Almost Christmas
Thursday, December 15th, 11:36 p.m. and he is staring at the same spot he has been looking at for thirty minutes now; the incessant blinking of the text cursor mocking at him from the blank document on the luminous screen.
"It's cold in here." Emily mumbles from her sluggish position against the doorframe, raspy voice still filled with sleep and hands rubbing distractedly at her forearms to get them warm.
He hasn't heard her approaching and up until a few seconds he'd been secure in his knowledge of her whereabouts, warm and safe amongst the bedcovers, lost inside, what James Lee Burke would have called, 'Morpheus' gift'; yet Dave isn't startle by her sudden appearance.
Nowadays he always seems to sense her presence whenever she is near.
"It should be. I closed the room's vent; it was getting stuffy in here." David answers in his own gruffy tone, without looking at her.
"So… It was stuffy in here… and now it's freezing… You are a very lucky man; the bedroom upstairs is just the right amount of nice and cozy." Emily states matter-of-factly.
"The final draft for the book is due before the holidays," he explains. "It's almost Christmas."
He doesn't have to say more and she doesn't need the hear it, but she puts it out there anyway.
"Writer's block?" She asks, padding quietly towards him.
He arches an eyebrow at her as she half-leans, half-seats on the corner of the desk nearer to him. "What? Just because I'm seating all alone in my dark and cold study, in the middle of the night, with my computer powered up and the page in my text processor blank? I don't know what you're talking about, seriously." He deadpans.
"Wow, full of snark and all that... I think you've been spending way too much time around me." She chuckles softly, stretching her right arm languidly to run gentle fingers through his hair.
"Mmmm…"Dave hums and closes his eyes at the sensation, craning his neck and moving his head slightly sideways to stir her caress along the side of his face and through his beard. "I don't see how that can be a bad thing." He tells her as he captures her slim hand with his larger one and brings her pale fingers to his lips, depositing a soft kiss on them. "And, about the other thing," he gives the last word an inflection of the voice and another arched eyebrow to emphasize it. "I'm just experiencing a minor setback, nothing to worry about."
"Yeah, well…" Emily says, eying the computer screen suspiciously. "You've been at that for days now; so I'm inclined to believe that we are talking about a little more than a 'minor setback' here."
"Hey! It's true; I'm just looking for the right words to put my thoughts into." He replies indignantly.
"Riiiiiight… Tell me again, how did you said you had managed to publish all those others books before this one?" She asks him casually.
He throws a dirty look at her but when she appears unimpressed by it, he pulls the hand he is still holding towards his lips again and places another tender kiss against her cool knuckles; taking a deep breath as he does so, unabashedly inhaling her scent, breathing her in. To him she always smells wonderful and sweet and this time it's no different; she smells like Emily, like a thousand promises rather than a thousand sins and he believes he's starting to understand.
"Maybe I haven't had the appropriate inspiration." He says from behind her hand, a mischievous glint radiating from his eyes.
"Admit it Rossi, if you haven't gotten it by now, you're not going to get it in the next few hours;" she tells him in her best no-nonsense tone, tugging at her hand, freeing it from his warm grasp as she gets up from the desk and starts walking in the direction of the door. "Now, come to bed Dave or else you are going to freeze your ass down here by yourself until New Year's Eve."
Dave watches dumbfounded as she walks out of the door without even a second glance back at him; a feisty vision in flannel pajamas'.
"Now, David!" She calls from the hallway.
Dave shakes his head and smiles at himself; his little spitfire is definitely one of a kind. He types in a few keys on the computer before hastily following Emily out of the study, meeting her half a way up the stairs and disappearing inside the master bedroom hand in hand.
The digital clock on the still running computer screen reads 00:06 a.m. and it's December 16th, already.
Christmas it's almost here, and the final draft for Dave's book is at last ready for submission; the final touch now can be read in the previously blank page.
If asked, David Rossi would say he has never written truer words.
For Emily Prentiss, light of my life…
(RegalPurple)