Page 47 of Love Out Loud

Chapter 17

Lark

For the rest of the week, I oscillate between delirious happiness and a giddiness I haven’t felt since the last time I was onstage. Narrating this audiobook has opened a door in my mind. It has reminded me how much I love acting, and while I don’t know if I’d take on a project with as much erotic content as Jessica’s book again, I start to think I might try to figure out how to do this from home in the very near future.

I had been a little worried about how Silas and I would interact after I more or less rejected him. It happens all the time where actors date—or don’t—and it messes up the chemistry between them. But Silas is nothing if not professional, and we fall right back into our easy rapport as we knock out the middle chapters much faster than the early ones.

Lennon seems to have gone back to normal after whatever that was last Friday night, too. Or at least, he’s doing a good job of pretending it never happened. He doesn’t bring it up, and neither do I. The idea of kissing him seems to be buried between us, even if I lie awake most nights thinking of the pad of his thumb pressed against my bottom lip.

I’m thinking about it now, in fact, as I pour butter over air-popped popcorn. I sprinkle in a little salt, too, and that reminds me of the saltiness of his skin. I only got a little taste, and admittedly, I want more as I pop a well-seasoned piece of popcorn into my mouth.

It’s just forbidden fruit, I tell myself. The only reason I want it is because I can’t have it.

Lennon’s broad hands land on my hips as he gently moves me to the side so he can get to a drawer I’m blocking. I gasp and jump out of his way, almost knocking over the entire bowl of popcorn in the process.

He chuckles. “Sorry, Songbird. I said your name, like, three times, but you were in your own world.”

“Oh.” Nervous laughter tumbles out of me, and I can’t control it. “My bad.”

He opens the drawer and rummages around a bit before closing it and opening another. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” I say with more confidence, even though the feeling of his hands on my hips lingers. “Just concentrating.”

“Popcorn does require a lot of concentration.” He finally finds the corkscrew he was looking for. Wiggling it at me in triumph, he moves to the other side of the counter to open the bottle of wine we bought when we went to the beach.

I cock my hip and rest my hand on it. “I will have you know that I take popcorn-making very seriously.”

His eyebrow ticks up as he twists the corkscrew into the bottle. “It would seem so.” After a little effort on his part, the cork comes free of the bottle with a pop. He pulls down a couple of wineglasses from an overhead cabinet and pours us each one.

I stir the butter into the popcorn and taste it again, then add more salt. Lennon takes a drink of his wine and hums. “It’s good,” he declares, handing me my glass.

My eyes flutter closed as bring it to my nose and inhale deeply. “Smells like berries.” I take another sniff. “And smoke.” I sip it and hum my approval.

“I didn’t know I was in the presence of a sommelier,” Lennon teases.

I huff a laugh, balancing the wineglass in one hand and the giant bowl of popcorn in the other. “Just a connoisseur. Wine tastings are, like, a rite of passage in the mom world.”

“Have you heard from Devin?”

Sighing, I follow him to the couch. “She texted me this morning that they made it to Lucerne. She sent a couple of gorgeous pictures of the mountains. I sent back a picture of the ocean, and she said she was jealous. I suspect she was just trying to make me feel better.”

Lennon has already cued up the movie—something artsy and award-winning that I’m sure I don’t have the attention span for, based on my spaciness in the kitchen. He flops onto a cushion at the far end, lifting his right arm so it rests on the back of the couch. I pause, still holding the popcorn and my wine, trying to rewrite physics to make more space on the couch. There isn’t much room to sit if I’m not going to be touching him, and I fear that any contact I make might be dangerous.

We’ve watched movies and cuddled together thousands of times, I remind myself. It’s fine.

He starts the movie and looks up at me, smiling expectantly, so I settle into the crook of his arm anyway. If I sit at the other end of the couch like a sensible woman would, he’d know something is off.

It’s not hard to ease into him. I fit here, my legs stretched out lengthwise on the seat of the couch, my head resting back against his chest. His heartbeat is strong and steady. It whooshes under me, louder than the movie.

We sip wine and munch on handfuls of popcorn, but I can’t concentrate on the screen. Not with Lennon’s heart so close to my head. Not with his blue-sky scent overtaking my senses. Not with his arm stretched out behind me, his shirt sleeve riding up, and his tattoos taunting me like they have since I got here.

Lennon is singularly focused on the television, but my attention wanders to his arm. He didn’t start getting tattoos until he was in his late twenties. He’d send me pictures of things he wanted to ink and then pictures of the finished product. It fascinated me. I used to spend a lot of stolen moments between Devin’s dance classes and school drop-offs looking at the way pieces of his body changed with art and time.

This particular tattoo is the outdoor scene that has been plaguing my thoughts. Jessica’s character has a similar tattoo. I always have to bite the inside of my cheek so I don’t laugh about it as I’m recording, but if she was writing about Lennon’s tattoo, she hasn’t done it justice. It’s beautiful and intricate, circling all the way around his biceps and up his shoulder. I have seen pictures of it, of course, but in person, it’s stunning. I hadn’t realized it went all the way around the inside of his arm, or it hadn’t registered as important. Or maybe he’s added to it since I saw it last. But now all I want to do is touch it. Trace the soft skin with my fingertips. Let some of the ink metaphorically bleed into my psyche, to shore me up for the inevitable stretch of time where I won’t see him again.

Just when I’m about to chastise myself for thinking about this yet again, he shifts forward to get another handful of popcorn. The sleeve of his shirt lifts up a little more, and something there catches my eye in the flickering light of the television. Two birds, flying above the trees, crests on their heads and black stripes on their faces.

Larks. The dim realization dawns on me like a soft stage light. He tattooed larks onto his arm.