Thread: You came home.... (PandaxMarxistPanda)

RE You came home.... PandaxMarxistPanda Whenever Athena touched him, Rich felt a rush run through him. It made his blood hot and his skin react with gooseflesh. It wasn't the rush of passion it was a fight or flight response, a programed reaction brought on by anything that came close to him. His jaw set and his hand gripped tightly against his glass of whiskey as he fought the reflexive response to slap her hand away and strike. The reaction frightened him but he smiled despite the emotion. There was no reason she had to know what her caring gesture almost made him do. It made him sick and the whiskey suddenly didn't agree with him. He forced himself to accept her touch for what it was and turned his head against her touch to show her that he truly did appreciate it. He set his glass on the railing and laced his fingers together, one elbow leaning against the banister, I'm glad that you're doing what you love and teaching it to others, he said with a smile. He was always fascinated by her artistic ability, and was happy she'd made it her profession. When she teased him he grinned sheepishly, looking away from her beautiful eyes that seemed to peer into him. I don't know about all that, women and I didn't seem to get along while I was away. A lot of them just wanted to be career military dependents, and you could read it all over them like a book. It sounded harsh, but that was the reality of it. He learned quickly to not get involved with women on the base. When she touched his stomach he was prepared this time, and instead of reacting the way he did before he only grinned wider as her hand pressed into the solidness of his abdomen. There was barely any fat on the young man. He'd joked to his mother that he sweated it all away in Iraq. What about you, he teased back, I'm sure you have to keep a baseball bat under your desk to keep the hormonal teenagers at bay. Smooth, real smooth, Rich, you idiot , he thought to himself as he looked away from her. He couldn't look away for too long. Her eyes were like magnets, they always were. He wondered then what it would have been like if he'd confessed his feelings for her before he left. Would that have been right to do? Start a relationship then ship off to the asshole of the middle east and expect her to be okay with that? The way things transpired he was glad he hadn't. There was a reason he let their communication run dry, and it was more than just the distance and the obligatory uncertainty of a soldier's life. The adrenaline rush made him feel hotter than the comparatively mild western sun normally would have, and he felt like he was sweating. Hey, do you want to go for a walk or something? Catch up? Remember our tree house? He looked back to the busy party inside, Being around a lot of people makes me edgy, he confessed. And I've already caught up with everyone but you, he grinned at her. The wooded area behind his family home was a safe haven haven for the pair throughout their overly dramatic teenage years. When he was very young his father built him a tree house in a massive hardwood that stood in the center of the woods. In the summer you couldn't see past the foliage and no one could see in. It was a perfect place for them to hang out together, and conducted any form of mischief they thought necessary. When Rich left his younger brother took over the tree and the responsibility of maintaining it and the network of trails they made. When they made it to the old tree house Rich was amazed at how well his brother had maintained it, despite having only recently graduated high school. He figured that the kid would have abandoned it for all of the electronic distractions teenagers had now. Way to go, Cody, he remarked as he looked up at it, memories flooding back to him. The structure was supported by a network of beams and frames that held it to the main trunk and the larger branches. His father had said it would take a tornado to take it down. Rich never doubted it for a second. The structure itself was simple in design shaped like a cube with a simple tapered tin roof that was missing a lot of paint but there appeared to be no holes. The windows were clear fiberglass that had frosted over with age. There was a ladder that lead up through a cut out in the small railed in deck that attached to the front of the structure about a yard in-front of the door. Rich's dad was never the kind of man to do anything small scale. He wouldn't have been surprised if after retirement the man had taken to maintaining it himself. He never good sit still. He turned to her with a wide mischievous grin. The same grin that had landed them in trouble more times either of them would have been able to count. Shall we? He tested the ladder to make it secure before briskly climbing the rungs to the top. When he pulled himself onto the deck he looked down at her through the hole, Seems safe enough! he called down to her with that same grin pulling widely at his lips. Rich opened the door to the tree house not knowing exactly what to expect, but was amazed at what he found. It was like he was stepping into a small bedroom. Bookshelves lined the wall as they had before, still containing the dusty tombs of his youth. Goosbumps and comics, mostly. There was a small low table built into the center where even know he could probably fold his legs under. He could remember playing cards there, reading, playing with toys. Against the wall across from the door there was a small twin bed that wasn't there when he left. There were no sheets or blankets but the mattress looked new under the plastic dust sheet. Yeah, I should say 'Good job, dad.' Part of him wondered if his dad had just renovated the place when he found out he was coming home. It looked better than whenever he left, but the ceiling was barely and inch above his head. The air inside was cool and refreshing and had the familiar smell of the woods that brought even more memories back to him.