Sean’s Song

It’s like all of the words and none of the words and all of the words in between.

In other words, it’s Sean Gleason and his songs and his honey voice whispering to me when I’m trying to think about my future and whether I can make a living painting water colors, and nothing to do with him or his guitar or his songs or his wanting to slide my knickers down.

I raise my palm at his insufferably cute face, his freckled nose, his hazel eyes, but he just plants his face there in my hand, his nose sliding between my fingers, his tongue rolling along the v between my second and third finger, making me feel electric and disgusted all at once. And, isn’t that just Sean in a nutshell? Seducing and disgusting in one quick gesture.

“Stop that,” I say.

“I’ve loved you from the first moment, St. Mary,” he says.

And that awful, awful, so sacrilegious nickname. “You know better, Sean,” I say, scrambling away from him and his warm wet tongue that makes me think things I shouldn’t and definitely want to do things I shouldn’t. With him.

“I’ve loved you from the first Mary.”

“From the first time you noticed I had boobs,” I say tartly.

He shrugs. He doesn’t need to say it’s true.

“Go away, Sean. There will be another girl with boobs along in five seconds.”

“But she won’t be you.”

“Yah. You can be sure of that.”

“I wrote a song for you,” he says before sliding his sunburst acoustic from his backpack.

He strums. I roll my eyes. And then he sings. And, well, how did I never know he could sing like this?

“You’re all the things wrapped up in my soul, so much not in my control, all the things I’ve ever wanted, my demons never confronted.”

The song may go on, but I’ve melted and Sean notices and melts along with me. We cling to each other until my sister, Alice, bangs on the front door.

“Bloody hell, Mary. I forgot my key. Are you shagging Sean?” she yells.

I’m pretty sure every nosy body up and down the street has heard her, maybe even into the next village.

Sean grins as I open the door to Alice. She winks at Sean before scampering up the stairs.

Before I can accuse him of engineering a situation, he kisses the life out of me and suddenly I find I don’t care much. Not much now. Maybe not at all.

end

Sascha Darlington