Slow Dance in Purgatory

Johnny’s face fell the tiniest bit. “I didn’t think of that. I guess you can’t very well tell her your invisible friend fixed her car.”

“No… I guess not.” Maggie approached him then, and moving quickly, before she lost her courage, she slipped her arms around his lean torso. She hugged him tightly, resting her cheek briefly on his chest.

“Thank you, Johnny. I can’t thank you enough,” she said softly.

He was frozen for several seconds, his hands paused in mid-air, the wrench dangling from the fingers of his left hand. Then, hesitantly, he wrapped his arms around her and held her for several heartbeats. The silence around them became thick and heady, and Maggie thought she might drown in the pleasure of it. Then Johnny released her and took a step back. With a dizzying flash he was back under the car.

“Can I help you?” Maggie asked after a minute. “Maybe hand you parts or something?”

“Sure. Clutch – “Johnny’s hand shot out from under the car, palm up, waiting.

“Which is which, again?” Maggie wrinkled her nose in confusion as she stared at the collection of parts.

Johnny laughed from under the car. “How about you just keep me company? Just talk to me. I can handle the transmission all by myself.”

“Sounds like a plan – so what should we talk about?” Maggie situated herself, legs criss-cross, on the floor next to the car where she could study his face while he worked.

“What’s ‘Team Edward?’”

Maggie’s laughter pealed out in surprise.

“Long, long story. No real team involved. Edward is just a hot guy.”

The silence in the room was deafening. Maggie squirmed, wondering what she had said. After a moment, Johnny spoke, but his voice was decidedly frosty.

“And hot means…cool, right?”

“Hot means….um, very appealing,” Maggie said judiciously.

Johnny got a strange expression on his face and didn’t respond – continuing to work with a deep furrow between his blue eyes. He worked faster and faster, his hands flying from one thing to the next. Maggie searched her brain for a new topic of conversation when he abruptly spoke up again.

“So, this Edward cat. If he’s so appealing why haven’t you mentioned him before? Is he from your old school?”

Maggie shrieked with laughter and, crawling under the big car, stared down into Johnny’s scowling face.

“Edward is a character from a very popular book series, silly. He’s a mythical creature – a vampire!”

“You mean like Dracula?” Johnny looked completely dumbfounded, and his hands stilled. “And you think he’s…hot?”

“Yes, along with 90% of all females from ages 13 to 90. Read the book, smarty pants. I can pretty much guarantee it’s in the library upstairs. I think you’ve spent too much time floating lately.”

“Huh,” Johnny grunted. “The world has changed more than I thought in the last fifty years.”

“You sound like a grumpy old man,” Maggie teased, still perched over him, laughter still curling the corners of her pink mouth. Her hair swung down around him in a fragrant curtain, cocooning them in a private world. He stared up at her for a moment, struck by the sheer miracle of her. Here she was beside him, laughing at him, looking at him. He’d been alone so long. He was also more than a little jealous of this Edward guy. Impetuously, he reached through the silky length of her hair and grabbed the back of her head and drew her to him, capturing her mouth with his.

Maggie had never been kissed like that.

When her lips touched his, it was like kissing an open flame – without the pain. His lips were smooth and insistent, and a bolt of electricity shot from her lips to the soles of her feet and hummed just below the surface of her skin like a live current. Light shimmered and spread around them, until Maggie felt like she was floating in a golden haze where nothing existed but Johnny, his lips, his scent, his hair beneath her seeking fingertips. It was like her dream…

She broke away from Johnny with a gasp, her blue eyes wide, searching his from only inches away. His expression was as stunned as hers. The dream had ended with her falling through darkness and losing herself in the process. The memory was like an infusion of ice water in her veins, and in a clumsy retreat, Maggie scooted out from under the old car to reclaim the safety of her previous spot.

Her pulse took longer to recover as she watched Johnny, all corded muscles and golden skin, resume his work without acknowledging what had just transpired between them. When he rolled out from under the car to retrieve a new tool, Maggie reached up to touch her still tingling lips, jerking when an arc of static zinged from her mouth to her finger tips.