  Stepping slowly out of his office, he found himself ill prepared for the piece of artwork that now rested elegantly against the doorframe opposite him; seeing his beloved veiled with expensive taste of a flapper, made him flush a bright pink colour. But he noticed, that he wasnât the only one. Was Ava, dare he say, floundering. This couldnât be, I mean, he was only wearing, what he had thought to be, and incredibly outdated suit that really she shouldnât even likeâŠ
 Something inside Scottâs head brought all of his over-processed thoughts to an immediate halt. Wait, and idea came to light, I could take advantage of thisâŠÂ It was somewhat of an evil notion, but how many times would he actually get the chance to see the smoothest person in the world stumble at the sight of someone like him? Sure, Scott wasnât bad looking, but he wasnât necessarily skilled at the art of flirting. Perhaps this would be his time to shine.Â
 Scott began sauntering over to her, succeeding in not tripping over his own feet, and grinned at her, making sure to peer at her from underneath his eyelashes. Then he stood in front of her, still feeling the linger of a blush on his cheeks as he saw just how beautiful she was; he wanted to look her in the eyes, but the height difference was becoming a bit of a bother. So gently, with all the feline grace of a tiger, he stooped down ever so slightly and rested his arm on the door frame just above her head; their faces now only inches away from touching.Â
 In a vain attempt to compose herself, Ava tucked her bottom lip between her teeth just as a devious smirk graced her expression, baring witness to the classically suave display Scott depicted for her enjoyment. âAre you even remotely aware of how alluring you are right now?" she said in a voice no louder than a whisper. Reaching out to run a hand down his tie, she pulled his body closer by only a few inches and tilted her head up just slightly. Ava was well aware what he was doing. And it was working.
 The ferocity of the suitâs colours against his pale skin brought his eyes out as if they were two lustfully gleaming gems, and she could feel herself blushing again. It seemed as though that was her permanent state of being for the rest of the night, and judging by the smirk on Scottâs face, he was rather enjoying his newly discovered power. The sort of unprecedented control he seemed to wield over her was excruciatingly sexy, and furthermore, it was almost as though he gathered his new found confidence from Avaâs quickly disintegrating dignity.
 She tugged on his tie slightly and eyed his jacket, smoothing her hand over the blue and white checkered button down. âI feel like youâve been holding back this entire time."
 "Holding back?" Scott asked, the inquiry became punctuated by the quirk of his left eyebrow as opposed to the traditional question mark. He was honestly confused as to what Ava was going on about when she was the one that looked positively ravishing; she always did. Ava was the sort of woman you could write about for the rest of your life, and yet you could never properly describe in words alone. For Scott, words werenât empty, they had a sort of life in them that came with a great weight; a weight that was enough to leave permanent tracks on the rocky face of mortal existence.
 But Ava was life, rendering the words hungry for her, but never gaining sustenance. It was like a starving romance between the most clichĂ©d of starcrossed lovers, but under the most original of circumstances; and Scott found that he couldnât even begin to think of a more beautiful contradiction.
 "Tonight," he proclaimed with a hokey, theatrical bravado, âI am just a mere boy in menâs clothing."  And thatâs what Scott was really; a boy just pretending to be a man by slamming a gin and tonic whenever he felt scared of the dark. The only drawback being that he was always scared of the dark, but sometimes, just sometimes, Ava was incandescent enough to keep the darkness at bay.Â
 Scott had made it a goal in their eternity together to shower her with an iridescent life, one that was full of colours and memories so that they could one day look back at the burning world and see nothing but beauty. âSo, my dear, where to?" He spoke with a childlike excitement that made it feel like the first day of their lives, and, in a way, it was. Every day was. âDinner? Dancing? The moon?" The last bit, of course, was a joke, although it did seem like that kind of night; young and endless, as if the universe created it in its image.Â
 When Ava first met Scott, his happiness seemed to fit into the analogy of the rope. When he was young, it was thick and strong and seemingly unbreakable, but the years passed, and it became thin, and occasionally, close to snapping. A few months prior, when they found each other again, his happiness could've been threaded through a needle.
 But now she beamed brilliantly, because for the first time, she could've climbed entire mountains with him. Scott smiled like a young boy in love for the first time, proclamations of self-worth slipping off the tongue, his spine constructed of pure confidence, and she loved it. They stood together on the dirt of his past life, and would walk tall into a vast potential of forever because they had each other.
 She took his face in her hands and kissed him, with a fervor for life and living that had been welling up since childhood. "I wanna go where we first met," she said, eyes sparkling with promise. Ava wanted to loan the night to Paris, let it do what it may, because in the end, Paris made the best decisions.Â
