Intaglio: The Snake and the Coins (4 page)

They both
laughed and the tension disappeared as quickly as it had arisen. 

In moments, the
two of them were joking like old friends.  Around them, the Crown filled
with patrons from the gallery, while Cole and Ava talked artwork and sculpture
and crucified Wilkins’ teaching style.  They moved together like magnets.
By the time Suzanne and Chim arrived, they were sitting side by side, his arm looped
loosely around her waist.

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: :

It was hours
later, The Crown and Sceptre emptying as the after party broke up, when
Cole  offered to share a cab.  Ava was overheated after the
oppressive stuffiness of the nightclub and three hours of drinking.  (That
and the nearness of Cole.)  Pulling a hat and gloves from her purse, she
said she’d walk instead.  He then offered to walk her home; his own
apartment on campus was in the same direction, after all. 

She nodded,
accepting his offer.

The air was cold
but not harsh; abnormally calm so that sound carried for long distances. 
Dogs barking and people’s laughter arrived disembodied from the streets beyond.
They had been walking for some time in companionable silence when Cole spoke.

“You ever meet
someone you were
sure
you’d known before?”

He frowned as he
talked, staring down at the frosty ground.  Ava smirked, glancing at him
for a moment before digging her fingers deeper into her pockets.

“You sound like
my father,” she said with a laugh, turning her face up to the sky; the leaden
clouds were just starting to let go of the first large white flakes of
snow.  They looked like daubs of gesso on a dark canvas.

Cole stepped
closer, his arm brushing hers. She peaked back over at him.  He wasn’t
laughing; there was a line of worry between his eyebrows.  It was that
intensity she’d noticed before.  She swallowed hard, wondering what it
would be like to have the entire focus of that attention on her alone. 
She had a feeling that she was going to find out.

“No, I’m
serious,” he insisted, matching her pace perfectly.  “Someone you’ve never
met before… but it
seems
like you have.”

Ava slowed
slightly and he followed without dropping her eyes.

“Like
you...”  Ava answered.

She intended for
it to be a question, but it came out as a statement instead, because
this
was part of what unsettled her about Cole Thomas.  The feeling that she
knew him somehow, or had
known him
at some point… and that there was
something more to it. 

Something
deeper.

“Yeah,” he said,
“exactly,” not bothering to hedge his answer in vagaries.  “I felt that
the first time I talked to you.  It hasn’t happened since...”  He
turned, letting his voice disappear, and his face clouded over like the dark
sky.  She wasn’t sure why, but it was like a blind had dropped down in
front of him, and that bothered her.

“Since...?”

“Nothing,” he
said quietly, eyes scuttling along the ground.  Somewhere or
sometime
else
. 
After a second, he looked back over, smiling gently at
her.  Hesitant now.  “But I feel like that with you,” Cole
admitted.  “Like I can talk about
anything…
and it would be all
right.”

“Maybe you’re an
old soul,” Ava said, expecting the wisecracks that that sort of thing always
elicited.  She’d heard it enough times in her life, but Cole just watched
her, the groove between his brows growing deeper.

“What d’you
mean?”

Ava laughed
lightly and shrugged.

“My dad is a bit
of a hippie.  Let’s just say that reincarnation was a supper table
conversation growing up.”  She turned toward him, grinning.  She was
wondering how far she could push before he decided to run.  Some part of
her
liked
the idea.  Another part was terrified.  “You know,”
Ava said, tipping her head, “the whole karma – what goes around comes around –
thing.  Past lives and all that.”  She laughed again, turning away
and walking a little faster.  Nervous now.  “You probably think that
sounds ape-shit crazy, huh?”

Cole shook his
head, reaching out and pulling her gently to a stop.

“No, actually, I
don’t.”  His voice was quiet in the empty street. 
Awed
. 
Ava fought the urge to step away from him again.  He was looking at her
like a man who had been denied water for days and had only just discovered a
well. 

“You
don’t...?”  she whispered.

He smiled, the
worry softening.

“I just don’t go
around telling everyone about it because they’d think—”

“You’re crazy
too!” she answered, her face giddy, and she began to laugh.  Cole joined
her, and Ava linked her arm through his, the space between them disappearing
with the easy gesture.

“C’mon,” she said,
pulling him forward.  “I’m cold and I want to get home.”

And then they
half-ran, half-skipped the last eight blocks to her apartment, their bodies
connected by their crossed arms.  Half a block away, their combined shadow
looked like the wings of a single sea bird, wheeling in a bright sky.  Two
blocks further, and they looked like two boats, alone on an endless
ocean.  One block from that, and their joined bodies merged into a symbol
of infinity.

Cole couldn’t
remember the last time he’d laughed so hard… though exactly
what
they
were laughing about now eluded him.  Ava’s arm, looped through his, seemed
like the most important thing in the world at this moment.  That and the
fact that she understood what he had been feeling.  She hadn’t laughed at
him or blown him off.

Or run.

No, Ava Brooks
was different.  She was on his arm, running beside him as they made it to
a large cement apartment complex three blocks from campus.  It was a
formal, modernist structure from the 1960’s, a take-off of an Arthur Erickson
design now fallen into middle-aged disrepair.  Cole slowed as they
approached.  As a sculptor, he appreciated the straight lines that thrust
out sideways, the use of industrial cement in the building rather than stucco,
and the glittering expanse of glass.  It
felt
like Ava much more
than the student housing with beige walls and fake wood trim felt like
him
.

She glanced over
at him, winking.

“This is my
stop,” she said breathlessly, not letting go of his arm.  There was a
stretched-out silence and then she seemed to read his mind.  “Want to come
in and look around...?”

There was an
unspoken invitation of
more
in the way she said it, her tongue coming
out to wet her lips, and Cole could hardly control himself from pushing her up
against the frost-covered building and kissing her hard right then.  As it
was, they only made it to the elevator before the slow-growing smoulder flared
into more.  As the elevator door closed, Ava twisted toward him, her hands
running up his shirt, an inviting smile on her lips. With that, Cole’s control
was broken.  In half a second, he had her pinned against the wall, his
mouth moving against hers with abandon.

If he’d thought
the handshake was something to consider, he hadn’t thought enough about what
else
that kind of connection would translate into… The kiss was a roar of primal
need, leaving him shaking with desire. 

She moaned
against him and Cole’s hands moved to the small of her back and into her hair,
holding her steady as he leaned in. His lips moved against hers; the kiss
growing impatient in between the main floor and the third.  He flicked his
tongue along the fold of her lips and she opened for him.  Suddenly he was
invading her mouth, tasting her, sweet and burning like alcohol.  Her
tongue brushed against his - just as the electronic ping announced their
arrival.  Cole’s knees were weak and trembling, his body throbbing, an
intense heat now focused at his groin. 

His body was on
fire with the need to be with her.

The doors
opened, causing them to break apart.  She stared up at him as he pulled
back, her eyes wide and dark.  That was when the nervous flicker of
wariness came back to Ava’s expression, as if she was suddenly reconsidering
something.  Seeing it, Cole stepped back, realizing belatedly that his
body rushed headlong into things he should have been playing out more
slowly.  He realized that he couldn’t control himself around her… and that
thought worried him a bit. 

And yet...

Her expression
shifted subtly and suddenly the yearning was there again.  She reached
out, dragging him along the hallway with her.  Her hand was tight in his,
warm and strong and Cole couldn’t help but grin. 
God, but he wanted
her!

She dug through
her purse – a small backpack, he absently realized –  as he watched her,
noting the sharp movements and impatience, so perfectly
Ava
.  She
fought with the keys before fitting one into the lock. He put his hand on her
lower back, thinking of how naturally it fit there.  How
good and right
this all felt to be standing here next to her.  She pushed open the
door, leading him into a small, recessed foyer next to a coat rack and
closet.  From there, several wooden risers led up to the main space. 
Looking over at Cole, she grinned.

“Go ahead,” she
said, “it’s a little cramped here at the bottom.”

Cole nodded,
stepping inside as she flicked on the light.

“Wow...” he
said, eyes widening, “this is really nice...”

It definitely
wasn’t like his university apartment, with the second-hand clapboard furniture
and fading posters.  Cole walked slowly up to the main floor, trying to
absorb all of the details that made up Ava.  The leather couch.  The
plants sitting in yogurt containers on the windowsill.  The unframed
paintings on the walls.  He was reading her the way you could tell what
kind of grader a prof was going to be, based on the books and prints and
clutter (or lack thereof) you found in his office.  Cole wanted to know
everything
about her. 

Behind him, she
chattered as his feet found their way.

“...I share the
place with my Dad when he’s around.  He pays half the rent for me, though
he won’t let me paint in here...” She laughed for a moment; the sound was
poignant, though happy.  “I have to rent my own studio for that, just like
he does.   We’ve been here for the last four years, though Dad’s been
on tour most of the time now that I’m at university… I’m pretty much on my
own...”

Cole was only
half-listening as he gathered details to dissect later.  There were
photographs on the wide expanse of wall beside him.  They were all black
and white pictures of Ava at various ages.  She looked sadder in the
younger ones – and had an expression he recognized in several –
the concern
he caught every so often in her eyes.
  But in most of them she was grinning,
her face wide and open.  There was a man with her in many.  He shared
her light eyes and easy smile, though his colouring was slightly darker, brown
hair instead of blond.  The two of them sat side by side in the
velvet-covered seats of an old theatre in one; the man – her father, Cole
assumed – was wearing a tux, his chin stubbled.  Ava was perched next to
him, grinning in a white dress.  Her father had a violin laid across his
knees, his eyes were on his daughter.  In another, Ava was rolling her
eyes in an expression of teen rebellion and the man was hugging her from
behind, his arms pinning hers down to her sides so she couldn’t get away, a
goofy grin on his face.  Behind them was a beach and surf.

Cole finally
took the last step up to the main floor, his eyes on one final picture. 
In this one, neither Ava nor her father was looking at the camera. 
Someone else – a nameless photographer – had snapped the shutter while the two
of them were deep in conversation.  Ava’s hands were lifted, fluttering
like birds in flight, eyebrows raised, mouth open in an ‘o’, and her father was
watching her with rapt attention. A small smile – almost sad – was playing at
the corners of his mouth, entranced in what she was saying.  In that final
picture, the connection between the two of them shone.

“You really love
your dad,” Cole said quietly, interrupting her.    He turned
toward her, and that cautious expression flickered across her features once
more, then disappeared.

“Yeah...” she
admitted.  “I really do.”

Cole smiled,
reaching out and tucking a lock of hair behind her ear.  She turned into
the gesture, her eyes half-closing, seeking out the heat of his palm.  The
tension was back, rising like a tide.  This time
she
was the one
who stepped forward into his space.  Cole stumbled as Ava looped her arms
around his shoulders, pulling him tight and hard against her.   They
were so close he didn’t think a gust of air existed between the two of
them.  She was kissing
him
this time and he could hardly breathe
for wanting her.

They headed
roughly for the couch, Ava dancing backwards, tugging Cole forward step by
step, while his mouth slanted across hers, moving in ever-rougher
motions.  His hands had found the edge of her untucked blouse and they
moved underneath, thumbs brushing along the curve of her breast, feeling her
hardening nipples under the lacy fabric.  Ava gasped and Cole moved to her
throat, pulling her against him, his tongue running down her neck where he
started to suck.