NOVEL WEB Chapter 18: Helping the Move
-Some time later-
I helped Luna carry some of her stuff to my cabin. She obviously didn’t have much there, and even so, she did still want to keep some stuff in her own place if she wanted to use it as an office.
“Why don’t you sit down and drink a bit?” I asked, pouring some water into a glass. “We are pretty much done anyway, aren’t we?”
“I’m not tired.” Luna shook her head. “We’ve only been doing this for half an hour.”
“But we had to work pretty much the entire day. I’ve not seen you seated down there much, either.” I retorted.
She looked at me for a moment before she sighed. “I guess you are right. I guess I’m just a bit excited to move…” She blushed a little, but hid it quickly by drinking a bit of water.
“I see…” I blushed a little as well. So I decided to pour myself a glass of water too and sit down to drink with her. “Have you thought about how you want to redecorate?”
Luna shyly scratched her cheek. “I wouldn’t change too much.” She then looked at me. “Maybe just a little bit of a lighter wallpaper…”
“Hey, you can totally go nuts if you want. Why not add sharky wallpapers?”
Luna blushed again. “I… I think that’d be a bit overkill.”
“Nah, it would look pretty cute.” I smiled.
“Hmm… It’s clear you’ve not had any home interior design courses, Commander.” Her sly remark made me laugh.
“That’s very true, LC.” I gave her a wink.
We then finished our glasses of water and finished off moving the last pieces of what Luna wanted moved. Since we started moving out her stuff pretty late in the evening, I honestly wasn’t in the mood to really go out and find something to eat anymore, so I dove into my snack cabinet instead. I tossed Luna a couple of cookies, which she deftly caught.
“Is this our dinner?” She asked, opening up one of the wrappers.
“If that’s okay for you. I’m not really in the mood to go and get something else, in all honesty.”
“Me neither.” Luna shook her head. “This is fine.” She nommed the cookie. “But I might need a couple more of these.”
“I have plenty.” I laughed and tossed her a couple more. I then put the radio a little bit louder and decided to let it play some classic rock.
I sat down on the other chair and bobbed my head along to the rhythm while eating a chocolate chip cookie.
“This is totally not healthy, is it?” Luna wiped a couple of crumbs off her cheek.
“Oh yeah, definitely not. Eva wouldn’t like this if she saw. But what the doctor doesn’t know, doesn’t hurt, right?”
“I don’t think that’s how it works.” Luna giggled.
“Of course it is. I wrote the book about it.”
Luna laughed a bit more at my incredibly stupid joke. At least she was happy, which is what mattered most.
“Is there anything else you’d like to do this evening?” I asked after she’d stopped laughing.
“Hmmm… I’m not sure.” She slowly shrugged and stretched her arms a little.
“Not sure, huh? Hmmmm… Let me think.” I bit off another piece of my cookie and chomped it down pretty fast. That’s when I noticed the number change on the radio. “How about… some dancing?”
“Dancing? I’m not sure…” Luna blushed and looked down to the right of the table.
“C’mon, it will be fun.” I stood up with a smile and offered her my hand to pull her out of the chair.
“But I’m really bad at dancing…” She shook her head.
“I’ll teach you. You did fine at limbo, didn’t you?”
“I did…”
“You see. You are a fast learner. C’mon.” I reached out my hand a little further.
I saw that she was contemplating whether or not to take my hand, but in the end, she did. “...Okay, but please take it slow, okay?”
“Of course.” I nodded and smiled gently. I then changed the playlist to a song that’s a little more danceable and just like that we just started dancing together. At first Luna’s steps were hesitant but as I told her to let loose a little bit more she started to loosen up and her dancing became smoother as well. She was clearly having fun, which in turn made me incredibly happy as well.
We danced for quite a while and even tried a couple of couple dances at Luna’s request. But since I wasn’t too good at those either, at one moment I fucked up my steps and accidentally tripped the both of us. Luckily, we fell onto the end of the mattress of my bed instead of on the floor. Luna had her back on the mattress, while I could just stop myself with my arms from falling on top of her.
“Goddess, sorry for that, Luna.” I laughed, slightly out of breath. “That was my bad.”
“It’s… fine…” Luna replied. Her cheeks reddened and she was breathing pretty rapidly too. We’d definitely had our physical exercise for today, especially with the move on top of that.
The song that was playing was apparently the last one on my playlist, as the next one that started playing was pretty slow and quite romantic.
I looked up at my radio. “Wait, I’ll tell it to switch back.” I tried to straighten my back a little until suddenly something tightened around my neck. “Huh?”
“Wait.” Luna had grabbed hold of my tie.
I looked at her, slightly confused as to why she’d grabbed hold of it.
She looked away from me for a second before looking back into my eyes. I felt she was pulling me a bit closer to her.
“Luna…”
She didn’t say anything and just continued reeling me in… I didn’t really resist, either. Luna pulled me so close that our faces were just a couple of centimeters apart.
“Would you… mind if I kissed you?” Luna asked. She looked so incredibly shy, but then again, I could feel the blush burning on my own cheeks as well.
“I…” -Oh Goddess- “I… uh…”
Luna slowly let go of my tie. “N-never mind… please forget that I asked…” She then looked away from me.
“Luna, wait.” I tried to get my thoughts back in line. She looked back up at me. When she looked back into my eyes, my heart started pounding, louder and louder. “I… I don’t know… I’ve never felt like this… and I’ve never had someone… who… well… has been this important to me as you are…”
“Me neither…” Luna spoke softly and gently shook her head.
I bit the bottom of my lip and looked up for a second before looking down at Luna again. “...So… I really don’t want to do a disservice to you by kissing you while… I’m not… certain… you know? Does that make sense?”
Luna nodded slowly and smiled. “I’m… I’m happy you are thinking this through… for me…”
“I really don’t want to hurt you by being too rash, Luna.” I slowly distanced myself away from her and rolled to the side so Luna could stand back up if she wanted to. When I got up I offered my hand to her. She took it.
“I understand.” She nodded as I pulled her up. “But… can I hug you instead?”
I smiled. “Of course.”
Luna then continued to pull me in for a big hug. She rested her head against my chest. “Thank you.”
“You have nothing to thank me for.” I replied. “I should be thanking you instead. You’ve pulled me out of dark places a couple of times since we’ve left Earth. So really, thank you for being there for me.”
Luna didn’t reply and just kept resting her head against me.
We stayed like that for a while. I didn’t want to break the hug so I didn’t upset Luna and it also was really comfortable to have her in my arms. A part of me did start to think it was a mistake not to have kissed her there and then. But, like I’d told her. If I went for it without knowing for sure that I was going to commit. I’d just be lying to both her and myself.
When Luna broke off the hug herself, she looked quite calm and actually pretty happy. “Is it okay if I take a shower?” She asked.
“Definitely. This is as much your cabin as it’s mine now.”
She smiled and gave me a nod. After which, she headed towards the bathroom.
I decided to pour myself a drink while I waited for Luna to finish so I could take a shower afterwards.
When she was done, it was my time for a refreshing shower. When I came back, Luna had already fallen asleep next to her shark. She must have been way more tired than I thought she was.