued to me, the way they had been the whole night but the way he looked down at me now was a little similar to the way a child would stare at a puzzle, trying to put the pieces together. Tim was a little too intuitive for my good which is why I couldn't stand there and let him decipher me for much longer.

"Dinner was wonderful, we'll do it again sometime," I said, gentle and slow so not to show him that I actually wanted to escape this. "Goodnight Tim."

I turned on my heel and took the first step up when a hand wrapped around my wrist, feather light but enough to stop me.

"Wait."

Hesitant, I bit down on my lip and faced Tim. We were the same height now, with my increased elevation on the first step giving me the advantage of finally matching him. Tim was close enough for me to make out the struggle in his open, leafy-green eyes. He was close enough for me to see that this wasn't easy for him, that whatever it was he was battling around me was crushing him. Yet, the safe distance between us prevented him from acting on it. It was always there, whether literally in the foot's worth of space I managed to maintain between us, or the emotional distance I created to keep him from my heart. I never dared to cross it but Tim's choices were his own. Till now, he followed my lead but the battle that raged inside him was breaking apart whatever resistance he'd put forth.

His fingers skirted over the pulse of my veins, pressing there lightly as if to check that I was real. Tim's green orbs flew up from their sight aimed on our touching hands to my own cocoa eyes. His breath audibly caught in his throat, making me raise a brow at him that caused him to turn a shade of pink.

"Tim?"

It was like encouraging a baby turtle to come out of its' shell. Tim was acting shy, to say the least. His cheeks continued to flare up as he spoke, his voice silvery.

"I've been wanting to ask you something."

I could see where this was heading. I wasn't ready for it. "Y-yeah?"

Tim nodded, staring meaningfully at me. "I know that you have a complicated private life..."

Complicated doesn't even begin to cover it.

"But I think there's something here." He squeezed my hand gently, almost as if I would break if he exerted too much pressure. "I know there's something here. And I know you feel it too. You're just scared to experience it and-"