~*~
Amy checked her pockets for her keys, frowning as she stepped off the elevator with dry cleaning in hand. “Shoot,” she mumbled. “Don’t tell me I stuffed them in my purse…”
Amy slung the dry cleaning over her arm and tried to use both hands for the search of her keys as she stepped down the aisle toward her apartment. When she heard a clearing of the throat, Amy halted with a blink and slowly looked up. Sir Garret Harrison stood outside her apartment door with a somewhat serious expression. He was dressed in what must have been the best hanging pair of silk slacks and a pin-striped Perry Ellis dress shirt under a gray cashmere sweater-vest.
Amy started forward again, key search forgotten. “Well hello,” she greeted with a smile. She came to stand across from him, he smelled of something wonderfully musky, and held his gaze as she gave a slight chuckle. Garret silently stared down at her. “It’s times like these that I really wish I had a cell phone or a pager,” Amy said with a continued smile. A very welcome feeling of giddiness brought a twinkle to her eyes. “Then you could have called to tell me you were here and I would have hurried a little faster than I did.”
One side of Garret’s lips slightly twitched upward, but he still didn’t say anything.
Amy was attacked by an unwelcome emotion of uncertainty and anxiety. “Are you up to rehearsing that scene then?” she asked as she passed him, again searching for her keys. She found them in the furthest pocket and moved to unlock the door. “Mark and I read through most of the others this morning, so--”
“Frasier?”
“Uh-huh,” Amy said, all-the-while very aware of the slightly taut tone of Garret’s voice. She didn’t turn from her duty of unlocking the front door, though, because she didn’t want him to think there was anything to Mark’s presence there at her apartment but rehearsal. “We read through the longer scenes, reworking phrases and things here and there so that it flowed better. It was fun. Like hanging out with my little brother.”
Amy opened the door and stepped in, placing her keys and purse on the knickknack chest to her left. “Please excuse Renee and my breakfast dishes in the sink. I didn’t have a chance to do those before stepping out on my errands. Rehearsal with Mark made it kind of impossible, too.” She faced Garret with a smile, noticed that he had followed her into her apartment, and then motioned behind her to the couch. “Have a seat. Coffee? Or not?”
“No, thank you.”
“Water?”
“Yes.”
Amy gave a nod, her face apparently permanently decorated with her slight and very welcoming smile, and made her way to the kitchen. “Good idea if we’re going to be doing more speaking. I think I swallowed all my spit this morning with Mark.”
Amy heard the wonderfully relieving sound of Garret’s chuckle as he made his way to the couch.
Amy retrieved a couple tall glasses, filled them from the filtered water in the fridge, and then made her way back to the main room. Garret looked delightfully comfortable nestled in the corner of the couch with his arms along the back and the arm. Amy set a glass onto the coaster on the end table to his left with a smiled ‘you’re welcome’ before going around to sit in the middle of the couch beside him.
Amy took a sip of her water as she stared at her script on the coffee table. Mark had accidentally left his. Oh well. At least it will be here for tomorrow’s rehearsal… Amy cleared her throat before looking over at Garret. He stared at the glass of water in his hand. “Why the brush-off this morning?” she asked.
Garret’s expression was serious, yet not. “I apologize for that. I suppose I wanted to regain some semblance of control.” His lips twitched. “I have always been the instigator of my relationships and their direction.”
“I’m not trying to control you, Garret,” Amy assured softly.
His brow lowered in a very minuscule frown. “I believe you, yet a part of me feels that in itself is the manipulation.”
Amy nodded, still watching him. “I can understand that.”
Garret moved his eyes to catch her gaze. “I believe I would trust you more if you had allowed me to make love to you.”
Amy smirked and looked away. She traced the rim of her water glass with her index finger. “Garret, when we recited together yesterday and the day before that… we were making love. You were captivating every little bit of who I am. I let you see me. I don’t do that with just anyone, you know.”
Garret’s expression seemed thoughtful as he examined her profile. “No, I don’t suppose you would.”
Amy gave a slight shake of her head as she sighed, turning her gaze back to him. Garret continued to watch her, his expression guarded and withdrawn in the protection of something she didn’t understand. Maybe…
“‘I look at you across the room and watch,’“ Amy began in a soft voice, and she immediately recognized the glint in his eyes as his mind searched for the poet. “‘You stroke your chin and lip as you think, your mind working wonders which you write on a blank stage. Soul hidden behind guarded eyes yet brightly shining, through me. The timbre of your voice sending shivers, splinters through my heart. I look at you, across the room, and just watch.’“
Garret’s mind gave up the search. “From what have you quoted? Its simplicity hides an unexpected depth and… almost a bittersweet agony.”
Amy looked away to set her glass back on the coaster. “It’s one of mine.”
Garret blinked. “Yours?”
Amy nodded, and then she turned in the couch to face him. His eyes held a twinkle of intrigue and surprise. “That came from here.” She raised a hand to her heart. “From Amy Burke and no one else. Me. Plain and simple.” Amy lowered her hand as she continued to hold his gaze. “Who’s Garret Harrison?” she asked quietly.
Garret didn’t respond, but he didn’t lower his eyes from her gaze, either.
Amy sighed deep. “That’s what I was talking about yesterday. What hides in your heart? What makes you sad? What makes you angry? What moves you? What makes Garret Harrison Garret Harrison?” He still didn’t respond, so Amy lowered her gaze to her hands. She lightly rubbed them together. “That’s what I want to find out about you, Garret, because I really want to know. I also know that probably scares you to death,” she finished softly.
Amy felt as if she’d confessed to a mouse that she would do her best to eat them.
Garret cleared his throat, drawing Amy’s attention. He stared at his tight grip on the water glass. “I find that your complete interest heightens my attraction.”
Surprise colored Amy’s expression, muting the brightness of his confession. “Hasn’t anyone ever been interested in you before?”
“In my talents as a performer?” Garret responded carefully. “Yes. In my fame and title? In the poetry and plays I recite at will? Again, yes.” He finally met her gaze. “What else matters?”
Amy regarded him intensely, silence her only response. When Garret looked away, Amy reached out to cover his hand that rested on the back of the couch. He met her gaze again. “Garret, your intimate knowledge of literature is definitely your greatest attraction. The way you submerse yourself so completely into its performance. The tones and expressions. I know I’ve never seen anyone else live it the way you do. That’s why I want to get to know what drives you.”
“Yet how will you discover what even I do not know?”
Amy smiled, her eyes crinkling in the corners as she tightened her clasp on his hand. “You know. If you didn’t, you couldn’t draw on that passion and intensity for each performance. You just don’t look very closely because… well, I think you’re a little afraid of what you’ll find.”
Garret pulled his hand from hers and stood, but he didn’t step away from the couch. He only stood there with his back to her, staring at the door with his arms at his sides. Amy stared up at him for a hesitant moment before pushing herself from the couch and moving to stand in front of him. With his height, he easily stared over her head at the door behind.
Amy examined his blank expression. She pushed her lips to one side of her mouth as she watched him, and then she took his face in her hands and directed his gaze downward. It seemed that he met her gaze reluctantly. “Garret, describe the attraction.” Garret’s eyes flashed with a touch of anger as he drew her hands from his face. “Do not patronize me.”
Amy shook her head as she carefully pulled her hands from his. “I’m not. I promise. I’ll prove it.” She held his face in her hands again and looked straight into his eyes. “‘I gaze at you with warmth, do you feel me? I speak to you with smiling tones, can you hear them sing? Petals of fragrant feelings float about me to wither and die, unshared. Should you reach out your hand my delicate petals will soothe the surrender. My soul will lull your agony. My gaze will warm your loneliness.’“
Garret stared down at her with bright eyes for a long moment before shaking his head and pulling her hands from his face. “I cannot. The words that come are not mine.”
Amy nodded as she refused to let him release her hands. “I know, Garret, but try. Push past those words to what you see and then describe how you feel.” Amy saw the helplessness in his expression… She raised a hand to cup his jaw. “The helplessness I see… It chills my heart that I cannot rescue you from that which you fear. A surrender to self. An escape from the path you have traveled so often.”
Garret held her gaze in silence, and Amy could see the painstaking search to find the words she so wanted him to say.
Amy caressed his cheek with her thumb and whispered “Come, poetic heart. Follow me, your muse, and speak from your soul.”
Garret’s expression remained serious and almost pained until, finally, something fell away and his countenance softened. “This soul has never ventured into the brightness of what I see glimmering in thine eyes,” he said. “Darkness has been my escape, long since chilling the words of love and creation into the walls of stone and suspicion.”
Amy’s lips lilted upward. “And yet my brightness beckons you still. Come and live within the warmth of my gaze to hear the song of my soul. Come, poet of shadow, into the morning of adventure I so eagerly offer. Delight in my simplicity and I will rest in your intensity.”
Garret moved his hands to cup her face. “Such falsely labeled passion, sweet muse, alights my soul with wings. Your warmth causes me to forget my humble and mortal state, flying as I am on the petals of your emotion to that pedestal which serves as my sun.”
“Then fly higher still,” Amy whispered, tears gathering, “and free this muse from the… from the…” Amy shook her head as she closed her eyes.
“Open thine eyes that my inspiration might return,” Garret said as he pressed his lips against her cheek. “Return thy warmth lest this coldness invade my very soul.”
Amy’s laugh merged happiness and tears as she pulled back, her eyes bright and her cheeks glistening in the light of the room. “Peace, poet, peace that your muse might rest,” she said through the tears.
Garret’s lips rose in a hint of a smile as he brushed stray hairs from her cheeks and forehead. Amy continued to smile up at him, enjoying the closeness and the simple touch so much more than a passionate embrace.
Then Amy reached up to take his hand from her face, holding it in both of hers. She changed her gaze to stare at the palm. “See? I knew you could do it,” she whispered as she caressed it. “And now this is where my heart is. I don’t know how to take it back. I don’t want to take it back.” She raised her eyes to meet his gaze again, and her expression was serious and almost pleading as her lips tilted downward. “Don’t hurt me, Garret. Please?”
Garret cupped her face in his other hand. “Such was never my intent, sweet muse.”