Special Episode: Surrender (Part II)
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.
Calla can never quite stop marveling at the change in Ralph that occurs when he’s alone with her. And the change in herself, when she’s alone with him.
His serious, piercing, thinker’s eyes, always armored with steel and darkened with thought - they grow softer, brighter, more open. Even the color of them shifts, lifting to a less stormy shade of sage green. His expression, usually kept carefully neutral, comes alive with warmth and laughter. Sometimes he gets pale with shy nervousness, and sometimes pink-cheeked with a flustered, scorching blush.
He still looks like something right out of the badlands, though, like he always does. The torn black jeans, the messy blonde hair, the charcoal long-sleeve shirt worn so thin that the lines of his tattoos show through it in the sunlight. The leather bands looped around his wrist.
Calla, on the other hand, looks different tonight. She kept all of her piercings in, but she wore a loose little navy blue summer dress. The skirt falls to her knees, rippling gently in the wind. It’s not something she’d usually go for, but Ralph didn’t say anything about it when he saw her.
He only stared at her with that breathtaken look on his face, the one she never gets tired of. Like he’s been completely overpowered. Hopelessly smitten and hopelessly intimidated, all at the same time.
Then he came over and gently traced his hands over her waist, like he wanted to see how she felt through the fabric.
“What?” he murmured, when he caught the expression in her eyes during that.
I never feel like I have to figure out how to be the version of myself that you want. I feel like you just want me, whatever version I am that day. I can just be myself, so it’s never work. It feels so good, so - rare.
“Nothing! You ready to go?”
It’s so hard for Calla to tell Ralph these things, even though it’s remarkably easy to talk to him about anything else. Talking close to the heart is a ferocious struggle for both of them, an uphill battle every time. Ralph has it harder, but it’s no easy task for Calla either.
Sometimes that makes it impossible for Calla to know what Ralph is thinking. That’s part of why she’s tortured with nervousness, and has been ever since she invited him here last night.
But she ends up having such a nice time with him, she eventually forgets to be anxious at all.
Port Sitka hits its stride of beauty in the summer. This is when everything comes into full bloom, when the waves soften and the ocean is blue topaz in the sunlight, and the mist burns away to reveal the coastal Sitka spruces at their true, staggering heights. Wildflowers spring up in radiant showers at the backs of the sand dunes, golden like thousands of tiny glimmering lanterns when the sun hits them right. The bars leave their doors flung open to the breeze, the cafes have their little shaded terraces bustling, and the restaurant at the end of the dock spills out a constant drift of distant music and chatter.
Tourists pour into Port Sitka to savor these things, which makes this part of the day Calla’s favorite in the summer. This is the time when all of the sun-drowsy out-of-towners find themselves taking unplanned siestas before they go out to dinner. Sudden peace descends over places that have been crowded and noisy all day. The softer, more subtle noises that were lost make their quiet return. The rhythmic rush of the tide on the sand, the faint barking of a dog, the heavy summer wind dancing through the beach grass.
This is the best time to appreciate Port Sitka in all her summer beauty. Calla’s favorite childhood memories often occupy this specific time, the tangerine sunlight, the softness of the sand.
Ralph and Calla walked together through the streets gilded in the last of the late afternoon sunlight. They went to the restaurant on the dock for a snack; crispy paprika fries and iced, light beers. Then the barefoot walk on the beach. They left their boots in his car, but he brought his camera.
A vendor on the boardwalk was selling little cups of sliced fruit. Calla got one, then complained to Ralph about her lips being all sticky when she was done. He thoroughly took care of that problem for her, but the taste of peach and nectarine lingered on her lips even after he slowly drew back, and so did the rush of wild heat and electricity that coursed through her veins.
They left the boardwalk to walk on the sand. Stretched out in the beach grass. Ralph sat up to take a picture of Calla, and she realized that the strap of the camera bag slung across his chest was shiny and new. Resting against his completely worn-through shirt, the fabric of which was so thin that Calla could trace the outlines of his tattooed angel wings through it. But there he was with this new, pricey protective case for his dad’s camera.
Calla raised her eyes to Ralph’s face right as he snapped the picture. He stared intently at the photo for a long time after, without saying anything. There was a strange expression on his face. Something in the picture surprised him, or puzzled him, or both.
“What?” Calla had asked.
He looked at her sidelong, like he wanted to ask her something. Then he shook it off, making a face like he’d started to go down a train of thought and changed his mind when he realized how stupid it was.
“Nothing.” He bowed his head over the camera, carefully putting the cap back on the lens. “Just fuckin’ crazy how good you look, that’s all.”
Calla let out a soft, relieved breath. She was afraid she’d slipped up, given too much away.
The late afternoon was beautiful. Now the sun is slowly sinking into the sea, and the air is turning cooler. Calla’s little dress is warm wool, but she cozies up beneath Ralph’s arm when he folds it around her shoulders. She takes a deep breath, and tastes that naturally-occurring fragrance that belongs only to him. Tobacco and leather and cedar, rich and spicy and warm.
They sit down together on a softly-sloped sand dune, the beach grass whispering in movement around them. The sunset is reaching its most vivid heights, turning the sky a rich, melting hue of mango. They’ve walked a long way, but they had to stop to watch this.
Calla relaxes between Ralph’s knees, resting her shoulder blades against his chest. His elbow is resting on his knee, his forearm tucked beneath her chin, his hand loosely holding her shoulder. After a moment she lifts her hand to rest her fingers on his, her heartbeat picking up.
This is what she wanted. A serene place for them to talk. But now that she has it, she’s too nervous. At the very least, too nervous to dive right into it.
She asks him about something else instead. Something she was wondering, anyways.
“Do you think it’s weird that I’m from someplace this peaceful?”
“No. Makes perfect sense.” Ralph gives his head a subtle toss in the direction of the ocean, stroking Calla’s shoulder with his thumb. “Isn’t that where you were born, goddess?”
Calla’s eyebrows draw together in confusion. “What…?”
It strikes her all at once, forcing a sharp, startled laugh from her. Presumably Ralph means sea-born Aphrodite, just about the last reference to anything Calla ever expected to come out of his mouth.
“What. The Fuck!” She stifles a giggle behind her hand, a wild blush climbing up her cheeks. “Where did you just pull that from? All of a sudden you have me pulling on my knowledge of the Classics to figure out what you’re saying?”
Ralph shrugs his shoulders innocently. “Pretty straightforward comparison to me. All it takes is laying eyes on you to end up a fallen man.”
Calla’s heart stumbles over that compliment, then flutters as it occurs to her that beauty is not the only thing Aphrodite is the patron goddess of.
She can’t think of what to say in answer to Ralph, so she reverts back to the original topic.
“I - I just meant that it’s so calm and tranquil here, and I’m me,” she forges on. Determinedly keeping her eyes on the ocean, but she knows that Ralph is listening. “When I first moved back home after the breakup, I was supposed to take out the recycling one night, but I ended up going to the farthest point of the coastline and just smashing all of the glass bottles into the ocean. One after another. Guess it might make some pretty sea glass eventually, once it smooths down. But at the time all I could think was that I just needed to let some of the rage out. I felt like a contradiction to every beautiful thing around - around me… but how do you not let it out, when it’s so…?”
Calla trails off, mortified. Holy shit. Why would you tell him that?
“Yeah,” Ralph says sympathetically. “One time in high school the kid sitting behind me in class was pissing me off so bad. I knew I was one fuck-up away from being suspended, so I was trying to ignore it and stay calm, instead of turning around and decking him. But I was already having a god-awful day, and I was tired from working all night, already exhausted and fed up. It was so fucking hard to hold myself back. I was trying so hard to stay in control of myself that I started shaking. Couldn't help it.”
Calla is stricken by this image. She knows what Ralph looked like as a teenager, so she can envision him very clearly. Deathly pale in the way he gets when he’s angry, silently trembling in barely-contained rage at his desk.
Ralph lets out a pained sigh before he goes on.
“You know what was going around school by the next day? Ralph Lanham has a secret coke problem, and it’s so bad he can’t even stop shivering in class. That one really helped me out with the ladies, which was definitely not a front I was already struggling on, or anything.”
Calla snuggles back into him. “What was that other kid doing that made you so mad?”
Ralph hesitates for a long moment, then answers quietly, “Laughing to himself and taking pictures of my shirt. Guess I’d worn that one too many times. It was kinda falling apart, and it tore on the way to school. But I had to replace my laptop that semester, which was expensive, and you know, priorities…”
Calla bites her lip sadly, breathing carefully around the ache in her heart. “Did you get through it without snapping on him?”
“Yeah, but Noosh ended up smashing the shit out of the guy’s phone pretty much the second he noticed what was going on, so. Ended up being total fucking chaos, anyways. The studs on Noah’s wristband went right through the screen. There were sparks and everything. Bedlam.”
Calla laughs softly, a warm burst of affection for Noah running through her. A nice feeling to be able to have about her boyfriend’s friends.
She falls silent for a few seconds, savoring the warmth of Ralph’s arm folded around her, then blurts out -
“I’m surprised you just told me about that, baby. When I tell you really personal things, you usually don’t really answer me.”
Ralph instantly stiffens with concern and alarm. “Shit, I’m sorry.”
“No, it wasn’t a complaint! Just - I’ve noticed that sometimes when I share serious stuff with you…” Calla fades off, struggling to think of how to explain it. “You listen to me. You listen really well, it’s - it’s actually amazing. But you don’t tell me what you’re thinking. And you don’t really, um - reciprocate. You don’t tell me anything about you.”
There’s only silence from behind her for a long moment after this.
“I - I know I haven’t told you too many stories,” comes his deep, quiet voice. “It’s ‘cause I’m always worried I’m gonna tell you something you really won’t like. And the reason I don’t say much about the sensitive stuff you tell me is ‘cause - I don’t know the right things to say. I got a bad habit of saying things that make people mad, even when I don’t mean to, when I’m not aiming to hurt anyone. People get tired of it.”
Calla turns her head to look at Ralph, blinking hard.
“You don’t need to tread so carefully with me,” she murmurs, taken completely by surprise. “My own stories aren’t always pretty. Besides, I’m not all that delicate-”
Ralph lets out a choke of startled, affectionate laughter. “Delicate! No, Hellcat, you’re definitely not that. Tough as nails would be closer to home.”
“-and I don’t assume the worst of you. If you say something stupid by mistake, I’ll let you know.”
“I know, I know. You’ve always been the one I can count on to tell me to my face exactly what you think of my behavior.” Ralph pauses, his eyebrows furrowing in faint bafflement. “Hm. You and Keane, actually. Weird.”
“So then…?”
“Just…” Ralph takes an anxious breath, then drops his forehead onto her shoulder. “I don’t want to fuck this up. That’s all. Gets me nervous as hell, trying to talk to you like that. Promise I’m listening, though. And it’s not that I don’t want to reciprocate.”
“It would help if you tried, sometimes,” Calla says gently, reaching back to trail her fingertips over his jaw. “I get that things have happened to you that turned you against that instinct, but… I can’t build a bridge from one side, all by myself.”
Ralph thinks about that, then gives his head a slow nod. “I’ll try. It’s just hard for me.”
Calla hesitates, her fingers tightening on his forearm. “You just told me that story about yourself, though. After I told you mine.”
He pauses in surprise, then softly presses a kiss onto the curve of her neck. “Yeah, guess - guess I did. You got a special gift for getting me to say the stuff I’m trying to keep to myself, Hellcat.”
Given how difficult it actually is for her, this strikes Calla as pretty funny. A raspy laugh escapes her, and she feels Ralph’s cheek round out with his smile.
Calla sits up to dig something out of her bag, and Ralph sits up some more to watch her.
“What’s that?”
“A mini portable torch thing from my grandma’s house. Basically a big candle, but it won’t go out. So we can see when the sun goes all the way down.” Calla cups it in her hands and looks at Ralph over her shoulder. “Got some fire?”
She’s still between Ralph’s knees, so he curls around her to get his hand to the little torch. Calla leans back against his chest as the lighter sparks and catches in his fingers. Her cupped hands pool with rosy light as he kindles the flames, slowly drawing them to life.
The torch puts off a glow that lights up Calla’s face, and Ralph’s face as he leans over her shoulder. The two of them are haloed in the circle of light, which immediately puts off a proportional amount of dancing shadows.
Calla turns her face to Ralph, who meets her eyes in the soft, luminous glow.
“I wish I’d met you sooner,” she hears herself say. “In high school, or something.”
Ralph shakes his head firmly. “No. It’s good you met me when you did. You wouldn’t have liked teenage me. You have no idea what I was like.”
“All my high school friends were boys, and they tended to forget that I’m actually a girl, so I know exactly what teenage boys are like. I’ve heard it all, trust me. Five minutes of listening to you horny morons talk, and nothing throws you off anymore.”
“Oh, yeah?” Ralph leans forward to look past Calla, scoping out the beach. “So it’s not gonna throw you off if I say I’m wondering how much privacy we’ve got here, what we could get away with? The little dress should help us out.”
Calla tries to make an agonized sound, but she ends up letting out a laugh instead. She turns to sit at an angle where she can face Ralph, the beach grass brushing softly over her legs.
“This is nowhere near private enough for that! Imagine if after all this time keeping your record perfectly clean, you finally end up with one single infraction, and it’s public fornication. The only thing on your rap sheet.”
Ralph’s eyes widen. “Holy shit. You’re right.”
“Yeah, dummy.”
“That would be incredible. Legendary.”
“Wh-?” Calla dissolves into startled giggles, nearly dropping the mini-fire. She plunks it down in the sand with a groan, then snuggles her face into Ralph’s chest, trying to collapse the smile turning up her mouth. “God, my-”
My cheeks hurt again.
This is how she knows. There are hundreds and hundreds of little symptoms. Big ones, too. Some of them feel - vast.
Calla draws back and traces her fingertip along the outline of Ralph’s lips. He watches her with his intense, piercing eyes, his body holding perfectly still. He doesn’t even blink, even though a lock of blonde has tumbled down near his eye.
Calla quickly turns back to look at the ocean, her heartbeat racing in her ears.
The salty air is a clear, deep blue in color. The sun is so low on the water that it scatters radiant reflections on the glassy ocean surface, dancing shards of molten fire against the indigo sea.
The lights of the boardwalk, the dock, the shops and restaurants further down the beach - they cast their soft brightness onto the ocean, too, in a moving, multicolored glow. Strings of illuminated paper lanterns by the shops sway in the breeze, sending their reflections chasing after each other.
A thick sheaf of glimmering stars is slowly unveiling itself across the darkening sky. The velvet shadows are growing deeper, stretching out, pulling what’s off in the distance into hiding.
The faint splash of the waves, the muffled creaking of the docks and the boats, the ripples of distant voices and laughter and music, just barely loud enough to catch. These sounds flow in and out with the breeze, accompanied by the ever-present rustling of the beach grass.
And the soft snap of Ralph and Calla’s fire. The little flame stubbornly burns on, even in the face of the wind.
Calla takes a deep, steadying breath, then looks at Ralph again.
The wind is running its gentle fingers through his deep, soft blonde hair. His long-distance eyes are lit up with the glow of all the different lights, which shift slightly with their movements. Dancing against that sage green color. The flickering light of the fire licks the side of his face, making the shadows clinging to him darker.
He’s so serene right now, to Calla’s eyes. He’s got Calla in his arms, and it’s like that’s enabled him to briefly let go of everything else. He’s looking at her as if submerged completely in gentle, perfect bliss. His shoulders and jaw aren’t tensed up at all. His limbs are relaxed, his breaths slow and deep.
There’s none of that guarded steeliness to his eyes. Instead, there’s a pure, uncomplicated, yielding openness to his gaze that Calla usually only sees during their most intimate moments, when he can’t help himself.
He seems faintly puzzled by all of this. But the sweet little smile glowing in those suddenly very vulnerable green eyes is obviously, undeniably happy.
Calla knows what this is. She’s had rare, precious moments like this too, being with him. Ralph has momentarily stepped outside of his past, forgotten all the things that left him so hurt. He’s taking a second to just - be. To just breathe, for a little bit. Calla understands deeply what he’s doing, and how good it feels.
Still, the expression on his face knocks the breath out of her lungs.
Swept up on a powerful impulse, Calla leans up and lets her parted lips melt against his.
It’s a slow, deliberate, deep kiss. An all-encompassing flame goes down her body, leaving a scalding hot blush in her cheeks. Flamy heat melts through her like honey, slowly spilling to the deepest depths of herself. Everything else grows quiet, until the thump, thump, thump of her heart and his is the only thing left.
Not a single thought is in her mind. All of her consciousness has gone to her senses. Kissing him this way - it means being vulnerable, senseless, completely exposed. But it’s worth it, for this feeling. The passionate heat spilling through Calla as if rushing out through a broken dam is overwhelming, unbearable - yet somehow perfect. Perfect.
Ralph’s breath stumbles. He makes a soft sound, his voice husky and low in his throat. It echoes through Calla in deep vibrations that make her cheeks glow like red embers. Ralph’s hand is grasping the back of her neck, the hard, lean muscle of his arms holding her close to him.
Ralph stares at her in a daze when she draws back. He’s panting softly, his pupils enormous, his eyes heat-glazed and rounded with wonder.
He’s trying to ask her a question with them, and she’s realizing she just tried to place the message right in his mouth.
But he didn’t get it. He understood that she’s trying to tell him something, but not what.
You dummy, she thinks helplessly, looking into his baffled, wide green eyes. Are you really gonna make me say it?
He runs a nervous hand through his blonde hair, then twists his fingers through his wristbands, all shy again. Silently asking her what’s happening.
Come on, Calla. Tell him, like you’ve been dying to. You can do this.
She takes another deep breath, then - freezes.
The panic hits her like a cold punch to the chest. The promises she made to herself after the last heartbreak tore her apart all come rushing back into her head.
She would date again, yes, but the new defenses would stay in place. She would not take another brutal wound of that scale, because she would never leave herself vulnerable enough for that to happen. She would never risk that kind of pain, and never offer someone her whole heart ever again.
She honestly believed all of that, up until Ralph. And now here she is.
About to be more vulnerable than she’s ever been before. Add that to the fact that she has no idea how he feels, and that she isn’t good at sharing things like this anyways…
Ralph can immediately tell that something is off. Calla is so flushed, her eyes so huge, her breathing all strange. He sits up in alarm, concern taking over his expression, and smooths a calloused hand over her cheek.
“Hey, what’s wrong?”
“Oh - god,” Calla stammers beneath her breath, her fingers trembling as she presses them to her mouth. “What am I doing? I can’t love you… I-”
She stops mid-sentence as Ralph sits back sharply, flinching like she just slapped him. He stares at her with very wide eyes, struck silent.
He can’t seem to speak for a few seconds. He holds perfectly still, just staring at her.
Then his face slowly falls, and a crushed expression comes into his eyes.
“You - you can’t?” he rasps, in a very small, crestfallen voice.
He sounds like something just broke inside of him. He struggled to breathe with every suffering word, his strong voice turned to barely more than a choked whisper.
It seems to strike him what he just said. An instant, enormous internal battle springs to life in his eyes, as if he’s been swamped from within by something overwhelming, and he’s trying with all his might to force it down.
He lets out a trembling, half-broken laugh, struggling to get a calm expression back on his face.
“Hey, is - is that all this is about?” He takes both of Calla’s hands in his, gazing imploringly into her eyes. “Shit, that’s nothing to worry over. No one was expecting y-you to go and do something as fuckin’ w-wild as that. Who said you have to? Unless-” He lets go of her hands to quickly swipe the back of his wrist over his eyes. “We don’t have to break up over a little thing like that, do w-?”
“Ralph, no!” Calla cuts in, very nearly in tears herself. “You didn’t let me finish, and what I said - isn’t what I meant!”
She would have interrupted much sooner than this, but shock and dismay held her frozen. She’d never seen that look on Ralph’s face before, and then she couldn’t believe what she was hearing him say.
“That wasn’t what I meant,” she insists fiercely. “Not at all! I was just - panicking!”
Ralph stops still, staring at her in bewildered distress, his face very pale.
Calla is in such a rush to explain that she doesn’t spend even a second planning what to say. The words are already filling up her mouth and spilling from her lips.
“I promised myself that I would never put myself completely in someone else’s hands again, where I could get crushed again! But I can’t love you, if I stick to that. Falling in love with you is breaking that promise, so - it’s too late! It’s too late. Promise broken. Only I didn’t realize until right now.”
Calla buries her face in her hands as she speaks. It’s too difficult to look at Ralph, especially when he’s just sitting there in total silence.
“It’s worth it to me to break it, but obviously I’m gonna freak out a little! Especially because - I’m not sure anymore that I ever really loved my ex, because this thing with you has been nothing like the thing I had with him. It doesn’t even compare. Maybe some part of me was secretly a little glad to be rid of him when it all fell apart, even if it took me this long to realize that - but if it was you-”
Ralph curls his knuckles beneath Calla’s chin, tilting her face up to him. She stops speaking as soon as her eyes meet his. Startled right down to her soul by the glowing, radiant smile shining in Ralph’s eyes. She’s never seen him brimming with breathless hope like this, never.
The sight suffuses Calla’s entire body with such a rush of wild love that the panic all goes quiet at once.
“It’s too late?” Ralph laughs shakily, very quietly, cupping her jaw in his calloused hand. “Calla? It’s - it’s too late?”
She thinks he might be holding his breath.
Surrender, Calla tells herself, gazing up into Ralph’s eyes. Like he did for you.
She remembers him down on his knees before her, his wide, beautiful, grey-green eyes glittering up at her adoringly.
She nods slowly, then rushes to hide her face against his chest.
“Yes.” She closes her eyes, feeling his heartbeat fly. “Because I love you.”
She feels Ralph’s heartbeat trip over itself, miss a beat, and stagger wildly. His breath catches in his throat. His body goes perfectly still, except for his chest, which rises and falls with his fast, shallow breaths.
“Am I - am I hearing you right?” he asks, in a breathless, wavering voice.
“Yeah.”
His breath catches again, and his arms tighten around her, his voice scraping. “Really?”
“Yeah.” Calla gently trails her fingertips over his chest, pressing her nose against him. “I’m sorry I messed up saying it so badly. Don’t be mad at me.”
His stammered answer sounds completely, utterly dazed.
“No, I’m not mad at you. I love you, too.”
Ralph’s words hit Calla with all the force and electricity of a lightning strike. She freezes, then sits back sharply, her heart crashing against her ribs.
“Really?”
Ralph stares at her as if there’s nothing in his head but a pure, golden haze of euphoria.
“Yeah,” he says, gazing deep into Calla’s eyes.
Happiness like she’s never imagined does a slow, staggering sweep through her.
Ralph looks lost in a dream, as if he’s wandered into some breathtaking place he’s never been to before, and he’s not sure where he is or how he got here.
He abruptly seems to catch himself, snap back into the moment, and realize what he just said.
A wild, raging blush surges up to his cheeks. He starts blinking really hard, helplessly twisting his fingers through his wristbands, quite clearly shocked at himself.
His words are drifting down through Calla’s head like fluttering snowflakes, ones that somehow melt into drops of infinite warmth.
It’s not that I don’t want to reciprocate.
I was trying so hard to stay in control of myself that I started shaking. Couldn't help it.
Calla thinks of the barely-visible tremble of his fingers when she drew back after the kiss, when she tried to tell him.
Ralph puts his arms around Calla and hastily draws her to himself, where she can’t see his face.
“If anything, I worry about it being too much,” he says with difficulty, in a very rough voice. “I don’t want to crush you, trying to hold onto you.”
“You’re holding me pretty tight right now,” says Calla, taking her turn in the mindless golden haze.
Ralph doesn’t loosen his grasp on her. “Can I please get away with it, just this one time?”
Calla decides that he can. It feels strangely good, his fierce, intense embrace. As if no amount of physical force would be enough to take her from the safety of his arms.
“Me?” Ralph laughs suddenly, drawing back to gaze down into Calla’s eyes. “Are you fucking serious?”
Calla laughs and nods, her eyes brimming over. Ralph gently smooths away the tear, but there are some wobbling on his own blonde eyelashes.
Calla giggles and curls her arms around him. Her head is spinning, but in a glowing, brilliant way that she wouldn’t trade for anything.
“Are you seeing this?” Ralph whispers suddenly. “D’you hear all that?”
Calla draws back to find Ralph looking up at the night sky. His dazed questions were directed up at the stars spread high above.
Calla blinks in surprise as Ralph suddenly drops his gaze back to her, his eyes narrowing suspiciously.
“Nah, I-” He looks around helplessly, as if searching for guidance. “I don’t get it, Calla. What’s really going on?”
“Are you serious?” Calla laughs, holding tight to his shirt. “Stop it! What’s wrong with you?”
“Aiden says I’m loveblind, maybe it’s that.”
“Then don’t be, dummy!” Calla takes Ralph’s face in her hands and peers earnestly into his eyes, letting everything show in her own. “I’m telling you that I love you, Ralph, I’m telling you right to your face!”
Ralph stares at her, just stares and stares, the moonlight pooling in his huge eyes.
Calla sits back in surprise as Ralph swiftly gets to his feet. He scoops up his camera bag and Calla’s bag, then carefully hands her the little torch.
Calla gets up, her dress rippling in the ocean breeze, the beach grass cool against her ankles. “Where are we going?”
Ralph doesn’t answer, but she lets him lead her into the forest, into the trees growing in a thick wall along the end of the beach. Night has fallen, and the shadows gather to Ralph as he walks beside her.
“I don’t know what’s going on,” he tells her, in a surprisingly steady voice. “Must be I got way too high, and I’m in a real vivid dream right now. That’s what makes the most sense. My imagination runs off with me, you know? Especially when it comes to you.”
He sounds almost reassured, like everything finally checks out with this reasoning.
“Makes more sense than this being some kind of prank or set-up, anyways. Unless a rival op sent you in undercover, in which case - I hope they realize I’m not sending you back. You can tell me if that’s what this is, by the way. I won’t be mad at you about it. That was fair game, if you were doing it for work.”
“What?” Calla lets out a wave of giggles, admiring the rugged profile of his face as the shadows kiss it softly. “You’re really just saying exactly what’s on your mind right now, aren’t you? Sounds like you’ll have no problem confirming what you said? About how you love me.”
“Yes, I love you,” he says, without breaking his swift stride. “Jesus Christ, Calla, are you joking? I could die for a woman like you. Even for like - one night with you. High school me probably would have been ready to make that trade for a solid thirty seconds. Current me… yeah, still would, if it came down to that.”
Calla’s cheeks are aching. She wonders if she’s going to dream about this tonight. He fills her with dreams. That’s another symptom.
“While you’re being so honest, Ralph, would this be a good moment to ask if you want to meet my family? Their place was the address I texted you first, before I changed my mind and told you to come to the beach. I’ve panicked more than once today. But I was thinking maybe you and I could go back to that hotel tonight, and - have breakfast with my family at the cottage in the morning? Only if you want to.”
“Yeah, I want to, even though I’m more damn nervous about that than I would be for a raid. I do good with Tycho now, so hopefully I’ll do alright with the dogs. Honestly, though, I’m way more nervous about your family liking me than I am about being bitten.”
Calla stares up at Ralph in blank disbelief. He must be tipped completely off his axis. Normally these straightforward answers simply wouldn’t be possible for him.
“Wow. It really hasn’t sunk in, has it?”
“Fuck, no. I - I’ve got no idea what’s happening, right now. I’m freaking out. Feel like my goddamn grasp on reality slipped right out of my hands.” Ralph draws Calla deeper into the shadowy darkness, carefully scanning the trees for signs of anyone nearby. “But I know how to get my head straight, put my feet back on the ground. There’s something my imagination never does justice. Nothing else feels like the real thing.”
Calla understands where this is going all at once, and a rush of answering heat goes through her. Ralph sets the camera and the bag down, takes the fire from her and sets it aside too. Then he catches her hand, pulls her to him, and backs her up against a tree. Its low-hanging branches create a small, natural shelter around the two of them.
“And you always find ways to surprise me,” he murmurs, moving closer to her. “You do things I wouldn’t have imagined on my own.”
Calla catches her lip between her teeth as he bends over her. “Not always.”
“Always,” Ralph says firmly. “Besides, it’s just - still extremely surprising to me that it’s happening at all. Every time, pretty much.”
Calla lets out a startled laugh, then a moaned wave of giggles as Ralph starts spreading hungry kisses up her neck. She tilts her face up so that his lips can find hers, and they do.
Ralph slips his hand up her dress, drags it slowly up her thigh, then gasps softly. He draws back to stare at Calla with awestruck eyes, already panting.
The blush in his cheeks grows even deeper. “You - you’re not wearing any-”
“I thought you might take some convincing,” she laughs, blushing, gazing up at him with dilated eyes. “I just wasn’t about to let it happen on the beach.”
His smitten eyes glitter darkly at her, reflecting back the flickering dance of the little fire. Calla starts undoing his belt buckle, then the top button of his jeans, still smiling playfully up at him.
He lets out a sudden, tortured groan, overwhelmed. He looks like he’s writhing in his very soul with wanting her.
“You’re so bad,” he breathes adoringly, half-laughing.
He leans down to kiss her with shivering fervor, one arm taking her by the waist, one hand slipping back beneath her dress as she folds a thigh around him. He takes a staggered breath, and Calla pants through a whimpered moan, teases her tongue up his jawline.
“And you…?” Ralph says suddenly. He sounds dazed all over again, all out of breath. Like he’s slowly descending into deep shock, and only doing this with her is keeping him grounded on the face of the planet. “You said you… what… what? Calla?”
“Sounds like we’re getting there,” Calla giggles. “I think by the end of this you’ll have it.”
She unzips his jeans, so she can do something that always draws a moaned little curse from him. It doesn’t fail to this time. He presses his aching body up against hers, puts his mouth to the arch of her throat. Calla tilts her head back, buries her fingers in his hair, and melts into his hands.
Sweet, sweet surrender.
Even if she hadn’t said anything, it would have been too late. Calla knows that now. The old promise is broken, and a new one has already taken over its place. Her love is warm, alive, breathing.
Real, as Ralph is about to finally understand.
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