CHAPTER THIRTEEN –
MEGAN POINT OF VIEW
Jake’s phone buzzed and he stepped aside, muttering a quick “Back in a sec” before ducking into the hall. I watched him go then turned back to Chris, studying him for a beat. He seemed to sense my lingering assessment and straightened under the weight of my stare.
“So, writer boy,” I began, lips quirking. “Now that you’ve gotten over the shock of little ol’ me, why don’t you show me what you’ve got?”
He blinked owlishly before the implication dawned on him. Flushing, he fumbled with the worn leather portfolio, extracting a sheaf of papers and manuscripts.
“R-right, of course.” He cleared his throat nervously. “These are some samples of my recent work – published short stories and the like.”
I accepted the proffered stack with a casual nod, immediately struck by the crispness of his prose and evocative sense of scene. Wordlessly, I reached over and plucked his glasses off, sliding them onto my own nose to better appraise the finer details.
Out of my peripherals, I watched the way Chris swallowed hard, adam’s apple bobbing anxiously as I pored over his creations through new lenses. Flipping through the brittle pages, I committed random excerpts and turns of phrase to memory, filing them away for further analysis.
Finally, I set the materials down and slowly removed the spectacles, regarding him over the rims with a sergeantly arched brow.
“Not bad, Chrissy. You’ve got a way with words – vivid, economical, yet brimming with life between the lines.”
My assessment hung in the pregnant pause as I permitted the faintest of smirks to grace my lips. Chris seemed to wilt a bit under the weight of my pointed stare before squaring his narrow shoulders in a visible effort to bolster his confidence.
“I’ve never attempted a memoir or biographical account before,” he admitted honestly. “But I recognized immediately that your story requires an unflinching honesty – an absence of artifice or punches pulled.”
There was an earnest intensity simmering in his warm brown eyes that drew me in despite myself. He meant what he said, I could taste it.
Before I could formulate a response, Jane reappeared with a gruff harrumph, tossing me a fresh roll of handwraps.
“Quit making heart eyes at the kid and suit up,” she barked in her trademark no-nonsense drawl. “We’re on the clock for your media obligations.”
I caught the wraps reflexively, a wry smirk tugging at the corner of my mouth at her typical curtness. Gaze flickering briefly back towards Chris, I inclined my chin subtly.
“You heard the old relic – places to be, fake smiles to plaster on for the vultures.” I rose fluidly to my feet and began winding the wraps around my knuckles in an ingrained ritual. “Hope you’re ready to strap in, writer boy. The real storm’s just getting started.”
Chris watched with rapt fascination as I methodically bound my hands in that second skin of frayed linen, my focus entirely inward for those fleeting moments.
When I finished, I flexed my fingers a few times, allowing the familiar tightness and friction to Ground me.
Our locked stare contained the fragile seed of an understanding forged in that breath of stillness – he glimpsing the deeper truth simmering beneath my bravura, and I seeing the glimmers of a kindred spirit yearning to shrug off the shackles of propriety to truly witness.
“I’m ready,” was all he said. But the way his shoulders rolled back and his chin lifted fractionally spoke volumes more.
I slanted him one final assessing look before sweeping from the room, Jane’s gravelly chuckle echoing off the dingy walls in my wake.
This Chris character might’ve been more than either of us bargained for. Only time would tell if he had the mettle to survive being pulled inextricably into my orbit.
…..
CHRIS POV
Jake’s phone buzzed and he glanced down with a muttered “Back in a sec.” With a curt nod to Megan and Jane, he ducked out into the hallway. An uncomfortable silence descended as I found myself alone with the two imposing women.
Megan watched Jake depart, her eyes narrowing briefly before she turned that piercing emerald gaze on me. I straightened instinctively, feeling pinned beneath the weight of her assessing stare. She studied me for a prolonged moment before one side of her full lips quirked upwards.
“So, writer boy.” Her deep, resonant voice caressed the teasing nickname with a hint of amusement. “Now that you’ve gotten over the shock of little ol’ me, why don’t you show me what you’ve got?”
I blinked owlishly, feeling a flush creep up the back of my neck as her implication hung between us with a palpable weight. Right, of course – she wanted to see samples of my work, gauge my capabilities.
With trembling hands, I retrieved my worn leather portfolio and extracted a slim sheaf of published stories, manuscripts, and writing samples. I extended the stack towards her, throat constricting with a sudden anxiety over her imminent judgment.
Rather than take the proffered pages, Megan simply arched one sculpted brow expectantly. Right, so she wanted me to…? I cleared my throat in a feeble attempt to dislodge the lump of nerves.
“R-right, of course,” I stammered, immediately reddening further at the tremor in my voice. “These are, um… some samples of my recent work. Published short stories and the like.”
I placed the manuscripts atop the rickety folding table, watching as Megan coolly reached across and plucked my glasses off the bridge of my nose. She slid them onto her own face, somehow managing to pull off the scholarly look with an effortless, almost provocative insousiance. A bead of sweat trickled down my spine as she fixed me with that inscrutable stare over the rims, silently appraising my creative offerings.
In my peripherals, I took in the subtle swell of her toned physique beneath the sleek jumpsuit, the taut muscle fibers rippling with her every controlled micro-movement. This close, I could make out the smattering of faint scars crisscrossing the bronzed canvases of her arms and decollete – a permanent roadmap of past battles etched into her very skin. Suddenly, those action-worn calluses gripping the pages took on a much more visceral weight and meaning.
When Megan finally set my work aside and slid the spectacles from her angular features, I found myself leaning in unconsciously, hanging on her every wordless micro-expression. Her full lips pursed as her eyes narrowed contemplatively.
“Not bad, Chrissy,” she murmured at last. “You’ve got a way with words – vivid, economical, yet brimming with life between the lines.”
Her assessment hung in the weighted pause as I struggled to steady my rabbit-kicked pulse beneath her lingering stare. There was an undeniable gravity and sharpened focus in her smokey gaze that seemed to strip away all artifice and cut directly to one’s core truths. It was both utterly disarming and profoundly intriguing.
I shifted anxiously, adam’s apple bobbing as she permitted the faintest of enigmatic smirks to grace those full lips. Despite the brevity of the moment, I sensed the fleeting spark of a deeper understanding kindling in those emerald depths – a glimmer of possibility that perhaps I might possess the requisite fortitude to bear unflinching witness to her uncompromising truths.
Before I could muster a response, Jane reappeared in a swirl of gruff irritability and stale smoke. She tossed a fresh roll of handwraps to Megan with an exaggerated harrumph of impatience.
“Quit making heart eyes at the kid and suit up,” she growled in that sandpaper rasp. “We’re on the clock for your media obligations.”
And just like that, the strange, suspended tension dissipated in an instant. Megan was already in motion, reflexively catching the wraps and beginning the well-ingrained ritual of winding them around her knuckles with brisk, efficient movements.
“You heard the old relic,” she drawled without looking up from her task, voice dripping with languid nonchalance. “Places to be, fake smiles to plaster on for the vultures.”
Her gaze flickered up and caught mine in a searing look laden with taunting challenge. “Hope you’re ready to strap in, writer boy. The real storm’s just getting started.”
I watched in rapt fascination as she deftly bound her hands in that second skin of layered linen, her focus so singularly inward that I may as well have ceased to exist for those sacred heartbeats. When she finished and flexed her fingers, everything else seemed to sharpen back into hyper-focused clarity and intention.
There was a charged understanding hovering in that infinitesimal silence, one forged in the crackling spaces between truth and pretence – she glimpsing the glimmers of a kindred yearning in me to transcend the superficial and bear witness to the unvarnished, visceral essence… and me sensing the first faint pangs of undeniable gravitational pull towards this complex, haunted yet unbroken warrior.
“I’m ready,” I heard myself answering, the words tumbling forth with a decisiveness that surprised even me.
But in that moment, bolstered by the implacable fortitude blazing in Megan’s eyes, I found my spine stiffening and chin lifting with newfound resolve.
She regarded me with one final lingering look that seemed to bore straight through all my defensive layers and reserve before pivoting on her heel and striding from the room, ponytail swaying mesmerizingly behind.
Jane issued a gruff chuckle that wormed its way through the suspended tension, watching me over her shoulder with wry amusement glinting in those hard eyes.
“Strap in, string bean,” she rasped, already following Megan’s departing form. “This is gonna be one helluva rocky ride, that’s for damn sure.”
I wasn’t quite certain how to process her gravelly implication, or the dizzying spiral of sensations and revelations still whirling through my consciousness.
But of one thing I had absolutely no doubt – my life would be irrevocably altered after today’s immersion into Megan Williams’ world.
The question lingering in the furtive corners of my soul was whether that cosmic shift would prove to be a descent into the inky chasm of my deepest fears and insecurities… or the first rays of light guiding me towards some form of deliverance.
Only the oncoming tempest would reveal the truth.