Thomas & January (Sleepless 2)

I yanked my hand back as if it was on fire, making him laugh loudly.

“Shh,” a little old English lady told him over her shoulder.

“Sorry,” he said, but the decibel of his laughter did nothing but rise. “Sorry,” he said again as the lady stared harder. He choked and coughed into his hand to control himself. “Sorry, ma’am.” She turned around. “You’re going to get me in trouble, January,” he whispered.

“Me? You can’t do things like that, Tom. Seriously.”

“Why not? That blush of yours drives me up the wall. If I can’t see it at least once morning, noon, and night, I don’t feel complete.”

“Oh, shut up,” I said, blushing yet again. “Stupid blood.”

“No, it never lies,” he said more seriously. “I love your blood, it paints the most beautiful things on your face.”

“It doesn’t,” I told him, rubbing at my cheeks.

“Yes, it does,” he said, grabbing my face. His thumbs grazed over my jaw, back and forth, back and forth. He mesmerized me. “It tells me just how much I affect you and, in turn, you enchant me. You’re breathtaking, January.”

He drew his fingers through my hair roughly and cupped my face in his palms, but he didn’t lean in for a kiss like I expected him to. Instead, he brought those hands across my face and down my neck to my shoulders then back up.

“And what a beautiful canvas to paint.”

The conductor came over the speaker and spoke in French before relaying the same message in heavily accented English.

“I have no idea what he just said,” Tom said, shrugging his shoulders

“He welcomed us aboard and mentioned that it’s thirteen twenty-three now and that we should be arriving at Gare Du Norde at approximately sixteen forty-seven in the afternoon.”

“What? How in the world did you understand that?” Tom asked, bewildered.

“I speak French,” I told the window, staring at the deck as we departed the station.

“You speak French?”

“Yeah, I didn’t tell you that?” I turned to him, confused at myself.

“No, you failed to mention that you’re bilingual.”

“Oh, I’m not bilingual,” I told him, a smirk tugging at my lips.

“No?”

“I’m multilingual. I speak four languages.”

Tom stared at me as if he didn’t believe me. He couldn’t look away; he stared hard into my eyes begging for an explanation.

“It’s not a big deal. Kids are sponges,” I offered. He still didn’t understand. “I wanted to work for the U.N. as a translator when I was little, so during the summers I learned different languages. It was worth it because it comes in handy though I’d never work for the U.N. now.”

“Amazing.”

“Meh, not so much, I learned some crazy things about the United Nations and decided they weren’t exactly the...”

“I wasn’t calling the U.N. amazing, January. I was calling you amazing. You’re amazing. Incredible, actually. Every time you make me forget that you’re extraordinary with your down-to-earth ways, something else blindsides me and reminds me just how out of my league you really are.”

I sat up a bit and scooted closer into his side. I could not believe what he’d just said. I grabbed his arm and leaned into his body. I needed him to feel what he needed to hear. “You’re out of my league? You’ve got to be joking, Tom.”

“Hell no, I’m not joking. You are way out of my league, January.”

o;I know enough.”