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hislittleraincloud · 6 months

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(Mature, NC-17, Cairo Sweet/Jonathan Miller, Jairo, student-teacher, age gap, angst, language, sex/smut (Chapter 2 & 3 are the explicit ones), etc. This fic begins at the very end, where the film left off.)

Note: I'm publishing [this first chapter only] here in advance of its publication on AO3. I'm growing tired of the blackouts. I don't publish there often enough to not be affected. Just please, if you liked it, go to AO3 once it's published there for the blah blah. I'll let you know when it is. // I'm still working on Chapter 3, it's 90%. Homestretch. And yet I want more Jairo....

Summary: Judgement day in front of the school board has come, but Jonathan Miller had something more than a fancy lawyer to get him out of trouble. Can he and Cairo escape a dangerous situation and work out their differences? Maybe after some fancy bourbon and a cigarette. Or two.

Tags from AO3: Teacher-Student Relationship, age gap, Age Difference, Seduction, First Time, First Time Blow Jobs, Loss of Virginity, Mild Cock Worship, Mesophilia, Somnophilia, Mildly Dubious Consent, Fellatio, Cunnilingus, detailed sex, Sex, Oral Sex, Vaginal Sex, Literary References & Allusions, Literary Fucking, Consenting Adults, Erotica, Drama, Dramedy, Erotic Thriller, Fluff, Fluffy, Dialogue-Driven, narration, Southern Gothic, Canon Compliant, Miller's Girl, Definite Amber Heard references, Underage Drinking, Underage Smoking

Chapter 1: If You Asked Me To

Opal County Board of Education

“I came.”

“That you did.”

Jon shook his head at her smirking satisfaction. “This…this is your last chance, Cairo. Last chance to come clean.”

“Have you come clean, Jonathan?”

“As a matter of fact, I have. I have come quite clean about your d —” he stopped himself with a frustrated sigh. It was hot enough outside without abandoning decorum (with his accuser, no less). “Your midterm and the circumstances around it. I'm just hopin’ against hope that in these last few minutes before this very public hearing, you will too.”

“It isn't public, is it?”

“It's public enough.” His eyes suddenly lifted to the attention of someone in the short distance beyond Cairo’s head, and he waved as the footsteps clacked up the stairs. “Speakin’ of hope.”

“Hey Mr. Miller!”

Cairo’s jaw clenched when she heard the sing-song voice of Winnie Black, but when she turned towards it, she was dumbstruck by how different Winnie looked: her usually untamed mane was combed back, the length of her long, bushy tresses held at bay with a baby pink hair band. Her light grey and pink argyle cardigan complemented her pleated knee-length skirt, which was far too tight on her curvy form. She looked like a completely different person, and if it weren't for the careless, open-mouthed way she gnawed on her gum—and her white faux fur tote bag that looked like a yeti’s nutsack—one might believe that she was.

She yelped as she almost fell into Jon, snagging the toe of her black Mary Janes on one of the steps.

He steadied her with his hand. “Oo, careful there —”

“I'm just so eager to help you that my feet got ahead of me,” she cooed, her trademark flirtatiousness as incapable of being contained as the breasts that were almost bursting through the white dress shirt underneath her sweater, which she pulled down and adjusted as she righted herself.

Jon spoke to her, but his gaze remained frozen on Cairo’s bitter countenance. “Okay, well don't — you don't wanna git yourself hurt now, Miss Black.”

“We sure wouldn't want that now, would we,” Cairo blurted, staring at Winnie’s profile. Her words cut fast like a bullet, killing the cordiality between Winnie and Jon instantly.

Winnie finally turned to acknowledge Cairo’s presence. A sly grin peeled across her lips as she checked her out from head to toe and back. “Well look who showed up lookin’ like her dog done stepped on a bee.”

Jon’s internal seismometer could feel the impending quake. Cairo’s eyes hadn't left Winnie’s face. He dipped his chin and picked up his bag, backing away. “I'll let you — I'll give you some space.”

“See you on the other side, Mr. Miller!”

Winnie snapped her gum as she watched him purse his lips and turn up the stairs, hopping up each step towards the doors. She languidly turned back to Cairo with a sigh, her judgmental eye scanning her former friend up and down.

“The preppy look don't suit you.”

“That suit don't suit you.”

“Looks like two can play at this little cosplay game, sweetheart.”

Cairo’s brow remained deeply furrowed. She could feel her breathing start to tighten. “What're you doing here?”

“I'm here to testify against you…like I told you I would.”

“And like I told you, your credibility —”

“What credibility? I haven't told any lies, Cairo. I may’ve flirted heavily with a teacher, that's my cross to bear. I've already written it all down, just like you did,” she said, sliding a manila folder out of her bag and holding it up, fanning herself with it. “I don't know Your Honor —”

“It's not in front of a judge, you —”

“I was just bein’ a lil’ aggressive with my platonic affections for Coach Fillmore,” she continued, uninterrupted and undeterred. “You see, young people can get a little crazy sometimes…,” her voice faltered. She looked down at Cairo’s shoes, then looked up, a tear falling from her eye, her lip quivering. “Cairo made me send that photo to him —”

“You fucking bitch, I'll —”

“You’ll what, kill me?” Winnie had shut off the water works as effortlessly as Cairo had, and Cairo’s small stature jolting forth didn't even make her flinch. “Oh honey, I know you don't care enough about me to trade Yalie blue for prison orange. If they'll even have you after this.”

Jon leaned against a pillar base, watching Cairo’s face fall from the top of the stairs, her heart-shaped lips dropping open. Broken. The turn of her chin towards him in her crestfallen disbelief lasted a lifetime.

Winnie turned and hopped up the stairs. She pat Jon on the stomach, causing him to huff.

“Almost showtime, cowboy,” she said, turning around and walking backwards. “I mean…Mr. Miller, sir.” She winked at him, but her eyes widened as she stuck her fingers in her mouth and plucked out her gum, flicking it into the trash bin behind the pillar before she stepped in through the building’s doors. She waved at him with the same fingers, and he waved back.

When he turned his head, Cairo was slowing her steps to the one right underneath him. His heart leapt from his chest to his throat, then to his gut: her brow had relaxed into a neutral position, but she still looked terrified.

“It's too late, isn't it.”

“For some things, maybe.” He watched her frown deepen, and she moved to continue into the building. He was able to grab the crook of her elbow, but upon her nasty glare, he let go, hands up. His own brow softened. “Maybe not,” he offered, his concern thickly coating his words. “You'll get destroyed in there, Cairo.”

“Too late for that,” she grumbled, attempting to continue on.

“Hey,” his abruptness startled her still, and he was able to cut in front of her path. He moved to place his hands on her shoulders, but instead, stuffed them in his pockets. “I'm here. Not for me, my fate’s already decided. I'm walkin’ in there on suspension. I'm here for —” he sighed through his nose. “I know you didn't want this. Nobody does. But I understand what I did, Cairo. Now when you walk through those doors, you'll understand what you did too, and no one’s —” he swallowed, shaking his head and averting his gaze. He lowered his voice and his lips to her ear.

“People don't look too kindly on manipulators, even in this day n’ age, even in the thick of #MeToo. That's all I'm sayin’.”

“I don't have anything more to say than what is in my written complaint, so I politely decline to take – to make any further comment.”

“Where are your parents?”

“Don't need ‘em.”

“Well, what about your lawyer, or advocate, anyone?”

“Don't need one.”

Principal Joyce Manner was nonplussed. “Miss Sweet —”

“Don't I have the right not to testify?”

“Well, you were the one to bring the complaint….”

Cairo couldn't mask her disgust at the female lawyer Jon’s wife had hired as her parting gift to him. She was a celebrity lawyer with the capacity to render any liar lie-less within minutes of interrogation, apparently, and she was pricey; much pricier than even Cairo’s parents.

And she was gorgeous, just like each of her parents.

In another timeline, the lawyer and the lawyers' daughter might be related; both flavorful, petite, dark brunettes, the chestnut undertones of their hair were particularly visible under the natural light pouring in from the windows of the hearing room. There was little difference, how the sun touched their skin and clothes, but their individual posture was telling as Cairo sat forward in her seat while the lawyer relaxed her shoulders and clasped her hands before speaking softly.

“Miss Sweet. Thank you for showing the courage to be here. You're a very brave young woman.” Her voice was mellow and comforting, emphasized by her upturned, pitying brow, but Cairo knew better. Same look, same vocal tone as Mama Sweet whenever she was doing the same thing during her own trials to butter up the hot lobster she was slow-boiling on the stand. It appeared that this lawyer could sense from Cairo’s silent defiance that the tactic wasn't working, as she quickly flipped off the heat. “Please tell us in your own words what happened between you and Professor Miller. Starting from when you first entered his classroom.”

“Can I plead the fifth?”

“This isn't a criminal trial, Miss Sweet.

“Then why do I feel like you're treatin’ me like a criminal?”

“That's not our intention today, Miss —”

“Isn't it?”

“Miss Sweet. Can you just proceed to tell us what happened?”

“And I have stated quite plainly that I have no desire to do that. Everything I had to say is in my complaint.”

“Let's move on, then,” the lawyer didn't miss a beat, nearly clipping the end of Cairo’s sentence. “You had a conversation with your classmate about Mr. Miller. Miss Winnie Black?”

Her gaze automatically flickered to where Winnie sat just behind Jon. She was unreadable, but then, Cairo had hardly stopped to read, her eyes quickly turning back to the podium.

“I’ve had several conversations with Miss Black about Mr. Miller.”

“Will the board please look to Exhibit 7B, please,” her strike was swift and hard, as if she had been anticipating Cairo’s calculated caginess. She approached the stand with a thin packet of papers, placing it on the ledge next to Cairo's water bottle. “Apologies, Miss Sweet, here's a copy for you, please review it.” To observers, the time that the lawyer gave to Cairo to look over the documents seemed far too short, but they were also so far unaware of the conversation’s brevity. “Does this look like a conversation you had?”

“Looks like one. Coulda been edited,” she half-heartedly suggested, carelessly dropping the transcript back where the lawyer had put it.

“I assure you, it's not edited. In fact, this is a transcription of an audio recording provided by Miss Black in Exhibit 7A, which I will play for the board in just one second —”

“Hey, I object to my bein’ recorded without my consent —”

“Tennessee is a one party state, Miss Sweet, or did Greg and Ivy not tell you that?” The expressed familiarity with her parents had its intended effect on Cairo, with her turning to Joyce for support that wasn't there. The lawyer dropped her eyes, shuffling her papers. The unkindness of her rhetorical question stung, the board members shifting uncomfortably in their seats as the lawyer reached for a small remote.

Cairo shot up out of her seat. “Then I wish to withdraw my complaint —”

“It’s too late for that, Miss Sweet. The matter is out of your hands. Now sit down,” Joyce spoke up and tried not to show her annoyance. She waited until Cairo slowly sank back down, defeated. She nodded at the lawyer, whose thumb was poised but patient on the remote. “Play the recording, please.”

What're you doin’ to Mr. Miller?

I'm testifying against him. In front of the school board.

Why?

He underestimated me. I overestimated him.

Are you okay?

I'm inspired.

That's not funny.

It is. A little.

Please don't do this.

Why?

You're gonna ruin his life. And for what? To avenge your rejection? To punish him? Because he didn't want to [bleep] you?

He wanted to [bleep] me, Winnie.

Huh. Yes. But he didn't leave his wife for you. …I'll testify against you.

No you won't.

Excuse me?

I'll show them the evidence I have against you and Boris…and not only will your credibility be shot to [bleep], but you'll incriminate him as well.

Cairo abruptly popped out of the leather seat and sprinted past all of the scrutinizing eyes towards the double doors.

Two teachers can lose their jobs. Oh hey, maybe we can double team.

Jon had shifted in his seat the moment she started objecting. Not a single person moved to chase after her. Not one, until it was almost compulsory for his feet to start flying down the same path.

Winnie: “how's it feel?”

“Fuck you!” Cairo cursed aloud at the text.

Winnie: “knowin that I'm gettin that rec that you so desperately wanted? 😘”

Jon called out, slightly out of breath as he chased her down the barren sidewalks. “Cairo! Cairo, stop! Don't do anything stupid —”

She whipped around, her face contorted in a pathetic anguish. “It's too late for that!” She turned back to her phone, hyperventilating.

Cairo: “FUCK OFF!!1”

She typed quickly, her hands shaking, even as she screeched the words in real time. Her phone hit the pavement as hard as she threw it; it bounced against Jon’s shoes as she sobbed and continued ripping her way through the sidewalk in her Keds.

Winnie: “right back atcha, bb 🖕🏽😎🖕🏽”

He scooped it up, glancing at the shattered screen and their conversation before pocketing it and struggling to keep up with her quick strides.

He had almost reached her. It surprised him how briskly she could speedwalk on those little legs, and he was already panting. He tried to grab her arm, but she jerked away. “Cairo —”

She turned again, her face reddened and tear stained. “Just fuck —”

She squealed in terror as she was suddenly weightless, his body a blur to steal her tiny form from the path of the oncoming SUV that hadn't seen her. She hadn't even heard him scream her name to warn her. Maybe he did. Or maybe it was all in her head, just like everything else.

Whatever it was, it stole her breath, and she fell limp like a ragdoll in his arms, fainted.

“Cairo? Cairo,” he said, holding her up. Jon looked around, struggling to keep her upright. There were a few uninterested people around the street corner; the other few people who had passed in their cars seemed to slow down until he backed onto a bus bench, heaving her onto it lengthwise with her back to the street. He slid her phone out of his pocket—its shattered screen was almost chipped in one corner, flashing on and off depending on how he held it. He dropped it into his jacket pocket before his trembling hands found their way to his own. Still panting, he glanced at Cairo’s form on the bench, scanned the area for the nothing that it was, and cursed.

Boris pulled up to the curb in his black sedan as Jon waved him down. Jon’s sweaty, thankful face filled his passenger side window as soon as he lowered it.

“I didn't know who else to call…or text.”

Boris grunted in his irritance, leaning against his steering wheel. “Where is she?” Jon moved aside, revealing her body on the bench. “Is she dead?”

Jon’s brow furrowed in his disbelief. “Wh — no, she's not dead! She just — she just fainted. And now I think she’s sleeping. I don't know — she's breathing, but not wakin’ up.”

Boris sighed, craning his neck to look up and down the street. “I don't think I need to tell you what this looks like —”

“Then don't — we're beyond looks now —”

“Maybe you are, but I ain't drivin’ no unconscious student back to their house! Alone! With you! Wake Sleeping Beauty up, we gotta get ‘er home.”

Jon looked back to the bench where she lay, her body quietly breathing. He looked back at Boris, a withering shake of his head telling of his desperation.

Boris slow-blinked into a rolled eye, acquiescing to Jon’s pleas and putting his car in park.

“God damn it,” he pointed his finger at his face while unbuckling his seatbelt.

“You owe me bigtime for this.”

“I know.”

Sweetland Manor, Lovell Hill

“Just set her down there, right there on the settee —”

Jon led Boris inside, and his instincts could've led the good coach to believe that he might've previously been inside her house for an extended period of time, even when he hadn't. Boris’s wide eyes drank in the darkly opulent hallways and decor until he was directed to set Cairo down on the velvet couch near the tall windows of the parlor.

“God damn. Didn't know Miss Cairo was rollin’ in the dough.”

“You didn't?”

“I told you before. I know where the line is —”

“And that's why you're still teaching and I'm not —”

“That's exactly right. Now let’s get the Hell outta here before that line gets stomped on any more,” he turned, trodding back down the hallway towards the colonade. Jon followed, but with a different type of urgency as Boris’s keys jingled in his hand.

“I can't leave her alone.”

“That's for damn sure —”

“That's not what I mean,” he stopped in his tracks at the front doors. “Boris.”

He threw his head back and turned. “Man, you can't be serious —"

"I'm very serious, I haven't been more —"

"You're in enough trouble already —”

“And I would never forgive myself if somethin’ happened to her! I'm already never gonna forgive myself. But this…it’s the least I can do for her now.”

“For her or for you?” He stabbed his car key so hard in his direction that Jon could feel the wind of it on his face.

He swallowed. “Are you askin’ out of concern or curiosity?”

Boris huffed, nodding as he watched the tip of his key scratch into the center of his palm. His anger vanished, replaced by guilt. They both listened to the white noise of it before he softened, and looked his friend in the face. There was genuine concern written into his brow, and genuine fear as well. “You really think she'd do somethin’ to herself?”

“She's all alone.”

“Is she?”

“Did you see anyone back there with her? Or here?”

“I take it Miss Black —”

“Testified for me, remember?”

Boris put his finger to his lips, looking like he was going to be sick. He shook his head, hard. “God damn it!” He continued to his car, incensed and alone. He whipped open the car door and stabbed his key at Jon again before dropping into his seat. “Next time, call an Uber.”

Jon hurriedly approached close enough to plead for one last thing. “And uh…please don't —”

“Deaf, dumb, and blind. Like Helen Keller,” he said as he turned his key in the ignition.

“Drive safe, Helen,” he waved.

“Who's that dumbass talkin’? I don't know who the fuck he is, never seen him before in my life.”

It was a blended storm of frustration and consternation as he stood over her, watching her shoulder rise and fall as she lay dead to the world, but thankfully not dead. She came pretty damn close, though.

Goddamn, Little Ghost. What am I supposed to do with you now?

The pressure in his bladder that he felt so strongly in the hearing room had returned—it had been driven away by the tightening he felt the second he pulled her away from the path of the SUV; a miracle considering the situation should've called for instant release—so much so that it overpowered his reluctance to let her out of his sight. At least she was home, and there didn't seem much incentive to run.

Run to the bathroom, maybe grab a drink of water or juice if she has any, then come right back was the plan.

Of the Greek Revivals in the South, Sweetland Manor, a.k.a. Lovell Hill, most closely resembled the Thornhill plantation house in Forkland, Alabama, and Jon knew this after some midnight Google stalking the day that Cairo told him where she lived. Still, he’d been drinking the night he looked at the floor plans, so his mind’s eye was bleary when it came to what was where.

Across the hall from the parlor was a bedroom, but his urgency sent him down the hall and past a—a library!—that he would have to check out after he was done with his business. As he started to breathe deeply in his attempt to avoid incontinence, he smelled an oddly sweet scent in the air, wherever he stepped: it was a dichotomously light and heady fragrance that reminded him of the tropics. The Bahamas. Bimini, in particular, where he and Bea honeymooned so many years ago. It was a strange combination of floral and…fruit? He stopped, his body temporarily forgetting its need to piss as he wracked his brain trying to place the scent. Pineapple? No, it's not that sharp. It smelled just as sugar-savory, though, and it was coming from all directions. He thought for just a moment that perhaps it was a Glade Plug-in, but those things were never as pleasant or subtle. A minor stabbing in his abdomen woke him out of his enchantment; he pinched his nose to rub out the obsession as he peeked around corners, finding the dining room, the rather modern kitchen, a large back patio that had an absolutely gorgeous Edwardian wrought iron and glass table, and finally, the bathroom. Or, a bathroom, since this one seemed to be a mere water closet off of the kitchen.

He glanced at himself in the mirror after he was done. He looked awful—his normally bagged eyes were even baggier from lack of healthy hydration and sleep. His reflection couldn't blame him; ever since Cairo turned in her midterm, he hadn't been able to sleep much. Obviously from her current state, she hadn't been able to, either. A splash of cold water against his eyes and he was headed back to that kitchen to quench his thirst after all of the stress and activity of getting the little tired ghost back home.

It was odd to see such a modern kitchen in an old mansion like this, but it is what it is, and perhaps her parents were foodies—Greg and Ivy Thompson, as he was informed by his own entertainment lawyer, hobnobbed with their rich and famous clients on the regular, so surely there was a celebrity chef amongst that lot. White with black and gunmetal furnishings, the decor was minimalist compared to the rest of the house, and the cabinets, plenty; Jon’s breath caught at the sight of them. Not the cabinets themselves, but what sat on the shelves behind the glass panels of the doors.

Row after row of staggered row of hard liquor: vodkas, tequilas…whiskeys. Not just any whiskeys, either, as he’d discovered after his beeline to the row of beautiful golden browns behind the cab right next to the fridge—none of that Crap Daniels gasoline—but celebrity whiskeys and bourbons. Decent ones, at that. Bob Dylan’s Heaven’s Door Small Batch, Lagavulin Offerman Edition Charred Oak Cask, Sassenach Limited Batch Blended. A lonely blue bottle of David Beckham’s Haig Club Clubman in the back, untouched. His hand twitched and went straight for his favorite, a mostly full bottle of Sweetens Cove Blended Bourbon. He opened it, deeply inhaling the notes of toasted oak and brown sugar, his mouth watering for the sweet taste that reminded him of a densely alcoholic Almond Joy. He found himself a crystal lowball glass and poured it halfway full before replacing the bottle in its place, taking a moment to thank the cabinet for its fine spirits before gently snapping its door shut.

He checked his watch as he briskly headed back down the hall—How long had he left her for?—but not without almost spilling his Cove all over the front of his shirt when his feet stopped on his recent memory—the library. All of those leatherbounds, hubbed spines, gilt letter volumes of classics, wall-to-wall, floor to ceiling shelves packed full and equipped with sliding ladders on each for the ghostly occupant of the house who might be a little too short to reach. He could already see where she’d deigned to, from the empty spaces on the highest of shelves…and lower shelves where he, but not she, could reach. It tickled him to imagine her attempting to reach for one of the tomes and failing.

He set his glass down onto a lower empty shelf and reached into one of those high hollows of darkness next to a ladder, the gilt of “1905” on the foot of a spine catching his eye. “NOVELS OF THE SISTERS BRONTË | THE PROFESSOR” it read in gold between the raised bands of its fine, red Moroccan leather. It had been moved, possibly read, but lazily left behind against others that were too thick and obscure for a busy young girl. He flipped it into his hand and reached for his glass, pausing for a moment to appreciate the little finger marks in the dust on the edge of the shelf that he’d missed before.

His anxiety was quelled once he wound his way back to the salon. She was still fast asleep, huddled in a little ball against the velvet and pillows, her bowed lips in a frown as she breathed through her nose. Her normally kempt bangs were clinging to her forehead in sweat, but there was a slight shiver to her breaths. He glanced around the room, the afternoon daylight still spilling in to illuminate its quiet sanctuary, but there was nothing else besides more pillows and books, so he put his treasures down on the book-crowded coffee table and skipped over to the bedroom across the hall.

He winced when he found it, but it was the only thing light enough to tote around quickly without cumber: a Denver Broncos woven throw, from their 2015 Superbowl win against the Panthers. Jon was a Titans man through and through, but he also had great respect for the Panthers (at least, he had great respect for Boris’s Carolina fanaticism). He was there, in San Francisco with Boris, thanks to Bea and her highfalutin' connections. Also thanks to Bea—and Boris—his own collectible throw lay unused in its bag in a closet back at the house, after he was convinced not to burn it in the parking lot after the game.

He draped it over her body as carefully as he could without waking her, his only fright being a soft murmur from her throat as it settled around her shoulders. He seemed to be incapable taking his eye off of her very safe and secure form, even as he pulled one of the salon chairs up to the coffee table, where he relieved a spot of its books for his bourbon. He sat, Brontë book in hand, but was reminded of his pocket heavy with their phones when the bulk jabbed into his thigh.

Cairo’s screen was totally fucked. She had thrown it with such force that it rendered her neon green case useless against the hot, solid Tennessee pavement. It turned on, but there was no use trying to access any apps. He laid it face up next to his glass and checked his own phone, which should’ve been thanking its lucky stars that it hadn't met the same fate as hers. A message from Boris and a shit ton of messages from Bea.

I oughta block her.

The obsequient in him merely steered his brain towards ignoring the messages as they came, and instead checking what Boris had to say. The problem was, Jon didn't know what to say back. Just as he couldn't admit his feelings to him that day in the bleachers, he couldn't admit to them now. But now, he was just angry about it. Angry at himself for being so gutless, but also angry at Boris for pretending like he hasn't done worse.

Yes, damn it, yes, I'm in love with her. She's—you don't get it, she's eidetic, I'm eidetic. To the same photographic degree! Fuck man, don't just look at her face, her body, that's all bonus! I'm talking about her mind. Her mind. It's overflowing with talent and knowledge and…and feeling. That g…that woman knows things. She is…exceptional. And I went about this the wrong fucking way. I know that.

But fuck, Boris. Fuck you and the lesbo porn you're jackin’ off to, with her n’...her n’ Miss Black! Don't you get it? She wanted you to show that shit to me. God damn! Fuckin’ self-righteous asshole. Don't gimme any of that goddamn line shit either…like you ain't after Miss Black. You gave her your phone number, dumbass! Imagine what would happen if fuckin’ Cairo turned you in, too. She's got those photos hangin’ over your head now, we're brothers in arms. Don't you fucking abandon me.

Jon reached for his glass and took his first sip of the Cove, the nutty Neopolitan dessert notes blanketing his tongue and granting a little calm and clarity. He punched in a simple emoji and left it at that, pocketing the phone and getting comfortable to read, his eyes flickering up to keep watch on the girl who seemed to have no idea that he was there. Or that she was there. Something pretty hard must've hit her in that moment she wasn't hit, but Jon would keep vigil regardless. It was the least he could do.

That, and without his car, he was pretty much stranded there.

But, you're only really stranded when you don't want to be where you are, and his acceptance of that fact quickly dispatched the excuse to another sip of that sweet, sweet bourbon. He sat back into comfort and slipped his reading glasses on, prepared to keep company with another English professor and a girl who was much more demure and diplomatic than the little wrecking ball at his feet.

“Cairo? Cairo!”

Jon popped up when he realized he’d fallen asleep. He nearly tripped on the Broncos throw at his feet when it hit him that he must've been asleep for more than ten hours, and that in ten hours, a lot could happen with a broken-hearted young girl whose life had crumbled before her eyes. He thought he might start to hyperventilate when he caught wind of it again.

That smell. That weird, tropical scent of flowers and something. It was stronger, somehow. It felt damp, and this time was accompanied by a very faint and muffled 90's power ballad. Celine Dion? He followed his senses, and they led him down the hall and up the stairs, where an acrid cloud of fresh cigarette smoke was wafting out of a room at the top. The cloud swallowed the pleasant scent, but at least now he could breathe.

The music had stopped the second he stepped foot into the room. He found her on the window seat across from her bed, cigarette in hand and laptop in her lap. The ashtray on her little table stand told of her chainsmoking, since it clearly needed to be emptied.

She craned her neck to look over her shoulder at him.

“Left, right, left, soldier. Or didn't you get the memo?” Her eyes followed him as he stood to lean against her footboard. “I left you a note.”

“I didn't — I didn't see a note.”

“I knew I shoulda stapled it to your forehead. You just looked so peaceful, I didn't wanna wake you.”

He was snoring when I woke, his open book on his gut, threatening to slide off onto the floor on the next inhale. I slipped it carefully from under his slack fingers and placed my blanket over his form, along with one of my mama’s decorative pillows under his cheek. Gets cold at night in this old house, and a crick in the neck’s made worse by it.

Kissing him for the first time was a lot more tender than it was in my imagination. It was the feel of his beard on the backs of my fingers that was unexpected. Softer than it looked, even with every other hair deciding to grow at an angle unconducive towards neatness. The funny corner of his open mouth was all I could get from him in his state, lest I wake him from his exhausted slumber. I can still feel the hairs poking into my lips, even as I tried to keep it brief.

I could've pet that beard forever, though.

I left it propped up on the coffeetable. I thought for sure you'da seen it. “Left, right, left, soldier. Come and find me.” Written in red and punctuated with a stupid little schoolgirl’s stupid little heart…because goddamn —

I still love you.

“But that begs the question, why did I wake up to find you sleepin’ in my house, and why haven't you gone?”

“Those are two separate questions —”

“I believe they have the same answer.”

“...I wanted to make sure you were alright.”

“Do I look alright?”

He pursed his lips. Her hair was brushed out, and she was wearing an oversized flannel nightshirt over floral silk shorts. Blush over black was somehow fitting, and aside from that odd mismatch and the redness around her eyes, she looked cleaned up.

“You look like you been cryin’. Have ya?”

She took a long draw on her shortened cigarette, shortening it further down to the filter. “I vomited so hard I was up in tears, does that count?”

“So you're not alright.”

She crushed the end of her stub into a pile of ash next to the other butts in the ashtray while at the same time reaching for a new one.

“I'll manage,” she said as she struggled with her low-fuel lighter. She checked the end and twisted back to her laptop, taking a big drag and exhaling slowly as she started to close tabs on her browser. She glanced at him, dismissive with her cigarette hand. “You can go. I know you don't wanna be here.”

“Now what on Earth gives you that impression?”

“So you do wanna be here?”

He eyed her cigarette, and her pack. “May I?”

“You may.” As he bent back from taking the cigarette, he looked around for something to sit on. “I got a chair by the vanity,” she gestured.

He humbly thanked her and dragged it over, close enough to reach the ashtray if he needed it. He lit up, his first large stream of smoke directed towards the ceiling.

“Tell me why you wrote it,” he said, his eyes watching the smoke drift. He turned his head to see her slightly confuzzled countenance.

“I told you why —”

“No. No more hiding behind academic aspirations. No bullshit. It's just you n’ me now. You n’ me —”

“ ‘ — coastin’ on a tattered raft out in the ocean, all alone save for the salty sea air and the shit-droppin’ seagulls above’?” She watched Jon chuckle, smoothing his hand over his eyes and then his mouth. Her second recitation from Apostrophes and Ampersands had its intended effect on him, just as the first one had before, but she remained guarded. Coy. Lovestruck. “Because I wanted you to fuck me.”

“Why?”

“B’cuz I wanted you to take my virginity.” Her words came forth a little deeper now, her voice exuding a husky quality that he hadn't heard before. It could have been the cigarettes, or more likely, her conscious denial of the present tense.

He shook his head, but his nervous chuckle betrayed the disbelief of his position. “I'm twice your age.”

“More than twice.”

“Cairo, please.”

“You're askin’ me why…why I wanted you to take my virginity.”

“That's exactly what I'm askin’.”

She finally looked away, taking a drag with a big sigh. “If you have to ask, you can't afford the answer.”

“Please, Cairo, I'm already under suspension —”

“Well I guess that makes two of us then, doesn't it,” she sniped, busying herself with her laptop.

He blinked. “What?”

She turned her laptop towards his view: there was a .pdf file letter with the Benson Agricultural Wildcats seal in the center at the top on the screen, but that was all he could read without his glasses. “Two weeks out of school suspension with a permanent note on my record,” she announced with a defeated acceptance. “For ‘severe violations’ of the Student Code of Ethics.” She shut the laptop and set it aside on a pile of books, sliding her legs off the seat to hang over the edge and ashed. “I checked my email when you were sleepin’.”

He swallowed. Something like that ain't gonna get ‘er into Yale.

“Surely your parents can take care of that —”

“I don't want them to take care of it. I want to take responsibility for my mistakes. That's the adult thing to do, isn't it?”

“Cairo, honey, you don't have to —”

“ ‘Honey’?”

“I may be makin’ another mistake by continuin’ to treat you like a friend, but that's all we are right now, isn’t it?”

“Are we? Friends, Mr. Miller?”

“Y’aint in my class anymore.”

“That’s ‘cuz you ain't teachin’ it no more. Right now, at least.”

“And whose fault is that?” He watched her brow rise, and he swore he could hear her breath catch whatever it was she was going to say. He put his fingers up, his perpetually nervous smile diffusing his heat. His voice sometimes wavered under such stress, and it was stressful to look into her big brown eyes. “I didn't come—I didn't stay here to argue.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Because I didn't wantcha to be alone right now —”

“Why?”

“God, you ask too many questions! —”

“Just the same questions you're askin’ me. ‘Why?’”

“Can you just — please. I got nuthin’ right now. Between the suspension n’ the divorce, I just —” he pressed his fingers into his eyes. “Please.”

She hadn't taken a drag on her cigarette in more than a few moments and had to ash. Her large eyes were heavy-lidded in her search of his face for his intent. “You want me to make you feel good about yourself, is that it?”

“Nothing about this is ever gonna make me feel good about myself, Cairo.”

Don't be too sure about that, she thought as she took a long drag. “What was the question again?”

“You know what it was.”

She sighed. “ ‘Tell me why you wrote it. No more hiding behind academic aspirations. No bullshit. It's just you n’ me now. You n’ me, coastin’ on a tattered raft out in the ocean, all alone save for the salty sea air and the shit droppin’ seagulls above.’ ” Satisfied with the subtle shake of his head and his smiling eyes, she crushed the long end into the ashtray. “That's exactly why I wrote it.”

“But…why?”

“That ain't good ‘nuff reason for ya?” She watched as he struggled to comprehend his station…and her. “Well, why not…”

“Because I'm too old for you.”

“I wasn't finished.”

“My apologies.”

“Why not you, is what I been askin’ myself for weeks. Once I was around you, that is. Your captivatin’ lil’ words on the page of your one and only book —”

“You mean those mediocre words?”

“I was mad when I said that, I'm not mad right now at least not yet,” she snapped.

“I'll stop interrupting you.”

Her gaze flickered away in shame, but just for a missed moment. “No, that wasn't right, and I apologize. In case you haven't noticed, sometimes my temper matches my height. I don't mean to slight you as hard as my stature.”

“Yeah, you are a little…a lil’ shrimpy,” he smirked.

“ ‘A little shrimpy’?”

“Just a little,” he teased, holding his fingers up to almost pinch the air. It drew her grin back, and she blushed.

“You really wanna know why?”

“I do.”

She inhaled deeply, as if to answer with a defeated affirmative. He had finished his cigarette, and upon her offering the near-empty pack, he obliged, slipping one out and nabbing the lighter so that he could light hers as well.

“Lookit us. Just like old times.”

“It can't be like old times.”

“It has to be, since it's the answer to your question.” Her curtness indicated a self-righteous sensitivity, but she softened as smoke made its way out of her nose. “I wanted to save myself for someone with whom I had a connection. And I don't connect with boys my age. Never have.”

“You've connected with other, uh, older —”

“Why Mr. Miller, you do sound jealous —”

“I'm not jealous —”

“Good, ‘cuz you shouldn't be. You’d be the first one. Hence…vir…gin…i…ty.”

It was the first time in a while he’d seen that neon smile. It was the first time in a while it came to the door, following her favorite person into the shared fresh air and the sunlight of his eyes.

“Don’t lie to me now, Mr. Miller. I know you felt that connection too. Otherwise you wouldn't be here.”

He looked away. He hadn't sat back in his chair after reaching for the cigarette, instead twisting his body to lean against its solid arm rest as he stared at her while she talked. His gaze swept over the piles of books and papers next to her on the sill, and her laptop’s energy light flashed red, then stopped.

He picked at his fingernails, the cigarette hanging carelessly between his fingers. “Still got your sights on Yale?”

“What's it to you? It’s not like you can write me a recommendation.”

“I could still get my wife to write you one.” He erased at an invisible chalkboard with his finger and pointed. “Soon to be ex -wife.”

“Now that…is a gargantuan feat I'd love to see.” The soft neon glowed in amusement.

“Barbaric,” he chuckled. “But she’ll do it, if I ask nicely.”

“Anything to get the little homewrecker outta sight, outta mind?”

“No, that's — no. But she'll have to, if she wants me to sign the papers.”

Her brows raised. “I'm not sure how I should feel about such coercion, Mr. Miller.”

“No one’s askin’ you to feel anything about it. Just take the rec. It's what you want.”

“And how do you know what I want?”

He leaned back in the chair. “Fair ‘nuff. Then what is it that you want?”

He could see that she was chewing on her inner lip before answering.

“I'm almost embarrassed to admit that I still want you.”

His hands lifted up off his thighs, gesturing at himself. “This?”

“That.”

“I'm too old for you.”

“You said that already. But I think that’s up to me to decide.”

“Cairo —”

“Mr. Miller. Jon. May I call you that?” She took the ashtray and emptied it into the little trash basket by her feet. She set her cigarette into one of the grooves to let it burn. “I told you why I wanted you, yet you seem to be fishin’ for more. Do you really need me to elaborate —”

“Maybe I do. Maybe I need a damn good reason for why I'm even here, in your room, in your hou — your mansion, alone with you when just a few hours ago, we were sittin’ in an academic courtroom watchin’ our lives get blown to smithereens!”

“Or maybe you just need some reassurance that what you're doin’ is right.” He balked, but she hit a nerve. One of many she’d been battering for weeks, and her grin of awareness turned neutral. “I can assure you, it's alright. We’re both legal adults, ain't no crime here —”

“Maybe no crime, but ethically —”

“Not every romance is ethically sound, Mr. Miller.”

“Romance. Is that what this is? You – you wrote that it wasn't.”

“I did, but that was your line in the context of fiction and right now that's neither here nor there.” She watched as he stammered through whatever it was he wanted to say, shredding the words with his teeth. “I know how I feel about you.”

“And you think you love me.”

“Don't you feel the same?”

“I — this isn't about how I feel —”

“Then what is it about, Jonathan?”

“Please —”

“Sorry. Mr. Miller…sir.”

“We could've had this talk before —”

“We’re havin’ it now.”

“I shouldn’a done what I did, but you shouldn’a done what you did.”

“Coulda, shoulda, woulda…three of my least favorite auxiliary verbs,” she blew a small raspberry at them to emphasize her annoyance.

“And why’s that?”

She blinked into deep thought, as she would often do around him during class and office hours. The intensity of his stare always gelled her thoughts to completion.

“Hesitance for the weak,” she nodded. “And the negatives are often rooted in fear and regret.” She quickly plucked the nearly burnt out cigarette up for a drag, but it was already done. She watched its frayed end scatter its burning tobacco bits as she pushed it down against the gray of the previous ash. “E.g.: If I had thought…it’d make you fall out of love with me…I wouldn’a done it —”

“It didn't make me —”

“So you are still in love with me?”

“...I never said that.”

“You never say anything. You write it. But you haven't written anything in…what is it, decades now?” She didn't mean to sound so derisive. She dropped her eyes to her bare feet. “I mean, why can't you just adm —”

“Alright! Alright,” He put out his cigarette and stared, his knuckles at his lips. “If I have felt anything for you —”

“Come on, Jon —”

“This won't work. It can't work.”

“Why not? If two people like you n’ me are in love, why can't we just —”

“Because it's inappropriate. It's always been inappropriate. And that was my error, my mistake. I led you on —”

“Did you? You said no bullshit. Yet here you are…”

“You sayin’ I didn't lead you on?”

He watched as she slid off of the seat and approached his chair without breaking eye contact; or at least, he believed it to be eye contact. However, she stepped over to him with eyes glassed over, not focused on anything but the wholeness of his presence. She leaned her thigh against the armrest as he sat, stricken by her proximity. The last time she was like this, she emasculated him in a manner not unlike Beatrice had several times before; but this time, Cairo's expression was less than furious. Her eyes finally focused on his, which reflected a similar fear and impuissance of which he reflected before; however, once their glances touched, contact dissolved the discomfort into reassurance.

“You led me to where I wanted to be,” she shifted against the armrest and casually lifted her hand to his beard. It hadn't been a day and she missed the feel of it on her fingers. “And now you're here. Where I want you to be.”

His hand covered hers on his cheek. “Cairo —”

She wrested it free, pushing it away as she continued to pet his beard and stare into his eyes with hypnotic determination. “You wouldn't be here if you didn't want to be here.”

“I'm just — I was just —”

“Just what? Concerned about me?”

“Yes that's exactly it —”

“I want you to look me in the eye and tell me that you never wanted me the way I want you. No bullshit.” She was leaning into him; her hand had migrated to the nape of his neck, the soothing scrape of her fingernails having done their job. He looked her in the eyes and, when he said nothing, she pushed herself upright. “That's what I thought.”

“What now, then? What do you suppose happens now?”

Her eyes trailed over his head and features, roaming around until they settled on his lips. He felt like a slaughter steer, and she was checking him for quality.

“Sleep with me,” she shrugged.

“You — I mean that's —”

“I didn't say fuck me. I said sleep with me. You remember what sleep is, don't you?”

“I haven't gotten a decent night’s sleep in weeks.”

“Well then. My suggestion must sound pretty damn enticing, doesn't it.”

He insisted on turning around before she got into bed, despite the fact that she was wearing the exact same thing she’d been wearing since he found her. They had agreed to keep their clothes on, and thus Cairo saw no problem in him watching her get into bed; Jon, however, knew better than that.

He was still reeling from the day’s events, but their conversation made it pretty clear that they were on the same page of the dirty fantasy that she’d written for him. Same page, same paragraph, same sentence, same words, same word, same letters, right down to the crossed t and dotted i. But he couldn't risk excitement, or even a hint of desire, especially when it could have been objectively stated that she was scantily clad: her shorts barely passed halfway mark down her thigh, and her shirt hung almost as low as the hem of her shorts while she was standing. She might as well not be wearing anything down below, but that was another idea that sent him mentally scrambling for distraction.

If only he remembered the existence of the vanity mirrors. Or, insisted on sleeping on the right side. But the right side was her side, as she so firmly informed him before dipping out to her bathroom for a minute while he stripped and got himself settled in.

Dumbass. Boris’s voice rang in his head. Dumb. Ass!

Ripping the covers over his head would’ve been far too childish. He lay on his left side while watching her kneel onto the bed behind him, a particularly sly grin on her face.

The grin was only there because she’d caught him staring at her reflection.

He quickly dropped his eyes, but it was too late. She unbuttoned the highest buttoned button on her top, slowly, paused— Was she tonguing her cheek? —and then lifted the covers, wedging under the sheets next to him, about half an arm’s length away.

Neither faced the other, but he still felt the need to pee—even though he already had.

“You know you can face me. I won't bite.”

Her voice had become tinged with diffidence while Jon’s breathing had gotten heavier, but come Hell or high water, Cairo was going to have her heaping Big Spoon somehow. “I just think it’d be warmer if one of us faced the other. And my back is cold.”

At once, Jon rolled around under the covers to face her back, and that's when it really hit him: that sweet, intriguing fragrance from before.

It was her, obviously. But that still didn't answer the question of what its tantalizIng scent profile was, or from what or where it came.

Could be perfume. Or the scent of her laundry detergent. Her hair. He resisted getting close enough to be sure, and instead stared at the dainty flowers of the floral pattern of her pink flannel nightshirt, visible between strands of her hair.

She, on the other hand, dared to scoot just a little closer, jutting her behind towards him as she made herself comfortable. He looked down into the gap between them; her shirt was pulled tight to the front, exposing the small of her back and its concave dip of her spine into the blackness of the crack of her silk shorts. He moved back a little, with ample room for the covers to hang low enough to shield his sinful view, but unfortunately for him, her body wriggled with him, and he sighed.

They were hardly settled for one minute before she turned her chin to speak over her shoulder.

“I never said fuck me, but you can if you want.”

He had closed his eyes in an absurd attempt to think his way out of the room and into sleep. Maybe if he couldn't sleep soon, he could go raid the kitchen for some more Cove. The image behind his eyelids of her head that had been there a minute earlier when he closed them remained almost exactly the same, except now he could see her shiny gold ear cuff on the helix of her little ear, as she had drawn her hair behind it. Everything about her was little, and adorable.

Save for those giant eyes that’re too large to be proportional to the rest of her face and features. Those things were big…and dangerous. And right now, Jon really wanted to read them, since he was pretty good at finessing her sincerity with just a quick skim.

“I'm not going to fuck you.”

“Sure, Jon,” she taunted. She could feel his eyes on the back of her head. It was the same feeling she got whenever she sat in his class. He was watching. Always watching. The way it thrilled her. The way the thrill terrified her, making her hope that someday it would become more than a stare. More than a shared cigarette, or biscuit. More than an argument that ruined their lives.

“I haven't slept much either, you know.”

“Yeah?”

She turned her chin further, then twisted her body around to face him, his hand in the shortened space between them unsure of where to go before it retreated to rest by his belly. The light from her lamp behind him created a halo around the silhouette of his hair until her eyes adjusted; his doleful eyes exuded concern. Pity, even.

And she hated that.

She reached towards his face, and he flinched.

“May I?” she asked, her voice as small as she looked. He nodded, and she reached her fingers along the edge of his jaw, scratching her black fingernails through the hairs along its line. She bent to touch her forehead to his chest, humming in bliss.

His stomach twisted in knots, a terrible contrast to the feel of her fingers on his face and the heat that radiated from her little body. His eyes trailed over the sheet covering her shoulders; her hair splayed over it in loose strands, and he was tempted to run his fingers though it. The temptation translated to something else, and he moved his hips back at a safe distance from her under the guise of adjusting the covers.

“Well, Little Ghost. Looks like you got your way,” he whispered, cupping his hand over hers to cease the scratching.

“Not quite.” She shifted back a little, tilting her head up. “Can I tell you somethin’, Jon?”

She trapped him in her gaze, her brows knitted up in earnest. He exhaled, not conscious that his fingers were tinkering with one of the rings on her fingers, the pad of his index scraped by the prongs of its jewel setting.

“What it is.”

As they lay locked in their stare, her brow crumpled, her expression caving to her emotions. He watched the faint muscles of her face contort, her lips pressed together to hold back what she could, however futile to fight against desperation. She choked out the words as the tears flowed freely, rivulets of regret and adoration.

“I'm sorry,” her voice keened into sobs as she withdrew her hand from his jaw to join it with her other, clutching at his t-shirt. “I'm so, so sorry Mr. Miller, please don't — hate me. Please don’t leave me. Please, I'm sorry, you don't—know—how sorry —”

“Hush now, Cairo,” he held her to his chest, his heart aching with every tremor and hiccup. He smoothed his palm over the back of her hair as she cried it out. “You're okay. You’ll be okay. Everything's gonna be alright.”

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