Yet even though we haven't had sex, we've spent almost every night together at his place or mine, even if it's just to fall asleep curled up in each others arms at the end of a long evening.
The more time I spend with him, the more essential he's becoming to me. I wouldn't have it any other way.
+++
“HEY, BABE.” WALT grins when he opens his apartment door to me, reaching out to kiss me frantically like it's been weeks since we last saw each other instead of days. He grabs the front of my dress and tugs me into his apartment, his lips still firmly attached to mine. I kick the door shut behind me. When he pulls back, he looks down at me and cringes. “Oops, my bad.”
I glance down, unsurprised to find black charcoal fingerprints all over my purple dress. Luckily I'm more than used to this by now, because when Walt is at home his hands are covered in charcoal at least seventy percent of the time. It's his favorite art tool. “It's okay,” I tell him, reaching up to wrap my arms around his neck. “Did you have a nice Christmas?”
“Was okay. I fuckin' missed you though.”
“You saw me Christmas Eve.”
“That was three whole days ago.”
I roll my eyes at him, but the truth is – I missed him just as much as he missed me. Three days felt more like three months.
“So I got you something for Christmas,” he says, letting me go and suddenly looking about ten different shades of awkward.
“You did?”
“Well. . .I made it. Sort of. I guess. Fucking hell.” Moving over to his kitchen table, he picks up a frame he'd left there. It's unwrapped, because he's still Walt, and it's pretty big – maybe about the length and width of one of my arms. He holds it out to me, his cheeks growing pink. It's probably strange how much I love when he gets all shy and embarrassed like this, but it's so unbelievably frigging cute.
I take the frame he offers out to me, blinking rapidly as I look down at the beautiful painting of myself on stage, all dressed up as Lydia Bennet. It's. . .gorgeous. Breathtakingly gorgeous, and so fantastically detailed. He's caught me mid pose, with one gloved hand on my hip and the other holding onto a splayed fan. A little smile tilts up one side of my mouth as I peek at the audience out of the corner of my eye.
“It's from your first performance,” he explains when I don't say anything.
“I. . .I didn't even know you were there.”
He nods. “I was. I painted this from memory – this is the image I have of you in my head every time I think of you up there on stage. You probably think it's lame, right? I can get you a better Christmas gift, I-”
“Don't you dare,” I break in, finally looking up and giving him a watery smile. No one has ever done something so wonderful for me before. “I love it. You made me look so beautiful.”
Walt sags in pure relief, moving to stand behind me. His hands take a hold of my hips and his chin rests on my shoulder. “You are beautiful.”
Gently placing the painting back down on the table, I spin in his arms and kiss the corner of his lips. “I got you something too.”
“Oh yeah?”
Reaching into my purse, I pull out a little wrapped box and hand it to him. “Here.”
“You didn't have to get me anything,” he says with a smirk, because I literally nagged him for a fortnight straight to tell me what he wanted for Christmas, and each time he said he didn't want anything because he's such a frigging GUY!
I bite my lip as he pulls the paper off, suddenly very nervous. Not about the gift, but about what the gift really means. He opens the little box, lifting an eyebrow at the shiny pair of cufflinks.
“Wow. . .” he says uncertainly, unsure of how to respond. We both know that he is not the kind of guy who wears cufflinks on a regular basis, but it's super sweet that he doesn't want to say that. I can't believe I think Walt is sweet. “Thanks, Ibbs.”
“I thought you could wear them. . .” I take a deep breath. “. . .to your show at Nathan's art gallery.”
Dark eyes whip up to meet mine. “What show? What are you talking about? I never called Nathan.”
I nod, beginning to feel sick. Maybe this was a bad idea. “I know you didn't, and I know that you were never going to even though your art is so amazingly good – and that's not just my opinion, it's a total brain fact. It's beautiful and I love it and I know you probably think I'm the worst kind of interfering bitch on the face of the planet but I just care about you so much and I didn't want your awesome talents to go to waste.” I take a deep breath, trying to calm my rambles. “So I spoke to Nathan for you when I went back to Fortune over Christmas. I showed him your work and he was so impressed. He had a spot in a show in January he needed to fill, so. . .”
His face is stony and expressionless. I'm beginning to regret this whole thing – I never should have gotten involved. I'm such a busy body! “You showed him my work? When? How?”
“I took pictures of it,” I reply in a small voice. “Oh God, I'm sorry. This was a mistake – I never should've gone behind your back. Tell me to go duck myself if you want, but please don't hate me. You don't have to do the show if you don't want to, I can just call Nathan and-” I squeak in surprise when he drops the cufflinks to the floor and grabs a hold of the front of my dress in his fists, yanking me to him and crushing his lips to mine with such ferocity that my knees go numb and I almost forget how to stand. Pulling back, he cups my cheeks in his charcoal covered fingers, his eyes shining with gratitude and excitement. I sigh in relief.
“You're incredible,” he utters. “I can't even. . . Thank you, Ibbie.”
“You're not mad?”
“You kidding? This is the best gift anyone's ever given me.” He swallows, pressing his cheek to mine. “You really care about me, don't you?”
The vulnerability in his voice makes my heart melt. “Of course I do.”
He wraps me up in his arms and sways us gently side to side.
Suddenly nervous again, I step back out of his hold and throw my purse on his sofa. “That's not your only gift,” I tell him. As he watches, I pull off my blazer and drop it over my purse.
His head tilts to one side as he regards me, his face inscrutable once more. “It's not?”
“You realize it's been a month since we started dating?” Carefully, I step out of my heels and nudge them to one side.
“It has,” he replies evenly, giving nothing away.
Keeping eye contact, I reach around my back and pull down my zipper, letting my dress fall to the ground around my feet.
His eyes hold mine for a moment longer, his feelings still completely hidden. When his gaze finally travels down my body, he sucks his bottom lip into his mouth. “Oh,” he says. “So you want me to draw you?”
My mouth drops open, because that is obviously not what I'm here for. “What?” I splutter. When a girl drops her clothes in front of a guy after a month of no sex dating, drawing should not be the first thing that comes to mind.
Turning away from me, he picks the charcoal he must have been using before I'd arrived off the table and holds it up for me to see. “You want me to draw you, right? What position do you wanna pose in?”
I fold my arms across my lacy bra sullenly, glaring at him so that he knows I Am Not Amused. “It's been a month, Walt.” If he's forgotten that, then maybe he doesn't want me as much as I thought he did.
He nods obliviously, then grabs up his pad. It's the same pad he hid from me the first ever time I came to his apartment. I learned later that it was because the pages were filled with pictures of me. “So you wanna lay down, or maybe stand by the window, or-”
“Ugh!” I grab my dress up on the floor. “You are such a stupid idiot! How about we just forget the whole thing and I'll go home. Or better yet, you could just get off my planet-”
Suddenly he's in front of me, snatching the dress out of my hands and throwing it and the charcoal carelessly behind him. There's an annoying smirk on his face and a twinkle in his eye. “I'm kidding, dumb ass.” He slides his hands around my waist, his fingers leaving black smears on my skin.