Heaven's Melody

“You wanna fuck?” Lara whispered, the tips of her hair brushing against his chin, her lips almost directly in his ear.

Fuck. It was so hard to say- it sounded so hard and dirty. Dirty in a disgusting way- not a kinky one. But that’s the way it was with Lara, she said words like fuck and whore and bitch in a way that wasn’t quite as vulgar as the rest of the world.

“Nah,” Logan mumbled back, staring up at the clouds passing over the sun. There was a group of them, all perfect, all beautiful, floating just above Lara and him. He couldn’t make out any specific shapes today, just a group of fluffy, non-eccentric clouds hiding the sun’s warmth.

Suddenly and unexpectedly, he felt almost giddy. He turned his face toward Lara, expecting her to feel the same, but she wasn’t. Unlike him, she wasn’t smiling.

Lara didn’t do rejection well.

Not discouraged, Logan reached out his finger, tracing the features on her face that he had grown to love. Her hazel, sometimes blue eyes, her high cheekbones and long eyelashes. The one freckle on her face, just below her hairline.

He tugged at the left corner of her lip, telling her with no words to be like him. Be giddy.

She sat up and tucked her knees into her chest.

“Why not?”

Sighing, Logan sat up with her- his fingers sprawled across her knee. She shook them off, and shifted until she was showing him only her back. Her face was tilted up toward the sky, absorbing the warmth of the freed sun.

“It’s a perfect day,” he began, dropping his rejected hand to the grass. He plucked a blade, then a second, ripping both to shreds. “To just sit, watch for faces in the clouds.”

“You’re the first guy I know who’d turn down a good fuck.”

She was hurt. Her words were still as sinful and vulgar as ever, but behind them there were tears. They weren’t dripping down her face- but they were in her voice. She’d never let him see her actually cry.

“The primary word being good.”

It was a joke in bad taste and made everything worse. She moved even farther away and swallowed her voice.

“I’m only joking,” said Logan. “It’s just…” He was grasping for the right word to say, but found that there were none. He had screwed himself. “I don’t like the word fuck.”

They had had this discussion before, and had come to the same conclusion twice. Logan hated the word fuck and Lara didn’t care. In the past month he had finally gotten used to it- but she didn’t know that. It was the only excuse that came to mind.

Lara’s shoulders fell. “Oh.”

“I’m sorry Lara, but fuck sounds too one-night-standy,” he murmured, as he pulled her closer. “I don’t wanna fuck you- I wanna keep you around. I want to make love to you.”

“Make-love sounds too romance novel,” she said- her usual argument. “I like fuck better.”

“I know, I’m sorry.” He wasn’t sure what for.

She grabbed his hand, and fell back into his chest, snuggling her head against his neck, apparently he’d said the right thing. “I’m sorry too.”

And that was that. They watched the clouds until sunset, and then with a lingering kiss and a promise for later she escaped to find Mel.

And he went home, to a house smelling like cookies. Sugar cookies, her favorite, his least.

It didn’t matter, though, the cookie’s flavor. All he could taste on his lips was her.