This quick little one-shot was inspired by an audio done by the amazing Endless_Roads, and is a bit of a gift to him because, to be honest, it's helped to pull me out of my writing funk. So, many thanks for that. *all the heart eyes*
Also, a little self-indulgence...
For the rest of my followers, 'Meara and Oakley' is done. For now, at least. I realize that it ends at a weird and...unfulfilled place, but it's just not in me anymore. I may pick it up somewhere down the line. But, for now, it's gonna stand as a completed work.
Thanks in advance for all the love and comments and messages and support. They DO give me life.
~E~
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"I forgot something," he says absently, closing the cupboard door before turning and looking around the kitchen.
He's not normally the type to forget things - he does the grocery runs because she *is* the type, and has openly admitted to being 'scatterbrained' on several occasions, especially when things don't come together as they've initially planned. However, this time, he's certain he's forgotten something, though, for the life of him, he can't put his finger on what that thing might be.
"What are you mumblin' about?"
She comes swaying into the kitchen then and, for a moment, his gaze is drawn to the shape of her hips in her form-fitting khaki shorts. Her smooth and chestnut-hued legs. Her bare feet, the toenails painted a bright, metallic blue.
He licks his lips and reaches out to graze a hand down the line of her back as she passes him, heading to the fridge.
"Nothing," he replies. Watches her shift things about on the refrigerator shelves, taking note of all the recently purchased goodies, no doubt. "I think I forgot something, but I can't figure out what it is."
Her dark eyes flash up to him, glinting faintly in the mid-day sunlight spilling through the wide kitchen windows. Her glasses, black and chunky and adorably far too big for her face, sit precariously on the tip of her nose. "You... forgot something? You gettin' sick?"
The sound his hand makes when it connects with her ass is loud and gratifying, and he smiles when she rubs her cheek through her shorts, a playful pout on her full lips.
"Smart ass. Even I can't be perfect all the time, you know."
She gives him her usual smile, lips parted and the tip of her tongue pressed to a sharp eye tooth, and that flash of pink tugs at the back of his brain. Tickles. Prods at it.
He's forgotten something. Something important. He can't figure out just then what it could be.
They move through the rest of their day. Retreat to separate corners of the house to work on their own respective projects. There's music and intermittent text messages to share memes or to playfully argue over whose turn it is to make dinner, though they both know who will end up cooking.
Later in the evening, when the house is filled with quickly fading rose-gold light, they meet up in the kitchen. She takes over. Yes, she's often flighty and forgetful but, in the kitchen, she's laser-focused, and he spends most of his time watching her from the corner of his eye, wanting to push her glasses back up to their proper place on the bridge of her nose whenever they slip down.
"Taste," she orders, holding a wooden spoon out to him, the thin fingers of her other hand cupped under it as she moves toward him.
He blows on the still steaming red sauce before closing his lips around the spoon, humming low and nodding his approval. It has always amazed him how she can make the same dish a hundred times over, and the same dish never tastes the same as the times before.
"'S good," he replies. "Real good." Licks his lips again, heat flaring faintly at the center of his chest when she smiles her smile at him, big and bright, tongue pressed to that sharp eye tooth.
Dinner is easy and enjoyable. Her feet in his lap beneath the table remind him again of that something he's forgotten, however what that particular thing is still stays at the edges of his awareness, hovering and annoyingly persistent. There's a word sitting on the tip of his tongue. He mentally reaches for it and nearly has it. But, just as quickly, it's gone, drifting away like smoke on the night air. He tells himself it'll come to him, that it must not have been such a big deal if it had slipped his mind so easily.
However, later, when they're curled up on the couch, his hand down the front of her shorts, fingers slipping over her slick heat and her soft moans in his ear, he remembers. Pulls back sharply and stares down at her.
