Special Episode: Safe
This episode is part of a larger story, Soft Touch. If you haven’t yet, you can go back and read it from the beginning right here.
The bar is open to the waterfront. A languid, salty breeze flows in and out, lightly rustling the hair and clothes of the people who sit inside.
It’s not a fancy, expensive lounge, but it’s not a rowdy dive bar, either. The atmosphere is relaxed, the music of the rock n’ roll sway, but kept to a background volume. The lights inside are low and warm. People stand talking in clusters at the bar, and the high-top tables. Others stand out on the open-air patio, gathered around small, above-ground fire pits. Beyond the patio is the sugary white sand, and beyond that, the ocean.
The water is dark, but moonlight breaks through the clouds and picks up the white tips of the slow-breaking waves. The rushing sound of the tide makes its way up to the patio, reaching just inside the bar.
Calla has always liked this place.
She’s deep in thought, her wrist winding in a slow figure eight, the ice left in her glass clinking quietly as it slides around. There’s a glowing nexus of fluttery nervousness and electric anticipation in her chest. She’s trying to think her way through it, and to not let it show. She sets down her drink, takes out the cherry stem, and sucks hard on it, staring unseeing at the bright wall of bottles behind the bar.
She blinks in surprise as one of the bartenders comes over and sets a new glass down in front of her. She didn’t order another one, and - this isn’t what she was drinking. The new drink is a splash of crystalline amber liquid, cut only with a frosty hunk of ice.
Calla looks up at the bartender. “What’s this, Nick?”
“Someone sent it to you.” He takes away her empty glass, slides her the new one. “Maker’s Mark. On the rocks.”
Calla stares down at the drink, then twists around on the stool, her eyes searching the bar.
It takes her a second to find him, because he’s half in the shadows. He’s alone, seated on a low leather couch in the corner. Not with that arrogant, kicked-back body language he stuck to when he was impersonating Brent. He has his elbows resting on his knees, his hands loosely clasped between them. He’s here as himself, tonight.
He meets her eyes with his dusky green gaze, gives her a small, tentative smile.
Calla looks at him for a moment, then breaks into a little smile of her own. She takes the glass in her hand and slips down from the stool, sweeps across the bar. She stops before Ralph, who straightens up to look at her, nervously sliding a finger around the inside of his wristbands.
Calla is here as herself tonight, too. In her own clothes, in her natural element. The stud piercing she wore in her nose for the heist has been replaced with a ring. She’s in sleek, dark jeans. A loose, sleeveless white top, with the armholes cut so low that a strip of her skin, her bra, and the tattoo spreading down her ribs peeks through on her sides. No makeup, this time, and a few more piercings in her ears.
She raises an eyebrow, then holds up the drink that Ralph sent her.
“You’re one of the few who can sneak up on me,” she tells him.
“Hey,” Ralph says, keeping his volume soft.
Calla lets out a little laugh, shakes her head, and drops to sit down next to him. “Hi.”
They look at each other for a silent moment. Ralph has shifted to make room for Calla, moved closer to the light. But the shadows seem to wrap around him, deep blue softness lingering on the steel-hard lines of his face. A strand of his blonde hair has fallen down over one of his eyebrows. He must have been nervously messing with it, although he’s stopped now.
He’s wearing dark jeans, a threadbare shirt, his leather bands around his wrist. The same steel-toed boots he was wearing when he showed up at the hotel.
Simple look, and yet. Something about Ralph absolutely screams trouble. There goes the neighborhood.
He always has this intense, defiant ferocity in his eyes. Maybe that’s why. Or it could be something about the way he holds himself. Calla isn’t sure exactly what it is, but Ralph is someone who’s chosen to play by his own rules, and that choice is visible. Just looking at him, it’s clear that if anyone wanted to drag him into the institution, they’d have to get him into cuffs, first. And they’d have a hell of a time trying, because he’s ready for combat.
He’s already seen a fight or two. Calla can tell. His face is all sharp lines, but there’s a very small bump in the bridge of his nose where it’s definitely been broken before, a rugged little detail about him that Calla first noticed in the dim light of the hotel bar. And he must have had battle after battle, building himself an underground empire from nothing.
Ralph is a warrior and an outlaw, and it shows.
Not with Calla, though. He looks at her, and he’s shy. That’s how he’s looking at her right now, with eyes the color of smoky sea glass in the low glow of the bar.
Calla feels an uptick in her pulse. Another slow, melting wave of heat in her heart. She runs a fingertip around the rim of her glass, then takes a sip.
“I thought you might not show,” she tells Ralph. “It’s a long drive to Port Sitka from your place-”
“Not too bad, actually.”
“-and I wasn’t sure you’d get my message. Guess you did?”
Ralph breaks into a small smile, bites the inside of his cheek. “Mhm, I did.”
Calla left it on a burst of impulse two days ago. The morning after the heist. The morning she and Ralph woke up in each other’s arms.
Right before they left Ralph’s house to regroup with Aiden and Jamie at theirs, Calla found a piece of paper in Ralph’s bedroom. She scribbled out the name of the bar, the time, and the date, two days out. Then she slipped it into the interior pocket of his jacket.
If he finds it, he finds it. Let the universe decide.
But then Calla decided that she really wanted Ralph to find it. She looked around his bedroom, spotted his camera on the night table. She snapped a photo of his jacket laying there on the dresser, then put the camera back.
It wasn’t until they’d left Ralph’s place that Calla realized she’d accidentally kind of left him a puzzle to solve. But he must have found the picture on his camera, realized that he didn’t take it, searched his jacket… got the message.
“Thanks for leaving me a clue,” he says, lips still quirked up in that small smile. “I never use that pocket. Definitely wouldn’t have found it.”
Calla nibbles her lip, thinking to herself that she’s glad he did.
“So,” Ralph says, toying with his wristbands. “Why’d you ask me to meet you here?”
He was looking down, but he steals a swift glance at her face as he asks the question.
Calla sets her glass down and pulls a folded piece of paper out of her pocket. There’s no reason to hide it, but Calla automatically slips it to him low, through the shadows, and his hand was already waiting for it there.
He covertly glances around, then unfolds the piece of paper, drops his gaze to it. “What’s this?”
“The names of the cops involved in that drug scheme in Ketterbridge.” Calla takes another sip of her drink. “The file we put in the State AG’s safe is about those cops selling interdicted drugs from evidence warehouses. I wanted to let you know, in case the AG busts them. If you do business with any of these guys, you should break it off as soon as you can.”
Ralph stares down at the page, then looks up at Calla, startled.
“Jesus Christ,” he murmurs, sinking back against the couch. “Thanks for the heads up.”
Calla waves him off. “See any familiar names?”
Ralph runs his eyes over the paper again, then folds it up, tucks it away into his pocket.
“A few, but no suppliers of mine, thank fucking god.” He lets out a heavy, relieved breath. “I don’t do business with cops, but sometimes you don’t know them when you see them. Feels good to know I haven’t made any mistakes on that. There are a few people outside of my business that I definitely need to warn, though.”
Calla arches an eyebrow. “Are you - talking about giving your competitors a heads up?”
“As opposed to sitting back and letting them get busted? For doing the same thing I’m doing?”
Calla can’t help but be caught by surprise. “Would they look out for you like that, if they were the ones with the list?”
“Doesn’t matter. Don’t want it on my conscience.”
“Is that good for business? You let them go down, your sales go up, right?”
“Yeah, but - it’s my business.” Ralph shrugs his shoulders, has a sip from his drink. “I can make decisions that are bad for it, if I want to.”
Calla stares at Ralph, her heart fluttering, then realizes she’s twisting her fingers around her glass of Maker’s Mark. She stops and takes a hasty sip, her cheeks burning.
“Thank you,” Ralph says quietly, meeting her eyes again. “Seriously.”
“You’re welcome.”
Ralph hesitates for a second, fidgeting with his wristbands. Then he asks, all in a rush - “Is that the only reason you wanted to see me?”
Calla bites her lip, takes a deep breath, and looks into his eyes.
“Um…” She lets out a quiet laugh, then shakes her head. “No. That would be the excuse.”
Ralph holds perfectly still for a startled second, then slowly breaks into a bright, eager smile. It rounds out his cheeks, shines out through his sage green eyes. A sunbeam falls through Calla’s heart at the sight of it.
She nods in the direction of the beach. “Want to go for a walk?”
It’s late, and the night outside is dark. But Ralph instantly gets to his feet and goes to pay the tab. He glances back at Calla as he waits for the bartender, like he’s afraid she might disappear.
She waits by the patio. Ralph joins her, and they step together out onto the sand. They cross to the raised wooden boardwalk that runs along the beach, hop the locked gate to the stairs, and climb up. They set off together, walking at a slow, easy pace.
They have the place to themselves. The boardwalk is empty, painted with only slender slivers of moonlight. Tonight, the darkness is enough to have sent everyone retreating home.
Almost everyone, Calla thinks, glancing up at Ralph.
He looks down at her, meets her eyes.
Their gazes lock together like two pieces of flint striking. Calla sees the spark catch in Ralph’s eyes right as she senses that it’s caught in hers. Only it’s not just a spark, it’s more than that. It’s more charged up with heat, with fire. It glows deep in Ralph’s eyes, less like the lighted end of a sparkler, more like a swirl of molten steel shavings.
He looks at her like he’s entranced, suddenly a little breathless.
And finally, Calla understands.
She’s been trying to figure it out, this whole time. What it is about Ralph.
There are simple reasons why she’s felt herself drawn to him, ones that need no explanation. The fact that he joined the ranks for the heist, for example. Knowing exactly what he was putting on the line. He had the bravery to risk everything, to bet with his freedom itself - for her.
No further questions.
But Calla hasn’t been wondering why it is that she’s interested in Ralph. She’s got a lot of perfectly straightforward reasons for that. That’s not what’s confusing.
What Calla has been trying to figure out is why Ralph makes her feel like this. Way, way beyond interested. She’s been doing a better job of hiding it than he has, but god.
The nervous, burning heat in her cheeks. Her heartbeat fluttering in her throat, her hands unable to hold still. A middle-school crush level of butterflies. A middle-school crush level of thinking about him, since the night she slept over at his house.
Calla feels drawn towards him, magnetized. She can feel the current all the time. It snaps and sparkles with invisible electricity when they get close to each other.
Why? she’d thought, bewildered, as she looked intensely and searchingly at him in the hotel bar. What the hell is he doing to me? It hasn’t been like this, before. Why can’t I stop looking at him like that? He’s gonna notice.
And now, as they walk together down the boardwalk, Calla has figured it out. It’s the way that he looks at her.
When Calla was younger, her grandma liked to put on old romantic movies from the ’50s and ’60s. Calla would cozy up on the couch to watch them with her. She grew to like them.
She vividly remembers one stormy summer afternoon when she was hanging out with a friend, trapped indoors by the rain. He let Calla talk him into putting on one of the old movies. She picked one that she hadn’t watched before.
She and her friend were play-wrestling, laughing, only half-watching. And then a scene came on that stopped Calla in her tracks.
The starlet in the movie was turned away from her dashing male lead, gazing off into the distance. Wearing a beautiful, silky, breath-stealing dress. Glowingly gorgeous.
Her handsome co-star stepped up behind her and lovingly kissed her neck. Then he began to speak, his lips brushing against her skin, telling her how stunning she was, how beautiful, how perfect… Looking at her like she was the world’s most priceless, irreplaceable treasure. As he spoke, he was gathering her back up against himself, and she was melting into his arms, undone by the sweet low purr of his voice.
Calla had watched that, and suddenly found herself all tangled up inside, her cheeks burning, her eyes very wide. She was hit with some powerful, brand-new feeling, and it was overwhelming. She could barely breathe.
At that moment, Calla - ever the tomboy, who hadn’t worn a dress or skirt since she was old enough to start picking out her own clothes, who no one could get interested in anything remotely girly - desperately wanted to be the starlet in the silky dress. She would have given anything to be her, to feel the way she must have felt having those worshipping words whispered into her ear.
Calla stared at the handsome man in the movie, picking at her shoelaces, her heart pounding. Then she tentatively glanced over at her friend, wondering if maybe he suddenly felt weird, too. She was seeing him with new eyes, with some new lens she didn’t have before. She half-thought he might turn and look at her the way the man in the movie looked at his starlet.
He glanced over at her, did a double-take when he saw the change in her expression. Then he popped her one on the shoulder, and said - “What’s wrong, dude?”
Any of Calla’s guy friends - so, any of her friends - probably would have said the same thing. They were all irritated about having a girl tag along with them everywhere at first, but eventually they started treating her and seeing her as one of the boys. And that was what she wanted, generally.
But at the same time.
I’m a girl, she wanted to say to him, in that moment. You haven’t forgotten that, right? I know that I cut my hair like this and wear these clothes all the time and I make friends with boys more easily, but that doesn’t make me not a girl. I can still be a pretty girl, just like this, exactly how I am. It would be fine if one of you guys actually looked at me like that, some time.
She didn’t say that to her friend, obviously. She made up some excuse about not feeling good, so he would leave. Then she sat in rapt silence and rewatched that one scene in the movie over and over again until her grandma got home.
After that, Calla went up to her bedroom and paced in circles, rewatching it in her mind, her heart racing and her face burning and her hands trembling.
Calla never said anything to anyone about that movie, or what that scene did to her. But she thought about it a lot. It stuck in her head, permanently.
She always felt the most comfortable as her tomboy self, but after she watched the movie, there would come random days when she badly wanted to be the bombshell in the flowing gown on the screen.
But Calla felt like people always wanted you to be one thing or another. She was afraid that if she ever actually put a dress on, people would look at her in it and go, see, we knew it. Knew you’d end up in one of these, one day. The other you was a rebellious phase. This is what you’ve really wanted, all along.
To be misunderstood like that didn’t seem worth the risk, so Calla never touched that side of herself. She stuck with what was most comfortable, unless a dress was necessary for a disguise.
But she never forgot that moment from the movie. Even now, whenever she drifts into sexy daydreams, there are always sweet, endless words of perfect praise being spilled by a smitten masculine voice. The mere thought makes her heart pound hard and fast, makes her feel all warm and melty and shivery.
Calla never actually pursued it in any of her relationships. Never asked for it, because having to ask completely defeated the purpose. And she could easily see any guy putting that request down to insecurity.
It isn’t that. Calla’s family brought her up to be a confident person, comfortable in her own skin, and she is. She knows that she’s a beautiful woman, in her own way. Regardless of what she’s fucking wearing. She doesn’t need stupid, empty, flirty compliments to know that, even though she started getting a lot of those, as she grew up.
What she wanted was for someone else to see it, too, really see it. To look at her, as herself, with as much breathless adoration as the star of that movie when he looked at his starlet.
And…
On more than one occasion, Ralph has looked at Calla like the world stopped turning when she stepped into the room.
The very first time they met. She was furious, and he was trying to pretend he didn’t care about what was going on, but then there was the soft fwshh of the lighter as Ralph sparked the flame into existence, and their eyes locked together above it.
It was like Ralph had instantly seen and recognized something within her, and it left him silent, stricken. No words at all, like he was put past words. Struck speechless.
It happened again at the hotel, when Calla met up with the boys at the bar. Ralph had been nothing but calm and focused all throughout the heist up until that point. Then he saw her, and it looked like his brain had said fuck this about every other thing going on around him, every other thought in his head. Everything and everyone but her.
She’d pretended not to notice, but she did notice. She definitely noticed. It sent a warm, delicious shiver through her, one that caught her totally by surprise.
Ralph couldn’t help it. In the middle of the heist, with so much at stake, he sat there helplessly, like all of his strings had been cut at once, and stared at Calla with huge, breathtaken eyes. It was hard for her not to believe that his reaction was genuine, sincere.
Ralph keeps showing her how sincere his feelings are, actually. That little touch of his fingertip to the folds of her dress. He thought he got away with that one. How nervous he got when she asked to sleep at his place. And when she cuddled up against him, the way he reacted.
Calla knows that was partly because it’s been a long time since Ralph has had any physical closeness at all. He told her that when she asked about the single pillow on his bed. Another instance of startling honesty.
But Calla thinks that Ralph wouldn’t have reacted quite like that, if it wasn’t her holding him.
Even better, it seems to make no difference what she’s in. Ralph froze up again when she came downstairs in a sports bra and a borrowed pair of his sweatpants. Froze up just as much when she was in her thieving outfit and he caught her breaking into his house. Just as much now, when she’s in her usual look, the one that feels most like home.
Whatever form she’s in, he looks at her the same way. The way he’s looking at her right now, like she’s something out of a dream. It sets something alight in Calla, a feeling in her veins like molten sugar, hot and sweet.
Calla feels like her last serious relationship left her with a combination lock on her heart. A broken, dysfunctional, stubborn goddamn lock on a safe that she can’t fucking get open. And no one else has been able to, either.
Ralph, without meaning to, reached out, touched a finger to it, and instinctively found the right digit. Calla can almost hear the beautiful music of the first tumbler falling.
That’s it, isn’t it? she thinks, looking up at him again. You see me for what I am. You see me.
She reads the answer to her unspoken question in Ralph’s eyes. Her heart stumbles over itself, bright and breathless at the feeling.
She was beyond anxious about tonight. But now she feels a renewed wave of resolve, another burst of determination.
“Hey,” she says quietly, stepping around a seashell on the boardwalk. “There’s something I want to talk to you about.”
Ralph looks down at her, curiosity and nervousness mingled in his eyes, the salty ocean breeze stirring his hair.
“Okay,” he says, stuffing his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “What’s up?”
Calla takes a second to press down the fear in her heart. She wants to take Jamie’s advice, but telling Ralph about this means trusting him. That’s not something Calla is good at, anymore.
But she’s already seen Ralph vulnerable and anguished, speaking truthfully about his own past. She can do it, too. For him.
“It’s just, um.” Calla hesitates, nibbling her lip. “It’s a lot. But there’s a reason I want to tell you, I promise.”
Ralph casts a searching, sidelong look at her, his grey-green eyes growing serious. He can see how reluctant she is to talk about it.
“Well, I’ve been trying to be a better listener,” he says slowly. “I could really use the practice, so - please?”
They’ve been walking with space between them, not touching, but now Calla almost wants to take his hand gratefully. The little nudge of encouragement from him was just what she needed.
“Okay,” she says, struggling nonetheless, not sure where to begin. “So, my family - they all really trust each other, and have a lot of faith in each other. Always do their best to keep their promises to each other. That’s the environment I grew up in, so I was a really trusting person, myself.”
Ralph looks down at her again.
“Was,” he repeats.
“Yeah. Was.” Calla takes a breath before she continues. “My last serious relationship kind of - undid that, about me.”
Ralph’s eyebrows knit, but he doesn’t say anything. Just waits for her to keep going.
“My ex and I,” she goes on, wincing over each vulnerable word, “We had moved in together. We had a life together. But it turned out that pretty much everything about it was a lie. He had been lying to me, the whole time, right up until the moment I finally caught him.”
Ralph blinks at Calla, then sharply turns his face away from her. He stares out at the slow-moving waves, the rush and flow of water against the starlit sand. But he’s still listening, she can tell.
“I really, really should have known sooner.” Calla closes her eyes for a second, humiliated all over again. “But I just - had faith in him. There were cracks in all of his stories, but I filled them all in for him with my trust. Always gave him the benefit of the doubt. After I caught him, though, I went back and added everything up. Realized how far it went.”
Calla lets out an unsteady little exhale, then glances over at Ralph, who goes on avoiding her eyes. His body language has stiffened up a whole lot, too. Oh, god. Is this going badly? Calla desperately wants to stop, but she makes herself keep going.
“If it was a drunken, one-night mistake, maybe I could’ve forgiven it. But it was a lot more than that. It was so calculated, it was - cold-blooded. He was a college professor, and he’d say things like - some girl in his class was struggling, and he was going to be nice and help her out, do extra tutoring sessions with her. Male-dominated field, he really wanted to support his female students, see them succeed.”
Ralph makes a soft, disgusted sound.
“Yeah, it was fucking infuriating, once I figured it out.” Calla lets out an anguished little breath. “I just couldn’t believe that he turned out to be such a liar, after how I’d trusted him.”
Ralph doesn’t answer. He stuffs his hands back into the pockets of his jacket, carefully keeping his face turned away from Calla.
“After I caught him,” she says, forcing herself to keep going, “I broke into his email, got myself a whole lot of proof of what he was up to, and sent all of it to the dean of his college. He got home and found me packing. He didn’t know I’d read his emails, that I had definitive proof - and he literally got down on his knees and cried, swore to me with all his heart that he hadn’t done anything.”
Calla lets out a laugh that she intended to sound scoffing and dismissive, but it doesn’t disguise the hurt in her voice at all.
“After I told him that I had proof, that was when he finally admitted it. So I told him to fuck off, and that I never wanted to see him again, and that I’d sent everything to the university. And you know what he said to me? He said - how could you do that to me? What happened to you? You used to be so sweet.”
Ralph’s eyes blink down to Calla very quickly, and she sees a burst of blazing fury in them. He tears his gaze away almost immediately, but his fist is tightening at his side, and Calla can sense that he’s seething beneath the surface.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” he murmurs beneath his breath, then runs a hand over his mouth.
“Yeah, it left me with some serious problems trusting people.” Calla nervously rubs her elbow. It makes her face burn, talking like this. “At first I thought that was a good thing. A way of protecting myself. Believe no one and nothing. But it’s totally fucked up every relationship I’ve had since.”
Calla could say more, tell him how it’s totally fucked up her sex life, too. She’s discovered that surrender and abandon, the twin keys to deep, serious pleasure, are impossible with trust so brittle. She hasn’t been able to give herself up completely to someone like she used to. She’s always left tense and frustrated after, worked up but not at all satisfied.
She decides to keep that part to herself, for now.
“Anyways,” she struggles on, “The reason I’m telling you all this is, I… I don’t want someone who pretends to be perfect. I want someone who can always be honest with me.”
Calla glances down at Ralph’s hand, which is loose at his side. She nibbles her lip, hesitating, then slowly slips her fingers into his, weaves them together.
Ralph looks down at their intertwined hands, then up at her face, blinking hard.
“I really want to trust someone again, Ralph,” she says softly and earnestly, looking up into his eyes.
Ralph stares down at her, something stormy and complicated in his sea-glass eyes. Some internal turmoil happening in him, a silent battle with himself.
He comes to a sudden stop, drawing Calla to a stop, too. They look at each other on the moonlit boardwalk, and then Ralph drops his gaze to the sandy wooden slats.
“Calla, I...” His words sound strangled, like he’s having to tear each one out. “I feel like I need to tell you…”
He fades off, pushing an anxious hand through his blonde hair. Calla stares up at him, caught by surprise, not sure what’s going on.
“I-” Ralph begins haltingly, wincing as he speaks. “You know that I’ve been working on myself, but the guy I used to be… I need to tell you what I was like, before you make any decisions on who you want to put your trust in. You - you should know, first.”
Ralph’s voice has grown increasingly choked and rough. Calla once again finds herself dazed at just how much emotion this man is willing to lay bare in his eyes, his voice.
“Because,” he says, with no small amount of effort, “Honesty - was something that I-”
Calla, swept up on a sudden impulse, lets go of Ralph’s fingers and takes a handful of his shirt instead. Ralph breaks off, startled, and finally lifts his eyes to her face again. He hasn’t been able to look at her, not while talking the way he was.
“You realize that telling me whatever you’re about to tell me might send me running, right?” Calla asks. “After what I just told you?”
Ralph takes in an unsteady breath, then bites down hard on his lip.
“Yes,” he says, struggling. “And I really hope that doesn’t happen, but - I feel like I have to, anyways.”
And suddenly Calla can see why Ralph is having to force each word out. Why the tension in his body, the vulnerability in his eyes. Why he’s looking at Calla like she has his heart in her hands, and he’s silently begging her not to crush it.
He’s clearly afraid of the repercussions of telling her the truth about this. Afraid she’ll change her mind about him. But here he is, doing it anyways.
“Wow.” Calla breathes out a soft laugh. “And you say you’re not honest.”
Ralph blinks, then shakes his head. “Not back then, I wasn’t. Fact is, I was-”
Calla hastily presses the pad of her index finger over Ralph’s lips. He stops, freezing up beneath her touch.
“Don’t-” she begins, then stops, thinking. “Just - give me a hint.”
Ralph stares at her, taken aback. “A hint?”
“About the kind of guy you used to be.” Calla draws her finger away. “If you had to sum it up in one word.”
“That’s - hard.”
“Try?”
Ralph thinks about it for a moment.
“Selfish,” he answers.
Then he stops, brows knotted, his gaze suddenly unseeing. It looks like something just dawned on him.
“Selfish,” he murmurs again, more to himself than to her. “That’s - yeah, that’s basically what it was. What I was.”
Calla absorbs that.
“Was?” she asks, and he pauses, his own question from earlier handed back to him.
“Yeah,” he says slowly, looking at her with hopeful, tentative eyes. “Was.”
Calla hesitates, thinking hard, then takes Ralph’s fingers back into hers.
“That’s all I need for now,” she says quietly. “You can tell me later, if you promise that’s not you anymore. I want to know who you are, before you tell me about who you were.”
Ralph stares down at her in blank disbelief, then lets out a soft, dazed laugh of relief.
“And you say you’re bad at trusting people,” he murmurs, squeezing Calla’s fingers gratefully.
“I’m trying,” she tells him, and she means it.
Silence falls over them for a moment, aside from the soft rush of the waves.
Calla closes her eyes, just for a quick second. Trust yourself. Trust him.
She opens her eyes, gazes up at Ralph, and lets the true depth of her feelings for him show.
He stops still, staring at her in the moonlight. His fingers go motionless in hers, but hold on tightly. His eyes slowly fill up with that enraptured, smitten look again, until his pupils are blown all the way out.
Something in Calla is unraveling, more and more the longer Ralph goes on looking at her like that. Her pulse is a wild, thrumming drumbeat. Some melting, white-hot fever is spilling through her body, sending a rush of color to her cheeks.
Ralph abruptly seems to realize how he’s looking at her. He hastily drops his head to break his gaze away, his own cheeks picking up a faint blush. That stubborn strand of blonde tumbles down over his eyes again as he nervously runs a hand over the back of his neck.
Without thinking about it, drawn forward by some powerful, unseen force, Calla moves closer to Ralph.
He lifts his head, then takes in a sharp breath when he realizes how close her face is to his. The tip of his nose brushes against hers, and his breathing suddenly picks up.
He moves like Calla did. Instinctively, pulled by the same magnetic current. He takes a step towards her, one that backs her up against the cool wooden railing of the boardwalk. His hands lift as if to take her by the waist, but he seems to catch hold of himself. He stops, his fingers hovering at her sides.
He draws back and looks down at her, that molten fire in his eyes again. She reads the question burning in them.
Can I?
Calla answers by stepping forward into Ralph’s hands, spreading hers on his chest, and tipping her face up to his. Ralph’s breath catches again, his warm grasp tightening around her waist. He drops his head and puts his nose to hers.
Their mouths are so close that she can feel the sweet warmth of his breath against her lips. The anticipatory tension building between them is so electric that she half-expects to see it crackle through the air.
She doesn’t know what Ralph is waiting for. It’s almost like he’s so stunned that this is happening, he doesn’t know what to do.
That’s okay, because Calla needs a second, too.
Just trust him, she tells herself desperately. Trust him, relax, let yourself actually enjoy it, just trust him -
“God,” Ralph murmurs, his breathless words spilling out onto Calla’s lips. He raises one hand to her face, his fingers gently bent, and brushes the backs of his fingertips along her jaw. “You are so fucking gorgeous.”
Something melts in Calla, melts into pure warmth that floods her entire body.
She has just enough time to hear the next tumbler on the safe fall before Ralph kisses her.
And before she knows what she’s doing, she’s sinking into his arms, winding her arms around his neck, burying her fingers in his soft blonde hair. Locked in a slow, deep kiss, lost in it completely. Up on her tip-toes to reach him, to get more, more - his hands tighten their grasp on her again, and she gasps into his mouth at the surge of fiery pleasure it sends through her. She didn’t mean to do that, but she feels Ralph’s already racing pulse spike when it happens -
He suddenly breaks away, breathing hard, and runs a trembling hand over his lips. Calla lets him go and falls back onto her feet, caught by surprise.
A burst of nerves flutters through her chest. “Ralph?”
“I just - I don’t get - can’t believe - how is this happening? Me?” He stares at her, his eyes huge with disbelief. “You - you really want…?”
Ralph falters into silence, the deep blush in his cheeks growing deeper. He takes a second to catch his breath.
Then he wraps a hand around the back of Calla’s neck, drops his head, and begins pressing kisses up the side of her throat. Fiercely and urgently, like she might disappear from his arms at any moment. Goosebumps roll down her body in a sweeping wave.
“I’m sorry,” Ralph whispers against her throat, his fingertips sinking into her buzzed hair. “You’re just so beautiful. You’re so beautiful.”
Calla closes her eyes, brows drawn up and together, her toes curling in her boots. She finds herself holding onto Ralph very tightly.
I’ve been waiting for you, she tells him silently. Oh, my god. Do you have any idea how long I’ve been waiting for you?
Calla never wants this to end, but she’s going to fall apart if she doesn’t stop him, so she gently pushes him back. Then she takes him by the back of his neck, presses her forehead against his.
He takes another deep breath, pulling himself back together. Calla does the same. She draws back to look up at Ralph, and he looks down at her like, holy shit.
She returns the wide-eyed look, and they both burst into stupid, quiet laughter, staring into each other’s eyes.
Something is glowing between them. Calla can feel it. She can tell that Ralph does, too. They spend a few seconds in silence, savoring it.
“One more bit of honesty?” Ralph suddenly asks.
Calla lets out a helpless laugh. “I think that’s all I can take, in one night. One more.”
Ralph straightens up and looks down at her, the shadows sliding over his hair, his shoulders.
“I’m trying to treat people better.” His tone has grown very serious. “But I’m no fuckin’ choir boy, either, and I’m not aiming to be. I’ve got my business, you know that. Being with me is gonna mean trouble, sometimes. You should know that, too.”
Calla feels a wide smile slowly spread across her face.
If there’s one thing she’s always loved, it’s trouble. It’s in her nature. Runs in the family.
“I can handle that.” She taps Ralph’s nose with her fingertip. “I’m sure you’ve realized by now that you have some trouble on your hands, too.”
Ralph breaks into a warm, adoring smile. “Uh-huh, I have.”
“Just be honest with me. That’s it.” Calla looks deeply into his eyes, then leans up and brushes a soft kiss onto his lips. “I’m trusting you, Ralph. Please don’t let me down.”
Ralph goes quiet, serious again. Then he takes her hands, his eyes blazing with determination.
“I won’t,” he says. Slowly, but without hesitation. “I promise. I won’t.”
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