"YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO EAT THE PASTA, NOT THE COUCH!" Claudia shouted at the bouncing gremlins who had managed to spill half their dinner onto the couch—and the other half onto Garry’s pants.
Thea calmly scooped a spoonful of pasta and shoved it into Claudia’s mouth before she could launch into another round of instructions.
"Eat, Ms. Claudia."
Claudia sat there, stunned and chewing up the mouthful of pasta. She shot a glance at Garry, who had his deep blue eyes fixated on her. When their eyes met, Garry simply shrugged and then greeted her gaze with a warm smile.
'At least it's good pasta,' he said.
Claudia replied to his remark, but, thanks to strands of spaghetti exploding in her tiny mouth, words originating from her head translated into muffled mumbles.
She’s adorable, Garry thought, his smile widening bit by bit—until he finally tore his gaze away and directed it toward the god-awful animated movie blaring from the TV.
As his eyes drifted away from her, the inner voice started screaming in his ears to move his eyes again, towards her. As if at that moment the only image his eyes could register was hers. Nothing else made sense to him.
'It was good food,' she said, finally swallowing the final remnants of Alfredo-smeared pasta, 'You are a surprisingly good cook.'
'Yeah, surprising indeed—' Garry's grin turned wolfish, '—considering how much you tried to distract me.'
'I barely tried,' Claudia muttered—then stiffened as she realized she'd said it aloud.
Garry caught her words. A smirk touched his cheeks as he slowly closed the distance between them. Claudia's breath hitched—the living room, the TV, even the roaring kids faded into white noise. Her eyes enlarged to accommodate the image of Garry, which grew with each passing moment. She gulped the last residue of moisture present in her mouth as he raised his hands.
'May I?' he asked politely, pointing at an orphan spaghetti strand stuck in her hair.
'Yes,' Claudia breathed, her pulse hammering as Garry's fingers grazed her hair.
He hooked the stray strand of pasta with exaggerated care, but instead of pulling away, his hand lingered. His thumb brushed her temple once, like he was memorizing the texture of her skin.
'Got it,' he murmured. But he couldn't bring himself to move.
The air between them thickened. Claudia’s lips parted, her earlier sarcasm drowned out by the sudden awareness of how close he was—close enough to see the flecks of gold in his blue eyes, close enough to feel the warmth of his breath against her cheek.
'Oh, God! Don't look at his lips. You dare not look at his lips,' she kept ordering herself, and yet she had never seen such a swift destruction of her will.
Christ, she was soft. Garry's pulse roared in his ears as Claudia's lashes fluttered. That little hitch in her breathing when his thumb brushed her cheekbone? He'd replay that sound in his head for weeks.
He should move. Should. But her lips—chapped from biting them while writing, if he had to guess—were right there. And when she wet them nervously, his self-control snapped like overstretched pasta.
'What are you doing?' Thea questioned as she fixated her eyes on the adults in the room.
'Ah...nothing,' Garry snapped his hand back like a flash of lightning, 'Just helping her with pasta.'
Thea kept staring at them, periodically moving her gaze from her Uncle to the Babysitter and vice-versa. Her face bore no expression, and her eyes were as piercing as a surgeon's scalpel.
'Okay,' she said with a deadpan face and resumed her almost imaginary game with her brother.
Garry slid himself back to his end of the couch. After steadying his irregular breath, he slowly turned his eyes toward Claudia, only for him to be caught by her gaze.
There was awkwardness between the intersection of her brows, and her face was red.
Is she blushing? Garry asked himself, though being well aware of the answer.
His smile widened, now with a titbit of mischief involved in it. He moved his gaze away from her and stared at the strand of pasta between his fingers.
He stared at her staring at him again; maybe she had never moved her gaze away. His smile, now wider than it had ever been, collapsed as he opened his mouth and looked up into the deep walls of the ceiling. He stuffed the pasta strand inside his mouth.
He looked at her again; her expressions had changed. Although he couldn't decipher it, he liked what he saw.
'You are doing it again!' a sharp voice pierced through Garry's tranced state.
It was Thea, standing right there, beside him.
'I'm doing what?' Garry questioned.
"The face." Thea took a deliberate spoonful of pasta, eyes darting between them. "The mushy one Mommy makes when Daddy—"
'Ice-Cream time!!' Garry interrupted her, not letting her finish.
'Yes!' Claudia readily agreed, 'Also let's put on a new movie.'
'Ahha, yes. This time I'll choose the movie,' Garry claimed.
And so they were, carrying a bowl of ice-cream and all four sitting on the couch. Claudia and Garry were sitting; the kids had crawled upon their laps, irregularly switching places.
'Kids love you,' Garry leaned toward Claudia and whispered as he browsed through the movie list.
'Er...Thank you,' Claudia paused before she could respond to him, 'I suppose they do.'
'You love them too, don't you?' Garry continued his rhetorical questions; there was something soothing about his voice that Claudia found endearing. 'When I saw you in the cafe this afternoon, you seemed stuck up in your life, hustling around and trying to chase something at the cost of who you are.'
Claudia lay there silently. She turned her head toward the television, which showed nothing but the moving list of movies, but it didn't matter. She just wanted to look away.
She shifted with slight discomfort, noticing Garry questioned himself, 'Did I upset her?'
'Did I say something wrong?' he asked.
'No,' she placed her hand on Ollie, who had crawled up her lap, 'It was so right that it was scary.'
It took a while for Claudia to notice the thick silence that had ensued after her statement. She gave Garry a stare and grinned.
'You know it’s not very nice to say something like that to the girl you’re about to watch a movie with.'
Garry chuckled, but before he could say something—
'Are we watching a movie?' Thea interjected with a deadpan voice, 'All I hear is you both talk. You both talk a lot.'
'PUT UP A MOVIE!!!' Ollie followed his elder sister's footsteps with an exaggerated manner.
'Yes, my little gremlins,' responded Garry, scrolling through movies a couple more times, 'Ah, Titanic!'
'Three hours of melodrama!' Thea quickly commented, 'But I like Leo. He is cute.'
'No, not Titanic!!!' Claudia responded, evoking the teacher part of her life, 'Garry, these are kids.'
'So what?'
'You know...' Claudia answered while tilting her head, 'It has that scene...'
'Come on, don't be a prude,' Garry waved his hand, 'We'll skip it....maybe.'
'Garry!!'
'What!?!' Garry's eyes glinted with mischief. 'You know I can paint. If you feel like being painted like one of his French girls. Just so you know, I can help.'
'Did you just...?' Claudia sputtered, a flush creeping up her neck. Her internal monologue screamed in protest, but her mouth, betraying her, let out a nervous little laugh. "You can't say things like that in front of—" she gestured vaguely at the children, '—impressionable minds!'
Garry's grin widened, a genuinely boyish, unabashedly charming expression. 'Whaaaat? It's art, Claudia, it's art. You know...French art.'
'The only thing French here is how badly I want to strangle you.'
'I kinda dig that, Ms. Shepard,' Garry's eyes twinkled, not an ounce of fear in them, only amusement. He leaned a little closer, lowering his voice conspiratorially. 'Is that another one of your "unimaginable morbid" plots you're brewing, Ms. Shepard?'
Claudia stared at him, her lips pressed into a thin line, but her eyes betrayed a reluctant twitch of a smile.
She was trying her best to make her words sound like a threat: 'Just try me—'
'Ahha, That is my intention,' Garry interjected, and then quickly settled himself into a series of chuckles.
'I'll let you paint, once I shove the paintbrush up your—'
'—Kids are listening, Ms. Shepard.'
'TITANIC! TITANIC!' both the kids started demanding in unison, which was followed by Garry slowly creeping toward Claudia's ears and whispering,
'Titanic, Titanic...' His breath feathered against her ear, a warm, teasing sensation that sent shivers down her spine.
'Okay, stop!' Claudia pulled away, taking a deep breath. 'Okay, let's watch Titanic. But I hold the remote.'
'Yayyyy!!' Kids cheered.
'Some teacher I am,' Claudia mumbled under her breath, shaking her head.
The lights were dimmed. The opening credits of Titanic rolled in. Garry tried skipping it, but Claudia held his hand still.
'I want to see,' she said, her gaze locked on the screen and her expression unusually soft—like the girl who once stayed up late reading Brontë novels under her covers.
'Like Glenda,' Garry thought to himself.
The kids had settled down—Thea draped across Garry’s lap, Ollie curled up against Claudia’s side with a spoonful of melting ice-cream still in his hand.
Claudia sat beside him, knees tucked under her, a half-eaten bowl of popcorn nestled between them. Her focus was complete, her eyes wide with the kind of wonder that made her seem impossibly far and achingly near at the same time.
As music flew by, Garry had his eyes fixated—it was his favorite movie. Yet, his eyes were somewhere else.
On her.
Claudia.
Ms. Shepard.
He saw her—how the bluish light of the screen danced on her cheekbones, how a strand of hair had come loose and brushed her lips every time she shifted. She didn’t notice. Of course she didn’t. She was willingly lost amidst Rose's pearly-blue eyes. But he noticed everything.
The way her brow furrowed ever so slightly, the tiny upward of her lips, the way she leaned forward instinctively, like she was somehow living it—not watching it. He saw it. Everything.
He tried looking away—really tried—but something in his chest tugged him back. She looked like the reason why poetries existed. The kind of person who made silence feel full.
Garry’s throat tightened.
He wanted to say something. Anything. Ask her about the first time she watched it. About what part broke her heart. About what made her keep coming back to this movie, year after year. He wanted to say he liked the way she looked when she wasn’t trying to be funny or sharp or untouchable. How lovely he found her.
But the words just… sat there.
She turned a little, eyes still on the screen, resting her chin on her palm. Her profile caught the light like a painting. Not dramatic. Not posed. Just… still. Beautiful in a way that hurt.
He blinked slowly, trying to memorize it. All the while feeling a profound sense of fear that if he opened his eyes, he wouldn't get to see her like that again.
The soft line of her jaw.
The flicker of emotion that passed through her eyes with each scene.
The occasional crease between her brows when something upset her, which he found heartbreakingly real.
He wanted to say something witty, but everything clever felt like noise.
He wanted to say something deep, but he didn’t trust his voice not to shake.
So he just stared. Admired. Let his gaze trace the shape of her quiet.
Then Claudia, without turning her head, murmured softly, 'Why did you want to watch this movie?' she questioned.
It took a few moments for Garry to register what she had said, and a few more to recall the obvious answer.
'This is my favorite movie.'
With her eyes still fixated on the screen, 'Then why have you been looking at me for all this time?'
Caught.
Garry opened his mouth. Paused.
'Because, I can't help it,' he started, his voice a little raw, '...I've seen this movie a hundred times, but nothing in it has ever looked at me the way you do without even turning your head.'
Claudia didn’t look away from the screen.
But she smiled.