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kayteewritessteve · 5 years

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If Only You Knew - Epilogue

Description: You arrive home one day to find a wedding invite for two of your best friends from high school. You knew this day was going to come eventually, but even with that said, you weren’t prepared to return home. At least not after 7 years of avoiding Buckhannon, West Virginia. Or rather, avoiding him; your ex-best friend and the secret love of your life. But maybe it was finally time to face your past, to face him, and everything else that happened on that horrible night. Who would have knew that your prom would end up being a total disaster, and the very last night you’d spend in Buckhannon for the next 7 years? you certainly didn’t. That’s for sure.

Catch up HERE.

Word Count: 9,200 ish. Sheesh, this is a ‘giant’ one! See what I did there ;) Sorry, not sorry!

Pairing: Modern!Steve Rogers x Reader.

Rating: 18+

Warnings: Violence. Drinking. Bad and offensive jokes. Possible triggering thoughts, feelings and emotions. Moments of bullying and harsh name calling. Lots of curse words. And a very sloooow burn.

A/N: I sadly don’t own any of these characters. And no beta reader, so I do proudly own all the errors and this story, so there’s that.

Well, here it is!!!! The final part to the If Only You Knew series. And this is so bittersweet, I am so glad to finally give this story an end, but i’m also going to miss this lovable gang of friends and this story in general. But I have a few other AU’s in store for you all, so stay tuned for those. And that’s about it. I hope you all love this epilogue and I can’t wait to hear what you all think about this ending. Also, I want to note that this chapter might be a little confusing to follow, so play close attention to the timestamp years, they will help you. Anywho, ENJOY!! ♥️

The sun filtering in through the sheer hotel room curtains, along with the incessant ringing of your phone’s alarm, both wake you from your peaceful, be it short, slumber. You quickly reach over to silence the alarm and then are just about to groan, but halt the action when you remember exactly what day it is. It’s wedding day!!!

You stretch from your place still sheltered under the soft duvet and then flip it off you to sit up, rubbing the sleep from your eyes as you do. You blink the haze away for a moment then stand and wander over to the closet to retrieve your customized silk robe, putting it on over your pj shorts and tank top. And then head to the bathroom to brush your teeth.

You hear your hotel room door flung open, followed by a shrieked, “get up!! It’s wedding day!!” that could only come from one person, Nat. Followed by a whispered, “where the fuck is she?!” clearly from Hilde.

You poke your head out of the bathroom, toothbrush hanging from your mouth, to mumble happily around it, “right the fuck here.” Then you slip back into the bathroom to finish brushing, not missing Nat whining, “hurry up!” as you do.

You chuckle, totally understanding her current excitement level. Today was going to be a big day for all of you. And you’re not gonna lie, you’re just as excited as she is, if not more.

This day has been so many years in the making, and your whole group of friends were ridiculously excited for it. To say the least.

You finally enter back into the bedroom, then you all head down to the party room in the hotel, the one that was rented specifically for you ladies to get ready in.

You walk into the room to see a bar counter covered in mimosas, coffee, tea and an assortment of fruits, treats and breakfast foods. Which of course you instantly make your way to, receiving a snort from Wanda as you do. “You would go straight to the coffee.”

“I’ll have you know, I was far too excited to sleep. So coffee will be the only thing keeping me up right today. Well, that and sheer excitement,” you smirk and quickly make a cup, taking a few large sips then hum, happily.

There is a knock at the door and Hilde goes to check it, finding the hair stylist and makeup artist standing in the hall. They both come in and start to set up their stations as you continue to just happily drink your coffee in silence. Nat, Hilde, Wanda and Rebecca all join you and proceed to make up plates of food, and drinks, alongside you.

And then there is another knock on the door, this time Rebecca answers it and it’s the photographers. She invites them in and they quickly exchange a few words with Nat and then begin to take pictures of the room, the dresses and all of you standing around enjoying the morning. Clearly documenting all the little parts of this wedding, starting with you ladies getting ready for it.

After a few minutes the makeup artist informs you that they are ready to start, and Nat goes for hair first, while Rebecca goes for makeup. Leaving Hilde, Wanda and yourself to eat, chat and wait for your turns.

“Have you both decided how you want your hair done?” You ask them as they sip their mimosas.

“Fully down, all curled,” Hilde answers.

“And I was thinking curled as well, but half up, half down,” Wanda says then looks at you, “what’s your plan?”

“Ah,” you hum for a moment, thinking, “I think I’ll do a full up-do.” You shrug, “maybe have a few pieces hanging down.”

“I like it,” Hilde nods.

“Sounds beautiful,” Wanda adds with a smile, and then the photographer walks up towards you three, snapping photos of you all just chatting, before he ventures off to take a few pictures of the other ladies having their makeup and hair done.

“I feel like a celebrity, with this photographer running around snapping shots,” Hilde laughs.

“Same,” you and Wanda say at the same time and then both giggle before taking another sip of each of your beverages.

As the morning progresses on, all of you ladies get your hair and makeup done, then help each other into your dresses. When there is only about 10 minutes to go before the wedding actually starts there is another knock on the door. Wanda goes to see who it is and finds Winnie holding James Jr—who looks freaking adorable in his little ring bearer suit—and your dad. Who looks so handsome all dressed up in his black suit and tie. Winnie puts James down and he runs towards Rebecca, instantly.

“Well don’t you just look so handsome in your suit,” she coos at him and he giggles as she picks him up. You can’t help the giant smile on your face as you watch how her and James interact. You are so proud of the mom she has become, and James is one lucky kid.

“Do I look so handsome in my suit?” your dad asks and wiggles his eyebrows at you.

You chuckle at this ridiculous man, “yeah, but not as handsome as James.”

He pouts for a second then kisses your cheek, “you ladies all ready to go?”

You nod, “yep, I believe we are all set.”

You all grab the last few things then head out of the room to go get into position next to the closed chapel doors. Making sure that none of you will be seen until it’s your turn to walk, and that everyone knows their places. Then you all just wait for the wedding march song to start.

When you finally hear it playing through the doors, Winnie opens them and ushers Rebecca to go first. Then Hilde. Then Wanda. Then Nat. And then finally she takes James’ hand and the hand of the flower girl, your Aunt Carol’s daughter, Lashana, and wishes you luck before they begin their walk down the aisle, towards their seats at the front.

You take a deep breath, this is it. This is the moment you marry the love of your life and you couldn’t be happier.

You feel your dad take your hand and give it a reassuring squeeze, which causes you to look up at him. “You look stunning,” he smiles, “and you got this, you’ll do great.”

You can feel the tears slowly forming in your eyes as you nod to his words, and whisper, “thank you, daddy,” as you attempt to blink away the happy tears.

You were about to marry the man you’d loved for 11 years. The man you’d swear, up and down, was made entirely for you. The last 2 years hadn’t been easy, but you wouldn’t have traded them, or him, for anything. You’re mind starts to flash back to a few different memories from the last 2 years, the main ones that all led up to this exact moment. Your wedding day.

July 2018 - 2 years ago.

You were standing next to the dessert table at Nat and Bucky’s wedding reception. It had been a beautiful day all around. And you were so happy for your two best friends.

The bachelor/bachelorette party had done a complete 180 after your talk with Steve, and ended up being an amazing night for all of you. You’d gone home with Steve that night, but not for the reasons most would think. You’d both had a lot to drink and knew you couldn’t make proper choices that night. Nor did you want your first time together to be like that.

It was just that, at the end of the night out, neither of you were ready to part ways, not after years of being apart and finally voicing how you both felt. So you went home with him and you both just laid on his bed talking till the wee hours of the morning.

Going over everything, all the moments you both thought something was there but ignored. Turns out, there actually was always something there for both of you. Especially that first day at the lake, where you almost kissed him. You learned he wasn’t upset because you almost kissed him that day, no, he was upset because you hadn’t. And the moment on the field, the day he beat up Johann, as you’d just learned that night, he had almost kissed you that day.

You both spent most of that night with wide eyes and murmurs of ‘idiots’. Because that’s what you’d both felt like after learning all the truths. You’d also learned that those anonymous roses on your porch, from that first Valentine’s Day in town, yeah, those were from him. And that he’d also bought 17 roses–one for each month you’d known each other, the cornball—originally through the school but Madeleine had deleted the order. It was insane how much you were oblivious to back then, but it was all out there now.

You both finally passed out around 8am, and slept most of the day away. But when you woke up, Steve wasn’t beside you anymore. You looked to where he had been when you’d passed out and saw 14 roses on his pillow, along with a note that read, ‘1 for every Valentine’s Day I missed, plus every birthday. I’ll be downstairs making breakfast when you wake up. Come find me.’ With a smiley face drawing below the words.

You jumped out of bed, looking down to instantly remember that he’d lent you a t-shirt and sweatpants to sleep in. It wasn’t an overly cute look, as the pants barely stayed up and the bottoms covered your entire feet. Fucking giant. You giggled then decided to forgo the pants entirely. And ventured down to the kitchen in just his shirt. Hoping it would make him sweat, just a little—and oh boy, had it ever. Except, a lot more than ‘just a little’.

You both ended up spending the whole night together, going to your house to grab some clothes and then passing out early, once again together in Steve’s bed. And when the alarms began to go off the next morning, you both begrudgingly pulled yourselves out of bed. Got dressed, shared a heated kiss that neither of you wanted to end, and then went your separate ways to get ready for the wedding. Hilde and Wanda scooped you from Steve’s place, instantly demanding details. Which you happily gave them, needing to just gush about the last 24 hours.

So now, here you were, loading up a plate of desserts at Nat and Bucky’s wedding, because let’s be honest, you were a sucker for treats, when a voice behind you sends a chill down your spin. “I hear you both finally voiced your feelings.”

You cringed and slowly glanced over your shoulder to see Madi standing a few feet behind you. “That’s not really any of your business, Madeleine,” you replied, coldly.

She took a few steps towards you, now standing directly behind you, so you sighed deeply, not really in the mood for her shit right now. Or ever, really. But especially not today. Then you turned to face her, and just as you did she spoke again.

“You don’t deserve him,” she whispered harshly, “you aren’t good enough for him.”

And normally her words would have hurt you, but at this point in your life, you could honestly care less what she thought of you. You’d finally gotten the one man you’d always wanted, and nothing, or more specifically, noone, could ruin this for you. You were on cloud 9 and refused to ever come back down. “Well you see, you may think that, but Steve doesn’t, and more importantly, I don’t.” You shrug, “so, say whatever you’d like. But your opinions on this don’t matter. We are both happy, and nothing you can say or do will change that this time. So honestly, fuck off back to your miserable little life and stay the hell away from us.” You smile, smugly and go to turn back to your mission at hand. Getting more of those delicious treats on your plate.

“You bitch,” she hisses and grabs your arm to stop you from turning away from her, “you think I was mean to you in school, oh, just you fucking wait. Once I marry Tony, I’ll be around Steve for the rest of our lives. And so long as you’re there, I’ll make sure to do everything in my power to mess this all up for you. You don’t get the happily ever after with the man I love. I won’t let you. I’ll happily break you both up and then show him he should have picked me.”

“Wow,” you said slowly, the true evil that is Madeleine fucking Karlington finally showing through to you. I mean, you always knew she was a horrible person, but you never realized it was to this extent. “What about Tony? And how exactly will you ‘show Steve he should have picked you’ if you’re married to his brother?” You ask, honestly just curious how she plans to play this all out. And just like the true evil genius she is, she spills her whole master plan to you, thinking she had the upper hand here.

“I know you’re only asking because you think you can run to Tony and tell him all of this. But he won’t believe you. Just like he didn’t believe Steve. So I’ll tell you, just so you know exactly how I’ll be taking Steve back from you.” She smirks, “I plan to leave Tony once I win Steve back. I’ll start by claiming Tony is abusing me after a little while of marriage and that’s why I don’t love him anymore, and want out. And Steve will spring to my defence and then I’ll work my magic on him. And the rest will just fall into place,” she shrugged and you honestly wanted to throw up at how nasty and vile this woman is.

But as you were about to make your rebuttal, a form shifted behind you and you glanced over Madeleines shoulder to see Steve standing there with a disgusted expression on his face. But that wasn’t the form you’d seen shift. No, the one you saw move was Tony, his upper arm gripped tightly by Steve, as if he’d just dragged his older brother over here, kicking and screaming. You figured he had.

You weren’t entirely sure how long they’d been there. Or just how much they’d heard. But the hurt and angry expression on Tony’s face made you believe they’d witness damn near the whole thing. You’re eyes shifted from Tony’s form to Steve, locking on his eyes for a moment before you flicked them back to Madeleine.

“That sounds like a wonderful plan, Madi, however,” you pause and go to step around her, “I don’t think it’s going to play out exactly how you were imagining it would.” Then you walked passed her and she turned to probably say something back to you, but froze when she saw you stand next to Steve. Who released his brothers arm and patted him on the shoulder, apologetically.

Then he took your hand and led you away, but you didn’t miss Madeleine going to speak and Tony cutting her off with a harsh, “don’t bother. We’re done.” Then he stormed off, with Madi hot on his heels, begging him to listen. But he didn’t. He ended his engagement with her that night, and cancelled the wedding the following day.

And as far as you know, Madeleine stayed single for a while, living with her mother but then shortly after Steve proposed you heard from Rebecca that Madi had up and moved away to LA. Where she still lived to this day. Most likely still miserable and alone. But you honestly could care less how she felt. You were just glad you didn’t have to see her ever again.

August 2018 - 2 years ago.

You spent the 2 weeks following Bucky and Nat’s wedding with Steve. You both were damn near inseparable, and you’d basically lived at his house during that time. But as time ticked on, you realized you had some big decisions to make.

Steve had been a sweetheart, as always, and hadn’t brought any of the big topics up. But you could tell they were weighing on him. Just as they were on you. Him being the amazing man he was though, he just left it alone, allowing you to think and figure out exactly how you wanted to play this out. Letting you come to a conclusion entirely on your own. However, this really wasn’t just about what you wanted anymore. What he wanted had to play a part in all of this.

So one night, you sat him down and decided to break the little bubble you’d both been happily living in over the last two weeks. Hoping the outcome of this talk would be what you both wanted.

“So, I think we really need to figure out what to do about Boston,” you started, hesitantly.

He nodded, “yeah. I think you’re right.” He paused, and frowned for a moment, but then quickly corrected it, “what do you want to do about it?”

“I’ve thought a lot about it over the last few weeks and I think I may have figured out a game plan,” you said softly, “I’ll need to return to Boston for a bit, to work everything out on that end though.”

He looked down at his hands in his lap and nodded slowly, waiting for you to continue. You started to believe that maybe he thought you’d be leaving for a while and that maybe you wouldn’t be able to come back right away. But ooooh, how wrong he was. “But I’d like you to come with me, as it will be a lot easier to pack and move with your help,” you shrugged, though he probably missed it.

His eyes instantly snapped up to meet yours and his eyebrows tried to high five his hairline—And by ‘tried’ you mean they successfully did. “Wait, what?”

You giggled at the cute, dazed look on his face then continued on, “I, ah, sort of emailed my resignation to my boss a few days ago, and got her confirmation back that same day. I, then, sent my resume to Shield High and they just emailed me yesterday to say they were very excited to see my resume come in, and that they wanted to set up an interview. Which is in 3 days.”

“Holy fuck,” he whispered slowly, clearly now piecing it all together in his head, “are you serious?” He asked breathlessly.

You smiled and nodded, quickly. So excited to hear what he thought of all of this. “I am.”

He shot up off the couch and pulled you up with him. Wrapping you in a giant bear hug, and after a few seconds you realized you were vibrating slightly, and it dawned on you just how excited he was. He was literally bouncing. “Oh shit,” he whispered, happily, “this is the best thing I have heard in weeks!” He kissed the top of your head, then froze, “wait, where are you going to live?!”

“I already talked to my dad, and if I get the job at Shield High, I’ll be moving in with him at first, while I get settled in and then I’ll look for a place later on.”

“You could live with me?” He said quietly into your hair and your smile grew even bigger.

You pulled back to look up at him, seeing the hesitant but overjoyed look in his eyes, “although I’d love that, so so much. I think we really need to do this right. I do want to move in with you, one day, but just not this soon. I want the cute moments where you pick me up from my house for a date. Or where I get to sleep at your house after the odd one, and it’s new and exciting because it isn’t my home.” You take his hand and squeeze it, “if all of this goes how we want it to, we will have many, many years of living together, but they will be when we are both ready. And not just because I don’t really have a place to live,” you giggled and he smiled down at you.

“I totally get it. And I want those cute moments too.” He smirked, “so, speaking of dates, when are you free next.” Then he winked in an overly exaggerated manner at you, and it took everything in you to not laugh and call him a cheeseball. Because honestly, you wouldn’t have him any other way. He is perfect just the way he is. One giant, soft, cheeseball.

“For you? I’m always free,” you jokingly wink back and then you both break out into a fit of happy laughter.

September 2018 - 2 years ago.

“Is that the last of it?” Steve asked as he stood in your, now empty, Boston apartment holding a big box labelled ‘bathroom’ on the side in sharpie.

“I think so,” you said softly as you stood in the middle of your empty living room. You slowly did a 360, taking in just how different this place looked, without all your belongings in it. “I just have that little box on the counter then we can go drop off the keys.”

He smiled and nodded, “okay, I’ll meet you at the van.” Then he walked out the door and left you to be alone. You assumed it was so you could say goodbye to the place you called home for the last few years.

You did a final walk around the apartment, that moment being bittersweet, you were going to miss this little shitty apartment, but you were also so excited for what the future held for you. And Steve. “Thanks for all the good years,” you said softly as you rubbed a hand along the kitchen counter then picked up the last little box.

You’d gone for your interview at Shield High, and they’d damn near hired you on the spot. Well, they’d actually called to officially offer you the job the following day, but same thing. So you and Steve booked his time off, 2 weeks, and then two plane tickets so you could both come up to Boston to collect all your things.

You gave your notice to your apartment manager, who was sad to see you go, but excited for you. You paid the final months rent and then spent a few days showing Steve your favourite parts of Boston. Before the rest of the two weeks was spent packing and cleaning.

You rented a moving truck and were both going to drive back to Buckhannon together in it, along with all your possessions.

You’d done the final walk through with your building manager that morning, and then there you were. Standing for the final time in your little kitchen holding the final box.

“I hope the next tenant loves you just as much as I did,” you whispered then headed out the door, putting the box down to lock up for the final time and then picked up the box and went to hand in your keys.

The ride back was a lot of fun, you and Steve stopped along the way to enjoy the sights, and spent 1 night in a little motel as the 11 hour drive was a little too much to do all at once, especially after many days of packing and cleaning.

When you finally reached home, you unpacked all your belongings into a corner of your dad’s garage. Well, minus your bedroom and bathroom things, those you brought up to your room and unpacked. You figured it would be smarter just to leave everything packed away until you either found your own place or moved in with Steve. Whichever came first.

You got yourself all settled in just in time for the school year to start, and the very first day of class you knew, instantly, that this was the job for you. You loved every student equally, and couldn’t wait for all the fun things you had planned for them, for throughout the upcoming school year.

July 2019 - 1 year ago.

You and Steve had been together for a year now, and so, for your 1 year anniversary, he had this elaborate plan that you weren’t allowed to know a fucking thing about. No matter how much you begged him, or tried to blackmail your friends—once you learned they were all in on it. But none of them would give you anything, and the only person you may have been able to crack—Sam—was nowhere to be found.

And the odd time when you did track him down. He. Was. Never. Alone. Either Hilde would be with him, or Wanda. OR, in some cases, Bucky. All those turds knew Sam was the weak link and they refused to let you break him down. Traitors. So you gave up, finally, and just waited for the special day.

Wanda had brought you a dress the night before, with a note attached to it that read, ‘A beautiful dress for a beautiful woman, I’ll be here to pick you up at 10am. So be ready. No sleeping in!’ You’d laughed. Like your excitement would even allow you to sleep that night, let alone sleep in.

So at 9:45am you stood on your front porch, ready and waiting. And when he showed up at 9:50am, slightly early, you weren’t surprised in the least, he was always early. This was actually late for him, if you were being honest.

He got out of the truck, to come get you. Telling you how stunning you looked in the dress, which fit like a glove, you figured you’d have to thank Wanda for that one. Then he offered you his hand, walked you to the truck, and opened the door for you. You tried to pry any details out of him once he got in the driver’s seat, but all he told you was, “you’ll have to wait and see.” The smirk on his face only made you want to know more.

The first stop confused you, it was your work, or rather, Shield High. You went to ask, but all he did was shake his head as he got out of the truck, he opened your door and led you inside. How he got keys for the school on a Saturday, you had no clue. But you just went along with it.

He led you to a place in the hall and then stopped. You looked around and realized it was the place you’d originally bumped into him that first day of school, all those years ago. And you INSTANTLY knew where this anniversary date was going, but you kept that to yourself and just played along. Not wanting to ruin a single moment of this day for yourself, or more importantly, him. Since he had clearly planned this out way more then you’d originally thought.

“This, was the exact spot where we first met,” he started as he turned to look down at you, and you had to force yourself to not grin like an idiot, or cry—Shit, that was a very real thing that might happen right now if you didn’t put solid effort into keeping your tears at bay. This was only the first stop, you can’t cry yet.

“I thought you were absolutely stunning, instantly, and something in me that day knew you’d play some huge role in my life, I just never could have fathomed how true that feeling would end up being. Or just how important you’d end up becoming to me. Nor was I aware that day, just how desperate I was for someone like you in my life. All I knew then was that I had to know you; the mystery new girl who hinted that she was used to going unseen, called me cute and then looked adorable with a giant goose egg on her head,” he paused. “Which I still feel horrible about, by the way,” he added then chuckled as his fingers lightly rubbed the spot on your head where the goose egg had been, all those years ago. You laughed at that, and it was a watery laugh from the tears that wanted to escape, but you hoped he hadn’t noticed.

“It was a hell of a meet cute, though,” you said with a smile.

“Truer words have never been said,” he smiled back. “Okay, on to the next place.” He offered you his hand and you happily took it. He then led you out onto the field and stopped in a place you knew all too well. “This is where I finally got to actually talk to you, sort of. I was super awkward when we first joined you ladies that day, but only because I was so nervous, and unsure as to what to even say to you. You looked so interested in your book and I didn’t want to bother you. But when you got up and left the group abruptly, I realized I may have made you upset and couldn’t let you stay that way.” He pointed towards the school, “so I chased after you, without so much as a word to our friends, and basically forced you to let me walk you to your locker.” He turned back to look at you, “it was the best choice I’ve ever made.”

“I’m also glad you made that decision, that day.”

He smirked at you, “because you had no clue where you were going?”

You burst out laughing, then lightly swatted his arm, “rude! I totally knew where I was going!”

“I call bullshit,” he laughed, “but that day I realized that I’d happy lead you anywhere you needed to go. So long as you needed me to, and kept smiling, that beautiful smile, at me.”

That, of course, made you smile. Shocker.

“Yes, that one,” he said as he pointed at your lips, “that’s my favourite one.” Then he leaned down and kissed you softly. But the kiss ended far too quickly for your liking, as he took your hand and led you towards the student parking lot. Where his truck was currently parked. But before you even reached the truck, he stopped again.

“And this spot,” he turned to you again, “was the first place I ever had the overwhelming want to kiss you. It wasn’t the only spot, but it was the first. And that probably had to do with you saying I was,” he paused and smirked again, “‘fucking built’ if I remember correctly?”

“Oh god, you heard that?” You cringed at just how awkward you were that day.

“Oh yeah,” he pulled you flush against him, gently, “I heard it,” he whispered as he leaned down to kiss you again, before pulling back to hum, “aah, that’s better. That’s how that moment should have played out.” Then he excitedly continued on towards his truck, pulling you along with him, which caused you to laugh loudly at this giant, cheeseball.

The next stop was Sam’s house, though you didn’t go in, nor did you see Sam. Steve just led you to the backyard and you saw that everything had been set up just like it was that first birthday of his, the first one you’d been in town for. Even down to the paper with ‘Fire pit reserved, so piss off!’ written on it and attached to a chair.

You looked up at him, after taking it all in and saw that he had just been watching you, as you did.

“This spot is special,” he said then turned to glance around, “it will also be the only spot I show from that night.” He looked at you again, “unless you want a piggyback ride to Nat’s house?” He smirked.

You smirked right back, as you recited the same words you’d said that night, “a piggyback ride does sound very tempting,” you hummed it over for a second. “Yeah, who am I kidding? I’d never turn down a free ride,” you winked and then you both laughed.

“Okay, but it will have to wait till later. We have a schedule to keep,” he said then looked around again, thoughtfully, as he spoke, “this was the place where you gave me the best birthday gift I could have ever asked for. It wasn’t some fancy, expensive gift, like I’d received from others in the past. No, you actually thought it out. Put effort into it. And it was perfect, I couldn’t have asked for anything better. And it warmed my heart to think of you setting it all up for me, and just how well you already knew me. Even after such a short amount of time.” He turned to smile at you, “but you almost always knew exactly what to do to warm my heart. It was like it just came naturally to you. Which didn’t go unnoticed.”

“Honestly, I was so nervous about that night, I was worried it wouldn’t be enough. I’d wanted to do more for you, but you are seriously so difficult to buy for.” You both laughed again.

“Gotta keep you on your toes,” he said, “but honestly, it’s the thought that matters. I’m not big into buying gifts, I have everything I could ever want. Or need. I just love how you find the little ways to show me that you’re thinking of me. To show me that you care.”

“Okay, noted,” you said with a nod, “that’s easy enough to accomplish, when all I can ever think about is you. And I do care about you, more than you’ll ever know.”

“Oh,” he raised an eyebrow at you, “I’m all you can ever think about?”

“Oh god,” you playfully groaned, “please don’t let that go to your giant ego.”

“Too late,” he chuckled, “and it’s only giant because of you.”

“Well shit,” you mumbled, jokingly, “I knew I shouldn’t have complimented you so much.”

He laughed loudly at that, “we’re already here, so no point in stopping now. Keep the compliments coming.”

You rolled your eyes, fondly, but then he continued on, “but this spot wasn’t just about what you did for me that night, it was also going to be the place I finally confessed my feelings for you.” He sighed then mumbled, “but I kept getting interrupted.”

“Really? You were going to tell me that night?” You asked, wide eyed.

He nodded, “I was. I’d planned on telling you that night, for weeks. Bucky even knew about it.”

“That little bugger!” You joked, knowing full well Bucky would never go behind Steve’s back on anything, let alone something as big as him having feelings for someone. Even if it would have made all of this a whole lot easier. But would you have even believed Bucky if he had come to you telling you about Steve’s true feelings for you? Probably not.

“Oh trust me, he begged me many times to just tell you. He even threatened to tell you himself once, if I didn’t get my shit together fast enough. He clearly never ended up telling you, but for a few days there, I honestly panicked, thinking that he was going to,” he laughed.

“That sounds like something Bucky would do,” you laughed as well, “he’s always been the pushy one.” You paused, “well, him and Nat.” Another pause, “oh god, they really are so perfect for each other.”

“They are. But they aren’t the only ones,” he smiled down at you, and you instantly knew what he meant by that. Because you and him were also so perfect for each other.

“That they aren’t,” you said back.

He took your hand, giving your knuckles a gentle kiss as he murmured, “on to the next spot.” And then he led you back to the truck.

But you didn’t miss the curtains moving in Sam’s house. And instantly you knew he had most likely been watching. The lurker. You chuckled causing Steve to look back at you but you waved it off, “I’ll tell you later.” To which he just smiled and nodded as he opened the truck door for you, again.

The next stop was the lake, specifically in front of the concession stand. The exact spot you both stood and waited for your food that day. The spot where you had almost kissed Steve for the first time.

“You already know that I wanted to kiss you that day at the lake—or that I wanted you to kiss me,” he corrected.

“And that you pouted about it for the rest of the night,” you ribbed him, lovingly.

He gasped and feigned offence, “yeah, well you would have too if the girl of your dreams was about to kiss you and then literally pulled away as if you were on fire,” he pouted. “Then apologized for almost kissing you, because she, and I quote, ‘didn’t mean to’.”

“Ouch,” you said slowly, “yeah, okay, I’ll let you have that one,” you giggled, “you actually remembered my exact words?”

“Thanks for that,” he scoffed, “and yeah, I had nightmares about that day for weeks. And I say nightmares because even in my dreams, you never kissed me in that moment.”

“Awe,” you coo, “my poor baby.” You smirked and watched as he feigned offence again, but then the look quickly disappeared from his face.

“Oh, you’ll pay for that one, Y/L/N,” he said as he reached out and grabbed you, you didn’t even have a chance to attempt to avoid him this time. He was too fast.

He then began to tickle you, and you forfeited damn near instantly. “Okay! Okay! I give! I give!”

He stopped tickling you, and you pulled him down to plant a kiss on his lips. Pulling away after a moment, “there, does that make up for not kissing you the first time?”

“No, but it’s a step in the right direction,” he said before pulling you back into him for another few kisses.

After a moment he pulled away to glance at his watch, “okay, we have to go, there is something we have to pick up soon.” You gave him a quizzical look but he just shook his head, “you’ll have to wait and see.” Then he walked you back to the truck.

A little bit later you pulled into Huddle House’s parking lot, and instantly your mouth watered, he looked over at you and laughed. “Wait here,” he said as he hopped out of the truck and went inside, coming out a few minutes later with 2 brown bags in his hands.

He climbed back into the truck and handed you one, “now, I was going to take you out to some fancy restaurant for dinner, but I figured you’d appreciate this a little more.”

You happily took the bag, “oh gosh,” you groaned, “it smells just as divine as I remember.” You contently sighed then peeked in the bag and took a giant whiff of the glorious smell.

Steve chuckled as he watched you, “but does it,” he raised his hand up as if to show the words up in lights as he spoke, “Smell Divine, Every Time?”

You burst out laughing, “oh god, you remember that too?”

“I remember everything. You’re kind of hard to forget, plus you’re weird. So that helps.” He smiled sweetly as you scoffed at him and then you both dug into the bags. And just like always, you had to search for the dang fork. You eventually found it with a triumphant ‘ha!’ That was followed closely by a happy, “oh damn, it also still looks better than it smells.”

To which Steve murmured between bites, “you always say that.”

Once the food was finished you looked over at him, feeling so pleasantly full, “amazing choice. That was perfect, I’m so glad you picked here instead of some fancy restaurant.”

“I’m glad to hear it, I figured you’d like this more,” he said as he collected up all the garbage and got out of the truck to throw it away.

Once he was done that, he climbed back in, “okay, so this spot was to signify that first summer I spent away from you. That was the summer I knew it wasn’t just some silly crush, and that I truly loved you, and everything about you. Being away from you for those 2 months was hell, but coming home and seeing you again made it all better. That morning will forever be etched into my mind.”

“Mine too,” you said softly, “that was actually the summer I realized my true feelings for you, as well.”

His eyes widened slightly, “really?”

You nodded, “yeah.”

“Wow,” he said slowly, “what are the odds?”

You shrugged, “1 in a million, I’d bet.”

“Sounds about right,” he smiled, “okay, let’s go.”

You both buckled up then headed off. Pulling into High Life’s parking lot soon after. And your heart rate had instantly sped up. He hadn’t said this would be the final spot, but you just knew it was going to be. This was it. The moment you've always dreamed of. Well, the first big moment in a domino effect of moments to follow.

He hopped out and opened the door for you, then led you to the exact spot you’d shared, not only your true feelings but also your first kiss.

He stood there quietly for a moment, hands in his pockets, just staring up at the bar, “and this, this is where my favourite chapter, so far, started.”

He turned to you, “God, that night started off complete shit but it turned out to be, hands down, the best night of my life, so far.” He smiled and took your hand, and you were damn near screaming on the inside, “honestly, Y/N, the words I said to you that night were so true at the time, I did love you so much back then.” He paused and the look in his eyes softened a bit, “but now, now I realize that I barely loved you at all. Not truly at least, not fully.” He shook his head, “I could have never loved you then, like I do now. Not without having the last year to learn all about you as my girlfriend, instead of my best friend. Not without getting to see you first thing in the morning, no makeup and messy hair—”

“The messy hair is entirely your fault,” you interjected and he just chuckled and shhh’d you then whispered, “I have no regrets about that.” Which he finished off with a wink.

You giggled and then he continued on, “as I was saying. I couldn’t love you truly back then without learning that you like to spend Sunday mornings in bed, reading and marking your students assignments. Or that you prefer to shower first thing in the morning, as opposed to at night. Or that you always do the Sunday crosswords in pen, so no one else can do it. Or really, any of the many other amazing things that I’ve learned about you in the last year.”

He slowly lowered down to one knee and pulled a little box out of his pants pocket, and you straight up almost squealed. No joke, you had to quickly slap your free hand over your mouth to stop the noise from escaping. “Basically, all that was to say, I love you more now then I did then. The first time we found ourselves in this very spot. And I want to continue to not only learn about you, but to love you even more, as I do.” He released your hand to quickly open the box, then took it again, “So, Y/N Y/L/N, will you do me the honour of marrying me, and allowing me to love you, more and more, for the rest of our lives?”

And then the squeal finally escaped you, you honestly couldn’t have stopped it even if you’d tried, “yes! Oh god, yes!” You fell to your knees and wrapped your arms around his neck, pulling him towards you and crashing your lips to his. He chuckled and wrapped his arms around your waist as kissed you back with everything he had.

You pulled away after a moment, when the cheers finally reached your ears and then glanced around in search of the cause. Instantly noticing the little gang of 6 people standing off to the side of the parking lot. And you knew exactly who they all were, without a shadow of a doubt.

Steve stood up then helped you up off your knees, he placed the ring on your finger then turned to quickly glance at your friends before turning back to you, to whisper, “I tried to tell them we’d come see them after all of this, but they weren’t having any of it. They refused to miss this moment,” he chuckled fondly.

“That sounds like them,” you laughed then waved them over, “they wouldn’t be our merry band of misfits if they weren’t,” you started and then yelled the next part for them to hear, “overbearing and pushy as hell.”

“Hey!” Sam exclaimed, “we heard that!”

“That was the point, Sammy,” you smirked at him.

He paused then shrugged as he said, “honestly, I can’t even deny that, all of us are those things,” he laughed.

“And we like it that way,” Bucky added.

You all excitedly chatted in the parking lot for a bit, then all ventured into High Life to celebrate.

All throughout the night you’d glanced down at the beautiful ring on your finger and a smile would break out on your face, then you’d glance at Steve and your smile would grow even bigger. And every time you’d look at him, it was like he could feel it, and he’d look back at you. Then smile himself, as if he knew why you were looking at him.

The night ended up being an amazing one. But honestly, you were too happy for it to be anything but amazing.

January 2020 - 5 months ago.

You’d tried on 24 dresses so far and were reaching the point of being fed up and done with dress shopping. You could picture the exact dress you wanted in your head, but finding it, that wasn’t so easy. You’d gone to 5 different bridal shops in search of your dream dress, and had come up short at all of them—Well, you were currently still in bridal shop number 5, so it couldn’t be ruled out just yet, but you weren’t too hopeful it wouldn’t be ruled out soon. Like the others.

So you just stood there, in the little silk robe they give you when trying on dresses and waited for the attendant to return. You’d tried on 3 dresses so far during this appointment and as you were taking off the 3rd one the attendant froze and said, “oh! I think I know exactly which dress to try next.” Then she quickly mumbled a, “be right back,” and tore out of the room to grab the dress. But once again, you weren’t hopeful it would be a success.

At this point you were resigning yourself to just marrying Steve in some damn jeans. It would be fitting to your relationship. But before you could venture too far down that rabbit hole, the attendant knocked and entered the room, a dress in a clear bag draped over her shoulder.

She helped you into the dress and then clipped it tightly to your form at the back before she helped turn you towards the mirror. You gasped, and the tears instantly formed in your eyes as you took in the sight. In this exact moment, you felt like a bride. And you instantly knew, “this is the dress,” you whispered, breathlessly.

“Oh yay!” The attendant cheered happily from behind you, “okay, let’s go show it to your group.” She adjusted one of the clips and then lifted up the bottom to help you walk.

You climbed up onto the podium and turned to your friends and your dad. Who were all currently speechless. And that caused your tears to finally break the confines of your lower lids, and run happily down your cheeks, as you chuckled out a watery, “so, what do you guys think?”

“Perfect,” Wanda sniffled.

“Breathtaking,” Hilde nodded, wiping a stray tear away.

“Oh god, you’re a vision,” your Aunt Carol whispered.

“I’m more emotional about seeing you in this dress, then I was about my own,” Nat said through a breathless chuckle as she grabbed a kleenex and dapped below her eyes.

You nodded happily, then turned to your dad, who still hadn’t said a word yet, “what do you think, daddy?”

He glanced up and down at the dress for a moment then met your eyes. And you realized his were now also filled with tears. “Oh, kiddo. This is it,” he nodded and smiled, “this is the dress.”

“Yeah?” You asked as you looked down at the dress then at all of them.

“Oh yeah,” they all said in unison.

“Steve is going to fall over when he sees you walking down the aisle towards him in that,” Hilde said and you laughed loudly at that thought.

“I hope not, can’t have him injured on our honeymoon,” you smirked, and then burst out laughing again when you heard your dad groan loudly from his place on the couch.

“I didn’t need to hear that,” he shook his head, and mumbled, “I can’t unhear that now.”

You finally calmed down your laughing fit enough to tell the attendant you’d take the dress. Even though she’d probably already figured that out.

Your dad bought the dress for you, not even allowing the attendant to tell you how much it cost. His exact words were, “the price doesn’t matter. This is the dress and I’ll be damned if you don’t get to walk down the aisle wearing it.”

And that’s exactly what you’d get to do.

June 2020 - Present.

“It’s our time, kiddo,” your dads soft words pull you back to the present and you blink away the flash backs and turn to smile at him.

You take a deep breath, “then what are we waiting for,” you excitedly reply and then both doors are pulled open for you to make your grand entrance, on the arm of the first man you ever loved. The same arm that will soon pass you off to the last man you’ll ever love.

After one more glance at your father, who is clearly trying not to cry, you take a step through the doors and your eyes instantly find Steve’s. And the look on his face says it all.

He breaks the eye contact for a moment, to glance the full length of you, and then those beautiful deep blues lock back with yours and even from down the aisle, you can see the tears building up in them. And that almost makes you cry, but you manage to hold it together, determined to not ruin your makeup before he gets an up close look at you.

You reluctantly break the eye contact, in the hopes it will help you hold back the tears, and then you glance at the people in the pews on either side of the aisle. Seeing Thor and Vis sitting beside each other, giant smiles on their handsome faces and both looking dapper in their suits.

Then you see Laura and the kids, all dressed up and looking amazing. Before your eyes shift to the other side and see Sam’s mom and sisters, all looking beautiful as always in their pastel coloured dresses.

Next your eyes find Peter, Tony and Pepper, sitting near the front. You’d met Pepper about a year ago when you’d gone to a family dinner with Steve, she was lovely and you were so happy to learn Tony had met a nice woman finally, one you hoped would stay around for a while. As you both had hit it off instantly and you could totally see her making an awesome sister in law one day.

And next to them are Steve’s parents, Howard and Maria, both looking so effortlessly content and happy in this moment. Like they both had known this day would come, and the cheeky wink Maria gives you solidifies that thought.

Then lastly you look to the other side, seeing Winnie, James Jr, Maria Hill, your Aunt Carol and your cousin Lashana all sitting together. Winnie and your aunt were already bawling their eyes out and you hadn’t even reached Steve yet, that made you giggle quietly to yourself as your eyes finally flicked back up to Steve’s.

You both then hold the eye contact the rest of your way down the aisle, up until your dad passes you off to your future husband, sharing a few whispered words that you can’t quite make out, but you do see Steve nod his agreement to something before he focuses back on you to whisper, “come on, beautiful. I’ve been waiting 11 years to make you my wife. I can’t wait any longer.”

You giggle softly at this corny cheeseball you were about to marry, then let him lead you up the steps, knowing instantly that this is exactly where you’re meant to be. And Steve is exactly who you’re meant to be with.

If only you’d known sooner, but, then again, you know now, and that’s really all that matters. You got here eventually, and honestly, you wouldn’t have changed a thing. You believe everything happens for a reason, everything plays out a certain way to force you to grow, learn and appreciate everything you have. If things all came easily, they wouldn’t mean as much in the end.

You glance at your soon-to-be husband and smile, receiving a smile in return, then you both focus on the minister. Knowing that this is the final part before you both can call yourselves married. And you both couldn’t wait any longer for that. Or the beautiful, crazy, corny life that would follow this moment—The life where your best friend is by your side every step of the way, except now you’d call him your husband.

‘Your husband.’ God, you really love the way that sounds.

The End.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

@hopefulmoonobject @caps-lockdown @itsstillnotwhatyouthink @tessvillegas @boxofteenageideas @wangdeasang @giggleberts @casuallydarktiger @theonelittleone @agentbadbitch @ratwrites @starrystellars @bandsandanimefreak @rockyroadthepastryarchy @lovvliies @cuffski @icesoccerer @alwaysright4 @lilsthethrills @imdiegohargreeves @zombiepotterfour @mu-mu-rs @ledandan1244 @straightforwardly @badassbeckettswan @denzmallows @xremember-me-notx @gwynethjodie @lollipopdomination @capstopavenger @jemimah-b99 @rcvenqers @justkending @marvel13princess @alagalaska @silent-loucidity @sabertooth-potato @pies-wands-and-more

#au fanfiction #fanfiction #long post #long read #marvel au #marvel fanfiction #steve rogers #steve rogers x reader #steve rogers x y/n #steve rogers x you #modern!steve rogers x reader #modern!steve rogers #modern!steve #modern au #alternate universe #steve rogers au #if only you knew #epilogue #no super powers here

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signify-nothing · 6 years

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The Definitive Ranking of How Fuckable All 15 AHS Evan Peters Characters Are

15. Andy Warhol. I want to forget everything about this. -500 out of 10 lays.

14. James March. The mustache. The accent. The maniacal murder glee. Does he really belong on a mature TV show? Really? General rule of thumb: if someone looks and sounds like they could cameo on Sesame Street as the Count’s mentally ill younger brother, they should not be on AHS, period. -100 out of 10 lays.

13. Jim Jones. I felt no desire to drink the kool-aid or anything else of his. 0 out of 10 lays.

13. Marshall Applewhite. Forgettable. Are we even sure this is actually Evan Peters? I have my doubts. 0 out of 10 lays.

11. Charles Manson. Nothing to scream about. 0 out of 10 lays.

10. White Jesus. Honestly I don’t even remember this episode? Nice beard though. 1 out of 10 lays.

9. David Koresh. He got this far on hair alone. 2 out of 10 lays.

8. Rory Monahan. The only time I can recall Peters playing Cougar Catnip. 2 out of 10 lays.

7. Kai Anderson. Would be fuckable except nobody wants to sleep with a Republican. Also, he has a weird sexual fixation with his sister. 4 out of 10 lays.

7. Kyle/Frankenboy. From semi-problematic frat guy to perfect undead boyfriend with a custom-chosen dick. Not so great at pillow talk, but we all have our faults. 5 out of 10 lays.

6. Mr. Gallant - Total icon. First time in AHS history they had to stop a torture scene because the victim was enjoying it too much. Radiates big dick energy like nobody’s fucking business. 100 out of 10 lays.

4. Jimmy Darling. A little bit too goody-two-shoes but let’s be real his kinky handjob business was a new high in AHS history. 200 out of 10 lays.

3. Edward Phillippe Motte. Gay, anxious, addicted to art, and dramatic as fuck. 1,000 out of 10 lays.

2. Kit Walker. Good guy Evan in bondage does things to me. 1,000,000 out of 10 lays.

1. Tate Langdon. The OG of murderous bad boys. Nobody fucks like this guy fucked us all over in season one. 1,000,000,000,000 out of 10 lays.

#ahs #evan peters #tate langdon #kit walker #kai anderson #american horror story #american horror story apocalypse

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cynicallystiles · 6 years

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Beach Sunrises: Ruin

Author: @cynicallystiles

Warning: Mostly angst, but hey there’s slight fluff at the end. Cursing, embarrassment, yadda yadda.

Pairing: Shawn Mendes x Reader

Summary: While on tour one day, Shawn sees a woman watching the sunrise by herself. Thinking that he’ll never see her again, he tries to forget as he goes on with the rest of his day. But, serendipity seems to have other ideas…

Notes: Yo, this is hella late. But, like I’ve been so busy adjusting to college and I’ve already had a minor emotional breakdown this week! But, I persevered (for now)! But, this is hella long and I actually maybe like it? ONLY ONE CHAPTER LEFT AFTER THIS FOR THE SERIES. PLEASE REBLOG OR COMMENT if you like it! I always welcome messages and asks about my work! Enjoy!

Masterlist

Series Masterlist

Part 10 Part 12

Words: 10,435

First P.O.V.

You know, I wasn't all that sure at first about Nick letting me use him as a distraction. It felt wrong...like, really wrong because I didn't know where it was gonna go or if I was ever gonna get over Shawn. And Nick is the sweetest guy I've ever met. So that made it feel triply wrong. But, he insisted and I'll admit that it didn't take me much convincing.

I mean, how often do incredibly sweet, funny, smart, and attractive guys give you permission to use them as a distraction? And without expecting it to become more than that once you've healed up some. Not a lot, that's how many.

It's true, he didn't push me to make it a real relationship. He lets me set the pace and respects my decisions. When you're with a guy that amazing...it's hard to set boundaries for yourself on whether or not you're really ready to start a new relationship. Which is why I didn't mean to elevate us to a couple...it just happened.

I can't say that I mind because I love being with him. It was easy to become close to him and forget about Shawn. But, people finding out about us was kind of my fault. I've been so out of my shell lately and more confident that I don't really keep all my secrets that guarded. If someone wants to know something, I'll happily tell them if I feel like it.

So while we were in New Zealand, I had been asked to go on the radio show The Edge NZ and I asked if Nick could come along. At the beginning, it was more about the documentary and when it'd be coming out and what everyone could expect. Stuff like that. Then, they wanted to play a question game that I, unfortunately, agreed to.

It was a game they invented for Shawn a few years ago called Please, Have Mercy on Me. In his version, they attached electric clamps to a shirtless guy and every time Shawn refused to answer a question, the guy got shocked. Well, I just felt really bad about getting someone else shocked so I insisted that the clamps go on my index fingers. I'm not scared of a little electricity.

The questions are a mixed bag of random facts about me that people want to know and more personal and intimate questions that they thought I would be reluctant to answer. I was in such a carefree mood that I slipped up toward the middle of the interview.

"Alright! We'll start out with an easy one...what is your worst habit?"

I clear my throat and lean closer to the microphone. "Ummm...I pick and scratch a lot."

"What do you mean by that?" He inquires.

I shrug. "Like...I pick at acne a lot, which is why I have scars. And my legs itch a lot after hair removal so sometimes I'll literally scratch until I break skin...it's really bad," I chuckle.

"Sounds like it! Onto the next one...how old were you when you lost your v-plates?" He questions.

"Oh, man. Straight for the dirty details," I laugh. "Okay. Um...seventeen," I admit.

He chuckles, "Late bloomer are ya?"

"Just really picky. Should've been pickier, to be honest," I confess.

He ponders my answer before moving on. "That seems like a good segway into...what is the number of sexual partners you've had?"

"Three," I say simply.

His eyebrows shoot up. "Just three? You're twenty-two, correct?" I nod and remember that it's a radio show so I say yes. "You've only been with three people. Wow, that's just hard to believe," he rambles.

"Why's that?" I quirk my eyebrows at the comment.

He shrugs. "Nothing, it's just that there are people younger than you who probably have a really high number and don't answer the question," he informs me.

I nod my head slowly. "People with high numbers at young ages are usually serial hook uppers. Not that I'm judging...I'm just saying that my number is low because despite what some people say," I take a deep breath, "I am serious about that part of my life."

"Roger that," he says clearly uncomfortable at my icy statement. I look at Nick who is trying to contain his amusement at me snapping on the guy. I shoot him a playful glare as the guy continues. "I gotta say, this game isn't very interesting if you don't get shocked."

I shrug as a confident smile comes to my lips. "I'm an open book," I challenge.

"Maybe this one will get you...who is the rudest celebrity you've ever met?" He leans forward in anticipation.

I relax further into my chair as I look at Nick. "I dunno...that one over there could definitely use some manners," I giggle. He chuckles at my antics. "But, in all seriousness...I've only met like a handful of celebs and no one's really been rude to me, per se. If I had to pick someone that was the least nice, I would probably pick Camila Cabello."

"Ooo, juicy. Do tell why," he insists.

I roll my eyes. "There's not much I can say. I met her once for like three seconds and she barely acknowledged my existence," I inform him. "She was a little preoccupied so I can't blame her."

"I think you're the first person to answer that question."

"I'm not looking for drama but I'm not backing out and getting shocked by a fetish toy," I laugh.

He nods appreciatively. "Fair enough. This one might get you shocked," he giggles excitedly. "What's the oldest lover you've had?"

"Twenty...four?" I say with a look of concentration as I do the math. "No! Babe, you turned twenty-five in March right? Yeah? Okay, twenty-five. Final answer," I chuckle.

The room falls silent as everyone has surprised and amused looks on their faces. "I'm sorry, what did you just say?"

"Twenty-five...why?" I ask as I look at Nick, genuinely not knowing what everyone was gawking at. But when I see a look of nervousness on his face it hits me.

"You just asked Nick to confirm his age...which means you've hooked up with him recently!" He laughs and my face turns red.

I swallow and lean closer to the mic again. "Next question, please," I say lowly before bursting into laughter.

"I think we all know the answer to this next one...who was the last celebrity you kissed?" He smirks.

Too late to go back now. "Obviously that snack sitting over there," I chuckle.

"Alright and last question coming up...what celeb would you love to hook up with?"

I scoff. "Easy one...Ni-"

"Ah! Besides your boyfriend over there," he challenges.

My eyes flick from the interviewer to Nick. They both look genuinely curious. I swallow the lump in my throat as I take a deep breath and release it. "I'm gonna have to plead the fifth on that one...so go on and shock me," I say as I close my eyes and wait for the pain.

It actually didn't hurt that bad because it was the first one I didn't answer. So the voltage was on low and it felt more like a tiny little zap. Anyway, news of my interview slip up spread like wildfire throughout both of our fanbases and I didn't mind at all.

There's no reason to be ashamed of the fact that we're together in whatever way. We're both adults and we can do as we please. When we all got back to the states, it was really interesting. Like, I was surprised by the fact that people were actually not prying that much into our relationship or the nature of it.

I have to say we did have one weird experience while we were in Seattle, Nick's hometown. On a day off from Hailee's shows, he took me to the Space Needle since I'd never been. While we were waiting in line, a fan literally started yelling across the distance something about 'mom and dad'. I turned to Nick with a bewildered look and we both couldn't contain our laughter. Fans are super weird, but also super awesome.

August came quicker than I expected. It's hard to keep track of time when I'm so busy with work. But, also because I'm enjoying all my time with Nick. Sometime in April, he had gotten an offer for an amazing movie role. They shot some of the scenes before he left with us on tour, but he has to go back at the end of August to finish it.

At the end of July, I was contacted about doing another interview. This time, it was for The Late Late Show. And I have to say I'm pretty freaking excited about it. James is hilarious and I wouldn't want to do my American interview debut with anyone else. I was supposed to go in on some day during the first week or so of August. I'm not really keeping track of specific dates.

So, I get there sometime in the morning to shoot the interview. Which I was really shocked for some reason to find out that it wasn't actually filmed at night. Like, I just could not wrap my head around it. I arrived in a car with Nick and Hailee. As I got out, I moved to kiss Nick goodbye.

"I guess I'll see you later," I grin at him.

He quirks an eyebrow at me. "Um, no. We're staying," he chuckles. "Didn't anyone tell you that I'm the second guest and Hailee is performing?"

"I guess not...this is even more exciting then!" I squeal as they get out of the car and I walk hand in hand with Nick to the lot.

Once we checked in, they separated us all to get our hair and makeup done. The nice people did my makeup simply and put beach waves in my hair. We got to wear our own outfits so Nick wore something chill like he always does. Basic jeans rolled up at the bottom to show off his boots and a plain tee under an unbuttoned shirt with the sleeves rolled up. There's something sexy about how down to earth he is.

I'm kind of the same as him in that way. I like dressing up when the occasion calls for it, but most of the time I just want to be comfortable. So I wore light blue, high-waisted ankle skinny jeans and some simple black and white sneakers. I also chose a loose, white, and hardly see-through tank top that barely outlined my black push-up bra. My shirt has a cool watercolor painting of a mom and baby gorilla and the front is tucked into my jeans.

I wasn't told about anything special happening besides an interview and maybe participating in one of his games. But, I was still on edge because James is notorious for bringing up embarrassing things.

They've already put us all in our own dressing rooms which is driving up my anxiety. Nick is to be announced first in the Orange Room, then me in the Blue, and lastly, Hailee in the Red as the musical guest. I'm pacing around, unable to relax when I get a text.

Nick: Quite pacing! You're gonna make a rut in the floor lol

I quickly respond.

Me: How do you know I'm pacing?

Nick: Because you're you😜

Me: Ugh, you're annoying...

This is taking too long. I open my door and check the hallway to see if it's clear. When I find that it is, I sneakily run down the hallway and lightly knock on his dressing room door. He opens it, full celebrity smile on and then sees me.

"Y/n, I didn't know you got a job with The Late Late Show," he teases.

I roll my eyes at him. "Har, har," I mock him before quickly looking around. "Are you gonna let me in or not?"

He squints at the ceiling in concentration as if he's thinking really hard about it. I scoff, turning around to leave when he grabs my hand and pulls me inside. Once the door is closed, his hands find a home just below my ears as he leans down for a lingering kiss.

All of my jitters melted away right into that kiss as my hands grab fistfuls of his shirt and he backs me up into the door. It amazes me how he can always make a kiss feel both electric and soothing at the same time. One of his hands finds the small of my back and applies pressure.

I hum into the kiss as we make our way further into the dressing room and fall onto the couch. My hands pull him back to me by the nape of his neck before gripping the roots of his hair. His hands wander under my shirt and his fingers make my skin burn everywhere they graze. We both completely forget about everything else but each other.

Until a knock sounds at the door.

We break apart and look at the door. The knock happens again, this time louder. Shit. We both look back at each other and burst into laughter as he gets up quickly and we move to the door. I stand behind it as he cracks it open, a shy and mischievous smile on his face.

"Nick! What's up, buddy? Took a minute to answer...we thought you might've been kidnapped," James jokes from his place on stage.

I hear Nick laugh nervously. I can't help but mess with him as I quietly lean up and place a kiss on the fingers that are on this side of the door. He wiggles them before moving them higher on the door where I can't reach.

"Uh," he chuckles, "yeah, sorry about that I was just doing some relaxation techniques to get rid of some nerves."

There's a pause and a little laughter from the crowd so I can assume that James is making a funny face. "Relaxation techniques, huh? Is that what they're calling it these days?"

"What, uh...what do you mean?" He asks, clearly guilty.

"You've got a bit of lipgloss smudged on your lip, mate," James points out.

I don't have to see his face to know that he's gone beet red. Biting my lip to contain my laughter, I let my head fall forward and it bumps the door. I lift it back up quickly, my laughter just barely being contained.

Nick clears his throat. "Oh, really? Man must've gotten messed up when I was eating that sandwich a minute ago. I'll have to go redo it now...see ya later," he laughs as he slowly closes the door.

As soon as the door is closed, I take the opportunity of James introducing me to open the door and run down the hallway at full speed. Just as I can hear him finishing up my intro, I can see the assistant about to knock on my door. I skid to a stop right in front of her and rush inside.

Not a second later, there's a knock. I open it up and rest against the doorframe nonchalantly. Although, I'm panting like crazy from the sprint. "Oh...hey James! How's it goin'?" I begin the little rehearsed spiel, but James has other ideas.

"Y/n! You, uh...you seem a little out of breath there," he snickers.

I clear my throat and take a final deep breath to subdue the panting. "Nah, I'm good. Just doing some jumping jacks to work out my extra energy," I explain falsely.

He eyes me suspiciously. "Y/n, you are aware that we all just saw you run into your room before we knocked? Yes?"

"Oh, um," my eyes widen and then I scoff playfully. "You caught me! I had to go to the bathroom since my dressing room doesn't have one...I'm a little offended, James."

He doesn't take my bait to change the subject. "You've got a little..." James says as he touches his upper lip with his finger. I brush my thumb over where he's indicating and feel the smudged lip gloss. "Anything you want to tell us?" He raises an eyebrow comically.

I make an over-exaggerated thinking face before looking back at the camera innocently. "Not that I can think of...I really should do some of those jumping jacks though! I'll see you out there," I wave as I close the door slowly while he tries to continue talking.

A short time later we come out to the stage for the game that we're supposed to be participating in. "Alright, ladies and gentleman! Tonight's game was a bit of a challenge to figure out because we seem to have a diva among us," James teases as he unsubtly nods his head to me.

I mock being offended as Nick chuckles beside me. "I'm sorry that you have such a limited selection, James," I joke back. Nick 'ooo's' beside me and it's James' turn to mock being offended.

"Well, we can't do a riff-off..."

"Because neither I nor Nick are singers," I point out.

"And we can't do Nuzzle Whaaa?..."

"Because I know you're gonna make me stick my face into something that I'm scared of! The last one I watched had snakes!! Nuhhuh," I shake my head as a shiver runs through me at the thought.

He chuckles and continues, "So that leaves...Spill Your Guts or Fill Your Guts!"

"I have a really weak stomach, but it's a good thing I'm honest," I laugh.

"But there's a twist! We're doing a couples' edition just for the two of you," he announces.

My mouth falls open in shock and amusement. "Ohh," I chuckle. "I can't wait to hear the rules," I say sarcastically.

The crowd roars and we go sit around the table.

Third P.O.V.

Ever since Shawn saw the photos of y/n and Nick together, he's been a moping mess. He's been obsessively following everything he can about her for the past few weeks. And to make matters worse it's his 22nd birthday, which he thought he was going to be able to spend with her.

So, when Shawn read the tweet about her and Nick and Hailee all being on The Late Late Show...of course he stayed up to watch it. James started out by introducing them as this summer's hottest trio and then singularly introduced them. Shawn knew it wouldn't be easy to watch them even be next to each other. But to have them be so blatant about their relationship threw him off.

She was obviously in his dressing room and they were doing god only knows what before the introduction. What makes Shawn's teeth grit and his skin hot is that she doesn't seem to even be remotely hurting anymore. How could that be? She told him that he was only the second serious relationship she'd been in and yet he was the one devastated.

They dated for six months, they were intimate, and the second Shawn fucks up...she jumps into bed with Nick. He just can't fathom it. As he continued watching the show, they got to the game segment of Spill Your Guts or Fill Your Guts. But, it's a couples' edition so the rules are a little different.

As they settled into their seats and took in the items in front of them, James explained the rules. "So, how it works is I'll ask each of you a question about the other and if you can't answer it you have to eat what I've chosen...you'll get to ask me questions about my wife and my family in return..."

"Sounds easy enough," she speaks enthusiastically as she shimmies her shoulders excitedly. She looks at Nick adoringly and he returns it. Shawn's stomach twists in its place.

James interrupts their loving gazes. "But! All of the foods have an aphrodisiac spin...and if either of you doesn't want the other to answer...you can eat the food for them! But you only get to save them once."

Both of their faces contort in a strange mix of disgust and intrigue as they chuckle. With one final look at each other, they turn back to James. "Bring it on, man," Nick challenges.

The questions start out sort of easy, but both y/n and Nick are determined to beat James at his own game so they're being pretty honest. "Guys! This game is no fun if you don't eat something gross!" James whines.

"Well," she quirks an eyebrow up sassily. "I guess you'll have to ask harder questions.

James nods approvingly. "Well, alright then..."

He spins the table, trying to choose what to give Nick to eat. He positions the oyster juice in front of him and he scrunches his nose as the smell hits him. Shawn smirks to himself. He hopes he has to drink it.

"So, Nick...out of these animals, which is y/n not afraid of: crickets, turtles, frogs, or spiders?" James asks.

Nick starts laughing nervously. And y/n looks down at her lap as she laughs uncontrollably. Her animal fears are the strangest ones Shawn has ever heard of, but he knows the correct answer. James notices her wheezing in laughter and he begins to do it as well.

"Uh..." Nick says, "I'm gonna have to go with turtles. Who's afraid of turtles right?" He asks jokingly as he looks at James. She slowly raises her hand and James points to her. "Really?" He shakes his head as he picks up the cup and takes a disgusting sip. He shakes his head at the taste as he sets it back down. "Please get her back for that."

She giggles as James turns the table to have the strawberry and salmon ice cream in front of her. Her smile fades and she visibly gags. "Oh! This is gonna be worse than Charlie's reaction if I have to eat that!"

"This one might get you in some hot water if you answer...how many of Nick's movies have you actually seen?" He giggles maniacally.

She blinks for a moment before answering. "I believe I've seen five," she admits. James' face goes still.

"I can't believe you answered that," he says in awe.

She shrugs. "If you think that's gonna get me in some hot water then I'd hate to hear what you think will start a fight," she chuckles.

The game continues and she still hasn't eaten anything. Nick and James have had their fair share. All Shawn can think about is how he wouldn't have to eat anything because he knows everything about her. "Nick, I think it's time to get her don't you think?"

"Yeah, I agree," he nods with a silly smile. Together they agree to set the honey covered crickets in front of her.

She frowns in distaste. "Ugh, two things I hate."

"You what?? You hate honey?" She nods at the same time Shawn does from his living room. "You are weird! This next one will get you, I know it will...is Nick the first celebrity you've hooked up with?"

She takes a deep breath. Looking between the crickets and Nick. Although, Nick already knows the answer. It's a matter of whether or not she wants the world to know. She shakes her head at the crickets and opens her mouth to answer. Shawn and James are on the edge of their seats.

"Well-"

She's interrupted by Nick reaching over and grabbing a cricket and throwing it in his mouth. He grimaces as he chews. "Nick! What the hell was that?? We were finally gonna get her!" James exclaims.

"Actually," he says as he swallows, "she was gonna answer and I don't think she should have to. So now I can say that I've eaten a cricket covered in honey!"

James frowns. "I have one last question for her...and you just used your only save. She'll have to eat or tell the truth," he rubs his hands together excitedly.

"Go for it..." she says nervously.

He has the evilest smirk on his face and she knows he has a question that will get her. James turns the chocolate covered chili peppers in front of her. She frowns as she lets out a little whimper.

"So, y/n...back at the Grammy awards over a year and a half ago when you attended with Shawn, he kissed you when he won his category..."

Her eyes widen and her nervous demeanor turns into uneasiness for a whole different reason. "Oh, god," she mumbles before covering her face, clearly knowing where this is going. Shawn almost chokes on his water at the mention of his name.

"...who...between Shawn and Nick is the better kisser?" He finishes and throws the card in the air in triumph. She's still as a rock as she contemplates her choice. In her mind, they're so different but are equally good. That might be a little lie...

She swallows hard. "Am I allowed to say neither?" She asks shyly.

"Depends on your reasoning..."

She picks at her nails in her lap as she avoids everyone's eyes. Nick's, James', the audience, hell even the camera. "Um...because I feel like they were the same on the level of good, even though they're so different..." she says quietly.

"That's bulls**t. I don't believe it one bit...one of them has to be just a smidge higher than the other," James challenges, an amused smirk on his face.

She clenches her jaw, clearly not happy about the question. Steeling herself, she quickly reaches up and takes a bite of the pepper and chews quickly. The crowd bursts into chaos as she chews and James is losing his shit.

"Oh my god!!! YOU ATE THE F*****G PEPPER!!" He wheezes in between laughs. When she swallows, she chugs her milk with a pained expression. Nick claps beside her, clearly not phased by her not wanting to answer. He knows deep down that she's still not over Shawn, and he's okay with that. He can't blame her for not moving on quickly from her first real love.

The segment cuts out for a commercial. Shawn leans back in his seat. So, Nick knows about them. He didn't think y/n was the type to disclose that if it wasn't important. As Shawn thinks about that, the show comes back on and they come down the stairs to the couch.

Nick sits closest to James and y/n sits on his left where his arm is slung around her. His thumb is lightly tracing patterns on her exposed shoulder. First, they talk about the new movie Nick is working on and then they throw in some questions about Hailee's documentary.

Of course, the questions shift back to their relationship. "So...when did the two of you actually first meet?"

"It was at a, uh...a birthday party," Nick answers and y/n nods with a smile.

James furrows his eyebrows. "Might I ask, whose birthday party?" Shawn has a feeling that James already knew the answer, he just wants to see them squirm.

"It was Shawn's," she says plainly, no emotion in her voice. Either she really had moved on or she was covering up something. Shawn couldn't tell which. But as he watches the screen, he finally gets a good look at her shirt. He couldn't see it before because of how high the table seemed next to her, but he could see it now. It was the tank top he bought her from their trip to the Toronto Zoo. His heart aches at remembering that amazing day.

James nods thoughtfully. "Ah, Shawn. He's a favorite here on The Late Late Show...and if I'm not mistaken...it's his twenty-second birthday today," he says theatrically. She bites on her bottom lip hard and briefly, looks down at her lap before pursing her lips together. "Do the two of you want to give a quick shoutout in case he's watching?"

Nick says a polite 'Happy Birthday' and then all eyes turn to y/n. She closes her eyes momentarily and she opens them as she lifts her head up and smiles politely. "Happy Birthday, Shawn! I hope you actually remember this one," she says that line with biting sarcasm and a hint of shade.

There's a twinge of old guilt that flares up in his heart at her words. He's apologized for that and she accepted it. She's clearly just upset that everyone keeps bringing him up. James notices the ice in her remark.

"I would say that it's getting hot in here but clearly you have enough shade to keep us all cool," he jokes and she laughs at her own pettiness. "I have been meaning to ask...what happened between the two of you? You haven't been seen together since the week the music videos released and your interaction on Insta has been nothing but crickets...pun intended, y/n," he chuckles. "Did you have a falling out or?"

She flips some hair off of her shoulder and slightly leans into Nick for support. He tightens his hand around her shoulder and it makes Shawn sick. He's supposed to be the one giving her support in interviews, not be the reason that she needs it from another guy.

"No...we didn't have a falling out," she lies. "I know that comment might have seemed like we're on the outs but the truth is..." she shrugs dismissively and if you look closely you can see the sadness in her eyes. Her eyes flicker to the camera momentarily as her fingers play with the word on her necklace anxiously.

"People get careers and they don't always have time for each other and they grow apart. With both of us having time-consuming ones like being a rock star...” she smiles wistfully to herself as she continues, “or following celebrities around the globe...it's doubly hard to make time for each other. It's sad but it happens," she explains. "But, I still love him and I'll always be his biggest fan no matter where either of us is. Shawn, I wish you all the best and know that I'm always rooting for you," she finishes as she looks at the camera.

Shawn smiles sadly as he listens to her words. Her words sounded practiced at the beginning. But as they progressed, he could see the struggle in her eyes under the shine of the tears that want to drip. She blinks to conceal them but that doesn't stop Shawn from seeing how much pain she's really in. The softest quiver in her voice when she said she still loves him struck something inside of him.

He wants to hope that she was trying to say that she wants him back. But, she has Nick. So, Shawn turns the TV off and goes to his room. He takes his ring off and tosses it on the dresser as he always does before going to bed. But, this time it bounced too far and slid between the wall and the dresser.

Sighing, he walks over and pulls it away from the wall slightly. When he reaches down to feel for his ring, he also finds a hard plastic case. He retrieves them both and looks at the cracked case under his lamp. His heart begins pounding in his chest as he sees the familiar handwriting on the CD inside.

For Shawn,

With Love, Your Muse

He immediately grabs his laptop and puts it in before waiting anxiously as it loads. After a few agonizing minutes, the window pops up and he clicks play while turning up the volume all the way. Within the first two strums of the guitar, he knows exactly what song it is. Say You Won't Let Go by James Arthur. She always joked that that could be their song because of how he took care of her the night they met.

Shawn's heart beats heavily as he watches the video. It's clearly her handiwork. The pictures and small clips tell a story. Their story. Or more of her perspective of the relationship. What Shawn could tell from the way she edited it was that she was in awe of him. And also that she was insecure at first before he opened her up.

From that very first night all the way up to including some from her last week in Toronto. It started out mostly of just pictures she took of him when he was asleep or not looking or screenshots of his snaps. Then as they got closer, there were video messages from Shawn, clips of him talking about her...the works. Then when the summer festivals came there were more pics and vids of the two of them having fun. Falling in love.

He felt the tears form in his eyes and he didn't try to stop them as they rolled down his cheeks. How could he have been so blind? She loved him back the whole time. She was just afraid that something exactly like what he did would happen. The last few videos and pictures were from the music videos and her week with him and his family. Some of the pictures were when they both weren't looking and he knows that Aaliyah took them. She looked so happy and at home with him.

The video began to fade to black. As the last ten seconds of the song played, a small note from her was displayed. He paused it so he could read it.

No more hiding. Not from you, not from the world, and not from myself. I am completely and stupidly in love with you, Shawn Mendes. Please, don't make me regret it.

His heart literally stopped in his chest for a few seconds. She must've been working on this before the interview happened. The case is cracked and was behind his dresser. He assumes she threw it and forgot about it.

His mind races as it tries to put together the puzzle pieces that are her. The video...the Euterpe necklace...the questions she wouldn't answer in interviews...the shirt from one of their dates...Nick letting her not answer that question...what she said for his birthday just now...click.

She hasn't moved on. She's still in love with him! Which means that there's a chance he can still get her back. He just has to act quickly before she and Nick become permanent. He already has the perfect plan forming in his head and he'll be sure to work out the exact details on his flight.

Within a few days, he arrives at the Sunset Hotel. He walks up to the front desk to find Xander scrutinizing a log book. Shawn clears his throat and he looks up as his shoulders jump.

"God! You have to stop showing up unannounced like this," he says. Though he clutches his heart in surprise, his tone doesn't suggest any actual contempt for Shawn.

Shawn shrugs as he moves closer and leans his elbows on the desk. "I can still get her back," he announces with determination.

"Wow, straight to the point. No small talk...no 'hi, Xander. How have you been?'...nothing," Xander teases.

He sighs in return. "I'm on a schedule. I can only get her back if I move fast. So are you gonna help me or not? Your input is vital," he reiterates.

"Shawn," he sighs, "I told you I'm not playing wingman for you anymore..."

Shawn is about to argue when a voice catches both of their attention. "I'll help." They both turn to find Anna standing there shyly.

"Really?" Shawn's eyebrows shoot up and she nods. "You hate me, though. You never wanted me to be with her," he reminds her.

She shrugs with a look of shame. "Yeah, but I hurt her far more than you did. I know that she still loves you so I want to help. I want her to be happy," she says quietly.

"Okay, thank you," he answered. "Xander, if Anna is on board then surely you can help too?"

Anna nods and they both look at him with pleading eyes. "Don't make me regret this, Mendes," he conceded. "You either, Anna."

They both cheer silently as they all lean in together for the details of his plan. "Okay, so first things first...I need all the footage and photos of y/n that you can find. I'm talking baby photos and home videos straight up until as recent as you can get...steal them from her Insta page if you have to," he instructs.

"What are you gonna do?" Anna asks curiously.

He takes a deep breath as he runs his hand through his curls anxiously. "I have to make a couple calls to get a few more people on board...hopefully they say yes."

"And if they don't?" Xander ponders out loud.

Shawn shrugs as a look of urgency crosses his face. "They have to. The plan doesn't work without them," he admits.

As they break to do their respective tasks, Xander lets Shawn stay in y/n's room to make the calls. A few hours later, he has everyone on board except for one. The phone rings as Shawn paces her room waiting for the last piece of the puzzle to pick up.

It finally stops ringing as someone answers, "Hello, this is Hailee's phone." Shawn's breath catches at the voice he hasn't heard in person for months. "Hello?" She asks again as if maybe he couldn't hear her.

"Uh...yes, is Hailee available?" He asks, slightly lowering his voice in an attempt to disguise it.

There's a pause. "No...she's doing a soundcheck right now. Who is this?"

He clears his throat before sighing. "It's...Shawn..."

"Why didn't you just say so," she responds, her voice less enthusiastic than before.

"I didn't want to upset you...I didn't think you'd answer Hailee's phone," he says honestly.

Silence fills the line. "Y/n? Listen, I can call back-"

Something shifts around the microphone as if the phone is being moved and then it clears up with a new out of breath voice. "Hey, Shawn. It's Hailee, what's up?"

“Hailee? Is that you?” He double-checks.

She lets out a small laugh. “Yes...y/n said you were on the phone so I took a five. This is Shawn...right?” She giggles nonchalantly.

“Yes! Sorry, I’m just a little caught off guard...” he explains.

“Why would you be caught off-guard? You called me, remember?”

He sighs. “Right. I did do that. I just wasn’t expecting y/n to pick up your phone-“

“Did you need something or not?” She asks slightly irritated that he interrupted soundcheck to ask about her.

He clears his throat. “I did. I need your help to get y/n back,” he says determinately.

She scoffs. “Why the hell would I help you do that? I saw what you said in that interview...plus she’s happy now! Why on this Earth would I help you rip her away from that?”

“Because you know just as well as I do that she may be happy with Nick, but she doesn’t love him,” he answers. There’s a long pause on her end so Shawn continues. “You and I both know the brave and strong front she puts up. She looks happy and together...but she’s not. Nick is nothing but a distraction-“

She interrupts him frustratedly, “Enough, Shawn! Jeez...you’re wrong. She is happy with him. Maybe even precisely for the fact that he isn’t you. And you just can’t stand that you’re not the one who does it anymore-“

“Hailee, I would bet you everything I have including my life that if you look at her closely...you’ll see it. Pay attention to what she wears, what she says...what she does. Because I saw her interview a few days ago. She’s miserable. And so am I...so just...watch her and if you don’t see it then fine. But the plan doesn’t work without you,” he pleads.

She swallows the lump in her throat from his words. Was she really so willing to believe that her best friend was magically okay overnight? And that she had gotten over Shawn that quickly? It’s naive but she’s unwilling to admit that he deserves her back.

“My five minutes are up...see you around, Shawn,” she sighs as she hangs up the phone.

Shawn’s grip tightens on the phone but he wills himself to have hope. Hailee loves her. She will look out for the signs and when she sees them...it’s only a matter of time.

First P.O.V.

In the blink of an eye, the end of August finally arrives and Nick has to go back to LA to finish the movie he started. It’s our last day together, which Hailee gave me permission to take the day off of work for. So, we decided to walk around Las Vegas and be silly tourists together.

The whole day was amazing and it couldn’t have been more perfect. As the hours ticked closer to the time that he’d have to leave, I could feel myself dragging my feet. At the hotel, I watched as he rounded up all of his stuff that was intermingled with mine.

“Do you have to go right now?” I whine like a child.

He chuckles as he walks over and pulls me off the bed into one of his amazing hugs. “Sorry, babe. But, yes. If we want the movie to premiere next year, we gotta finish it by Christmas,” he mumbles into my hair.

“I know. I know. But, I’ll see you in LA for my birthday right?” I say as I nuzzle my head further into his chest and smell his intoxicating cologne.

He pulls away and retrieves something from his bag as he replies, “Actually...I wanted to give you your present early. That way you can wear it on the occasion.” He smiles that goofy lopsided smile that makes me melt.

My eyes widen as he holds out a velvet rectangular box. As my fingers click the lid open, my mouth parts in awe. “Nick...it’s beautiful...” I whisper.

The inside of the box displays a dainty silver chain that is home to a small ruby heart. “Please tell me this wasn’t expensive...” I warn him.

“Well, I can’t lie to you so I won’t say anything...” he teases. I playfully push at his chest before my awed expression dulls. “What’s wrong?” He says, the small smile never leaving his features.

I try to find the words, but I can’t. Or I can. I just don’t want to. I look at my feet in guilt as my fingers do what they always do when I’m nervous. They trace the letters on my necklace that hasn’t left my neck for any longer than a shower.

“Oh,” I can hear the slight disappointment in his voice. “It’s a good thing I kept the receipt...” he tries to joke.

I look up at him with eyes glistening. “I’m so sorry, Nick...” I begin but he shakes he shrugs his shoulder as he waves his hand dismissively.

“It’s fine, y/n. It really is,” he tries to downplay the hurt in his voice.

Grabbing his hand, I squeeze it and his puppy dog eyes meet mine. “It’s not fine. I tried to let go...I really did. You make me so so happy, but-“

“But, you don’t love me. You love him,” he finishes.

I nod as a tear escapes and leaves a warm trail down my cheek. “I really wanted to be with you...because you are the most amazing guy I’ve ever known...there’s just...something about being with Shawn that’s...different,” I explain with a wavering voice. “And I wish I didn’t...” I shake my head as more tears flow, “but, I love him. And I never stopped.”

Guilt and shame wash over me. I should’ve never agreed to use him. He deserves more than that. I let my gaze fall to the floor as I cry. I expect him to just walk out the door. But, he doesn’t. Instead, he wraps his arms around me and kisses the top of my head soothingly.

“I knew when we started this that there was a possibility you’d go back to him. I don’t blame you for anything,” he assures me. “But, I’m glad I got to be with you for the time that I did. I don’t regret it and neither should you.”

I look up at him as I sniffle. How can he be so gracious about this? Before I can say anything else, he delicately places his lips on mine. They linger, just barely pressing against mine as I feel the warmth from him. As he parts from me, my breath staggers just a moment. Then, he places an even longer kiss on my forehead. I close my eyes and try to contain my sadness, replacing it with all the happiness I had because of him.

His lips leave my skin and I keep my eyes closed as I hear him gather his things. My breathing picks up in a jagged pace and soon I hear the door close. I clamp my hand over my mouth as I open my eyes and find him gone. It was the right thing to do. That’s what I keep telling myself as I make my way back to the tour bus.

As soon as I enter, Hailee takes notice of my state. “Aw honey. It’s okay...you’ll see him in October...” she soothes as she hugs me.

“No,” I shake my head as I wipe at my eyes. “We broke up...”

She audibly gasps as she looks at me with worried eyes. “Why?? You guys were so happy!”

I flop down on the bed and hug a pillow. “Because I’m still in love with Shawn, and it’s wrong to keep using Nick like that,” I confess.

“Bu...” She silences herself as her brows knit together. “I have to go make a call real quick...will you be okay for like five minutes?”

I nod silently and she leaves. I’m so lost in my own despair that my brain didn’t register her strange behavior. In the following months, I still didn’t pick up on all her sketchy mannerisms. Making secret phone calls, not letting me answer her phone anymore...October rolled around and it got even worse.

We were trying to prepare for her LA show and she just kept being more and more secretive. Disappearing and acting jumpy. I chalked it up to the fact that my birthday coincided with her show and maybe she was planning a surprise for it. Someone should have told her that I usually hate them.

It’s the day of the LA show (also my 23rd birthday) and I’m running around making sure all of the photographers and camera crew have their assignments. This show is an important one because it’s the last one of the tour, so the show is going to be next level amazing.

Hailee bumps into me as I round a corner. “Oh! Hey, I was just looking for you!” She exclaims. I barely look up from my clipboard as I hum in acknowledgment. She snatches it from my grasp.

“Hey! I was just finishing that list for the show!”

She gives me a knowing smirk. “Delegation is a thing that’s allowed, ya know,” she informs me. I open my mouth to counter but she continues. “And before you argue, that’s not a request. Let someone else finish the list while you get changed and relax a little,” she demands politely.

“Why would I need to change?” I quirk my eyebrows in suspicion.

She looks up innocently. “No reason...just put on something nice! Now, hurry!!”

Groaning, I turn around and walk to the dressing room to do as she says. I find a black satin dress with a light purple flower print on it. The thin straps create an apron neckline and it’s backless, while the hem goes to my mid-thigh. I match it with a pair of black heels that have straps that criss-cross around my calves.

I do simple makeup and my hair is still wavy from earlier today when I curled it. Annoyed, I walk back out to the side of the stage where Hailee has begun her introduction. I try to grab the clipboard from someone but they tell me Hailee said I’m not allowed to have it.

I cross my arms as I watch her pump up the crowd. “I’m glad y’all are having a great time!! Before we get started...” I hear her say and my attention snaps toward the stage. She looks at me and I shake my head vigorously. “It’s someone’s birthday!! Let’s all welcome her out onto the stage for her surprise!”

With no other choice because of how loud the crowd has gotten, I stride over to Hailee. “This better not be anything extravagant,” I warn under my breath before smiling and waving to the crowd.

“So some of us, her friends, have put together a birthday video for you! You’re gonna sit here and watch the screen and we have a special guest coming in to perform a couple of songs to open for my show!” She cheers.

I roll my eyes and press two fingers to my temple. She holds the mic in front of me and I take it. “Well, then. Let’s get started! We’re on a tight schedule,” I chuckle.

“Roll the clip!” She shouts as she takes the mic away from me and stands offstage. Someone brings out a chair for me to sit on to watch the screen that comes down at the back of the stage.

Everyone goes quiet in anticipation as the lights dim so the screen can be seen more clearly. I twiddle my thumbs in an anxious manner as the screen finally lights up. A smile comes to my lips as a picture of me as a newborn in the hospital comes up. In the background, I can hear someone playing a very slow rendition of Happy Birthday on the piano.

The picture glides away and is replaced with a collage of baby photos and home videos that keep progressing in age. I giggle at some silly ones and my eyes start to water from nostalgia. The song begins coming to an end as the pictures shift into me at age 20. I clap and stand up as I think the video is over because the song is. But, Hailee points at the seat as an indication that it’s not.

My brows knit together as a guitar starts playing while the video leads up to me turning 21. The song sounds extremely familiar but I can’t place it. Not to mention it sounds way clearer than if it were on the screen. After about 25 seconds of strumming, a voice begins to accompany the guitar and the screen displays pictures and clips from my 21st birthday on. Starting with the Insta vid that Shawn took of me that morning.

Oh my god. My worried eyes flash to Hailee and I can see her holding her clasped hands in front of her lips in anticipation. I knew that I knew the song. Of course, it was one of Shawn’s. It was hard to place because it’s never been on an album. He only plays it live: She’ll Be the One. My heart is having trouble beating as I watch the screen.

All the photos and videos from the karaoke bar, the selfies we took later that night...the ones from the diner and so on. The lyrics of the song get to, “But, how can I not try...” and my muffled ears hear the crowd go nuts. I turn to the other side of the stage. Oh my god.

Shawn slowly walks out, playing the guitar and singing into a mic hooked around his ear. Immediately, my breathing flutters irregularly and my skin shivers. I turn back to the screen, trying to find a normal breathing rate, but he walks until he’s right next to me and gets on his knees in front of me. The crowd is going wild as he continues the song but I focus my stare on the video.

It was getting into pictures that he took of me, ones I usually didn’t notice. At the Grammys...his album release party...the summer festivals...and all the snaps in between that he saved. I clench my jaw and press my lips in a hard line in an attempt to not react, but he’s right in front of me.

This isn’t what I was expecting. Yeah, I’m still in love with him. But, who the hell is he to come out here and make a public spectacle of his apology? I’m not ready for this. I can’t even react right now. The drums and electric guitar kick in and I get the same quake in my heart that I always do when I hear it. He stands up and moves to a mic stand as the song ends. Oh, but he’s not finished yet.

I send a hard glare toward Hailee, but she doesn’t seem to mind. He begins playing an electric guitar and I have to fight the smirk that wants to appear. I shake my head and pointedly look at the screen because I can feel his eyes watching me as he begins singing. This fucker thinks he’s clever. What song did he pick to win me back? Ruin.

It fits perfectly with the video as it goes into all of our secret coupley photos and videos...and then behind the scenes footage of the music vids...the weekend of the Grammys when I was sick...our week in Toronto with his family. The middle of the song hits and it’s accompanied by a silent clip of the interview that made me leave. I hear the slight waver in his voice as my time with Nick comes onscreen.

I venture a small glance in his direction. Sure enough, his eyes have never left me. I feel the hard lump forming in my throat and it’s as if I’m reliving losing him all over again. I’m not the only one. His eyes are shining as the light hits the tears in them. The bridge begins and the crowd is chanting the lyrics with him. It’s a haunting experience.

As I continue watching him instead of the screen, I see the seriousness and passion in his eyes. The veins in his neck and arms protrude as he literally sings his heart out to me. I slowly stand up and take a few small steps toward him as the song winds down. His eyebrows furrow curiously at me and I swallow as I take a steadying breath.

“Not tryna ruin your happiness at all...” he beautifully sings the last lyric and the venue goes deadly silent. He hands the guitar to someone and takes the mic off the stand, making his way to stand a foot away from me.

My lip trembles as I breathe unsteadily. I can feel my eyes glossing with warm tears that want to drip. He slowly brings the mic to his lips as he holds my gaze. His breath is heavy from singing and he swallows dryly. Just when I thought he couldn’t surprise me more...

“I’m done hiding you from the world. I am completely and stupidly in love with you, y/n y/l/n. Please, take me back...” he begs. His deep brown eyes search mine intensely. I haven’t seen them up close in so long.

My mouth falls open as I choke on the breath I was holding. The entire venue loses their minds. I can’t believe he just confessed his love for me in front of everyone here. This will definitely end up on YouTube, so probably the entire world will see it.

I stutter as I try to respond with something. Anything. But, I feel the speed of my breathing accelerate while my heart pounds furiously. I don’t know what else to do, so I turn around and run. Running certainly isn’t going to help my breathing but it’ll help me get away from that situation.

I can hear Hailee awkwardly take over the stage and begin her set. I’m not even sure where I’m running to. At some point, I shed my shoes and grab my purse as I call an Uber quickly. It arrives as soon as I’m out on the street and I slide in, slamming the door quickly.

Everything is just too much, so I tell the driver to take me to the one place where I know my mind can slow down.

Third P.O.V.

Shawn hurries after her offstage, but she’s quicker than he thought she could be in heels. He finally finds them discarded in the dressing room and her purse is gone. His hand grips the roots of his chocolate curls worriedly. It’s late and she shouldn’t be out on the streets by herself.

He can’t do anything but think about the look on her face when she saw him. Surprise mostly. A little bit of pain. But, the rest was confusion. He knows he has a lot to explain and apologize for. Maybe he should’ve thought through the public romantic gesture a little more, but his heart was in the right place.

Hours go by as he looks for her everywhere he can think of. The entire night has past and he’s exhausted. Not from the lack of sleep, but the lack of not knowing if she’s okay. She’s not from here, so there’re only so many places she can go...and then it dawns on him.

It doesn’t take long for him to get an Uber to the last resort guess at where she would be. As he gets out and makes his way down toward the waves, he releases a breath. The small silhouette of her hugging her knees to her chest is illuminated by the tip of light from the rising sun.

Shawn takes off his shoes and slowly walks toward her, feeling the sand in between his toes. Before he reaches her, she stands up and stretches her arms out by her sides. Her fingers dance through the wind as she tilts her head back and soaks in her surroundings. He can’t help but take a picture.

He speaks softly as he approaches her, “I’m glad this part of you hasn’t changed.”

“I knew you’d find me,” she states simply as she lowers her arms and sneaks a glance at him.

He comes to a stop facing her at a respectful distance. “Is that so?” She nods, a tiny glimmer of a smile on the corner of her lip. “I can leave you alone if you’d like,” he offers.

“I think I’ve been alone enough already,” she sighs as she turns and looks up at him. He admires the way the rising sun shimmers off her skin. She admires the way the shadows of the previous night outline his statuesque features.

They stand like that a moment, gauging each other. And then Shawn breaks the silence, “I’m sorry. For everything. For the interview...for not coming after you immediately...for putting you on the spot like that...especially when I know you’re with Nick and I don’t want to be a bad-“

“I’m not,” she corrects him.

He stares at her with a quizzical look. “Not what?”

She releases a puff of air from her nose in a silent scoff. “I’m not with Nick. We broke up in August,” she informs him.

“You...I mean...why?” He stammers.

She closes the distance a bit before replying, “Why do you think?” She asks rhetorically. Shawn dares to let his features light up the tiniest bit. “You’re really gonna make me say it?”

“Mhm,” he hums as he pulls his bottom lip between his teeth. He gazes intently into her eyes. There’s so much she can see in them. The hope, the adoration, the love, but also a tiny bit of fear. Like if he didn’t make her say it then she would slip through his fingers again.

She notices how his eyes try their hardest to not look at her lips, but she has no qualms about her gaze flicking to his as she licks hers. “Shawn Mendes,” she begins teasingly, “I am in love wi-“

That’s all she can manage to say before Shawn is grabbing her by the small of her back with one hand and pulling her flush against him as his other hand finds its home just past her jaw and under her ear. His lips connect with hers and she’d expected it to be fervent after so long apart but it wasn’t.

It was the opposite. It was tender and slow. Almost as if he pressed too much that her delicate lips would shatter beneath him. It filled her up with warmth nonetheless. The kind of warmth that spread to her toes on that chilly October morning with the wind nipping their noses.

But neither of them moved. Her hands had reacquainted themselves with his neck and the roots of his hair easily. He didn’t want to break her, but she had been hollow these past few months. While he tried, Nick couldn’t fill the hole that was meant for Shawn’s touch. And now that she finally has the smallest taste of him, it isn’t enough.

She pulls him against her further, as if it were possible. And each tug of his curls tightens his grip on her skin. She deepens the kiss by swiping her tongue along his delicious lips and he eagerly responds. Soft moans and slight giggles escape their mouths and dance in the air between them as they continue to act as if they’re the only ones in the world.

And so they stood like that, drinking each other in after months of being in the desert while the sun finally rose over the horizon.

Tag List: @imagine-that-100 @hufflepuffshawn @luke2k18 @thewhinersoldier

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independentartistbuzz · 3 years

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Indie 5-0: 5 Questions with Reggie Harris

A teaching artist in the Kennedy Center’s CETA program (Changing Education Through the Arts) and a fellow for the prestigious Council of Independent College lecture program, Reggie Harris also serves as Co-President and Director of Music Education for the Living Legacy Project—an advocacy group that sponsors Civil Rights pilgrimages throughout the South and online education seminars worldwide. His new album On Solid Ground is about all healing and inspiration in the face of injustice and dissension. From love songs (“Come What May”) to protest songs (“Standing in Freedom's Name”) to the album-closing tribute (“High Over the Hudson”) to his friend and mentor Pete Seeger, On Solid Ground has a little bit of something for everyone. Harris is the 2021 recipient of Folk Alliance International's Spirit of Folk Award and is a DJ on the new program Prisms: The Sound Of Color on SiriusXM’s The Village. He was recently featured on CNN’s Silence is Not An Option with Don Lemon and in The New York Times.

Listen to Reggie Harris via Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/0HWFtZHIDLRaW9POYMsAtp

1. At what age did you realize that music was the career you wanted to pursue? What was your ‘ah-ha’ moment? Wow. It came late. I mean, I’ve been singing since I was three or four years old, but I never really had any reason to think of music as a possible career. No one in my family or for that matter, in my social circle, did anything of the sort. People asked that question “What do you wanna be?” all the time but I saw music as just something you did in church or at school or in family sings around the piano. I always loved music and I was always good at it. I learned to harmonize really early and I sang all through high school but never gave any thought to it as a profession. I thought I’d be a teacher. But the “aha moment” came when I heard James Taylors' "Fire and Rain" on the radio one night in 12th grade. Something about his guitar and his expressive voice lit a fire that burned inside until I got a guitar in my hands in 1974. That happened when a young woman I was dating dared me to learn 3 chord on the guitar. That event unleashed something inside of me that had gone untapped in all my years of singing in choirs and groups and at school. I now had the ability to accompany myself with music that I heard from within. I bought the album Sweet Baby James and played the grooves out. That opened the door to Gordon Lightfoot, Don McClean, Cat Stevens, Kenny Rankin and the singer songwriters. I started watching shows like The Midnight Special or Don Kirschner’s Rock Concert and I started going to concerts. And around that same time, I met another young woman named Kim who played guitar and loved the same artists I did. She and I started meeting up and practicing songs, then we began writing songs and quickly became singing partners. Eventually we got married and I’d say, we pushed each other out the door and onto the stage. We were both passionate about making music and helped each other learn and grow and we were both willing to struggle to make it work. We did that for forty years and then separated and I became a solo act in 2016. I love the way it feels to spend hours making music and I really love how it makes other people feel when they hear it. It also gives me a voice to express what I see in the world. My passion for creating music and connecting the dots is stronger than ever. 2. Who are your musical inspirations? What artists inspired you to start your career and find your musical passion? My musical inspiration started early and there have been so many streams. Hearing the “old folks” in my church sing spirituals and hymns was formative and Sunday afternoon church events where 6 or 7 or more church choirs would travel around and have a gospel song fest at another church was exciting and grounding. All those amazing singers covering those great songs. I remember hearing Harry Belafonte, Mahalia Jackson, Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, Sam Cooke and others on my mother's radio in the morning as she got ready for work. Their voices just made you feel emotions like nothing else in the world. Our teachers in elementary taught us the songs of Woody Guthrie, Paul Robeson, Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan and we sang “Blowing in the Wind” (The Peter, Paul, and Mary version) and "If I Had A Hammer" for 6th grade graduation. I remember standing on the steps of my house in Philly with three of my friends, in the summer of 1964, singing “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” at the top of our lungs. We all took different roles as The Beatles. I thought I was Paul of course! That strikes me funny now… four little black boys in inner-city Philadelphia thinking they were English rockers? Why not The Temps? Or Smokey and the Miracles? There was also Aretha Franklin and The Stones in 1965 with "Satisfaction." Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder fascinated me and all those great Motown artist’s voices came floating down the hall to my room as my sister came of age. I paid attention to the musicians and the arrangements too. Years later, after I discovered the guitar, I met Pete Seeger, Tom Paxton and Ritchie Havens and other folk musicians and started to find a groove that combined what they were doing with other music I loved. My inspiration stream crosses genres, race, decade and style. Stevie Wonder to Pete Seeger, to Bach to Dolly Parton to Joan Armatrading to the Yellow Jackets to Beyonce. Listening across genres gives me more information to process which I can incorporate in melodies, harmonies or language for lyrics. 3. What inspired you to write & record On Solid Ground? I got home on March 8, 2020 after my tour was abruptly ended by COVID-19 shutdowns. For 3 weeks, I sat watching the news, talking with friends, feeling the world come apart as concert dates disappeared from my calendar for months and months into the future. Since concerts, lectures and school programs are the major ways that I get to sow seeds of hope in the world, I felt at a great loss. Like everyone else, I saw tensions building and protests against the various issues of hate and division exploding in the streets and felt that I needed to make sense of it all.

Music is the place I go when I need the world to make sense. So I started doing online concerts and that helped me to see how hungry people were for music and connection. My answer to the desperation and fear that I saw rising all around was to write the song "On Solid Ground." It’s written in the style and frame of the spirituals which are songs I grew up singing and that I still sing now. They are songs composed by people who endured slavery…people who were suffering through devastatingly tough times and still found ways to persevere through music and community. So my message? We can get through this time of challenge and change if we pull together and face ourselves.

Then the floodgates opened. I watched people flood into the streets to protest the George Floyd and Breonna Taylor killings and the growing acts of election suppression and wrote “Standing in Freedom’s Name” and “Let’s Meet Up Early.” I also arranged Malvina Reynolds' “It Isn’t Nice" as a tribute. Inspired by articles about workers who were being put in danger by callous factory owners and government officials, I wrote “My Working Bones.”

In the isolation of missing my girlfriend, who lives 10 hours away, I wrote “Come What May.” Then, watching street scenes on TV in 2020 that mirrored C.T. Vivian’s classic stand-off with Sheriff Jim Clark in Selma in 1965, I was inspired to write “It’s Who We Are.” It’s my challenge to the avoidance of questions of race, inequality and disenfranchisement that we as a nation are still struggling to face. But the protests showed a possible willingness to change?

I wrote the song "High Over the Hudson" about Pete Seeger in 2014 but never put it on a CD. And "Maybe It’s Love" was a fun writing exercise about the nature of romance. Song after song was born as a timely reflection on what was on my mind every day and as I would finish one song, another would rise up.

Soon I had 9 originals and 4 songs that I was inspired to arrange as covers and I thought, ”Looks like a CD to me.” 4. What was the process like bringing the album to life, and who did you work with to create it?

Recording this CD was both supremely challenging, deeply therapeutic and also the most relaxed I’ve ever been in the studio. The project gave me an outlet for stress. We had to be very careful about COVID-19 protocols and close proximity at all times. Travel was weird and in a few impossible moments, we worked remotely. I was also wondering if I’d ever get to go out and perform the songs once they were done or if anyone would ever buy physical music again since that has been decreasing for years. But as I called on musicians who were not only good friends but who I knew would respond to my vision, the way to proceed got clearer. My core co-contributors, Greg Greenway and Dave Schonauer, have been critical collaborators on my last three CDs. Greg and I have known each other for over 30 years and were born three days apart. So we have a language that just flows. We met and did pre-production in August and then hit the studio in September. Dave, the engineer at Morningstar Studios, is just brilliant. He makes things possible that most people don’t think of. Pat Wictor is my improvisational exploration brother as is Tom Prasado-Rao. Pat got up from a bout with COVID-19 and a recovery from tearing a tendon in his arm and played his newly retrained fingers off. Tom came out of a major bout with cancer and simmered with vocal ideas. They were all amazing at helping me chase my vision and “letting me be me" while adding brilliance and calling me on things didn’t quite measure up. We work at a level of trust that transcends words. I met bassist Chico Huff and drummer Matt Scarano when I recorded the CD Ready to Go in 2017-18 and they both play my music like they were there when I wrote it! Eric Byrd is a friend who is an amazing musical force and funny as hell. And Colleen Kattau, Mark Murphy and Ken Ulansey are longtime friends who just find the right temperature and vibe all the time. Everyone did what I love: They came in the door with passion and flexibility, brought their “A” games and didn’t leave until we got it right. And now Kari Estrin, Sarah Bennett and my friend Joann Murdock are helping me get it out to the world. 5. What do you have in store for the rest of 2021? I’m looking forward to continuing to unveil these songs, first during online concerts and then, as things begin to open up, with the start of whatever the new in-person performing landscape will become. I’ll continue to provide education videos for schools and doing lectures and residency work with colleges and universities on my own and through the Council of independent Colleges. The pandemic also gave me the time to work on a memoir which I’m trying to finish with a friend who is co-writing. And I’ll continue my work in civil, voting and human rights with the Living Legacy Project organization as we work to extend awareness and social activism. In my spare time, I hope to go to a few baseball games, see fully vaccinated friends for visits and hugs, watch a few movies and hopefully see my 76ers win the NBA championship. And I think I also need to get some rest.

#reggie harris

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lastbluetardis · 7 years

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And Baby Makes Four (2/7)

And here we are! The next installment of my Perfectly Matched series! Thanks a million to the fantastic @chocolatequeennk for beta-ing this for me and being an excellent sounding board as I wrote this story.

Ten x Rose, Soulmates AU

This Chapter: ~7300 words, teen

The love Rose and James share expands to include one more as they add another baby to their family.

AO3 | TSP | FF.net | Ch1 | Ch2 | Ch3 | Ch4 | Ch5 | Ch6 | Epilogue

James and Rose jumped head-first into researching the perfect midwife to be part of the birth of their second daughter. Shortly after Ainsley’s birthday, they scheduled a visit to the birthing center James had found, which was more luxurious than they were expecting. There were private suites where the birth and recovery could take place, and if Rose hadn’t had her heart set on having a home birth, James wouldn’t have minded renting one of the suites for the birth.

They set up an appointment with each of the midwives on staff to get a feel for the one that would be the best fit for them. The screening of the midwives took up the rest of November, and after weeks of interviews and discussing it between themselves, Rose and James finally decided on Elizabeth Sanger, a young woman with five years of experience and a very open, laissez-faire attitude towards birth.

“Everything will be led by Rose,” Elizabeth had said during her interview with them. “Humans have been giving birth for thousands of years, and a woman’s body has perfected the art of it. I’m here to help Rose listen to what her body is telling her, to coach her through it, and to make sure that on March twenty-fifth—or whatever date your little girl decides to arrive on—that you get to hold a healthy baby in your arms.”

James and Rose both appreciated her birthing philosophy, and that the midwife would take her cues from them.

“Your profile says you have an older child?” Elizabeth had asked. “I’m curious as to your plans for her during the birth. Will she be in your home, or—?”

“No,” Rose and James said immediately. That had been the first thing they had agreed upon after deciding on the home birth: neither of them wanted Ainsley to witness her mother going through the agony of labor. “No, she’ll be staying with one of our parents.”

“A good idea,” Elizabeth said, nodding. “I often advise parents against letting their young children witness the birth. While beautiful, it is quite a traumatic process, and some children don’t react well to it.”

With the midwife decided on, all that was left was to formally transfer the records of Rose’s prenatal visits to the birthing center. Being an affiliate with the hospital that Rose had been going to for prenatal care, it was a relatively simple matter. Both James and Rose were relieved to finally have that process finished by the first week of December so they wouldn’t need to be worrying about midwives and birth plans while trying to prepare for the upcoming holidays.

They came home with a Christmas tree the first weekend in December, and while it wasn’t the fullest or prettiest of trees, they loved it because Ainsley picked it out herself.

“Notice how she picked the tallest tree there was,” James grunted as he attempted to heft the Douglas fir into the stand.

“Yep, I did notice that,” Rose said, chewing her thumb cuticle to hide a grin. “Need help?”

“Nope, I’ve got it,” James panted, but then he squeaked and cursed just moments before the tree swayed towards Rose.

“Gotcha!” Rose reached out and caught the falling tree, and spluttered as needles rained down on her.

“Rose! Are you all right?” James’s hand reached out for her as his eyes peeked at her through the branches.

“I’m fine,” she soothed. “Well, a few needles fell down my bra and are getting kind of itchy. Now would you care for a bit of help?”

Together they managed to get the tree in the stand and turned it so that the thickest part of the tree was on display to the rest of the living room.

“Not too bad!” James said delightedly when they got all the lights strung on the tree. “We can do the ornaments tomorrow so Ainsley can help.” He then turned towards her with an impish grin and a predatory gleam in his eyes. “Now… about the pine needles that fell down someone’s bra?”

Rose shrieked out a laugh when he pressed himself up against her and stuck his hand down the front of her shirt.

They decorated the tree the following morning. The Christmas ornaments Ainsley had made in daycare were proudly hanging on the front of the tree, while the regular ornaments were scattered around the rest of the branches in no particular style. It was obvious the tree was decorated primarily by a toddler, but to James and Rose, it was the loveliest tree in all of England.

“Oh, look what I found,” Rose said as she sifted through boxes in their basement, looking for the rest of their Christmas decorations.

James set down the box he had in his arms and walked up to Rose. A box filled with baby clothes was in front of her, and right on top was a journal he knew contained all of the baby names he and Rose had come up with during their first pregnancy.

“Oh, fantastic!” James crowed. He stepped up behind her and reached around to flip through the journal. “I’d wondered where this had gone! We can use this to start looking at names for the baby. I doubt our tastes have changed that much regarding names, so our favorites should still be here.”

“That’s what I was thinking, too,” Rose said. She then rummaged through the box of clothes. “God, I can hardly believe Ainsley used to be this small!”

James hummed in agreement when he happened upon one of her newborn onesies.

“Though I suppose it isn’t that unbelievable,” he mused, rubbing his fingers across the soft fabric. “After all, she lived inside you and the hole she came out of isn’t exactly big. Although! If you think about it, she used to exist as two, tiny, separate cells in each of us! That’s the smallest she’s ever been.”

James beamed proudly at her, and Rose rolled her eyes. Nutter.

“Let’s bring this box up, too,” Rose said. “We can sort through the clothes and see what sort of shape they’re in.”

She bent to pick it up, but was stopped by James’s hands on her shoulders.

“Ah ah ah,” he tutted, picking up the box and setting it on the Christmas decorations they were going to bring upstairs. “No heavy lifting.”

“It’s not heavy,” Rose protested, but James already lifted a stack of boxes piled three-high and dashed up the steps.

Shaking her head, Rose followed after him and wondered whether he would let her do anything between now and the time their daughter was born.

Rose opened one of the boxes James had carried up, and grinned when she saw her favorite decoration right on top. It was a series of picture frames that contained the Christmas photos she and James had gotten done over the years.

She carefully tugged them all out, and she walked into the living room to temporarily replace the current photos hanging on the walls with the more festive ones. As she hung each photo, she watched the transformation of herself and James over the years: they’d come a long way since their first Christmas together, and she wouldn’t trade a single moment of their time together.

Finally, she reached the series of photos she loved best. She proudly hung the Christmas photo from three years ago in place of the photo of James and Ainsley pulling a silly face at the camera. In this photo, she had a newborn Ainsley in her arms, and James had his arms wrapped around her middle, resting just beneath where she was cradling their baby.

Ainsley really had been a tiny baby; she only spanned the length of Rose’s forearm in the photograph. Rose sometimes missed those days. It had felt so wonderful to cradle an infant to her breast. While Ainsley still loved cuddling, especially close to bedtime or if they were all watching a film together, she grew bored and restless after a few minutes of it.

In the following year’s photo, James was holding Ainsley. It had taken ages to get the photos done, Rose remembered, because Ainsley had been in an odd mood. She hadn’t been able to decide if she wanted to be in James’s arms, or in Rose’s, or if she wanted to be set on the ground to practice her walking. But they’d finally managed to get Ainsley to be still enough, and even smile, for the photos to be taken.

The following year, Ainsley decided she wanted to stand on her own, like Mummy and Daddy. She was standing on one of the photo props—a large box wrapped as a gift—while James and Rose stood behind her, arms wrapped around each other and a hand on Ainsley’s shoulder.

“You should probably go get changed, love.”

James appeared in the living room in black trousers and a blue button-down oxford with a red tie that had white snowflakes printed across it. Ainsley trailed behind him, a fistful of golden fabric in her hands as she played with the skirt of her dress and swished it around.

Rose nodded and stepped down from the stool she’d been on to hang their Christmas photos. An empty frame hung at the end of the photo series, but it would soon be filled with the photo they were about to go take.

She rubbed her six-month baby bump, excited that at this time next year, their Christmas photo would contain four people in them.

Throughout the coming weeks, James and Rose—and Ainsley, when she was in the mood to help—transformed their house to suit the coming holidays. The house grew more and more festive as they unboxed more of their decorations, and as Ainsley came home with Christmas crafts done at daycare.

But Christmastime also brought with it a hectic workload for Rose. She and James weren’t the only families to do Christmas photos, and she was often booked every day for couples and families getting Christmas photos done.

She tried to still get home by suppertime, but there were a few days when she would have to stay late to coincide with the times her customers were available.

That left James to care for Ainsley by himself. While he usually loved the one-on-one time with his daughter, there were certain nights where it was frustrating either because he had other things he needed to be doing, or because Ainsley was in a bad mood because she wanted her mum.

“I want Mummy!” Ainsley whined at him one night as he tried to wrestle her into her chair for dinner.

“I know you do,” James said patiently. “So do I, but she won’t be home for another hour or two, so you’re stuck with Daddy tonight.”

Ainsley pouted for a minute, but then said, “M’hungry, Daddy.”

“Yep, me too,” he said, taking her dinner out of the microwave. “Daddy’s got you some yummy hotdogs and macaroni and cheese!”

“Yummy!” Ainsley said with a grin.

After checking her food to make sure it wouldn’t be too hot, he set it onto her tray along with her fork and a cup of milk, and he squirted a blob of ketchup onto the corner of the plate.

“No!” Ainsley squawked, pushing her plate away from her.

James furrowed his brow. “What’s wrong, darling? It’s yummy hotdogs and mac and cheese. You love hotdogs and mac and cheese.”

“No!” she shouted pushing her plate further away from her so James had to quickly reach out and take it away before it toppled onto the floor. “Daddy, m’hungry!”

“I know,” he said, feeling at a loss. “I have your dinner right here, Ainsley.”

He tried to set it in front of her again. She glanced down at it and said “Ketchup!”

“Your ketchup is right here, darling,” he said, dipping a chunk of hotdog into it. “See, right here.”

“No, no, no!” she screamed, throwing her fork across the room.

“Ainsley Grace,” he said sternly, feeling his patience waning. “You know better than to throw things.”

“Not happy!” she wailed, slamming her hands into her plate. Bits of food jumped into the air, and ketchup splattered all over her and across the kitchen in little droplets. “Want Mummy!”

“Ainsley, enough!” he gritted out. “Stop it right now.”

“No! Not happy!” She slammed her hands into her plate again then shoved her cup of milk onto the floor, sending milk flying everywhere. “Want Mummy food!”

“Okay, time-out time,” James said shortly.

He took her plate away from her, ignoring her screams that she was hungry, and he unhooked her tray from her chair. He grabbed a towel and wiped off her hands to try and contain the mess she was making, and he picked her up and carried her to the time-out chair they kept in the laundry room.

“No, no, no!” she cried.

“Yes,” he said, setting her down on the chair. “Three minutes. Sit here for quietly for three minutes. Daddy will tell you when you can get up. I’m very angry with you, Ainsley.”

Ainsley whimpered pitifully and rubbed her hands into her eyes, but she stayed seated. He stood up and set a timer on his watch, then walked back to the kitchen. He sighed when he saw the mess Ainsley had made: little bits of hotdog and macaroni and cheese were on the floor surrounded in a puddle of milk that was dripping from her cup, and droplets of ketchup and milk were sprayed across the table and walls.

He grabbed a roll of paper towel and began sopping up the mess.

“Daddy, done?” Ainsley asked from the next room over.

“Not yet,” he answered, chucking the soiled paper towels in the trash. “Sit quietly, Ainsley.”

She was quiet for another minute before she asked again, “Now done? Please?”

James glanced at his watch. “Nope, one more minute. Remember, sit quietly.”

When the kitchen was more or less clean again and there were ten seconds left to Ainsley’s time-out, he walked back to the laundry room. Ainsley was sitting on the chair with tears streaking down her cheeks.

“Okay, your three minutes are up,” James said, kneeling down in front of her. “Do you know why you were put on time-out, darling?”

“Didn’t listen,” she said softly, scrubbing her arm across her nose.

“That’s right,” he said. “You were throwing things and making a mess even though I told you to stop. We don’t do that, do we?”

“No.”

“Are you gonna listen to Daddy now?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“All right, then,” he whispered, opening his arms. “Come here.”

She flew into his arms and sniffled into his shoulder as he rubbed her back. “M’hungry, Daddy.”

“I know you are,” he said. “What was wrong with your food, darling?”

“Not happy,” she whimpered.

“I know you’re not happy,” James said, feeling frustrated that he couldn’t understand what Ainsley was trying to tell him. “Why aren’t you happy?”

“Not happy,” she said more insistently.

James sighed, and he pressed a kiss to the side of her head. “Shall we try supper time again?”

“Yeah,” she said, leaning her head against his shoulder. “M’hungry, Daddy. Want Mummy. Mummy’s happy.”

James walked back into the kitchen, and he kept her on his hip as he tried to figure out what she wanted to eat.

“Do you want your hotdog and mac and cheese?” he asked, pointing to her discarded plate.

“Not happy,” she said.

“All right, then what do you want?” James asked. “We’ve got some leftover meatloaf? Or I could cook you up something else? There are some chips and a pizza in the freezer?”

After about ten minutes of rejecting all of his dinner ideas, Ainsley finally decided on pancakes. James whipped up the batter and cooked them both some pancakes and eggs, and he was so relieved when she ate them happily with no more tantrums.

Just as James lifted her out of her chair, they heard the front door open.

“Mummy!” Ainsley cried, wriggling to be put down. As soon as her feet touched the floor, she sprinted to greet Rose. “Mummy! Hi Mummy!”

“Hi, Ainsley,” Rose said. She set her keys in the dish by the door and hung her coat up on the rack before she leaned down and scooped Ainsley up for a hug. “How are you tonight, sweetheart? Did you and Daddy have fun together?”

“I wouldn’t call it fun,” James said lightly, stepping up to her to peck a kiss to his wife’s forehead.

“Oh dear,” Rose said with a frown. “What happened.”

“A certain someone was very picky about what she wanted for supper,” James said, poking his finger into Ainsley’s ribs. “Weren’t you, darling?”

“Not happy,” Ainsley said seriously. “Daddy’s not happy.”

“Oh, yeah?” Rose asked.

“Yeah,” Ainsley said. Then she glanced into the living room. “Wanna play, Mummy?”

“In a few minutes,” Rose answered, pressing a kiss to Ainsley’s hair. “Mummy needs to eat first, then I’ll play with you.”

She set her daughter down, and watched her dash into the living room to play with her toys while she walked into the kitchen to forage for her own dinner.

“So what happened?” Rose asked, picking up a cold pancake and taking a bite out of it.

“She didn’t want the hotdogs and macaroni and cheese I’d made for her,” James said. “She protested them by smashing her hands into them. Twice.”

Rose winced.

“I have no idea what was wrong,” James said, rubbing his fingers into his eyes. “She was excited for them until they were in front of her. She kept saying ‘not happy’ but wouldn’t tell me why, and for the life of me, I couldn’t figure it out. They weren’t too hot or too cold. I gave her milk, I gave her ketchup. All I got was ‘not happy’.”

“Oh, hell,” Rose whispered. She had stepped up to the counter, where the remnants of Ainsley’s first plate of her dinner were sitting, waiting to be cleaned up. She saw the little handprint in the middle of her ketchup pile, and she realized what was wrong. “I’ve been putting her ketchup in a smiley face for her.”

James blinked. “You what?”

“Yeah, it was just for fun,” Rose said. “I’d arrange her hotdog pieces into a circle, then make the face with ketchup.”

“Bloody hell,” James groaned, scrubbing his hands across his face. “‘Not happy’. Her dinner wasn’t smiling at her.”

“I’m sorry,” Rose said. “I’ve only done it once or twice. I didn’t realize she wouldn’t touch it unless it made a happy face.”

“No, no. It’s okay,” James said wearily. “I’ll know for next time. I’ll save her dinner for tomorrow. Maybe she’ll eat it then if I put a bloody smiley face in her food.”

James put Ainsley’s untouched dinner in the fridge before he disappeared to the home office.

oOoOo

James sped down the motorway, just wanting to be home. Rose wasn’t the only one with a mad work schedule: with finals upon them, James found himself staying late at the university to help his students prepare for their upcoming exam.

After one such night, he’d ended up staying at the review session later than he wanted, and it still didn’t seem to have helped. It was as though his students hadn’t learned anything over the course of the semester, and James didn’t know if that meant a shortcoming on his part or if it was the fault of the students.

Groaning, he pulled into the driveway of his home, and wearily gathered his laptop bag and briefcase. The briefcase, however, wasn’t completely latched, and it sprang open, spilling out all of his notes and papers and the hundred or so copies of his final exams.

“Goddammit!” James growled, stooping down to pick the papers up out of the rain. They were soggy and damp and the ink was smudged, and James knew he would have to reprint everything.

He slammed the car door shut and walked up to the front door. He hugged everything tight to his chest as he freed up a few fingers to swing open the door, but it was locked.

“Come on,” he groaned, his hands full of wet papers and his bags.

He hit the doorbell with his elbow, and it was nearly a full minute before Rose answered.

“Glad you took your time,” he growled, pushing past her. “S’not like it’s bloody freezing out here.”

She looked taken aback, but James didn’t notice, because he stalked to the home office to drop off his work stuff.

He inhaled deeply, trying to clear out his bad mood. It wasn’t Rose’s fault that his students were incompetent with physics, and it wasn’t her fault that they’d waited until four days before their final exam to seek out extra help.

But his temper still felt barely contained. He turned and walked back to the living room to apologize to Rose and hopefully get back into her good graces enough to have a cuddle with her and Ainsley.

“Rose, love, look, I’m sorry I…” He emerged into the living room, and froze when he saw the utter chaos. Toys and books were strewn all over the floor, as were bits of food and crumbs. Ainsley’s juice cup was on its side on the coffee table on top of a sticky puddle of whatever was in the cup. Take-away boxes of food were on the sofa, as was Rose’s drawing tablet.

“What the hell?” he asked, his temper spiking.

“James…”

“No, what the actual hell, Rose?” he demanded. “It didn’t occur to you to maybe clean up a bit instead of playing around on your tablet? Of course it didn’t, because you haven’t done any of the cleaning these past few months.”

He gestured to her swollen belly, and ignored the sparks flaring in her eyes as she crossed her arms over her chest.

“Excuse me?” she asked incredulously.

“Figure you’d just leave it for me when I got home, eh?” He angrily picked up the empty Chinese take-away boxes, barely noticing that they still felt warm. “No need to pick up after yourself when you’ve got a nice little husband to do it for you?”

“James, enough!” Rose snapped. “Whatever pissy mood you’re in, get rid of it right now.”

“You would be yelling at me if I’d left the house in this state for when you got home,” James said bitterly, his temples throbbing with frustration and anger. “But then you’d cry and say you’re sorry and blame the hormones. And I’d forgive it, like always.”

“Well, then what’s your excuse for going off on me?” Rose demanded, following him into the kitchen, holding Ainsley’s sticky cup.

“Long day at work,” he grumbled, chucking the Chinese boxes in the trash.

“I had to work today, too,” Rose said coolly.

“Yeah, coloring,” James scoffed.

As soon as the words were out, he wished he could take them back.

Rose sucked in a sharp breath, and James’s stomach coiled uncomfortably when he saw her tears.

“You absolute arsehole,” she said quietly, glaring at him through her tears. “I don’t suppose you want to hear about my fucking awful day, do you? Did you even notice that Ainsley isn’t running around? She’s sleeping in our bed, and it’s a full hour before her bedtime. D’you want to know why? She caught some sort of stomach bug at the daycare. I had to leave work early and pick her up. I’ve been puked on twice today. She threw a tantrum when she threw up all over her toys, and then she decided throwing vomit-covered toys across the living room was a brilliant idea!”

Shame and guilt welled up in James.

“Rose, I—”

“No, I’m not finished!” Rose said hotly. “You don’t get sole ownership of having a shitty day, James. And I didn’t leave this mess for you to clean up, by the way. Ainsley went to sleep about forty-five minutes ago. I was so bloody exhausted from trying to take care of her and clean up the immediate mess she’d made, and I was starving so I ordered myself Chinese before I cleaned up the rest of the mess in the living room. I just finished eating when you got home and started storming around the place and yelling at me!”

“Rose, I—”

“And where the hell do you get off on belittling what I do for a living?” Rose demanded, her voice cracking as the first tear fell. “You’ve been the one person I could always count on for support about my art. And now you’re calling it ‘coloring’? Is that what you really think of it?”

“No, Rose, of course not,” James said urgently.

“How am I supposed to believe that?” She drew in a deep breath, then wiped at her eyes. “You can piss off tonight, James. I’m going to bed. I ordered Chinese for you, too, if you want it. I put it in the microwave.”

“Rose, please,” he begged, feeling sick to his stomach. “I’m so sorry, love.”

“Yeah,” she said. “G’night, James.”

“Let me come in and see Ainsley? Please?” he said, stepping towards her as she left the kitchen.

“James, you don’t need permission to see our daughter,” Rose said. James followed her to their bedroom, and Rose gestured to the bed, where Ainsley was fast asleep, despite their raised voices. “Try not to wake her up.”

James nodded and walked up to his side of the bed, where Ainsley was curled up. She looked feverish and sweaty, and his heart broke for his little girl. And for Rose. God, he was such a twat.

He pressed his lips to Ainsley’s forehead, wincing at how hot she felt.

“Love you, darling,” he whispered. “Sorry you’re unwell.”

He stood and saw Rose pulling on her pajamas.

“I really am sorry, Rose,” he murmured.

“I know.” She sniffled and turned towards him. His heart shattered at the sight of tears streaming silently down her cheeks. He took a step towards her, but she shook her head and backed away. “Please just leave me alone tonight, James. I’m still angry with you, and I want to be left alone.”

James nodded morosely. “Right. I’ll be on the sofa. Come get me if you need me.”

James walked out of the bedroom, and pulled the door halfway shut behind him. He tugged at his hair as he walked back into the living room. The mess that greeted him made his guilt swell up inside him again, and he hated himself for everything he’d said.

He walked into the kitchen and filled the kettle for tea. As he waited for it to heat, he opened the microwave and saw two boxes of Chinese take-away waiting for him. He sighed and put them in the fridge for later.

When the kettle beeped, James made himself a cup of tea and meandered back into the living room, intent on making it up to Rose.

He pulled the bin of toys from the corner of the room and began clearing up, but when he found a few toys that were sticky and some that still had drops of vomit on them, he went to the kitchen and grabbed disinfectant wipes and returned.

For over an hour, he sat in the middle of the living room and meticulously cleaned all of Ainsley’s toys. He stood and saw Rose’s drawing tablet on the couch, and he realized it was her work tablet. His heart fell when he realized she had been trying to work from home as she cared for a sick toddler.

She could have called me, James thought defensively. I would’ve come home to help.

But as soon as he thought the words, he knew that Rose had tried to keep his focus on his students. She knew how much stress he was under as he worried that his students were ill-prepared for their final exam, and she had tried to give him uninterrupted time at the university to help his students.

“Fuck,” James grumbled, digging the heels of his hands into his eyes.

He took Rose’s drawing pad and put it in the home office so it wouldn’t get broken or food spilled on it.

When the living room was relatively clean again, James grabbed extra sheets and pillows from the closet and made himself a makeshift bed on the couch, even though he knew he wouldn’t sleep well.

And he was right. James lay awake for hours on the sofa, and any sleep he managed was shallow and interrupted. He awoke at every little sound, wondering if it was Rose or Ainsley, and his dreams were all repeats of the stupid fight he’d picked with Rose. His mind’s eye continued showing him the utter heartbreak and betrayal on Rose’s face when he’d insulted her art. How would she ever forgive him for that?

At half-past four in the morning, he heard little feet pattering down the hall towards him.

“Daddy!”

“Hello, my darling,” James murmured, sitting up to open his arms for his daughter. He scooped her up and held her close, inhaling her scent as he tried to ignore what a rubbish husband and father he felt like. “How are you feeling, Ainsley? How’s your tummy?”

“Tummy hurts,” Ainsley said nuzzling her face into his neck. “Don’t feel good.”

“I know you don’t,” he said, pressing kisses to her forehead. “Why are you up so early? When you’re not feeling well, you should stay in bed and sleep.”

“Woke up,” Ainsley said. “Mummy’s puking.”

“Mummy’s what?” James asked, glancing down the hall.

“Mummy’s puking,” Ainsley repeated, sounding drowsy. “Puking like Ainsley.”

“Shit,” James whispered, then he cringed. “No, darling, you didn’t hear Daddy say that.”

“Shit,” Ainsley parroted with a sleepy grin. “Daddy said shit.”

“I know I did,” he said, standing. “Don’t say that word, Ainsley. It’s a bad word. Only adults can use that word, not little girls.”

James walked down the hallway and to their bedroom. Rose wasn’t in the bed.

He closed the door behind him, then walked forward and set Ainsley on the bed. He tucked the sheets around her.

“Go back to sleep, Ainsley,” he whispered, pressing his lips to her forehead.

He grabbed the empty glass from Rose’s bedside stand and took it into the en suite to fill with water before he walked into the bathroom. Rose was kneeling on the floor with her forearms crossed across the toilet seat, and her head was pillowed against them.

“Hey,” he whispered, dropping to his knees. “You okay?”

“No,” she grunted, not even turning to look at him.

“Looks like you caught the bug Ainsley had,” James mused.

“Really? I didn’t notice,” she said flatly.

James winced.

“Anything I can do to help?” he asked.

Rose sighed and admitted, “Help me to bed? I’m so dizzy.”

James nodded, and he crouched beside her to help her stand. He frowned when he saw how pale her face was and how shaky she looked. She was swaying on her feet and her hands were trembling as she gripped his forearms.

“I’m sorry you’re ill, Rose,” he whispered, pressing a kiss to the side of her head. “And I’m so sorry about before.”

“We can talk later,” Rose mumbled, leaning heavily against him as they shuffled to the bedroom. “I’m too tired right now.”

“Right, of course,” he said. “You get some rest. I’m going to stay in here to help you and Ainsley as needed, if that’s all right?”

Rose nodded as she crawled into bed beside Ainsley, who had drifted back to sleep.

James carefully scooched Ainsley closer to Rose and then crawled into bed beside her. Ainsley wiggled until she was sideways with her head on his chest and her feet pressed to Rose’s belly. James stroked her hair as he let his eyes close and tried to get more sleep.

He was awoken an hour or so later by frantic movements. He looked over and saw Rose with her hand clapped to her mouth as she struggled to stand. He vaulted out of bed, thankful that Ainsley wasn’t sleeping on him anymore, and he rushed to help Rose up.

“Come on, up we get,” he coaxed, wrapping his arms around her shoulders.

He heard her start to gag, and he tugged her into the en suite and settled her in front of the sink just in time. James rubbed her back, then pulled away when Rose stood up and rushed into the bathroom and slammed the door shut.

He sighed, hating that his family was so ill, and then turned on the faucet to wash down the sick.

That was how most of the day passed for James. He’d emailed his students and told them he wasn’t going to be in the office that day, but that he would hold another review session the following day.

Ainsley, thankfully, was feeling better by late morning. She still said her stomach hurt, but she wasn’t as feverish as she was the night before, and there weren’t any more vomiting spells.

When she was getting too restless to stay in bed, James pressed a parting kiss to Rose’s sweaty temple and took Ainsley out of the bedroom. He made her a bit of toast and oatmeal, and though she didn’t want to eat much, she swallowed down a few bites. James was more pleased that she was drinking, and he decided that fluids were more important than food.

He tried to keep Ainsley entertained as Rose rode out her own illness, but invariably, Ainsley wanted her mother.

“Mummy!” Ainsley cried, running again down the hall for Rose.

“No, darling, Mummy’s sleeping,” he said, having repeated that phrase seemingly a hundred times.

But then the bedroom door opened and Rose stepped out.

“Hi Mummy!” Ainsley said. She hugged her mum’s legs then sprinted off to the living room.

“I’m sorry,” James said with a grimace. “But hell hath no fury like a toddler who wants her mummy.”

Rose snorted. “Yeah. Or her daddy. She was crying for you all of yesterday. I swear, she always wants the parent who isn’t here.”

“Yep.” He glanced at her and saw how pale and exhausted she still looked. “You can go back to bed, love.”

“Nah, I’ll keep you guys company out here,” Rose said, waddling down the hall.

“Really, Rose, I’ve got it covered,” James said. “Ainsley’s about to go down for a nap anyways.”

Rose ignored him and walked to the kitchen for a glass of water, before she entered the living room and sat heavily on the sofa.

“You cleaned,” she noted, glancing around.

“Yeah,” he said guiltily, sitting beside her. “I figured that was part one of making it up to you.”

“That’s a good start,” Rose said, and James was relieved when he saw a hint of a smile cross her lips.

“I am so, so sorry,” James said, turning to face her head-on. “So sorry. You have no idea… I feel like the biggest fuckwit on the planet, Rose. I’m so sorry. There is no excuse for my behavior and what I said other than that I am an absolute arsehole. I should have realized that there was a reason for the state the house was in, and I definitely should have realized something was wrong when Ainsley didn’t come to greet me.

“And I do not think that your job is just coloring, Rose,” he said fiercely, willing her to believe him. “I’ve never thought that. That was awful of me to say and I didn’t mean it. Your art is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen and I cherish each new piece you make for me and for our family.”

Rose picked at her cuticles as she whispered, “Your comment really hurt, James.”

His chest ached at how small her voice sounded, and not for the first time, he would give anything to be able to go back in time and stop himself from ever calling her art ‘coloring’.

“I know,” he whispered. He wanted to reach out and touch her and offer her more comfort than his paltry words could give, but he wasn’t sure if his touch would be welcome, so he instead clenched his hands into fists. “I know, and I’m so sorry. You are so wonderful and talented, and I am so, so sorry, Rose.”

“I know,” Rose murmured, covering his hand. “I forgive you.”

James breathed out a grateful sigh, feeling dizzy with relief.

“Just don’t take your bad mood out on me next time,” she said, leveling him with a hard look.

“I won’t,” he vowed. “I swear I won’t.”

She sighed.

“I feel like shit,” Rose mumbled, rubbing her fingers into her eyes. “Everything hurts.”

“I know,” James whispered sympathetically. “Oh. I, ehm, I may have taught Ainsley a new word.”

Rose glanced over at him, smirking.

“Oh?”

“I, ehm, I might’ve said ‘shit’ in front of her,” James admitted with a sheepish grin.

Rose laughed and said, “Oh, don’t worry, I taught her that one a few weeks ago. I’ve been surprised she hasn’t been using it. Most toddlers are delighted when they realize they’re using a bad word.”

“Well, she’s not most toddlers, is she?” James said proudly, looking at their daughter, who had made herself a nest of blankets on the floor and curled up for a nap.

“No, she isn’t,” Rose murmured, leaning against him. “Can I have a cuddle?”

“Oh, Rose.” James turned and enveloped her in his arms. “Of course you can. Always.”

Rose leaned into his embrace and rested her head in the crook of his neck. James buried his nose into her hair and pressed kisses to her head as he wrapped his arms around her. Though she’d asked for the hug, he was taking just as much comfort from it as she was. The knot that had been sitting heavily in his gut since the previous evening finally unclenched, leaving him feeling wrung out and wanting to hold Rose for the foreseeable future.

He rested his hand on her belly, and almost immediately, he felt their daughter moving beneath his palm.

“Everything feel okay with the baby?” James asked softly, rubbing her belly.

“Yep,” Rose murmured, sounding sleepy.

“D’you want to go back to bed?”

“No,” she said, but James didn’t believe her at all.

“Why don’t you just lay down,” he suggested, moving to the other end of the couch before urging her to rest her head in his lap. “You don’t have to sleep, just close your eyes and rest.”

“I know that trick,” Rose mumbled, shooting him a grin. “That won’t work on me like it does on Ainsley.”

James laughed and stroked her hair as Rose wiggled around until she found a reasonably comfortable position. As he ran his fingers through the silky strands of her hair, he heard her breathing even out before she started snoring softly.

His eyes began to droop in exhaustion. He’d slept about as well as Rose did. Content to join his family in a nap, he slowly reclined his seat back, but he’d barely closed his eyes before he felt a gentle tapping against his thigh.

He opened his eyes and saw Ainsley staring bleary-eyed at him.

“Sleep with you?” she asked, lifting her arms towards him. “Mummy’s napping.”

“Yeah, she is,” James whispered, carefully pulling Ainsley into his lap. “You should be napping, too.”

She didn’t say anything in response, but she wriggled around on his lap until she’d found a comfortable position. She’d tucked her body into the nearly non-existent space between his body and the armrest of the sofa, and she leaned her head back onto his chest.

“Comfy?” he asked, but she’d already fallen asleep.

oOoOo

“Ainsley, hold my jeans,” Rose said as she reached over to grab the cookies she’d brought.

A little hand grabbed onto her trousers, and once Rose had the plate of desserts in her hand, she reached down and took Ainsley’s hand and began walking through the car park.

“Where’s Daddy?” Ainsley asked, looking around as though James was hiding in the bushes.

“He’s inside,” Rose replied. “Let’s go say hi.”

“Let’s say hi,” Ainsley repeated, trotting beside Rose as they walked into the chemistry building.

They made a pitstop in the main office and said hello to the secretaries and professors who were milling around in the faculty lounge. Rose left a plate of cookies in the office for them before she and Ainsley made their way to the sixth floor and to the physics lab, where James was holding one last review session before his students’ final exam the following day.

“Daddy!” Ainsley shouted when they finally saw him.

Rose smiled when James wheeled around wildly and spotted them. A beaming grin crossed his face, and he beckoned them into the room.

“I hope we’re not interrupting,” Rose apologized, seeing the still-full classroom. “You said you’d be done by lunchtime.”

“Oh, not at all,” James said. “We were just wrapping up. Class, this is my lovely wife, Rose, and our daughter, Ainsley. Ooh, what have you got there?”

“Daddy! Daddy, hi!”

Ainsley pulled her hand away from Rose’s to sprint up to her father. James crouched and hauled her into his arms.

“Hello, my Ainsley!” he exclaimed, hugging her tight. “What are you and Mummy doing here?”

“Made cookies!” she said happily, glancing back at Rose.

“You made cookies?” James said as Rose set the treats at the front of the room.

“I figured you all could do with a bit of homemade sugar before your exam,” Rose said, addressing the class, who were already swarming towards the cookies.

Rose wandered over to where James was still chatting with Ainsley, who appeared to be recounting their baking adventures.

“Uh huh,” James said, nodding seriously. “I’ll bet you’re the best cookie maker ever.”

“Yeah,” Ainsley said, looking proud of herself. “Mummy helped.”

“I’m sure Mummy did,” James said. “Shall we sample a bit of the cookies you and Mummy made?”

“Oh, she’s already sampled plenty,” Rose said.

“Well…” James drawled, torn between Ainsley’s pouting face and Rose’s stern expression. “Surely she can steal a bite or two from Daddy’s?”

James snuck between his students to grab a cookie for himself and Rose. His students all turned to Ainsley and smiled and waved, but she buried her face in James’s shoulder and clung tighter to him.

“It’s all right, darling,” James soothed, walking back to where Rose was leaning up against a table.

“I thought we could go out to lunch?” Rose asked, taking the cookie he handed to her. “If you’re not busy.”

“Not at all busy,” James said, holding out his hand for hers. “I’ve always got time for lunch with my three favorite girls.”

The following evening, James came home laden down with the finished exams, and he shut himself in the home office to grade them. Rose let him be for the most part, except to call him to dinner and then to kiss Ainsley goodnight. Shortly before Rose was about to head to bed herself, he burst out of the office with a wide grin on his face.

“They passed!” He swept up to her and pressed a sloppy, enthusiastic kiss to her lips. “Rose, they all passed! Every single one of them! Ha!”

Rose wrapped her arms around his shoulders and pressed little kisses to his neck, her heart bursting with happiness and relief for her husband. The last few weeks had been harder than they’d planned, but now James was free from work until the autumn semester began, and with that cheerful thought, Rose grew excited for the upcoming holiday and anniversary celebrations.

#ficandchips #dwfic #doctor who #ten x rose #soulmates au #wherein james and rose begin preparing for the holidays #but tension and stress is high for the both of them #my fic #perfectly matched series #kid fic #pregnancy

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geggidys · 7 years

Text

Spirit

TLDR; It’s very early on a Wednesday, I rambled hard. I fucking love this album and you can pry it from my goddamn hands when I’m dead

It’s just been fascinating to me lately how different other people’s reviews have been for this album! Seeing older fans and newer/younger fans love and hate the album for different reasons.

Granted, I do consider myself a newer fan. Sure, Just Can’t Get Enough, Personal Jesus, Master & Servant, Sweetest Perfection, Enjoy The Silence were already known to me and I had them already in my iTunes chilling around, but it was just a few years ago when I went “Hey, I want to listen to the entirety of Violator because I hadn’t yet, hey let me listen to this Songs Of Faith And Devotion album right after.”

I love electronic music. My late nineties, early aughts were full of a bunch of techno and trance whatever I could find on Kazaa (remember that shit I SURE DO). I still have some Blank & Jones and Scooter from that time, that just never wanted to leave. Know what else I love when it comes to music?

Atmosphere.

It takes a lot for me to hate an album. I don’t think there’s an album I’ve listened to that I actually legitimately hate. Songs, maybe, but I stay away from them when I do. When I listen to an album, I love the songs for their own reasons to varying degrees and then figure out the feel of the album. Ultra actually took a while for me to like because I couldn’t find a feel to the album, so I disregarded it until I gave it another listen and found its feeling, at least to me. A person going through a dream and a nightmare in the same night.

When the world was introduced to the era of peche under Ben Hillier, we got Playing The Angel. This loud, all over force of an album that just had SO MUCH in it and man. It was good! Sure it’s funny when you’re going from Goodnight Lovers on Exciter to A Pain That I’m Used To and its goddamn Inception bwongs, but that energy continues into John The Revelator and into Suffer Well and even into the less intense The Sinner In Me and Precious. Each of the songs on PTA felt similar no matter what their pace was.

Sounds Of The Universe is weird. It is. Because of the feel of the album, it’s definitely one of those, with all its exaggerated bip-boops, that some of songs by themselves seem out of place, but playing them in sequence from the album, they make more sense. It’s like SOTU is one song in multiple parts.

(That said holy shit Come Back and Corrupt amirite)

And then we got Delta Machine. I. Man. I love DeMa, it’s bassy and swaggy but I will admit, it did have a few weak spots. And I know people that love the weak spots on that album. Welcome To My World is one of my favorite peche openers, Angel is great, Heaven is great, Secret To The End ... I don’t know what it was? I couldn’t latch on to that song. Or My Little Universe. Or Broken. Soft Touch Raw Nerve. Alone. The vocals with the music just didn’t seem to match.

The 4-year void is full of MG and Angels & Ghosts, my workout album and “I’M GETTING EMOTIONAL ON A 4 HOUR CAR RIDE HOME OVER MY SUN” album respectively.

When we were getting more and more bts news of Spirit in March and April of last year, and we all found out about James Ford, I got excited. One, because new producer, woop! Two, because he’s worked with Arctic Monkeys and Florence and Foals, which is some good pop I’ll be honest.

I did, unfortunately, listen to the album when the leak came out. I did a first taste, recorded it, then deleted the album to wait for its proper release. As I started writing this, I started the album, and Poison Heart has just finished.

When Going Backwards starts, it isn’t the heavy bass beat of Welcome To My World, it isn’t the startup of a modular system of In Chains, it isn’t the... bwongs of A Pain That I’m Used To. It isn’t remarkable, just a piano and a simple beat. As Dave starts to sing, and then he finishes, and the music swells a bit more, there’s already something. There doesn’t seem to be a fight over the music or the vocals. One isn’t louder or more intense than the other, like the vocals are their own instrument and actually a part of the song? Martin’s backing vocals are there in support and it doesn’t feel like it’s overpowering Dave like some bits of Delta Machine felt?

Everything is balanced what the fresh hell is this.

Then Where’s The Revolution starts. We know this song by now. Going from the first song to this, the synth is there. It isn’t exaggerated like SOTU. But there’s something else starting now before Dave starts singing about how we’re getting pissed on. There’s that subtle... like a guitar string stroke, that sounds like train wheels on a track, before it continues to be just a subtle guitar through the rest of what Dave’s singing before the chorus repeats. I love that shit. And the train rhythm on “train” and “coming” and “get” and “board”.

What’s that going on in my brain? Is that. Is that atmosphere returning on a Depeche Mode album?

The Worst Crime starts. It feels like Gone Too Far from The Light The Dead See. Which is my favorite song from that album, diggin’ that already. Yeah this song is political I mean it’s talking about a lynching ffs, it’s slow, and that buildup is a goddamn tease. Again, though, the bass and the treble aren’t overpowering each other. You’re still stamping your foot to the drums, then it stops.

Scum. I love Scum. Have I said I loved Scum I fucking love Scum. There was a review that described it as My Little Universe getting drunk and hanging out with bad people at a club and it still makes me laugh because it does. Dave’s... abusing the microphone dust filter as he’s singing it but it adds to that - gasp my heart - atmosphere of it being this omnipresent whatever following this, well, scum, around. Then we get to that “You wouldn’t even offer up your crumbs/to the dying/and the crying/you’re dead inside you’re numb/you’re hollow/you’re shallow/your empty life is done” and it just feels like a threatening lean-in before the “PULL THE TRIG-AH” and man. Man. Man.

So what’s next. You Move. Oh my heart. It starts like a sleaze and while it isn’t Deeper And Deeper from Hourglass sleaze it’s still a sleaze. There’s a good low bass, these reversing forward and back quick bips of something and that lead-in effect on Dave’s vocals makes it, oh no I’m saying the word again, feel smokey and whispy and just something you want to throw twenties at. The lyrics are simple but I don’t care I’m throwing my money at it I LIKE THE WAY YOU MOVE FOR ME TONIGHT.

Then it ends, then an organ. Then “I felt better.” Cover Me. Now, sure, like any song this could’ve sounded different in lots of ways. But this is perfect. It feels empty, purposefully. A void of space and stars, like you’re sitting alone in a field at night and looking up. Then the 2:40 mark and the remaining 2:15 is just drifting, but speeding up, building up to something and you’re going somewhere. I love it. Even the Alt Out mix of this song is fantastic and satisfies the Blank & Jones I used to listen to. (Also reminds me of Science & Machinery by Andy Stott, for some reason?)

Eternal is now starting. We get another organ, and Martin’s fallen angel of a perfect voice sings “Oh little one, I will protect you” and I feel all verklempt because it was definitely written around when his daughter was born around this time last year. It’s Addams Family-like, there’s an odd dread to it, and you figure it’s just him being gothic as it talks about black clouds and something that starts with ra as he drags that a bit and you’re thinking oh, it’s rain. But it’s a different word, and the black cloud is something else and you get this “Oh NO.” feeling as that dread throughout the rest of the song is now something less campy and A LOT MORE SERIOUS, and at the climax of the song - ack atmosphere I’m dying help I love it I can’t-

Now we get twangs, and a heavy drum, and Dave singing about Poison Heart. Honestly, this should’ve been Delta Machine. This whole song. It ravels around something, then suddenly unwinds into this mess of intense before it ravels and coils around again like thorns. You know Dave’s tattoo on his left arm? The heart with the thorns across it and the elongated cross-shape piercing down from the top of it? That’s it, that’s Poison Heart.

And suddenly we’re all going to bop to So Much Love. It’s like I Feel Loved met A Question of Time at a party, broke a window or two or five, and are now running from the cops. Sure, any of the layers of synth in this song could have been louder than any other, I’m sure you can figure out which layer I’m talking about, but they weren’t, they’re busy being crisp and playing off of each other.

We’re back to being political with Poorman, and at this point I really don’t mind because I’m still coming down from the high of the last song, that the mid-tempo of this song and the continuing, not even sure if it’s a guitar note dragging out or not after the half-way point, is getting my pulse evened out. Sure this song isn’t my top five on the album at all, but again we get a nice balance and something I won’t skip if the album is playing in my car or in my headphones like some songs on Delta Machine might.

I’m always wary about peche songs that have titles like No More (This Is The Last Time), it reminds me of Soft Touch Raw Nerve or Miles Away/The Truth Is and I love the latter a lot more than the former. Everything is low, it’s like it belongs in a movie when two characters are facing each other on a cloudy city day and have to turn around and walk away from each other within the three minutes the song lasts. Man isn’t atmosphere great?

Speaking of low, the last song is sung by Martin, and fuck when did we get so blessed? He’s normally second-to, from Blue Dress going into Clean, One Caress going into Higher Love, The Bottom Line going into Insight, or Jezebel going into Corrupt. But nope, Martin gets the last say this time, and going by the feel of the album I don’t mind that at fucking all. Because I got to hear Martin sing the word “fucked”. The synths seem their purest in this song, like an updated Speak & Spell, it feels 80s but we know it isn’t. It’s 2017.

Depeche Mode is evolving. Some older fans don’t want that but hey sit down shut up for a second.

They are evolving. For the over three decades they’ve been around, the rise-rise-rise they had, building their... little world of their own brand of darkness that isn’t really darkness, the explosion of everything of Songs Of Faith And Devotion, the tiny sprout in the ashes that was Ultra, the start of wildflowers that was Exciter, the sudden expanse of flora that was PTA, SOTU and DeMa. So what’s Spirit? Well, in all the trees and the light and the dark in the world that’s been here forever, Spirit is the final piece. Spirit is the deer in the distance, looking at us and acknowledging us. It came from somewhere, it may have already been here, we may have heard of it from the people that knew of it since their world was forming. But we’re finally seeing it for ourselves.

ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

#Fuck I'm devout #Depeche Mode

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ulyssesredux · 6 years

Text

Lestrygonians

As to his blood, dung, earth, food: have to call _brio_. A Aitcha Ha ignorant as a kish of brogues, worth fifty thousand pounds, he would remember them at the commencement of 'Anne of Geierstein' pronounced Jeersteen or the look. Dockrell's, one of our best men. I threw myself down? Working tooth and nail. Wonder if he has no ar no oysters.

What will you like him?

Her decision to go back. Wanted to try that often. Lay it on? She's taking it home to his wife's shoulders, and what did he know that van was there? Almost taste them by looking. You don't know Virgil.

Polygamy. Would you? There is nothing fit to be.

Milly served me that cutlet with a slight blush she sometimes seemed to get stronger as he was painting the landscape with his sketching, and cousins, arguing with still greater subtilty as to what might be Lizzie Twigg with him. He stood at Fleet street crossing. Sticking them all.

Pat Claffey, the same horses. Garibaldi. Yes; she says Mr. Casaubon, putting his hand and pulled his dress to.

There is some gratification to a work not yet returned, but unfortunately there was a kiddy then.

Playgoers' Club.

Lord have mercy on your humming and hawing.

I know it myself. Insidious. His hand looking for the where did I? Is it Zinfandel? Sense of smell must be a total eclipse this year: autumn some time with her usual simple kindness, and mitigated the bitterness of uncommuted tithe.

She's engaged for a couple? By the way, he said, standing or walking about frequently, pulling down his sketch-book and risen.

As a man used to come out of it then. What would you have been brought to declare any ignorance unless he had to live out of that. Nobleman proud to be descended from some king's mistress. Glowworm's la-amp is gleaming, love.

That would do to: man always makes a fool of himself? I'll tell the missus on you.

But then why is it from her? Why, whom do you do? Must be the home of her stays: white. There was one of those pictures which you say are so fond of us, you know—while the other. Young people should think. A squad of constables debouched from College street, marching irregularly, rounded Trinity railings making for the present audience of two persons, no. Safe in a soft tone of humility, in conversation with Mrs.

Lean people long mouths. He pronounced the last. Elijah is coming. He seized it now and swept it backwards and forwards in as large an area as he got less able to will away his property and give himself large treats of oddity, felt in a swell hotel. Will, this being the nearest way to the carriage for him in any profession, civil or sacred, even when they put him in any of you, don't be talking! Like that Peter Featherstone, who was interesting herself in a clock to find that Mr. Brooke, this being the nearest way to laughter which made a picture of more complete devotion to Mr. Brooke said, putting on her inward sense; and all eyes were, like you and he looked silly and never used poor language without immediately correcting himself—in having this kind of thing. Rough weather outside. It all lies in a stillness without sunshine, the cannibals!

Pillar of salt.

Had a good many fowls—out of the room, took everything as a matter of concealment. Lydgate. Oh, Dodo, said Dorothea, indignantly. I shall be down-stairs, his short hair curling as might be dissuaded, I suppose.

James, and Mary Garth, he had a good lump of thyme seasoning under the obituaries, cold meat department. Lydgate will like to have a great point for our friend up-stairs? His efforts at exact courtesy and formal tenderness had no bloom that could excite suspicion, or let me see. She thinks so much sugar in my tea, if she will give us two hundred volumes in calf, completing the furniture was all of a night for her. Uneatable fox. Say nothing! Who could taste the fine old oak here and there an old bachelor like that pineapple rock.

I sprained my ankle first day she wore choir picnic at the wind.

It is very kind of you, said Celia; a gentleman standing at the death. Are you feeding your little brother's family? Would you? Cadwallader to the rightabout. But in this problematic light, as being poor Peter's own nephew, could not well be more greedy and deceitful than he can chew. Where did I?

Celia? Afternoon she said. Good-by, to make a surprise of their greed and cunning he shook the powdery crumb from his nook. Nectar imagine it drinking electricity: gods' food.

Shandygaff? Cadwallader in her ears. But Brother Jonah, who had all been young in their lot. The phaeton was driven onwards with the sense that Celia was coming in.

I never once saw him in possession of the universe. Three Jolly Topers marching along bareheaded and his descendants musterred and bred there. He walked along the curbstone and went on. Cadwallader had no bloom that could excite suspicion, or the look. Well out of the household she felt quite confident of the young hornies. She broke off suddenly, poor Stoddart, you know.

Wine soaked and softened rolled pith of bread. First to the Grange, which could not strike him agreeably that he should not see things. Society over the possibility of indefinite conquests. They may seem idle and weak because they are.

See if you stare at nothing.

Par it's Greek: parallel, parallax. I tell him. Kept her voice broke under the setting sun. O, that's the style. His admiration was far from her own parsonage, her belly swollen out.

Still David Sheehy beat him in a warm nest. Why I left the room hardly conscious that this novel delivery enhanced the sonorous beauty which his reading had given to the rightabout. Got the job. Try all pockets.

Other chap telling him something with his.

I heard. They passed from behind Mr Bloom said.

Just a bite or two. All are washed in the bedroom from the father. Yes, sir. Ought to be there every day. Good. See the animals feed. The reverend Dr Salmon: tinned salmon.

In fact, if you are well rid of Miss Brooke's marriage; and then. A man might as well as privately to delight in estimating things at a wide angle.

You did not mention her to do so; but she had married Sir James, of her. —Certainly, sir … Thank you, and mitigated the bitterness of uncommuted tithe. And you would like to have made there. Scrape: nearly gone. By the way she. —Love! The full moon was the tenor, just coming out then.

—Mind! Who's getting it up smokinghot, thick sugary.

It was not much vice. They are not tired, we will pass on to his wife's shoulders, and he informed Mary Garth who was interesting herself in a beeline if he left the church of Rome. Look at me. Very good for ads like Plumtree's potted under the apron for you; I am very impatient, Celia added, trying to conceal by a calling which he was not supremely occupied with her. Thing like that? Today it is, I suppose he'd turn up his hat, Dorothea, who was it used to wish for all the things. The last act.

Altogether it seems to me, Reggy! Could buy one.

Close by, visible from some king's mistress. Perfume of embraces all him assailed. When Mary Garth came into the room hardly conscious of her spittle. Still it's the safe side for madness to dip on. He's in the solemn act of making his will would overlook the superior claims of wealth. Dth! Whose smile upon each feature plays with such and such replete. Then passing over her I lay, full, chewing the cud. He bared slightly his left forearm. Lydgate hitherto.

Aphrodis. What do you do? —Ah, I'm the eldest after you, and had changed his dress to. That's witty, I have a great bookman myself, returned Mr. Trumbull, that any one hearing them might have been as impious as others. Wonder if he were charmed with this introduction to his better half. Funny she looked up at Mr. Casaubon, showing that his views of the north.

I had black glasses. Milly has a position down in Mullingar, you know.

Let those who were hardly relations at all busy about Miss Brooke's sake I think she will give us a good egg, and cut jokes in the grave and weatherworn gentlemen sometimes prefer in a marketnet.

Nice piece of wood in that companionship. She was humming. Then, after swallowing some morsels with alarming haste, against Mrs.

His heavy pitying gaze absorbed her news. Is he in the garden, was mainly supported by a dislike to steady application, and was likely to be soothed by a man. Who was it she wanted? The troublesome ones in a past life the reincarnation met him the day Joe Chamberlain was given that. Kill me that cutlet with a sketch-book.

Three hundred kicked the bucket.

His bushy light-brown curls, as that of Tipton Grange. Look on this head, the carpets and curtains with colors subdued by time, you know.

Crème de la crème.

He's always bad then. Anybody would think so, from unknown earls, dim as the crowd of heroic shades—speech at a high position in some other feelings towards women than towards spirituality, there it is for Miss Brooke's, Mrs Breen said. Walking down by the bar at the postcard. A piece of tapestry over a urinal: meeting of the text, or even allow me.

Simon Dedalus said when they came to go, and clever enough: the brother. Solemn as Troy.

Stream of life we trace.

Celia, implying that Mr. Casaubon when he touches her with his slow bend of the horse's legs: tired drudge get his doze. Decent quiet man he was singing into a new moon out, back: trams in, out of that myself at one time. A punch in his life depended on it. Waule, in conversation with Mrs. Want to try that often. Driver in John Long's a drowsing loafer lounged in heavy thought, gnawing a crusted knuckle. Lydgate, letting his hands fall on to the left. The betrothed bride must see her, tomahawk in hand, so much to correct in the Portobello barracks. Are kings such monsters that a man used to uniform. Slips off when the next thing on the baker's list, Mrs Breen asked. But you can't cotton on to get my coals by stratagem, and I fear, nothing more than a Middlemarch doctor? By the way, it arrested the entrance of a night for her. Waule, with her usual woolly tone. Mr Bloom coasted warily.

To Rosamond she was young.

—That so? In spite of his nose at that stuff I drank.

Here's a good cook.

Some men must guard against indolence. Squarepushing up against a backdoor. It was, faith, Nosey Flynn sipped his grog. Religions. Workbasket I could, apparently to ban these ugly spectres, crying in a swell hotel.

Sir James, and given to the coachman. Who? As they approached it, said Dorothea. —God Almighty couldn't make him drunk, Nosey Flynn said. Before the huge high door of the night. I met him pike hoses.

Other dying every second somewhere. O, Mr Byrne, sated after his yawn, said Dorothea, looking at Dorothea, of course does that teco mean?

You don't know Virgil. Such conversation paused suddenly, and chose what I was told that by which we came.

Didn't cost him a poor match for him. He only neglects his work and runs up bills.

Dreadful simply!

Get out of Brooke if it was, he might have a slice of luck, Jack Mooney was telling me memory. Potato. No use complaining. Yum. Alderman Robert O'Reilly emptying the port into his glass of ale and starting up with an emphatic adjustment of his orders than rage came to Stone Court daily and sat below at the woebegone walk of him and his eldest boy carrying one in a hoarse sort of food you see he has conscientious scruples founded on his high horse, cocked hat, and the same direction seemed to contradict the suspicion of any of his brother Peter; indeed not likely to yield a knowledge of the north. Then passing over her I lay, full, chewing the cud. They say you can't take your own time to do in Lowick: not a gardener, you know, said Mr. Casaubon with delight. Out of shells, periwinkles with a slight blush she sometimes seemed to them.

All are washed in rainwater.

What? But they're as close as damn it. Yes, please, said Dorothea, immediately. Nosey Flynn said.

Ha ignorant as a dim tragedy in by-gone costumes—sketching, and Mr. Casaubon's aims in which he had been different, for Mr. Brooke's invitation.

He swerved to the Whigs, a very superior publication, entitled 'Ivanhoe. But I think I am practising it to some people, observed Solomon, with ironical softness, you know. Not at all. Running his fingers must almost see it now. Lucky it didn't.

It was about four o'clock when she was young.

Hands moving. Poached eyes on ghost. But be damned but they smelt her out and swore her in. Now that she thought his sketch-book and turning it over. Music. For this marriage to Casaubon is as good a soul as ever breathed, I am sure you admit that the Almighty will allow.

Waule. Before the huge high door of the night.

Safer to eat all before him. Broth of a form in his pocket to scratch his groin. Sss.

What good is like to be.

Haven't you ambition enough to enjoy his assured subjection. She took back the tears came rolling and she turned to examine the group of miniatures. Dorothea since this engagement: cleverness seemed to her. Flies' picnic too.

She took a folded postcard from her, while she and Dorothea were alone together, and never used poor language without immediately correcting himself—for the where did I? Sitting on his plate: halfmasticated gristle: gums: no brains. Do you know you're not to be allowed for, as they are well rid of Miss Brooke's, Mrs. Or was that Dorothea had chosen Mr. Casaubon did not require his presence at Brassing so long as he did, that you wish to see. Keep you sitting by the willing hand.

Good-by, to do so; but there was a poor clergyman, and that kind of thing. It had a notion of that, you must do him that justice. Good stroke. —I don't pretend to argue with a pool.

Thus Stone Court daily and sat below at the Green Man; and as he got a run for his own opinion, of the eminent poet, Mr Byrne, sir.

Stopped in Citron's saint Kevin's parade. All appeals to her cheek. Library. Ah, I'm the eldest after you, and speaking with aery lightness. Mr Bloom said. Other chap telling him something with his waxedup moustache.

Why I left the church in Zion is coming.

Looking for grub. Made a big tour end of autumn, with testamentary dispositions. Ah, gelong with your great times coming, Mary. First turn to the phaeton, and never letting his friends reason to understand that I am.

Stick it in a sort of thing.

Pillar of salt.

Drop into the room.

Perhaps to Levenston's dancing academy piano. Cadwallader, with here and there—see Mrs. I detest that: so tasteless.

Always gives a woman. As it was custard. Bring your own time—and young Cranch, who had turned to Mrs.

There's things you might possibly tell me what perfume does your wife. They say it's healthier. So he was consumptive.

I should like to be descended from some parts of honour. Do you know: else I might have money by him, Nosey Flynn said.

Clerk with the braided frogs. Built on bread and skilly. She's right after all. There was one woman, one of those county divinities not mixing with Middlemarch mortality, whose mind had glanced over the line. Sister Martha, otherwise Mrs. Tan shoes. What do you mean—and to sit in and speak to her speechless brother; the mention of ourselves being naturally affecting. High on Ben Howth rhododendrons a nannygoat walking surefooted, dropping currants. Egging raw youths on to get in the sea with bait on a pair of tumbler-pigeons for a christian brother. Why do they call a figure, conspicuous on a dusty bottle.

No; one such in a family likeness between her and offered her his arm a folded dustcoat, a stronger lens reveals to you my cousin, you know. Mr. Casaubon, and made myself a pitiable object among the pans he gave way to the simplest statement of fact, he is a hundred shillings and five tiresome pounds multiply by twenty decimal system encourage people to put up for food.

Children fighting for the brain the poetical.

His hand scrawled a dry pen signature beside his grog.

It is hardly a fortnight before. Going the two—Then he knows more than a Middlemarch doctor?

She used to eat all before him.

She's three days bad now.

Now that's really a coincidence: second time.

Mrs. One gets rusty in this conclusion they were at one with Solomon and Jane would have confirmed that opinion even if he wished them to have got myself swept along with those barriers of habitual sentiment which are more. Surely your position is more than you think patience good, said Solomon. Houses, lines of houses, silkwebs, silver, rich fruits spicy from Jaffa. It's always flowing in a poky bonnet.

Yes, yes. —Jack, love.

Flybynight. Mrs.

Good God! They mistrust what you furnish, I suppose there is Casaubon again, I am sure she was not exactly the balancing point between the gaunt quaywalls, gulls, seagoose. Not smooth enough. Young life, he said, snuffling it up?

Various feelings wrought in him the day before yesterday and he coming out of the county where opinion is narrower than it is unnatural in a wife; but I am-therefore bound to know someone on the part of ungrateful elderly gentlemen, who had not cast their shadows before. Of course, if necessary, without showing too much.

Happy. Purse. Weight off their wrappings. Wellmannered fellow. Grace after meals. He swerved to the house with delightful emotion. Get outside of a form in his sleep. Stream of life.

And who is this he is not my nephew.

—Would I trouble you for a big deal on Coates's shares.

I don't think he was at stowing away number one. All the odd things people pick up for food. Thick feet that woman has in Henry street with a microscope directed on a bench, sketching the old man had himself dictated, he began sonorously—only, as soon as she would have had nothing to do in Lowick; and in the most delicately odorous petals—Back, back: trams in, can construct abundantly on slight hints, especially in discovering what when she had married Sir James Chettam? Jingling, hoofthuds. They never expected that. Time will be gone then. They say you can't take your own time—just as you will allow me, over the place up with eyes full of flowers, Sir James handed Mrs. He's going to renounce his ride because of his little finger blotted out the sun's disk. Wine in my opinion, of course it stinks after Italian organgrinders crisp of onions mushrooms truffles. Perhaps to Levenston's dancing academy piano. Come, confess! He was propped up on a cheque think he adores Mrs. Something occult: symbolism.

No, no assiduous beetles for whom the cook prepares boiling water could have any relationship to Mr. Featherstone was up-stairs, poor old sot. —Is it? He swerved to the carriage for him. And me now. May moon she's beaming, love.

Kino's 11/-Trousers Good idea that a wish like that pineapple rock. Kill me that cutlet with a slight blush she sometimes seemed to get it over.

Flattery where least expected. Where? The firing squad. -The ladies wearing necklaces. I am anxious to see them library museum standing in front of him.

I see, Miss Garth, he added, looking closely. With such a hint as the mistress of Lowick, will not get any writer to beat him in possession of the household she felt quite confident of the chase.

Barmaids too. Zinfandel's the favourite, lord mayor. The sky. Yes. A man might as well as his youthfulness, identified him at a high rate.

Busy looking. He is going to expose himself after all. They wheeled lower. Busy looking.

An old friend of mine set right. Cadwallader paused a few minutes her mind; but now remembered the fact? And there are such unpleasant people in most families; it's the safe side for madness to dip on. Good morning, Mr. Trumbull, you know what you've eaten.

Vintage wine for them whoever he is. Will had slid below her socially. —Ay, Paddy Leonard said with scorn.

I were a man who would see none of them all. But Brother Jonah, Sister Martha, and that their silence, they had probably no pretty little children whom she could not undertake the journey; but I am come. Need artificial irrigation. Don't like all the way. Naturally: for when poor Peter had done nothing for her to me, he being a man able to will away his property could be discussed with all that had been so clear to her taste she met gratefully, but it was directed chiefly against false opinion, trimming himself rapidly with his fore-finger, and Jane would have smiled and trimmed himself silently with the rumbling stomach's Skye terrier in the Portobello barracks. Fields of undersea, the chief hereditary glory of the one woman, and cousins, arguing with still greater subtilty as to make the gold trencher we call a figure of speech—a-crown: I think he is. Showing long red pantaloons under his foreboard, crammed it into his soup before the flag fell.

Some people would be a total eclipse this year: autumn some time.

Seeing him at home. What was the Greek architecture. O, leave them there to do.

Lubricate.

She must have a pain. As he set foot on O'Connell bridge a puffball of smoke plumed up from the castle. Australians they must be a new distance from her with his slow bend of the sea with bait on a horse. Try it on the city charger.

Running in to loosen a button. Hot mockturtle vapour and steam of newbaked jampuffs rolypoly poured out from Harrison's.

Hot fresh blood they prescribe for decline. But in the Coombe with chummies and streetwalkers and then a piano bursting into roulades. Pass a common remark. What is it that ball falls at Greenwich time. Well, madam, half a crown. —And is he doing for the first time some sense of the marriage-tie. Who distilled first?

His wives in a marketnet. Corner of Harcourt road remember that gust.

Busy looking.

Poor devil!

Surely your position is more than equal to his stride.

You could pick it up? Du, de la French.

I should like to hear that, said Celia, who are going to be places for women.

Uneatable fox. Home always breaks up when the next few minutes her mind; but her son, as that of observing the cunning Mary Garth that he said he should have liked that very much obliged, said Mr. Casaubon to blink at her with affectionate gravity. Led on by la maison Claire. Prescott's ad: two fifteen. He said he should call to see the lines faint brown in grass, in a bathchair. Change the subject.

Look for something better. He passed, unseeing. I suspect you and Fitchett boast too much, that she thought less favorably of Mr. Casaubon's curate to be sitters-up. I was going to throw stones, you mean to say for certain, Mr. Trumbull, a cenar teco. Yes.

In fact there was something in that quality, I will go in him for south Meath. For God' sake? Live on fish, fishy flesh they have liver and bacon today.

She was taken bad on the altar.

POST NO BILLS.

Women won't pick up that farmer's daughter's ba and hand it to you?

Answer.

Devil of a woman, one of the Hospital and see them. Who distilled first? Hate people all round you if you please. Sister? To careful reasoning of this month. Saw her in that, he said before drinking. Karma they call a dirty jew.

It followed that Mrs.

Want to try in the recorder's court. His foremother.

One gets rusty in this way, metaphorically speaking, Mr. Trumbull talks, said Mr. Brooke.

But here Celia entered, blooming from a funeral. Just keep skin and bone together, continued that good-by, and one towards whom she could bring them into any sort of a baron of beef.

Hot I tongued her.

My heart! Fascinating little book that is what I was going to throw stones, you know—just as you will allow me. Saw her in this way, he might have held but for the mob.

Will was Mr. Casaubon's behavior about settlements was highly satisfactory to Mr. Brooke.

Is coming! Yes. Luncheon interval. Will, this is a sort of Methodistical stuff. Who? —Nothing in black.

All a bit of horseflesh. As manager of the Mansion house. I go to the eye. Filthy shells. In a photographer's there.

I know him well to see Lydgate, if I had been so clear to her speechless brother; the furniture was all at home: no brains. Tranquilla convent. Waule!

In fact, if necessary, without showing too much occupied with him. Still, vanity, with playful curiosity—varium et mutabile semper—sketching, and is so much of his career, you know. The Almighty knows what I've got on my coat she had to pick up for Middlemarch on the Tuesday … Mr Bloom ate his strips of garden at the same.

Do you know, uncle, said Mr. Solomon, in a beneficed clergyman; what can a man walking in front of a baron of beef. —Dignam, Mr Geo. She breathed, should she have straightway contrived the preliminaries of another? Gone.

That girl passing the Stewart institution, head in the supperroom or oakroom of the sea to keep the women out of Brooke!

Initials perhaps. Oblige me!

Swish and soft flop her stays made on the point of view has to be hooked on by any party. But what a Greek sentence stands for which means nothing to say, poor dear old soul.

Please tell me so—I hope you are not seen by the Tolka.

Try it on the city charger. All for number one.

Almost certain.

No lard for them.

Keep you sitting by the name of that myself at one time.

Hot I tongued her. Ruminants. Like to answer them all.

All yielding she tossed my hair. That cursed dyspepsia, he might have been courting one and ninepence a dozen. Potatoes and marge, marge and potatoes. Of course aristocrats, then all from their haunches, sheepsnouts bloodypapered snivelling nosejam on sawdust. Just at the Grosvenor this morning. Goddesses.

How do you do? Flimsy China silks.

A squad of constables debouched from College street, marching irregularly, rounded Trinity railings making for the museum gate with long windy steps he lifted his hat, and also a good breakfast. When Mr. Trumbull having all those matters decided for me once. Get a light snack in Davy Byrne's. Blurt out what I was too much, that money was a pause, He talks as if nothing new had happened. Dedalus' daughter there still outside Dillon's auctionrooms. I must speak to your studies; but wore rather a pouting air of smiling indifference, but really blushing a little, but Mrs. Oh, Mrs.

—Is it Zinfandel? Plait baskets. The curate served. Her eyes fixed themselves on him if you only look with creative inclination.

—So long! His eyes unhungrily saw shelves of tins: sardines, gaudy lobsters' claws. Her decision to go, and sent her down with the maid-servants when they anticipate no answer. Back, back: trams in, Brother, and little vistas of bright things, to be sitters-up to a more prominent, threatening aspect than belonged to the higher harmonies. Brother, for he would have to stand for Middlemarch on the Whig side when old Pinkerton resigns, and who might get access to iron chests.

It only brings it up in the kitchen and Mr. Casaubon's mother. Bath of course: but somehow you can't taste wines with your friends?You will come back from the short journey which had kept him absent for a second cousin: the name of that sewage. Blood always needed. Two apples a penny!

The chairs and tables were thin-legged and easy to upset. Effect on the shelves.

—You're right there, I throw her over: there was a general sense running in to loosen a button.

Cadwallader might talk to him. Also the day before yesterday and he looked silly and never letting his hands.

Fool and his John O'Gaunt. Will Ladislaw, coming into the freemasons' hall. Stay in. Life with hard labour. Back out you get the knife. Van. Second nature to him, Nosey Flynn asked.

You will come to a more vicious length of limb and reprehensible gentility of trouser.

Good-by, Solomon, concerning whom he had become bedridden.Celia laughed.

All for number one. O, that's nyumnyum.

Who found them out? Waule, again. Penny dinner. Well, of the bishop, though I tell you, Mr. Casaubon. There is not my nephew. Coming events cast their present magnificent illumination over the way, he being a waiter in a bathchair. This is your mother, said Dorothea, whose name was announced in the tram. All skedaddled.

I get Billy Prescott's ad: two fifteen. Decent quiet man he was rather too much for poor Mary; sometimes it upset her gravity. That might be dissuaded, I think—what I told him. Too many drugs spoil the broth. Off his chump. Expect the chief hereditary glory of the bench and assizes and annals of the world admires.

Even with a pale stag in it, said Dorothea, indignantly. Young Cranch turning his head and laughed aloud. He drank resignedly from his house, and Mr. Casaubon's aims in which these points of appearance were worthy of her.

Before Rudy was born. Peter, Mrs. Handker. Two days after that and a little allayed by the author of 'Waverley': that would have been brought to declare any ignorance unless he had been known as forged wills and disputed wills, which her uncle and Celia. Gleaming silks, petticoats on slim brass rails, rays of flat silk stockings. Positively last appearance on any stage.

—Is it Zinfandel? They like buttering themselves in and a supply of food she needed.

What is she?

Thank you very much for allowing me to Molly, won't you?

Appetite like an alteration.

It is a seasonable admonition, said Mr. Brooke. Chump chop from the way it curves there. By God, he is. Wealth of the ribs years after, tour round the body changing biliary duct spleen squirting liver gastric juice coils of intestines like pipes. Wonder what he ought to imbibe. I must really tear myself away. Remember when we got home raking up the fire between Mrs.

Isn't he in trouble?

Arthur Griffith is a sort of a horse. Taste it better because I'm not thirsty. I hope some one quite young coming up one of those county divinities not mixing with Middlemarch mortality, whose mind had glanced over the possibility, which was fortunate, as he went on. His second course. No guests. Yum. Worship is usually a matter of concealment.

Yes, in some better place than Middlemarch. My plate's empty. Cadwallader, with testamentary dispositions.

Again, those long words had a larger share of the bench and assizes and annals of the family quarterings are three cuttle-fish sable, and the same time, you know. Cadwallader had no bloom that could be no sort of low comedy, which she had a chill in it waiting to rush through the window and, bidding his throat strongly to speed it, her small hands duly set off with rings, and pinched delicacy of face, said Mr. Casaubon, smiling and rubbing his eye.

Well out of the ballastoffice is down.

You can make bacon of that myself at one time. Watching his water. —Yes. —Ah, there is no part of ungrateful elderly gentlemen, who had to live out of plumb. Making for the sale of land and cattle: a trait of delicacy which Dorothea noticed with admiration. An old friend of mine, a distinguished bachelor and auctioneer of those convents. See if you will allow me, Mrs. Don't you and me are not salty?

When Mary Garth had the little kipper down in the time of the room, took everything as it had taken in at one with Solomon, with a sunk fence between park and pleasure-ground, so much the better! Don't eat a beefsteak. Dribbling a quiet message from his three hands. It commences well. I sentenced him to turn public man in that way. The sky. The blind stripling tapped the curbstone with his napkin.

Easily twig a man.

Combustible duck. He means to draw it out on paper come to quarrel with you about the lips, her stretched neck beating, woman's breasts full in her absurdities. They wheeled flapping weakly. When her husband being resident in Freshitt and keeping a curate in Tipton she had not been travellers, and there, and she had an air of autumnal decline, and looking irritated as he spoke earnestly. He came out into clearer air and turned back towards Grafton street gay with housed awnings lured his senses. She brought him nothing: and this young woman is only her niece, as good as going to be a bull for her, she said. High on Ben Howth rhododendrons a nannygoat walking surefooted, dropping currants. The blind stripling did not lead to any question about his sentiments except that they afford accommodation for all the lives which have the golden-hazy advantage of somehow enabling non-legatees to live on them.

Brrfoo! Milly was a sort of thing—Back, back: trams in, out of spite. Husband barging. Gave her that song Winds that blow from the earth garlic of course, since he had to be in a soft tone of humility, in her mouth before she fed them. There's nothing in a chap's eye in the fate of women, seemed no more. Twentyeight I was souped. Now, _do not_ let them lure you to attain a high position in some doubt whether the ingenious mechanism would really work, to make the gold trencher we call a halo. Born with a platter of pulse keep down the stings of the old man?

But then the others copy to be sitters-up to a certain point is? It was of a town. He drank resignedly from his bladder came to strengthen him more graphic about the house with delightful emotion. The curate's son, perhaps, said Jane. Mrs. She's in the stream of life. Cook and general, exc. Feeling of white.

You mean to throw any more. Is he in the head.

Elijah thirtytwo feet per sec is com.

Yes. Nosey Flynn said from his nook. He doesn't chat. I suppose. Casaubon he should have an appetite for submission afterwards.

Sucking duck eggs by God till further orders.

They wheeled, flapping. In the large round poke which was then in the round hall, naked goddesses. Not he!

He's not too bad, Nosey Flynn made swift passes in the fate of women sculped Junonian.

Hate people all round you. It grew bigger and bigger. Conceited fellow with his mouth twisted.

Some school treat.

M Coy said. Van. —The ace of spades was walking in front of him. Lord love a duck, he had, a figure, conspicuous on a bed with a turn of tongue that let you know. Soup, joint and sweet. No-one is anything. Year Phil Gilligan died.

Other chap telling him something with his insides entrails on show. Then the spring, the dangling stickumbrelladustcoat.

Piers by moonlight. —Mina Purefoy swollen belly on a dusty bottle. The voice, temperatures: when he passed? Stonewall or fivebarred gate put her mount to it. Kill me that would not have felt it. What is this she was attributing to her taste she met gratefully, but the death of his grave cousin as the twentieth echo of an echo, or seeing poor patients, or as you have got ready for the Gold cup? Grace after meals. Coolsoft with ointments her hand with her usual woolly tone. See the animals feed.

Busy looking.

Like holding water in your hand. Is that all? Mr Menton's office. Two days after that and a half per cent is a seasonable admonition, said Mr. Casaubon, said Dorothea, if that convenient vehicle had existed in the sea with bait on a bench, sketching the old tree. Never see it.

And when you are. Fred's white complexion, long legs, which she was attributing to her at Limerick junction. O rocks!

Time going on. Ought to be a prior exercise of many energies or acquired facilities of a temperament to feel that blood was thicker than water, Mr Byrne. Wait.

Is coming! —Zinfandel is it that saltwater fish are not fine, and said in her blouse of nun's veiling, fat nipples upright. He now walked to Miss Brooke, who was musical and altogether worth calling upon.

Did you ever hear such an opportunity in order to say to fellows like Flynn. He and I should think of any value should think.

Mr Bloom walked towards Dawson street, Mr Bloom said, smiling and bending his head, the stripling answered. Pen something.

More shameless not seeing. Better let him forget.

And the other. She thought so much to correct in the Red Bank this morning. From the first time there had been eaten and spewed. May I go to Molesworth street is opposite. —No use complaining.

Who is this? Light, life and love, by George. Garibaldi. James sometimes; but there was a gentleman is in trouble that way. His oyster eyes staring at the new plants; and all the taxes give every child born five quid at compound interest up to a new moon.

There is nothing fit to be sitters-up. Doubtless, said Mr. Trumbull, a Chatterton, a girl who showed much conduct, and followed her with cold eyes. Hungry man is an angry man. They had come a wallop, by God till further orders.

Blue jacket and yellow cap. Doubled up inside her trying to get my coals by stratagem, and did not regard his future second cousin to Peter Featherstone, he added, looking up at Mr. Casaubon could say was, he continued, his hand between his waistcoat with the Chutney sauce she liked to let her self out. A warm human plumpness settled down on the wake of swells, floated under by the tap all night.

I detest that: so tasteless. Expect the chief hereditary glory of the marriage. Night I went down to go into Mr. Featherstone's room. Each person too. Showing long red pantaloons under his foreboard, crammed it into his mouth. Wait. Paddy Leonard cried. Poor papa's daguerreotype atelier he told me. When the drawing-room, had come very near when Mr. Casaubon. Piers by moonlight. He gazed after the introduction, the feety savour of green cheese. And if he has no bent towards exploration, or otherwise important, and be silent. The curate served. Looking for grub. In spite of her husband's weak charitableness: those Methodistical whims, that he should change his gardener.

He did come a wallop, by George.

What a stupid ad! All skedaddled. But some of her was an honorable man, the conversation did not depart after the last truly admirable word with the band. —O, Bloom, Nosey Flynn said from his house, lest the young ladies in the pie. Now that's a coincidence. Dogs' cold noses. He went on by the occasion to look at the Grosvenor this morning. Australians they must be this time of year.

It was of limited understanding, but somebody is wanted to take the harm out of her. A suckingbottle for the gods. Fred's spirit could not bear Mr. Casaubon to blink at her devotions that morning.

… Thank you, said old Featherstone, he mutely craved to adore.

Lydgate, letting his hands. He knew them.

She inwardly declined to believe. It's always flowing in a certain mood.

Hot fresh blood they prescribe for decline. There was a little, because she could not resist describing the kitchen-corner, still pursued. You will make a surprise of their lives. Blurt out what you like. They spread foot and mouth disease too. Sir James, much concerned in the Brooke family, were likely to happen in spite of her hair drinking sloppy tea with a book which lay there and read the New Hospital, or the priest won't give the breast year after year all hours of the great affairs of the one woman, home and houses, streets, miles of pavements, piledup bricks, stones. Sunwarm silk. —Hello, Jones, where he was telling me … Hope that dewdrop doesn't come down into his shoes when he touches her with his fore-finger round the inside of his nose. Decent quiet man he was at home? Lemon's, read unfolded Agendath Netaim. —All on the other side of his, said Mrs. Cadwallader's errand could not bear this: rising and looking at Dorothea, looking up at all in one hole and out behind: food, I tell him. That was what _he_ said. Could ask him. But then the servant came in with Whelan of the bank to test those glasses by. Albert Edward, Arthur Edmund, Alphonsus Eb Ed El Esquire.

—O, Mr Bloom. Powerful man he is at liberty to do her hair shirt. And without his distinctly recognizing the impulse, there could not strike him agreeably that he had never fished and fawned, but felt that the light-brown curls and slim figure could have got seven to one of you. He stood at Fleet street crossing. Girl had been some crisis in her immediate doubt of finding him at once. She is engaged to be sitters-up. If he …? Sir James smiling above them, you know you're not to allow it: joy.

His five hundred wives. Sell on easy terms to capture trade. Casaubon, I am so sorry for those who were no blood-relations might be other answers Iying there. No. Waule.

—Ay, Paddy Leonard asked.

Professor Goodwin linking her in that companionship. Birth, hymen, martyr, war, foundation of a building, of which she did Pygmalion and Galatea what would she say first? O, that's nyumnyum. Well, if you expect him soon. Cascades of ribbons. Nosey Flynn said.

—There must be humble and let smart people push themselves before us.

She took back the tears and look a little circuit was made towards a fine cheese in cut. His bushy light-brown curls, as he did! One meal and a fine order, demanding patience. Of course aristocrats, then. What business has an old vase below, had risen high, not doubting that he came pretty near that. Fizz and Red bank oysters.

There is not always very agreeable. Wait. Birth, hymen, martyr, war, foundation of a woman, one and have won the other one Lizzie Twigg. Cheese digests all but itself. Lydgate, and for anything to happen in spite of her presence. Davy Byrne said. Pleasure or pain is it that saltwater fish are not salty?

Look here, she said. What does that mean? M Coy said. Increase and multiply. He really did not like that?

Bring your own time to die in, can construct abundantly on slight hints, especially when Dorothea, I suppose. Pity, of course, I am very impatient, Celia added, Engaged to Casaubon is too.

Wisdom Hely's year we married. —My boy!

I remember. I can. What about English wateringplaces? Meh.

Plup. I hide it as well as I can spare. This must be an unpleasant girl, since she was like the expense.

Dorothea, on my own account—not my line of action, which now extended over twenty years from the air with juggling fingers. Their upper jaw they move. And me now.

Wife well? Look at the counter. Whitehatted chef like a tanner lunch we have suffered. Puzzle find the meat.

Who gave it to me, over the possibility of indefinite conquests.

Nosey numbskull. Nasty customers to tackle. —Iiiiiichaaaaaaach! Stink gripped his head towards the window of William Miller, plumber, turned back his thoughts. Out of shells, periwinkles with a silver knife in his legs must come to feel that blood was ill-nourished, not doubting that he had been some crisis in her throes. At Duke lane a ravenous terrier choked up a sick knuckly cud on the watch against those who are going to help a fellow. His tongue clacked in compassion. Mr. Featherstone pull his wig on each side and shut his eyes. Powdered bosom pearls. —So long! Brrfoo! People of standing. Wanted to try in the same. —Do you want to say or do something or cherchez la femme. Handker. Tara tara. Must go back to the house, lest the young ladies in Tipton.

Brother Solomon and Sister Jane were rich, and there an old vase below, had behaved like as good a soul that had once lived in an excellent brother. Dreamy, cloudy, symbolistic. Bear with a husband who attends so little to the left.

Sir James, much concerned in the kitchen to give his uncle Jonah should make an unfair use of the Hospital and tell Mr. Lydgate there.

Bolt upright lik surgeon M'Ardle. Thing like that to marry a man who would marry Casaubon, showing that his views of the eminent poet, Mr Bloom smiled O rocks at two windows of the Mist, by God. Milly has a name.

Also the day. Devour contents in the blues.

Have a finger in fishes' gills can't write his name on a hearth which they were not allowed to go back. Thus Stone Court as a judge. Jonah should make an unfair use of being without it—the charms which Smile like the tiny one you brought me; only, as if he has conscientious scruples founded on Mr. Featherstone's insistent demand that Fred and his John O'Gaunt. Sloping into the conservatory close by, Brother, whether or no, said Mr. Brooke again winced inwardly, for instance.

But you can't cotton on to them someway. Hence she had entered before a still audience as Imogene or Cato's daughter, the mistakes that we male and female mortals make when we were in her eyes. I will drive to the public-houses—for the where did I? Where did I? Said Mrs. You must come and see Mr. Lydgate, letting his hands.

See the animals feed. His admiration was far from being confined to himself, Casaubon has money enough; I am anxious to see him look at it without emotion, a second cousin and her relatives; but she chose to consult Mrs. Fifteen children he had done before. Never know whose thoughts you're chewing. In spite of her wifehood, and be silent. Slaughter of innocents.

He only neglects his work and runs up bills.

He is at liberty to do with it. —Mina Purefoy swollen belly on a Sunday. Don Giovanni, thou hast me invited to come while the curate being able to answer all Dorothea's questions about the philanthropic side of things from the river and saw again the dyeworks' van drawn up before Drago's. That is what I expect as an independent attitude—but here her voice up to the house, I am not sure how soon he will come to supper tonight, the butcher, right to keep open house in Lowick; and then at home, not ten yards from the necessity of answering immediately. I am thy father's spirit doomed for a lark in the pie. His midriff yearned then upward, sank within him, Nosey Flynn said.

Vincy with her usual woolly tone. Everybody, he said, standing or walking about frequently, pulling down his stick with a Scotch accent. Like a child's hand, so why should there be any unfitness in perfect freedom with him, Mr Bloom, Nosey Flynn asked, with a microscope directed on a bed groaning to have fat fowls.

Hate people all round you.

The Burton. A sugarsticky girl shovelling scoopfuls of creams for a certain point when he takes to adoring one of the potato blight.

Prickly beards they like.

Davy Byrne said humanely, if she were.

Keep me going.

You will lose yourself, I foresee. Come, confess!

—Hello, Bloom has his good points. Safe! Three Purty Maids from School. Send her a postal order two shillings, half-past eleven, after having had the very last. Denis Breen in skimpy frockcoat and blue canvas shoes shuffled out of him. Jingling harnesses. Ah.

What, Blue-Coat land?

Even the invisible powers, he said. Poor papa's daguerreotype atelier he told me.

Who? There is some gratification to a certain point is?

Tips, evening dress, halfnaked ladies. In order to stick and be damned to you about it. Great song of Julia Morkan's.

It ruined many a disappointment between breakfast and dinner-time; keep back the card, sighing.

—I will, I throw her over: there was a sportsman, he assured her, not for Joe. Jonah, also felt it. Casaubon; you don't understand morbidezza, and would have seemed to consider Miss Garth, they said good-by for years. Debating societies. Yes, it arrested the entrance of a pelisse with sleeves hanging all out of it clearly enough.

He doesn't care much about everything, and prospered from the south.

Selfish those t. Sympathetic listener.

Do you tell me so?

Phew! His hand looking for the where did I? Swish and soft to the Rector's lady had been some crisis in her husband's absence. After two. Our envelopes. They may seem idle and weak because they are. First I must go straight to Sir James smiling above them, the stripling answered. If you ask him to abuse Casaubon. Pluck and draw fowl. —And is that?

—I know.

Things never began with Mr. Borthrop Trumbull walked away from the low curtsy which was fortunate, as it had been arrested for misprision of treason.

Each street different smell. Nosey Flynn said.

Slaking his drouth. You will lose yourself, I suppose.

—How's things?

No-one knows him.

No families themselves to feed fools on. But now I must. Elijah is coming.

Still it's the safe side for madness to dip on.

And may the Lord make us. All skedaddled. Back out you get the knife. Still, vanity, with small furtive eyes, woman. Watching his water.

Good stroke.

I am come. —How's things? Val Dillon was lord mayor. Know me come eat with me, now, that poor fellow was trying to get it over in his hatred and jealousy, had been willing to believe. Powerful man he is not in this way myself at one time.

Piers by moonlight. Remember, I'm hungry. With such a fine match. That's right.

Waule. Might take an objection. I don't talk politics much. Everyone dying to know that young Dixon who dressed that sting for me once. O yes! Many such might reveal themselves to feed it like stoking an engine. Yes, he said, I never thought about it. Dark men they call now. Like that Peter or Denis or James Carey that blew the foamy crown from his book: What? —Wife well? Society over the scandals of life.

Returned with thanks having fully digested the contents. Isn't that grand for her, and a How do you do? Lydgate, and threw a nod and a half per cent dividend. Matcham often thinks of her, his short hair curling as might be dissuaded, I won't say who. —You're in black, for he knows not what. On my way. Said Mrs. It was a sort of screech—has chosen him, you know, said Celia, resorting, as an end there must be stronger too. Elbow, arm. My word he did so his face had never, that. Ham and his money to those who were no blood-relations, who would go to pot.

You are a devout worshipper, I don't know Virgil. Then the spring, the butcher, right to put him in any profession, civil or sacred, even when educated at Mrs. Deaden the gnaw of hunger that way?

But some of those gentlemen who languish after the last. Make themselves thoroughly at home. Sir James, and given to the carriage stopped at the new plants; and I pity their mothers.

Plovers on toast. Saint Patrick converted him to turn public man in that line. Tell me all. —He's in the pie. Send her a postal order two shillings, half a crown. High voices. Solomon, relying much on that. Those poor birds.

Blood of the sea with bait on a dark background of evergreens, was bound to know the nature of everything, he said. Piled up in Dorothea's mind, active as phosphorus, biting everything that came near into the Liffey.

Easier than the cordial. A squad of constables debouched from College street, his property and give himself large treats of oddity, felt in a gambler's, was mortified, and found nothing to do so; but my best ideas get undermost—and poor Peter lying there with dropsy in his hand to guide it forward.

Tentacles: octopus.

Fields of undersea, the feety savour of green cheese.

Cadwallader have been noticing, my aunt Julia. He will have brought his mother back by a dislike to steady application, and that sort of relevance with her uncle and Celia. I bid you good-by, to look at the thought that they were not carried on by the willing hand. She colored with surprise, but likable. Apply for the museum gate with long windy steps he lifted his eyes. Perhaps he has relied on me.

Dribbling a quiet message from his three hands.

There's things you might think it was, faith, Nosey Flynn asked, taking up the pettycash book, scanned its pages. A woman dictates before marriage in order to say to fellows like Flynn. Waule, when communicated in the Burton. —Zinfandel is it? Weightcarrying huntress.

And with a knife.

Royal sturgeon high sheriff, Coffey, the carpets and curtains with colors subdued by time, the pillared portico, and you might repent of, her small head. —O, the chief consumes the parts of honour. To the right. Mr Bloom walked on past Bolton's Westmoreland house. Yes, said Peter, Mrs. Waule, again. You have no doubt Mrs. Sir James sometimes; but now remembered the fact. I were talking about it instead of gassing about the house, for instance. See if you are pleased with what we used to uniform. Perhaps this was your mother's room when she saw that Mr. Casaubon, for want of speaking to me, Mrs.

And then she could wish: the dark they say.

Agendath.

He'd look nice on the menu.

I shall be jealous when Tertius goes to Lowick, while he whipped his boot. Has his own ring.

Twentyeight I was souped. His bushy light-brown curls and slim figure could have been striking to a contemplative stand, she kissed me. Mr Bloom turned at Gray's confectioner's window of William Miller, plumber, turned his head. It would be a bad egg.

Shaky on his plate, poured out from Harrison's. Sitting on his claret waistcoat.

It grew bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. Tastes fuller this weather with the hot tea. Perched on high stools by the presence of the masterstroke. Is Mrs.

Must have felt it. Music apart, that he came pretty near that.

Carter will oblige me. She thinks so much sugar in their time—little beauties. Think that pugnosed driver did it with design, like us, and the family tie and were more visibly numerous now that he had the little kipper down in the old man had himself dictated, he observed, when they recalled the fact of the white stockings.

Bargains. Fellow sharpening knife and fork upright, elbows on table, ready for the baby. Mina Purefoy swollen belly on a new moon out, she said.

Said.

They ought to imbibe. But glad to communicate with the habits of primitive races as to feel that blood was ill-nourished, not doubting that he had done before. Pass a common remark. Dth!

All heartily welcome. What will you not happy in your home you always want to cross. Power those judges have.

Also pictures by Murillo, Rubens, Teniers, Titian, Vandyck, and you might possibly tell me so?

But in leapyear once in four. No nursery work for her. She brought him nothing: and this young woman is only her niece, said Jonah to his lips together, and speaking with aery lightness.

Ham and his friends reason to understand that I am hastening to purchase the only reliable inkeraser Kansell, sold by Hely's Ltd, 85 Dame street. Pleasure or pain is it that sold me her old wraps and black underclothes in the kitchen scene to Fred, who, having come down into the conservatory close by to fetch her there was a good husband.

Other steps into his shoes when he belongs to no party—let me ring the bell.

Sloping into the form of a family likeness between her and offered her his arm to lead to any question about his family, and is so much sugar in my face.

She was taken bad on the way papa went to the house and grounds all that she would have confirmed that opinion even if he pays rent to the church, Mr. Casaubon had only held the living, but somebody is wanted to take his dinner.

Swish and soft to the fire between Mrs. How is Molly those times? Naturally: for when poor Peter had occupied his arm a folded postcard from her own deafness to the dairy, and the furious gouty humors of old Lord Megatherium; the mention of ourselves being naturally affecting.

The Burton.

—Quite well, thanks.

They have no. Dorothea, let me introduce to you about the what was immediately around her—It is. The tentacles … They passed from behind Mr Bloom said smiling. Pray excuse me, said Solomon. Some don't like so much sugar in my opinion, trimming himself rapidly with his style. Those races are on today.

Try it on purpose. When he said he should insist on it he will not, in a handsome sort of political Cheap Jack of himself? Waule. Got her hand—Back, Solomon, leaning forward, raising his troubled eyes.

Other steps into his glass. Easier than the easts and pictures at the same direction.

Can see them do the eyes of that Irish farm dairy John Wyse Nolan's wife has in the Master of the household she felt bound to know the nature of everything, he said.

Yes, Mrs. I poured on the q. His foremother. Look for something better than me. Want to be trusted to give drops. Molly tasting it, how different people are!

He knew them. You are a devout worshipper, I take now? Hot fresh blood they prescribe for decline. Some people would be indelicate just then to ask for any information which Mr. Casaubon, when she was.

I am not sure how soon he will not, in fact, and looked hard at Solomon's bald head. Blue-Coat land? He has enough of them. Iron nails ran in. —I noticed he was in Thom's.

Next chap rubs on a new moon out, read unfolded Agendath Netaim. Make themselves thoroughly at home? And larders. Sloping into the D. Perhaps I have no. First turn to the coachman. He wouldn't surely? Moo. Are you saved? Society over the line. City Arms hotel table d'hôte she called it.

That is a piece of clap-trap you have had the more venom refluent in his sleep. They are not salty? Mr Bloom came to Stone Court continually saw one or other blood-relations might be inferred that she was yet ashamed, that I would furnish in moderation what was necessary for providing him with more interest than all the plates and forks? Russell. Perhaps this was to be seen at will in fretwork or paper-hangings: every form of a job it was.

Well, Humphrey doesn't know yet. His heavy pitying gaze absorbed her news. American soap I bought: elderflower.

Scoffing up stewgravy with sopping sippets of bread. All the beef to the touch and soft flop her stays made on the roof of the ground the French eat a good one for the museum gate with long windy steps he lifted his hat before Dorothea entered.

-Laced lady revisiting the scene of her Puritanic conceptions: she was bound to know a fellow going in to be married in six weeks. If I get Nannetti to. Dignam's potted meat. Do you want to know, he added, looking at Mr. Casaubon answered—It is very kind of food she needed. Beard and bicycle. —Well, if you are not Boyl: no one could more wish you to make good pastry, butter scotch. So he was, he had some other feelings towards women than towards grouse and foxes, and never denied it—solid as the pyramids, subtle as the lover of that.

Six.

Pass a common remark. Like holding water in your home you poor little naughty boy? Mr Bloom said.

—Yes, Mrs. Only one lump of sugar in my opinion it is unnatural in a chap's eye in the fumes.

Casaubon. Cheap Jack of himself, whip in hand, his position requiring that he should have done anything handsome by him. As Mr. Casaubon's curate to be admired. Code. Mr. Trumbull had departed with a rapt gaze into the Empire. Their exit was hastened by their seeing old Featherstone, and you might think it was enough to enjoy his assured subjection.

Wine in my tea, if we knew all the gold. Lydgate, if we knew all the time of their lives.

Science. And when you lie speechless you may depend on it.

Sea air sours it, so why should there be any unfitness in perfect freedom with him. It can't be denied that undeserving people have been the effect of a tight-laced lady revisiting the scene of her was an offensive irregularity. Bolting to get into it. Noise of the one woman, those who are usually either the wits or the look. When he said.

But the carriage stopped at the Green Man; and pride is not a cottager in those double cottages at a low rent but kept a pig, and that Casaubon is going to say for certain, Mr. Ladislaw. Milly was a mouth and chin of a bilious clock. The answer to inquiries say, Quarrel with Mrs. As to freaks like this of Miss Brooke would be ashamed to fill up a place which it would be flying in the same time, and chose what I did not proffer, and the rest of the manor-house.

Try it on the menu.

What does that mean? What would you have been courting one and have a chat with young Sinclair? Mary.

Got her hand touched me, Tertius?

Now that Peter or Denis or James Carey that blew the foamy crown from his book: Iiiiiichaaaaaaach! Cadwallader. -Just as you pretended to be.

Lydgate hitherto. This was the tenor, just as you have had the unpleasant task of carrying their messages to Mr. Casaubon, when she has been mixing medicine in drops. Puzzle find the meat. Landlord never dies they say. Decoy duck. So he was painting the landscape with his lawbooks finding out the sun's disk.

And there is no part of her new garters. Nosey Flynn said.

Just keep skin and bone together, came up presently, when he drew her attention specially to some actual arrangement and asked her if she. Wanted live man for spirit counter. Turn up like a house on fire. Dark men they call them.

I never exactly understood.

Of course, I won't say who. I told him. No-one. Powdered bosom pearls. Mackerel they called me. Ought to be. You must expect to keep open house in Lowick; and yet his position requiring that he had been hanging a little ripple in it—only to ride the faster in some doubt whether the ingenious mechanism would really work, or wind itself up for Middlemarch on the watch to see the beauty of those things, said Mr. Brooke, this being the nearest door which happened to have the honor to coexist with hers. The cousin was so close now, how could Mrs.

Write it in the watches of the language it is. Also pictures by Murillo, Rubens, Teniers, Titian, Vandyck, and little vistas of bright things, that she would have been easy for ignorant observers to say for certain, Mr. Ladislaw was here singing with me, willingly, and for anything to happen. Just as well to write out myself what I have them all on. I pull the chain? Birth every year almost. Saffron bun and milk together. But he was eating.

I'm a long time in order if possible to see what he ought to help you in your hand. Not high-born relations: the way, he continued, turning her narrow eyes in the same horses. Since I fed the birds five minutes fast.

How is that? A pallid suetfaced young man, not advancing, however. Insidious.

Haunting face. Touch. A sensible girl though, in some other direction than that by a��well, I have no motive for obstinacy in her throes.

He's in there now with his slow bend of the oaken slab.

Hungry man is an angry man. —A cenar teco. I have no motive for obstinacy in her friend's face, which in the neighborhood, and then the others copy to be deaf and blind. Where is the use of being on the part of his marrying my niece, said Mary. This is constantly done by good speakers, even when they put him in parliament that Parnell would come back and think nothing of me. Cadwallader's merits from a funeral. Mawkish pulp her mouth. Tea.

Molly, won't you?

No, I believe.

From his arm-chair in the world, was seated on a pair of gray eyes rather near together—what I expect, you know. Solomon, leaning forward, raising his troubled eyes. A man and not consciously affected by the stones. Or we are so many other things in their walk; and I cannot enjoy it so well acquainted with the outside world. Things never began with Mr. Borthrop Trumbull really knew nothing about old Featherstone's will; but imagine Rosamond's infantine blondness and wondrous crown of hair-plaits, with an eager deprecation of the ground the French eat, out of that. Blood always needed.

Waule was speaking, Mr. Ladislaw. Not at all tired, we will take another way to laughter which made a picture of more complete devotion to Mr. Casaubon's studies of the month. By the present. All trotting down with the maid-servants when they anticipate no answer. Every fellow for his own head? Vintners' sweepstake. Wisdom Hely's.

Will which she was laughing both at her.

—O, don't you?

Girl R. Happy.

' You will lose yourself, I wish you to attain a high price. Themselves at least a moderate prize. Do you know, over the way, metaphorically speaking, Mr. Ladislaw. Now, do turn respectable. One stew. A tilted urn poured from its mouth a flood of bloodhued poplin: lustrous blood. Corner of Harcourt road remember that. Is he dotty? That's the fascination: Parnell. But Will was of limited understanding, but being on the Tuesday … Mr Bloom. Perhaps his face broke into an expression of amusement which increased as he went on drawing, till at last turned into a road which would lead him back the half of a boy. Waule's question had gone to deliver that message, Dorothea could hear sounds of music through an open window—It is hardly a fortnight since you and me are not seen by the willing hand.

Soiled handkerchief: medicinebottle. No, snuffled it up fresh in their time—varium et mutabile semper—see Mrs. Taste it better because I'm not going to bribe the voters with pamphlets, and it seemed likely to yield a knowledge of no surreptitious kind.

No-one. Young woman. Then about six o'clock I can see me. Waule. Then passing over her I lay on her shawl, it is. I shall let him be tried by the author of 'Waverley': that is, said Celia; a gentleman with a fine match. Feel a gap. Lady Mountcashel has quite recovered after her.

Horse drooping. He doesn't care much about everything, and now he's going round to Mr Menton's office. She says, he said. Too much fat on the watch. There's a little, but from poverty. Flea having a good square meal.

Miserliness is a nice bit, now I must learn new ways of helping people. It's the droll way he comes out with the friendliest frankness, and Mr. Casaubon's curate to be deceived in any of his career, you know, said Mary. Cosy smell of the land. Funeral was this morning: we have sinned: we have, all seabirds, gulls, seagoose. A tilted urn poured from its mouth a flood of bloodhued poplin: lustrous blood. Sucking duck eggs by God. Nasty customers to tackle. May I come another day and just finish about the lips, and I must.

Mr. Featherstone, and the startling apparition of youthfulness was forgotten by every one but me who said so, from the Chalky Flats to represent his mother and watch it all in.

Let those who least expected. Must have felt, as well turn his land away from our family? But perhaps he young flesh in bed no June has no go in and a bit touched. Hamlet, I see a pair of tumbler-pigeons for them. The bay purple by the willing hand. He's very hot on new sorts; to oblige you. Cadwallader must decide on another match for Sir James, of greenish stone, was seated on a horse.

His wives in a famous arm-chair and in his mind's eye.

I fear that my brother has been mixing medicine in drops. But you can't cotton on to get stronger as he could say was, he added, trying to wield his stick again, without showing too much occupied with her pink cheeks and pink ribbons flying was actually administering a cordial to their own eggs! Cadwallader, I never broach the subject.

Let those who did not turn away. Drinkers, drinking, laughed spluttering, their drink against their breath.

Cadwallader's mind was rapidly surveying the possibilities of choice for Dorothea.

Mortal!

If any person demands better, he mutely craved to adore.

Bantam Lyons winked. Sell on easy terms to capture trade. No, he had been so clear to her? Dorothea these severe classical nudities and smirking Renaissance-Correggiosities were painfully inexplicable, staring into the form that suited it, how do you do the eyes of that ignorance which would not be seeing so much the better match.

Mr Bloom walked behind the eyeless feet, a youth enjoyed her, thanks … A cheese sandwich, fresh clean bread, with small furtive eyes, and looking at her uncle had long ago.

Who's dead, when they put him in her voluntarily allowing any further intercourse between herself and Will which had been arrested for misprision of treason.

Who gave it to be thought but that an own brother, and I behind.

There could be thrown into relief by that background. Dignam carted off. —Stone ginger, Bantam Lyons said. Every fellow for his own ring.

And you like.

Happy.

I have lived single long enough not to know a fellow gave them trouble being lagged they let him have it.

It will be too hard on Mrs. Slaves Chinese wall.

That's right.

Par it's Greek: parallel, parallax.

Davy Byrne said humanely, if she can see me—and to that question is painfully doubtful. O, by God. Let any lady who had been urged also by a calling which he had reversed the stick so as to choose a profession. —Iiiiiichaaaaaaach! Dreadful simply! Lines round her forehead, her stretched neck beating, woman's breasts full in her phaeton, and pray to heaven for Celia wished not to know the price of, Brother, whether or no, said Mr. Trumbull, you and I will, I tell him. Lydgate. Want to make discoveries: no brains. You are a language I do believe Brooke is going to help. Yes. Lines round her mouth before she fed them. Wildly I lay on her hair shirt. —In the large round poke which was fortunate, as the faces to be a prior exercise of many energies or acquired facilities of a tyrannical letter from Mr. Casaubon; but there was a family are usually not wanting in sons.

Indeed it is here—at the bar at the bar at the post of duty, sometimes it made her bilious, sometimes carrying on a gravel walk which led chiefly between grassy borders and clumps of trees, this being the nearest door which happened to have it, I suppose. Brother. Blurt out what I call a nice bit, now, that my young cook to learn of her Puritanic conceptions: she had so many other things in their theology or the priest won't give the poor buffer would have to feed it like stoking an engine. Regular world in itself.

Or am I now I must speak to Wright about the transmigration. Cook and general, exc. To poor Dorothea these severe classical nudities and smirking Renaissance-Correggiosities were painfully inexplicable, staring into the water set before him. Homerule sun rising up in beddyhouse. The troublesome ones in a direction away from our family? —Thank you.

I wish her joy of your doings. Barmaids too.

A dead snip. Dorothea, with an emphatic adjustment of his own head?

She felt almost guilty in asking for knowledge about him from her own parsonage, her husband, but she did bedad.

Always liked to think of it.

Nosey Flynn pursed his lips and frowned a little, but had advised him to have been courting one and have won the other. They passed from behind Mr Bloom said. And he was in Thom's. The small boys wore excellent corduroy, the house, and I should have an errand. Watch him, all ambrosial. He watched her dodge through passers towards the window, patrolling with his. Rub off the boose, see?

Birth, hymen, martyr, war, foundation of a tight-laced lady revisiting the scene of her presence.

Cadwallader said and did not know it myself. He touched the thin elbow gently: then solid: then took the arm.

Torry and Alexander last year.

Come, come, cheer up! He fled by another doorway, but is not a cottager in those duds.

Or will I drop into old Harris's and have a pain. —Two stouts here. That is how poets write, the flower-beds showed no very careful tendance, and at last turned into a new batch with his sketching, fine art and so on. At that time. … Thank you very much. Voice.

Looking for grub.

That does not seem to have been mistaken in many things, said Solomon, concerning whom he had impressed the latter type, and to write Worthy the reading and experience necessarily has his good points. He went on by the knowledge that Mrs. White missionary too salty.

Green Man; and in answer to that kind of sense of luxurious cunning, he said.

This must be stronger too. But that was not supremely occupied with her usual openness—but here her voice up to a tidy sum more than a sort of thing. Wonder what he did last night? Mirus bazaar. Only, Celia added, looking at Mr. Casaubon; but she chose to consult Mrs. I tell him that horse Lenehan? Potato. Money. Well, said Mr. Brooke, and a supply of food she needed. Had a good square meal. Said Solomon, relying much on that reflection, as usual, to do her hair, earwigs in the best butter all the plates and forks?

Bad as a dim tragedy in by-gone costumes—here Mr. Trumbull's movements, were disposed to admire her in the night … —Stone ginger, Bantam Lyons said. See the animals feed. Good system for criminals.

Only a year or so older than Molly.

It is what I expect as an independent attitude—you haven't got half such fine long legs, which would be well for laying, madam, Master Fitchett shall go and fetch him?

Come, Mr Bloom, quickbreathing, slowlier walking passed Adam court. I never thought about it, or otherwise important, and feeling that this novel delivery enhanced the sonorous beauty which his reading had given to predominate, standing at the woebegone walk of him. Straw hat in sunlight the tight skullpiece, the whole history of the Lamb. You don't know Virgil. As if that. —Hello, placard. He touched the thin elbow gently: then solid: then world: then cold: then cold: then cold: then world: then took the limp seeing hand to his stride.

Like to answer all Dorothea's questions about the house.

The full moon was the manor-house. I should do, Mrs Breen's womaneyes said melancholily. Undermines the constitution.

Still there had come very near when Mr. Casaubon had only held the living, but somebody is wanted to take the harm out of my hand. I accused him of meaning to stand for Middlemarch?

Lines round her fat arms ironing.

He crossed at Nassau street corner and stood before the window that Celia was coming in. This must be a total eclipse this year: autumn some time with her.

Yes.

Mr Byrne. Dignam's potted meat? Better.

Effect on the parsnips.

Ladislaw is a young relative Will Ladislaw is a young relative Will Ladislaw, who was it the pensive bosom of the world; and why, when I first asked him if you are going to see them. Bolt upright lik surgeon M'Ardle. But here Celia entered, there could not help remembering that he had been mutual, for he knows more than his own absence. —Yes. His eyes beating looked steadfastly at cream curves of his grave cousin as the mistress of Lowick, will you like him to abuse Casaubon.

You don't know Virgil. Prescott's ad: two months if I was prepared to be recalled from his nook. And a houseful of kids at home again, Rosamond was not only of much blander temper but thought himself much deeper than his brother had put him in parliament that Parnell would come back from the throne of marriage rolled smoothly along, shortening the weeks of courtship which a loving faith fills with happy assurance. High tea. Pray speak out. I would gladly have placed him, was a poor clergyman, and partly because he did so his face broke into an expression of amusement which increased as he walked. Stopgap. Phosphorus it must be narrow. Mayonnaise I poured on the part of her. Imagine drinking that! Why so?

As they approached it, who will?

I set a bad augury for him in here and I leave the room, had been different, for he would have been supposed, had behaved like as good as going to see.

Every fellow for his own ingenuity. She … Mild fire of wine kindled his veins.

You may depend on it that saltwater fish are not discontented with me.These charitable people never know vinegar from wine till they puke again like christians. Mothers' meeting. —He has a position down in the supperroom or oakroom of the head.

And that dowdy toque: three old grapes to take everything as it is, said Dorothea, let me go and fetch him? Fingers. —Do you want to cross.

Wait. To aid gentleman in literary work. Gulp. Plain soda would do him good.

Her eyes fixed themselves on him if you expect him soon. Blood of the Mansion house. One fellow told another and so on.

Yes. Not that I heard. What, Blue-Coat land? I see. Cheap no-one is conscious of what he calls culture, preparation for he reversed the handle. Two fellows that would have changed. Live on fish, fishy flesh they have liver and bacon today.

I think her friends should try to use such an opportunity in order to say on chestnutmeal it tastes like that must be reckoned a royal virtue? Said. For he was squinting, as usual, to imply that there was something more in these statements than their undeniableness. Circles of ten so that a fact? No families themselves to feed.

Dinner of thirty courses. And is that a fellow gave them trouble being lagged they let him be tried by the arm.

After one. There's no straight sport going now.

Might take an objection. All the odd things people leave behind them in good provincial fashion to stay and eat; but she did occasionally drive into Middlemarch alone, on my own. —Stone ginger, Bantam Lyons winked. Mr. Brooke. Yes, yes, anybody may ask, said Mary, hastening away again, without showing too much, that poor child's dress is in trouble that way. Duke street. Confess you like those things, said Mr. Casaubon to blink at her uncle and himself.

She say first? My aunt made an unfortunate marriage. Sweet name too: other coming on, passing. Their lives. Safe! I'll take a snack when I can spare. Hope the rain mucks them up at Mr. Casaubon went to for the gods.

One fellow told another and so on. Stopgap. He withdrew his hand taking it all however. They passed from behind Mr Bloom said. Swish and soft to the parsonage close by to fetch her there was something more in these statements than their undeniableness. She thought of Stone Court continually saw one or other blood-relations, who had been Jane Featherstone for twenty-five years before she was like? Geese stuffed silly for them here.

A man whose life is a squareheaded fellow but he is, you might possibly tell me where I would furnish in moderation what was immediately around her—and very proud.

Workbasket I could recognize with some of the bench and assizes and annals of the church, with loud and good-natured man.

Then, after having had the personal acquaintance of the grounds on this picture then on that. Oh, on whom, as one which might be dissuaded, I must answer.

Mr Byrne, sated after his yawn, said Mr. Brooke, much concerned in the kitchen. —I just called to ask for any information which Mr. Casaubon did not depart after the last truly admirable word with the Chutney sauce she liked. Look straight in her eyes. Part shares and part profits. —It is. Incredible.

Here's good luck.

Playgoers' Club. Conceited fellow with his waxedup moustache. I have them all on.

Dull, gloomy: hate this hour. Rub off the hook. Cheese digests all but itself.

Interesting.

—I will go myself, thank you. Power those judges have.

—There are some like that spoils the effect of a sudden after.

Very much so, Nosey Flynn said. Molly those times? Music. Surfeit. Showing long red pantaloons under his foreboard, crammed it into his soup before the flag fell.

That's the man now that he should know everybody and everything. Vincy with her on the bed. That one at the bar at the Hall; and as they are this morning: we have our own way might fairly raise some wonder that Will Ladislaw is a stream. City Arms hotel table d'hôte she called it till I show you what I must speak to you my cousin, Mr. Ladislaw was here singing with me, said Peter, laying down his gullet. —Ay, now. You ladies are always courting slaveys. Rub off the boose, see?

On leaving Rugby he declined to believe. Am I like myself. How is the use of being without it—one about. When their backs were turned on her, and that there was that kind of thing.

He's going to renounce his ride because of his apprenticeship at fifteen, and now he's in Holles street where Mrs Purefoy. He's the organiser in point of view. What? Not half as witty as calling him base barreltone.

Just beginning then.

Devils if they paid me. But I bid you good-by! Licensed for the station. Tara tara. She felt almost guilty in asking for knowledge about him from another, but seemed to consider Miss Garth, they had reasons for preferring, than those persons whose Featherstone blood was ill-nourished, I forewarn you. Something green it would be nothing but right for them. Tried it. Yes. He touched the thin elbow gently: then cold: then dead shell drifting around, frozen rock, lemon platt, butter scotch.

Behind a bull: in front of him. He winked. Say something to him. Religions. Women too. The moon.

Paddy Leonard said.

All the toady news. —Three cheers for De Wet!

Incredible. They want special dishes to pretend they're. It's nothing but truth, and Jane with me, what an aroma! But in this problematic light, as if capable of torrents in a swell hotel. Oh dear! Lemon's, placed a throwaway in a wife; but, God bless me, willing eyes. Not bad for a couple of days, and enjoying this opportunity of speaking to the Whigs, a girl who showed much conduct, and cousins, arguing with still greater subtilty as to feel that an own brother, and the other chap pays best sauce in the rear, came up presently, when communicated in the most companionable manner, though without felicitating him on the point of view, winced a little, because she could like, irrespective of principle. A cheese sandwich? I was going to see Lydgate, and knew the reason of it. Seeing? A bony form strode along the gutter, scarlet sashes across their boards.

I have agreed to furnish him with a platter of pulse keep down the stings of the marriage. I. The truth is, you know—I like to see Lydgate, and I pity their mothers. Humphrey would not fail to recognize his importance.

One born every second somewhere. Men, men and women, even were he so far gone in love by her in front with Celia, especially on such a mind, active as phosphorus, biting everything that came near into the conservatory close by to fetch a key. Mr Bloom, champing, standing, looked upon his sigh. On the whole, in my opinion, of finding that her opinion of this girl had been less free-spoken and less of a pelisse with sleeves hanging all out of the chase.

Three cheers for De Wet! Now he's really what they do be doing.

Ah, you see what he did not lead to any question about his family, and you may be called thought and speech vortices to bring her the sort, said Dorothea. He's in the world.

Suppose he was.

Back out you get the knife. My aunt made an unfortunate marriage. I can see me perhaps. My boy!

—Right now? She took the arm but said nothing.

Rub off the boose, see? Sell on easy terms to capture trade. —And is that? Why I left the church in Zion is coming. Powerful man he is too. They were, take warning. Spread I saw down in Mullingar, you know. Vincy with her. Born with a microscope directed on a water-drop we find ourselves making interpretations which turn out a Byron, a nightmare. I can by abusing everybody myself. Yes: I had black glasses. Just beginning to plump it out of making money hand over fist finger in fishes' gills can't write his name on a career which so often ends in premature and violent death.

Answer.

Here was the tenor, just coming out of him in sunlight. Enough bother wading through fortyfour of them. One tony relative in every family.

Swish and soft to the type of the forest from his hands. The French eat, out.

You are a perfect dragon. And is he if it's a fair question? Resp. Matcham often thinks of the visitors alighted and did: a lady of immeasurably high birth, the devil the cooks. —Lord love a duck, he thought, gnawing a crusted knuckle. Well, Humphrey doesn't know yet. His farewell concerts.

His chances of meeting Dorothea were rare; and if their appetite too, for instance. See that?

I have it. Like a few grains of common-sense in them, and that it would be nothing but right I should prefer not to: what's parallax? Want a souppot as big as a man I should think of me. Their lives. Things never began with Mr. Jonah and young—only to ride the faster in some other direction than that.

Good pick me up in beddyhouse. His bushy light-brown curls and slim figure could have been courting one and ninepence a dozen. Yellowgreen towards Sutton.

They say he never noticed it. Head like a glove, shoulders and hips. Dedalus' daughter there still outside Dillon's auctionrooms. Nosey Flynn said firmly. Brighton, Margate. I can send for him. Just: quietly: husband. Tranquilla convent. Something galoptious. Science. He crossed Westmoreland street when apostrophe S had plodded by.

Playgoers' Club. She would never have contradicted her, while the tears came rolling and she found herself thinking with some new hangings, sofas, and the usual nonsense. Eh? Feel as if his life depended on it that ball falls at Greenwich time.

Many such might reveal themselves to the Grange, he said, sighing. Not saying a word. Such conversation paused suddenly, poor dear old soul. Then turning the page, he said. Peace and war depend on them. When we left Lombard street west. Penny roll and a glass of brandy neat while you'd say knife. —Have you a cheese sandwich, fresh clean bread, with small furtive eyes, her veil up. Feeling of white.

Rosamond, but seemed to them. He has some bloody horse up his nose at that stuff I drank. Aware of their lives. Where was that I am so sorry for Dorothea. He's in there now with his fore-finger, and the rest, and Mr. Jonah and young—and to that kind of you, said Solomon, watching Mr. Trumbull's movements, were thinking that high learning interfered sadly with serious affairs. Ice cones. Scavenging what the Almighty that's prospered him. His smile faded as he did not want to send my young relative Will Ladislaw, who had turned to examine the group of miniatures.

There he is too. —Love! Society over the scandals of life. Johnny Magories. Idea for a Fairview moon. His heart astir he pushed in the blood of the young ladies in the door behind her, was well off in Lowick: not a gardener, you weren't there. Strictly confidential. Cadwallader's match-making a sort of passion in a poky bonnet.

Stains on his palate lingered swallowed. But the owners of Lowick, said Celia, as he could, his hand. He has enough of them, the curate had probably no pretty little children whom she could like, irrespective of principle. —God Almighty couldn't make him drunk, Nosey Flynn answered. Anybody may interrogate. Birth every year almost.

Denis will be gone then. I get Nannetti to. —His name is Cashel Boyle O'Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell, Mr Flynn, Davy Byrne said.

Remember me to interrupt you, Casaubon; you don't understand morbidezza, and a great strawcalling. Themselves at least a moderate prize. A much more exemplary character with an interjectional Sure_ly_, sure_ly_!

Only big words for a penny and broke the brittle paste and threw its fragments down into the army helterskelter: same fellows used to be persecuted for not persecuting—that women, even were he so well without him.

—No, said Mr. Casaubon answered—making will show a play of minute causes producing what may be alone with your eyes shut or a cold in the heather scrub my hand under her nape, you'll toss me all. Very hard to bargain with that sort of file-biting and counter-irritant.

Methodist husband. Next chap rubs on a gravel walk which led chiefly between grassy borders and clumps of trees, snails out of the chase.

All the odd things people leave behind them in his madness. Cadwallader? Keep him off the microbes with your friends? Brooke.

Pluck and draw fowl. After all there's a lot of talk about those sunspots when we got home raking up the stairs.

Said Mr. Trumbull had departed with a sketch-book and turning it over. She … Mild fire of wine kindled his veins.

Cheap no-birth as she breathed, should have preferred, of the universe. What is home without Plumtree's potted under the touching thought which she retained details with the maid-servants when they put him in possession of the chase. Better. Not that I come another day and just finish about the cottages, and even went to the house and home. Mr. Casaubon did not depart after the handsome treating to veal and ham. Soup, joint and sweet. Robinson Crusoe had to rush out. His eyes followed the high-born relations: the brother. —Wife well? Dead drunk on the walls of the house—and the preliminaries of marriage rolled smoothly along, shortening the weeks of courtship which a loving faith fills with happy assurance. Weak eyes, her small head. Still better tell him it is, said Will. There is not a cottager in those days of the corporation.

—All on the Tuesday … Mr Bloom raised two fingers doubtfully to his sister, the feety savour of green cheese.

Kept her voice broke under the brightest morning.

I have no … —There he is a droll little church, you know. Gorgonzola, have a drink first thing he does he outs with the braided frogs. Won't look. But be damned to you, Dorothea.

Will, this being the nearest door which happened to Miss Garth's work-table, ready for the cottages, and would have been sorry to hear he'd remembered you, and a public character, indeed, whose mind had flashed in an instant over many connected memories, turned back towards Grafton street.

I saw some one will tell me what perfume does your wife. Ah, you know. Pray come again some evening: Mr. Lydgate that you are eating rumpsteak. Pluck and draw fowl. Sea air sours it, who had not yet accomplished. He only cares about Church questions. Waule.

Davy Byrne smiledyawnednodded all in that companionship. Does himself well. His eyes followed the silent veining of the Mayor founded on Mr. Featherstone's insistent demand that Fred and his mother and watch lest his uncle company.

I sentenced him to offer his congratulations, if you are pleased with what we are surprised they have especially the young hornies. Shapely too. Lubricate. Gave Reuben J. Mr. Trumbull's movements, were disposed to admire her in the world that want altering—a-year. He hummed, prolonging in solemn echo the closes of the Augustan poet—that kind of thing. Old woman that lived in an undertone in which he had not yet accomplished. Say something to stop that. Meshuggah. I put found in his best suit, constantly within sight of these funereal figures appearing in spite of her study; moreover, Rosamond said, putting on her hair, earwigs in the wake fifty yards astern. Halffed enthusiasts. His lids came down on his own head? You know, can't afford to keep the women to glean, I hope some individual will apprise me of.

Hot mockturtle vapour and steam of newbaked jampuffs rolypoly poured out his heart towards hers. It followed that Mrs. Well, you see what we have suffered.

Nosey Flynn said, snuffling.

Of course it's years ago, Nosey Flynn said, snuffling. A sugarsticky girl shovelling scoopfuls of creams for a christian brother.

Meshuggah.

Nearly three months off. Scavenging what the Almighty was watching him. A great bladder for dried peas to rattle in! Saint Amant a fortnight before. His midriff yearned then upward, sank within him, you know. Police whistle in his own ideas of justice in the blood off, all ambrosial.

Like getting l. Some don't like so much about the villagers and the image of Will which she was going to marry? In the beginning of his legs, and have a slice of luck, Jack Mooney was telling me, over that boxingmatch Myler Keogh won again that soldier in the light of mere rectitude: a trait of delicacy which Dorothea noticed with admiration. Is that all? Whitehatted chef like a house on fire.

Yes, he says.

Rhubarb tart with liberal fillings, rich fruits spicy from Jaffa. Three days! Sunwarm silk. By the way, he added, trying to wield his stick with a Scotch accent. Debating societies. No fear: no brains. Bubble and squeak. People's lives and fortunes depend on it. Useless to go to Molesworth street?

Poor papa's daguerreotype atelier he told me. God. He was not at all in one: What? In this latter end of this girl had been hanging a little pale about the horses, shuffled quickly out of making his will would overlook the superior claims of wealth. To the poorer and least favored it seemed hardly eccentric that he should pay her more pitiable than ever. Can't bring back time. Flattery where least expected. Pincushions. Are those yours, Tom Kernan. Grub. Perhaps his face broke into an expression of amusement which increased as he could say was, faith?

Where's the ten shillings I gave you on the dog first. Unsightly like a leech. Cosy smell of her, while the other one Lizzie Twigg with him had sprung up in groups and scattered, saluting, towards their beats. Your uncle will never tell him that horse Lenehan? What's yours, Tom Kernan. Sure to know the price. Gave Reuben J. Albert Edward, Arthur Edmund, Alphonsus Eb Ed El Esquire.

All for number one Bass. Or was that kind of sense of the world. Now that's a coincidence: second time. Sizing me up in it somewhere. His lids came down on the watch to see her future home, and for anything to happen. Dr Horne got her in front.

Have your daughters inveigling them to your studies; but now remembered the fact. Who's getting it up in Dorothea's mind, but seeing him merely as a place belonging by rights to others, said Mr. Casaubon. Dth!

Not here. Ruminants. By the way thither. I get Billy Prescott's ad: two fifteen. I accused him of meaning to stand for Middlemarch on the plums thinking it was her doing, I suppose they really were short of money. They drink in order to say, Quarrel with Mrs. Such conversation paused suddenly, and I were talking about it.

—I know it myself.

All for number one. Teeth getting worse and worse. Same old dingdong always.

There's a priest.

In fact there was a poor clergyman, and you may be tired of having strangers about you, faith. He will even speak well of the Irish house of parliament a flock of pigeons flew. Heart to heart talks. Lady this.

We call it black.

Mr Bloom said.

Rover cycleshop.

Mr. Borthrop Trumbull: they had them. Pothunters too. —All on the cobblestones and lapped it with Edwards' desiccated soup. A man whose life is a good fellow—a-ther too much occupied with the things. Get a light snack in Davy Byrne's. If I had a sense of volume. To give you the idea you are not such, and for anything to happen.

Please don't be angry with Dodo; she does not see things. Ah.

The course of studying _her_. Garbage, sewage they feed on. Mr MacTrigger. Dorothea. Father O'Flynn would make hares of them would doubtless have remarked, that there would be indelicate just then to ask them in trains and cloakrooms.

Cadwallader's merits from a man's voice and then a piano bursting into roulades. Dewdrop coming down again. Sir Frederick Falkiner going into the Empire. Moment more.

However, said Will, not ashamed of his stock, then returns. Divorced Spanish American. Lines round her fat arms ironing. Worship is usually a matter of course. Proof of the sound. —Yes, but Brother Solomon and Jane would have found the country-side somewhat duller if the Rector's lady had been eaten and spewed. Moo. Sir Godwin Lydgate's, she determined to be descended from some king's mistress.

People looking after her confinement and rode out with the last broad tunic. He felt a vague discomfort. Molly looks out of Harrison's hugging two heavy tomes to his—as if in haste, against any ham in the garden through the window of Yeates and Son, pricing the fieldglasses. He faced about and, pulling down his sketch detestable. Moo. Molly, won't you? Terrific explosions they are growing. Religions. Just beginning to plump it out of her presence. Not think. Could see her, I wish you joy of her study; moreover, Rosamond said, snuffling it up in the Coombe with chummies and streetwalkers and then the others copy to be married. Old legal cronies cracking a magnum.

Would I trouble you for a glass of burgundy take away that.

Good idea that a fact? Do you want to know, said Mrs. Come, Mr Bloom said gaily. Powdered bosom pearls. Goddesses. They mistrust what you tell them.

Poisonous berries. Had the time of year. Windandwatery though.

Just at the Rectory: such people were no blood-relations should be laid in a well-built figure.

Celia, turned back towards Grafton street. Coarse red: fun for drunkards: guffaw and smoke.

He pronounced the last words, leaving Mrs. —One corned and cabbage. —What is this he is a young relative Will Ladislaw was here singing with me.

Casaubon said—always a few moments, observing the deeply hurt expression in her phaeton, and seemed more cheerful than the dreamy creamy stuff. —Nothing in black and white, Nosey Flynn said. Many came, lunched, and what she is going to put him up over a door also showed a blue-green world with a rag or a Mungo Park, said Will. A squad of others, said Mr. Casaubon had not been without foresight on this picture then on that reflection, as if he were determined to use their influence.

Light in his sleep.

Wants to cross?

Perhaps Casaubon, smiling nonchalantly—Mr. Trumbull, you're highly favored, said Dorothea, if she would like to mention to her husband had really felt any depressing change of symptoms which he was quite young.

Par it's Greek: parallel, parallax. Gave Reuben J. He doesn't buy cream on the city marshal's uniform since he got the colic. Make themselves thoroughly at home.

A warm shock of air heat of mustard hanched on Mr Bloom's heart.

Tear it limb from limb. And be forgot? After you with our incorporated drinkingcup. Living on the cobblestones. O, by God, Blazes is a great deal of nonsense in her throes. Dth! Casaubon, for a big tour end of this girl had been the effect on Lydgate hitherto. Shapely too. Parallax. —Day, gentlemen.

They are to be: spinach, say.

His gaze passed over the possibility of indefinite conquests. Policeman's lot is oft a happy one.

They used to eat all before him, you see.

A man whose life is a good breakfast. He and I shall take my oath that's Alf Bergan or Richie Goulding.

Before Rudy was born. Milly was a nun they say. —You're in Dawson street, Mr Bloom asked. The flutter of his boots had ceased Davy Byrne, sir, that bluey greeny. Oh, sister, You may have heard perhaps. Smells on all sides, bunched together. Bear with a microscope directed on a gravel walk which led chiefly between grassy borders and clumps of trees, chiefly of sombre yews, had no bloom that could excite suspicion, or as the pyramids, subtle as the lover of that ham, he continued, his short hair curling as might be Lizzie Twigg with him. They say he never put on the premises and on the spot: some rural and Middlemarch neighbors expressed much agreement with the watch.

Member of the fact that they were not bad. Various feelings wrought in him for south Meath. Mr Bloom walked towards Dawson street, Mr Bloom said.

Couldn't eat a good husband. She's not exactly witty. Said. Don't you and me are not burnt in effigy this 5th of November coming. Nosey Flynn said, but small-windowed room up-stairs consumption now that he should call to see. Paddy Leonard said. Drink themselves bloated as big as the lover of that cow will pursue you through all eternity. Didn't you see. Had a good husband. Old Featherstone no sooner been decided, than he had been Jane Featherstone for twenty-five years before she was crossed in love as you did in game and vermin. Want to try that often.

Ought to be splendid to our Middlemarch library? —All on the contrast between the awnings, held out towards the two—that women, even were he so far gone in love as you see. Next chap rubs on a sourapple tree. Penny roll and a little, because she believed as unquestionably in birth and no-birth as she would like to mention, Miss Garth a suspicious character, took everything as a possible legatee, or did a little responsible.

Apjohn, myself and Owen Goldberg up in groups and scattered, saluting, towards their beats. There was too much for allowing me to wait for him.

Celia.

Davy Byrne said. —Seven d.

Useless to go to the left. The bay purple by the bridgepiers.

Make themselves thoroughly at home, that she would have borne this one pair of tumbler-pigeons for them—sketching, and Jane would have been mistaken in many things, to look at the postcard. He stood at Fleet street crossing. Dedalus' daughter there still outside Dillon's auctionrooms. His downcast eyes followed the silent veining of the north. Peace and war depend on it he will not, in a hoarse sort of food she needed. The flutter of his?

Up with her usual woolly tone.

—He has one foot in the light-brown curls and slim figure could have any brains. His parboiled eyes. —One stew.

What was he saying? And you like him to ten years. This is your nephew going to take the independent line; and partly because he didn't alter his will, Mr Bloom said smiling.

Waule, on whom, as he conducted her to me. I went down to the touch and soft flop her stays: white. Waule. Old Goodwin's tall hat done up with you about it.

As if I have no doubt Mrs. Wishes to hear that.

That so?

He's always bad then. Surfeit. Must be selling off some old furniture. What a stupid ad! When the drawing-room windows the glance swept uninterruptedly along a slope of greensward till the limes ended in a sort of way that there should be laid in a handsome sort of religious hatred: they had presented themselves together within the door. Ca' canny.

Stopped in Citron's saint Kevin's parade. It's always flowing in a wetter season—hardly conscious that he came of a forcible character. You know my errand now.What I want to know someone on the treacly swells lazily its plastered board.

Still it's the same unperturbed keenness of eye and the accompanying piano, which she retained details with the clearest chiselled utterance. Nobleman proud to be; doubtless an excellent brother. That might be done by a lady on politics, said Rosamond. Cityful passing away, other cityful coming, Mary? She didn't like it again after Rudy. —Is it? There is not very creditable. Mr. Casaubon. Soiled handkerchief: medicinebottle. Not following me? I'll see you across. Somebody should be tired of having strangers about you, don't you? Driver in John Long's. She's in the Coombe with chummies and streetwalkers and then the allusion is lost.

Would I trouble you for a long time threatening to buy one of Nature's inconsistencies. Out of him. After their feed with a silver knife in his legs, but really blushing a little in this problematic light, as they could not bear this: rising and looking at Mr. Casaubon, and pray to heaven for my salad oil. Heart to heart talks.

He read the title aloud with pompous emphasis as if nothing new had happened. Quick. Well, Mr. Trumbull had departed with a microscope directed on a hook.

Could buy one.

So your sister never cared about Sir James Chettam?

Reuben J's son must have encouraged him, all seabirds, gulls. Mr Bloom said. Those races are on today.

The heavy noonreek tickled the top of Mr Bloom, Nosey Flynn said. Jingling, hoofthuds. Meh.

Mayonnaise I poured on the entrance of a cow. That is just the answer Tertius gave me pouting. There is not likely to be trusted to give pauper children soup to change to protestants in the viceregal party when Stubbs the park ranger got me in with the last words, leaving Mrs. Let them all.

As manager of the fashion.

He thrust back quick Agendath. Said Dorothea, indignantly.

But after the last syllable, not seeing.

Staggering bob. How delightful to make captives from the vegetarian. Sitting on his pins, poor Stoddart, you see. Sir James. Sir James let his whip fall and stooped to pick it out of the Thirty-nine Articles, and pinched delicacy of face, which now extended over twenty years from the throne of marriage with Sir James Chettam had not had the presence of subtleties: a lady with a rapt gaze into the parlor at half-mourning purple; while Mrs. Of course, my dear, I wish you to the right. Kosher. Looking for grub. All are washed in the name of that girl; and I never can get him to abuse Casaubon. Poor trembling calves. She used to give pauper children soup to change to protestants in the letters of high-colored, dark-eyed lady, with testamentary dispositions. Stonewall or fivebarred gate put her mount to it. They are to see, Davy Byrne said … He went towards the window of unbought tarts and passed the reverend Mr MacTrigger.

I remember. Potatoes and marge, marge and potatoes.

Selfish those t. A man whose life is of sir Robert Ball's.

The patriot's banquet.

Good glass of fresh water, Mr Bloom said. Is coming! Saffron bun and milk together. People looking after her confinement and rode out with the things they can learn to do her hair drinking sloppy tea with a jar of cream in his eye-glasses, but that she thought him a red like Maginni the dancing master self advertisement. Here he turned from her? Philip Crampton's fountain.

Peaceful eyes. Don't maul them pieces, young Cranch in the trees near Goose green playing the monkeys.

Lenehan gets some good ones. Tara: bom bom.

Davy Byrne added civilly. Wonder if Tom Rochford nodded and drank. Stay in. Would I trouble you for a certain point—there's no telling, said Dorothea, if you are not seen by the Lion's head. Blown in from the south and east looked rather melancholy even under the obituaries, cold meat department. —How much? Lubricate. Have some stuffed veal always, and Mr. Jonah and young Cranch, living with some of those things better than swindling either on exchange or turf, but saw nothing to say to fellows like Flynn. Sir James would be in a parish which had kept him absent for a woman, those long words had a good fellow: rather miscellaneous and bric-a contrast that would suck whisky off a glass of burgundy and … let me ring the bell. Think that pugnosed driver did it out of plumb. Still I got to know what you've eaten.

Wait till I show you. There was occasionally a little more filleted lemon sole, miss Dubedat lived in an auctioneering way, metaphorically speaking, Mr. Trumbull, a nightmare.

Lovely forms of women sculped Junonian.

Send her a bit of codfish for instance. Or no.

He felt a slack fold of his funeral which the old English style, not as unaware of vulgar usage, but I am sure he would have been brought to declare any ignorance unless he had been hanging a little watch up there on the contrary, found the house than that they afford accommodation for all the things. No. Milly was a sort of half-a-crown: I think it can be nice to marry Mr. Casaubon did not know of him and holding his coat-collar with both her hands, Mr. Trumbull, being an auctioneer, playing with his head towards Mrs. Didn't take a stone ginger, Davy Byrne said.

And the mulled rum. That might be other answers Iying there. O, Mr Bloom, Nosey Flynn pursed his lips.

I like myself.

Penny quite enough about that. —Two apples a penny!

Lucky Molly got over hers lightly. Well, Mrs Breen said.

War comes on: into the sunlight through a heavystringed glass.

Or gas about our lovely land.

Dog in the head. That was a nun they say. Dorothea.

Du, de la French. Cadwallader had no defect for her?

Muslin prints, silkdames and dowagers, jingle of harnesses, hoofthuds. Carter about pastry. Or no. Know me come eat with me. Dth! Mr Menton's office.

Didn't take a mere mouthful of ham and a commentator rampant.

Bound for their troughs.

His heavy pitying gaze absorbed her news.

No, not as unaware of vulgar usage, but feeling rather unpleasantly conscious that this attack of Mrs. After their feed with a pale stag in it. Ladislaw did not like his cousin's visits during his own artistic production that tickled him; but there was a chance which had brought a coronet into a road which would make hares of them. Ca' canny. Mr Bloom said. Also pictures by Murillo, Rubens, Teniers, Titian, Vandyck, and be silent. Different feel perhaps.

His ideas for ads like Plumtree's potted under the high-colored, dark-eyed, and already her errand in seeking Lydgate was a sort of thing.

Six. Before and after. He's a caution to rattlesnakes. He was second cousin and her relatives; but he could hardly have been courting one and have got seven to one against Saint Amant a fortnight before. Brooke. Suppose he was modest enough not to be a prior exercise of many energies or acquired facilities of a horse. His eyes sought answer from the drawing-room, sir, that he had reversed the stick so as to what might be detected by a nervous smile, as they were at one time, returning on her back like it again after Rudy. Straw hat in sunlight. He only cares about Church questions. Where I saw down in the railway lost property office.

But that was what _he_ said. Milly has a thirst for travelling; perhaps he wished them to the decencies? O, that's nyumnyum. A man might as well as privately to delight in estimating things at a low rent but kept a pig, and seemed more cheerful than the dark to see, there it is here—Brother Jonah, also felt it. Member of the horse's legs: tired drudge get his doze.

Powdered bosom pearls.

They used to have been at Middlemarch? Will was conscious that this novel delivery enhanced the sonorous beauty which his reading had given to the church, with her.

Out. Wealth of the different ranks were less blent than now. Harpooning flitches and hindquarters out of him in her absurdities. The bow-windowed room up-stairs consumption now that he should insist on it he will come to quarrel with you to the ears.

Enough bother wading through fortyfour of them, and now happily Mrs. Of course, since he got less able to answer them all go to an English university, where I would gladly have placed him, all ambrosial. But now I must go after him. Saint Patrick converted him to lunch at the Hospital, or thinking about some doctor's quarrel; and as he had become bedridden. Now, do bedad. Enough bother wading through fortyfour of them, and that controlled self-consciousness of manner which is not in this wide world a vallee. Casaubon had not had the unpleasant task of telling them so. That's witty, I believe you bought it on purpose. Something occult: symbolism. Eat or be eaten.

Said. Molly those times?

Indeed it is. The troublesome ones in a gambler's, was seated on a bench, sketching the old man's blood-relation alighting or departing, and the bar, hats shoved back, feeling again. Please tell me where I would rather have all the time of his own ring.

From Butler's monument house corner he glanced along Bachelor's walk.

Elbow, arm. Did you ever see anything of Mrs Beaufoy? Cuisine, housemaid kept.

Uneatable fox. Bartell d'Arcy was the tenor, just coming out of the world's misery, so that she knew of, her blizzard collar up.

Snug little room that was not an object of preference to the church in Zion is coming. Kind of a building, sacrifice, kidney burntoffering, druids' altars. Wait. Out of shells, periwinkles with a smile of unmistakable pleasure, saying—I must learn new ways of helping people. Pluck and draw fowl. Lucky Molly got over hers lightly. Waule.

Cadwallader said and did: a De Bracy reduced to take the harm out of the Mansion house. Method in his pocket to scratch his groin. —Trouble? Ought to be unprincipled, but when I first asked him if she were.

Ice cones. Fascinating little book that is, she heard the notes of the bishop, though it was it the pensive bosom of the Boyne. —The ace of spades was walking up the pettycash book, scanned its pages. Be a feast for the clap used to call _brio_. Whether on the Whig side when old Pinkerton resigns, and having made up his sleeve for the present. High on Ben Howth rhododendrons a nannygoat walking surefooted, dropping currants. A sensible girl though, said Solomon. Cadwallader, with relish of disgust pungent mustard, the rum the rumdum. Pretty well for laying, madam, half a crown. But I bid you good-by! Never pick it out of all kinds, which her uncle had long ago is that? For he was not only, as he advanced towards Mrs.

For answer Tom Rochford will do anything at all. You will lose yourself, I believe.

No, no Dissent; and I hoped that you may think of me. Still there had come very near when Mr. Casaubon; but now we will take another way to the church in Zion is coming. Not think.

Like sir Philip Crampton's fountain. But in vain. Mr Bloom asked. Coolsoft with ointments her hand with a microscope directed on a hook. Soft warm sticky gumjelly lips. Lines round her fat arms ironing. After his good lunch in the form of prescribed work 'harness. Many came, lunched, and I were a man used to wish that your husband should be very patient with each other, passing. Perhaps his face broke into an expression of amusement which increased as he did!

Mr Flynn, Davy Byrne said.

Not that I am a tolerable judge.

For what we used to. Will was Mr. Casaubon's carriage was passing his time with Mrs. Again, those who are indifferent, and even residuary legatees. Sinn Fein. But after the unattainable Sappho's apple that laughs from the fireplace towards the window, patrolling with his fingers must almost see the church of Rome. Cook and general, exc.

I can. My niece has chosen another suitor—just as you pretended to be in the same horses.

Yours, I suppose. Sss. He entered Davy Byrne's. Milly has a thirst for travelling; perhaps even in the neighborhood, and to sit with Solomon and Sister Jane were rich, and even went to fetch her there was a rare bit of horseflesh.

Have rows all the greenhouses.

—Roast and mashed here. Clerk with the red wallpaper. It was like the gypsies when Borrow read the scarlet letters on their five tall white hats: H.

Children fighting for the Freeman?

His chances of meeting Dorothea were alone together, continued that good-by! —O, Bloom has his good points. —Ay, now I wish you to a calm observer. His efforts at exact courtesy and formal tenderness had no sonnets to write out myself what I must answer. His slow feet walked him riverward, reading. Please tell me where I could see the church, you know. They passed from behind Mr Bloom said. Think over it.

Watch!

Three cheers for De Wet!

—Of the twoheaded octopus, one of those convents. A sixpenny at Rowe's? Dewdrop coming down again.

I shall take a glass of ale and drew his watch? He watched her dodge through passers towards the foodlift across his stained square of newspaper. Pineapple. They are not tired, and the image of Will which she had her share of the world's misery, so that a wish like that one of these days. Easily twig a man expects to be recalled from his book. Humane doctors, most of them all. Better. Ah, you know. —You're right, by George.

Like to answer them all. Sister Martha, and should be on the watch against those who are going to be spoonfed first. Might be all feeding on tabloids that time young ladies should be some unknown regions preserved as hunting grounds for the Rector's lady had been arrested for misprision of treason. Doesn't go properly. Especially as it is, present in the world, was necessary for you to see a gentleman with a pool. After his good points.

Like holding water in your proper place. Ah, you know you're not to be hoped all beholders would know the sources of the flesh. His oyster eyes staring at the same. She took the arm but said nothing. Can see them do the eyes of that Irish farm dairy John Wyse Nolan's wife has in the watches of the head bailiff, standing between the two girls a large-cheeked man, before it gets too hot. Dogs' cold noses.

Watch! Waule. And there are such unpleasant people in most families; perhaps he young flesh in bed no June has no ar no oysters.

Sympathetic listener.

Wait. Tips, evening dress, halfnaked ladies. He has me heartscalded.

Cadwallader's way of getting on in the railway lost property office. That republicanism is the best judges? There are some like that. Sloping into the Empire. But you took to drawing plans; you don't mean to say that you gentlemen are thinking of when you lie speechless you may think of that ignorance which would not allow him to ten years. There may be his relation to the woman whom he had the exceptional privilege of seeing old Mr. Featherstone was up-stairs, Brother Peter, laying down his waistcoat. You know the look of one of those things, said Celia, turned his head and laughed aloud. He's going to help a fellow was above ground.

Thick feet that woman gave her, was the name of Featherstone, contradictiously. All the more venom refluent in his aversion to these callings by a shorter cut.

Let her speak. Somebody should be some unknown regions preserved as hunting grounds for the conversion of poor jews. —Yes, sir, we'll take two of your doings. His reverence: mum's the word.

Back, back, at the back were well tended. Mr. Brooke, not as unaware of vulgar usage, but felt that the light of mere rectitude: a telescope might have money by him. Gulp. But so far is he now? O, the chief hereditary glory of the place up with a Scotch accent. I have no motive for obstinacy in her lap. God they did right to put his hand taking it home to his ribs. —Would I trouble you for a big tour end of those county divinities not mixing with Middlemarch mortality, whose name was seen on the city marshal's uniform since he got less able to amuse himself by saying biting things to Dorothea since this engagement: cleverness seemed to blush as she interpreted the works of Providence, and as he walked. Dribbling a quiet message from his nook.

—The ace of spades was walking up the sketch-book and turning it over in his hand. —Come, confess! He was propped up on a hearth which they were not carried on by means of such aids.

Fried everything in the letters of high-colored, dark-eyed, and I should have liked that very much of the forest from his tumbler knife fork and spoon with his waxedup moustache.

Zinfandel's the favourite, lord Howard de Walden's, won at Epsom. 'Nobody knows where Brooke will be kind enough to defy in the world that want altering—from which she did not return with the job in Wisdom Hely's. I pull the chain?

Kept her voice up to twentyone five per cent is a good breakfast. I have no tumblers among your pigeons. Our.

Had a good square meal.

They could: and this young woman is only her niece,—a contrast that would be a corporation meeting today.

Dth, dth! Isn't that grand for her to overtake him without surprise and thrust his dull grey beard towards her, not advancing, however. Goerz lenses six guineas. Sss. Tried it.

Turnkey's daughter got him out of her life. Dockrell's, one and have won the other parishioners. It is horrible! Is Mrs.

Kept her voice broke under the brightest morning. Various feelings wrought in him for the museum gate with long windy steps he lifted his hat before Dorothea entered, blooming from a man's voice and the family tie and were more confined, the curves of his napkin.

It's not necessary for you to favor me by pointing out which room you would like him? Lydgate will like to have a wife who was just as you see. You have no … —O, dear, no dramatic heroine could have been sorry to be splendid to our New Hospital, or they'd taste it with design, like the tiny one you brought me; only, as if they paid me. Du, de la French.

I yes. Cadwallader feel that the interruption was a rare bit of land to the door when Dorothea was gone away, other cityful coming, passing away too: caramel. Am I like myself. If I could have been less socially uniting.

Dolphin's Barn, the dress might have been less socially uniting. Appetite like an albatross. Stuff them up himself for that. Milly was a poor clergyman, and not in this conclusion they were not carried on by the smell or the priest won't give the poor buffer would have caught on. Lydgate was really better worth knowing than any other relative, and speaking with aery lightness. Windandwatery though. Needles in window curtains.

I suggested to him. Live on fish, fishy flesh they have all the powdered curls hanging backward. Torry and Alexander last year. The point of extra down-stairs, poor fellow. Met him pike hoses she called it till I told her about the house.

Same old dingdong always. Poor thing! Burgundy. Waule and Solomon, relying much on that reflection, as if she had so many children. Tan shoes. Come, Mr Bloom, champing, standing, looked upon his sigh. Salty too. Tight as a judge. Waule! But no sooner been decided, than he had preferred. But after the handsome treating to veal and ham. —Are those yours, Tom? All kissed, yielded: in deep summer fields, tangled pressed grass, buried cities. Anybody may interrogate. Useless to go to Molesworth street is opposite.

Poached eyes on ghost. Here we are to be the home of her wifehood, and Dorothea were rare; and then a piano bursting into roulades.

It's nothing but right I should do, if I were a man, nearly seventy, with a servant seated behind. God till further orders. Tell me all. Tom Rochford pressed his hand taking it all in that programme of his wine soothed his palate lingered swallowed.

Watch him!

He felt that the lodge-keeper regarded her as a place where inventors could go in and invent free.

Undermines the constitution.

Well, of greenish stone, was well off in Lowick Gate, wishing, in my opinion it is for Miss Brooke's sake I think she will give us two hundred volumes in calf, completing the furniture was all that local enlightenment to be: spinach, say. The devil on moneylenders. The spoon of pap in her throes. Keep his cane back, feeling again. Said that nobody need be surprised if he has Harvey Duff in his sleep. Peter or Denis or James Carey that blew the foamy crown from his nook.

Asking. Must be washed in the park. Heads bandaged. Like the way from the south then.

Here we are. Heads bandaged. Three bob a day, walking along the curbstone from the bay. Herself, said Mrs.

People looking after her confinement and rode out with the band played. Spread I saw down in Mullingar, you know you're not to boast of, though it was the name of Featherstone, snappishly.

They wheeled lower. Decent quiet man he is not quite plain to themselves, may they not? Walk quietly. Your uncle will never tell him, you know—what I expect as an unhopeful woman, for instance.

But you can't taste wines with your friends? Up with her. Those races are on today. Cranch turning his head towards the door.

I shouldn't be sorry to hear of post in fruit or pork shop.

Swagger around livery stables. Felt so off colour. I remember, Nosey Flynn said. The answer to that kind of thing. The truth is, I don't talk politics much.

Fellow sharpening knife and fork chained to the yard. My plate's empty. Crossbuns. Try all pockets. From his arm to lead her to me, Mrs Breen's womaneyes said melancholily. But we cannot live like hermits. Funny she looked soaped all over. And there is no accounting for tastes. Even the invisible powers, he said, smiling and bending his head towards Celia, as the memory of hyacinths which once scented the darkness. Never speaking. I'm going to introduce Tucker.

Too much fat on the contrast between the awnings, held out towards the shopfronts. Power could a tale unfold: father a G man. We should be on the Tuesday … Mr Bloom said, snuffling it up smokinghot, thick sugary. Kind of a boy. Dosing it with the lowest moral attributes. How long ago.

Thick feet that woman gave her, tomahawk in hand. Lydgate, and be silent. Landlord never dies they say invented barbed wire.

—Woke me up. People knocking them up himself for that matter on the fat of the horse's legs: tired drudge get his doze. She knew I, I must learn new ways of helping people.

Must have felt, as that of a building, of greenish stone, was a kiddy then. Handsome building. Only one lump of sugar in their pot, as usual, to do with it. It was a new opening to Celia's imagination, that would.

Wretched brutes there at the postcard.

Cadwallader might talk to him about a transparent showcart with two smart girls sitting inside writing letters, copybooks, envelopes, blottingpaper.

Too many drugs spoil the broth.

Cadwallader and repeated, Casaubon?

—Is that all? Arthur Edmund, Alphonsus Eb Ed El Esquire. Quaffing nectar at mess with gods golden dishes, all seabirds, gulls. Zinfandel's the favourite, lord mayor. Where did I?

Just a bite or two. Is Mrs. Cadwallader's prospective taunts. Luncheon interval. Maul her a bit. Dockrell's, one and ninepence a dozen.

But there's one thing he'll never do. Absurd. Three Jolly Topers marching along bareheaded and his eldest boy carrying one in a sort of contrast not infrequent in country life when the fun gets too hot.

Charley Kavanagh used to have a slice of luck, Jack Mooney was telling me … Hope that dewdrop doesn't come down in Mullingar, you and he happened to have tingled for a woman. Hhhhm. He touched the thin elbow gently: then world: then cold: then dead shell drifting around, frozen rock, like that one of his money to those who were hardly relations at all: a telescope might have had our Lowick Cicero here, she said. Where's the ten shillings I gave you on Monday? I must call. You may depend on it he will say, Oh, nothing more than his brother had put him up over a door also showed a blue-green world with a knife. Up with her usual simple kindness, and it could not be hindered from immediately going to take an objection. Conceited fellow with his lawbooks finding out the sun's disk. —Jack, love.

Give us that brisket off the boose, see? Sit down, I should have to be a new moon out, she said. He has no bent towards exploration, or even allow me, what is this was telling me memory. Safe!

Said. Mrs. But I know.

Tell us if you're worth your salt and be quite sure that it would have been anywhere at one with Solomon, concerning whom he had thought of Stone Court as a place where inventors could go in and out behind: food, chyle, blood, dung, earth, food: have to call tepid paper stuck. Apply for the night. Cook and general, exc. They did right to keep open house in Lowick; and I never was against the Vincys, and the light-brown curls and slim figure could have any brains.

Wouldn't have it.

Turnedup trousers. The course of four centuries has well-nigh elapsed since the series of events which are more fatal to have a double existence both solid and subtle—the dread of being more religious than the cordial.

And now he's in Holles street. Elijah is coming. Could see her in this part of the economic question. Police chargesheets crammed with cases get their percentage manufacturing crime. Women won't pick up pins.

Dorothea walked about the Catholic Bill. Do you ever hear such an idea? I see. She used to say that.

Funny sight two of your provosts and provost of Trinity women and children excursion beanfeast burned and drowned in New York. Since I fed the birds five minutes. Wouldn't have it hot and heavy in the form of a forcible character.

He will have brought his mother back by this time of the eminent poet, Mr Bloom asked, with a little.

And be forgot? Brooke! Pray do not to be found out in nothing and giving occasional dry wrinkly indications of crying—I don't think he disliked her seeing him at once as leave it to you certain tiniest hairlets which make vortices for these things wear out of her. You must expect to keep the women to glean, I am sure.

All kinds of places are good for the Rector's chicken-broth on a slow dialogue in an auctioneering way, I see, said Solomon, he said. Milly tucked up in all the way in which he might appear not to know the look of one now; this is a young gardener, said Celia, especially in discovering what when she lives within three miles of pavements, piledup bricks, stones.

But I can send for him. Perhaps he has relied on me.

He crossed under Tommy Moore's roguish finger. You cannot say that you are not so far submissive to ordinary rule as to what might be other answers Iying there.

Sends them to the meet and in his dinner in a bathchair. Does himself well. I flatter myself they are all your charges? Albert Edward, Arthur Edmund, Alphonsus Eb Ed El Esquire. Well up: it was a room where one might fancy the ghost of a job it was plain that the Miss Brookes and their matrimonial prospects were alien to her? Put you in an excellent pickle of epigrams, which now extended over twenty years from the river staring with a sparse remnant of yellow leaves falling slowly athwart the dark to see. No, said Solomon, not ugly, but seemed to please her. Oh, Brother, whether or no, said Mrs.

Workbasket I could, his position requiring that he had never, that poor child's dress is in trouble that way—I hope you are going to do with himself, had behaved like as good a soul that had once lived in Killiney, I must learn new ways of making his will, said Mrs. I always told you Miss Brooke should have said Chettam was the name of that, said Mrs. Ought to be sitters-up to twentyone five per cent dividend.

No use complaining.

Got her hand with a bad conscience and an empty pocket? Casaubon again, without witnessing any interview that could excite suspicion, or they'd taste it with new zest. It had a hand in his pocket to scratch his groin.

The Glencree dinner. Of course, if I don't pretend to argue with a husband as crown-prince by your side—out of that ham, and whether he had taken his lodgings in the days of the brain. Is that all? —Ah, gelong with your friends? That is a guardian for? Pendennis? When one sees a perfect dragon. I was told that by a busy play with his head towards her, and if it was you: I think her friends should try to use their influence. —Hello, Bloom has his patience tried. He crossed under Tommy Moore's roguish finger. Eating with a sprig of parsley. What? Then the spring, the stripling answered. Celia, who was just as old and musty-looking as she would like to this, To do worthy the writing, and that their brother has always paid her wage.

Milly tucked up in the watches of the Rolls' kitchen area.

Don't maul them pieces, young one. You may have heard perhaps. Look here, she said of her dress: daub of sugary flour stuck to her.

Funny she looked up at Mr. Casaubon, who naturally manifested more their sense of his own absence. Pray come again.

If I threw myself down?

Wait till I told Casaubon he should not have horrified her. I should think. She thought so much about the cottages, and never letting his hands fall on to get stronger as he did last night?

But her feeling towards the shopfronts.

They were, take warning. Cadwallader to the animal too. Cadwallader's match-making will show a play of minute causes producing what may be a tasty dresser. Get twenty of them would doubtless have remarked, that he sees every day for hours, without showing too much, that sort of food you see he has conscientious scruples founded on his own, tooth and nail. Pothunters too. Said melancholily.

—Ah, there it is, she said. Corny Kelleher he has Harvey Duff in his unceremonious fashion. A suckingbottle for the Gold cup? —I just called to ask about her husband's health.

Next chap rubs on a gravel walk which led chiefly between grassy borders and clumps of trees, chiefly of sombre yews, had no mixture of sneering and self-exaltation.

If I had the presence of the head.

This is the main drainage?

Walk quietly. Get out of her. Still it's the safe side for madness to dip on. Smells on all sides, bunched together. Dr Horne got her in on the city charger. The small boys wore excellent corduroy, the cannibals! His Majesty the King. Like getting l.

Mr. Trumbull, you're highly favored, said Mrs.

Waule, with a scholarly education, and Mrs.

Phew! Met him pike hoses she called it. Let them all on. Knife and fork upright, elbows on table, ready for the Freeman. Cannibals would with lemon and rice. He's always bad then. Foodheated faces, sweating helmets, patting their truncheons. Her voice floating out. On the whole.

I have them all over the scandals of life we trace.

His second course. Blurt out what I did in a very cheap wish of his money. I must go straight to Sir James never seemed to have been legatees, and throw open the public. Barmaids too.

I threw myself down? Sandwich?

I shall make you learn my favorite bit from an old bachelor like that must be something else if he were offering it for sale: 'Anne of Jeersteen.

Par it's Greek: parallel, parallax. Stonewall or fivebarred gate put her mount to it. Opening her handbag, chipped leather.

—Read that, he said. Tales of the ribs years after, tour round the body changing biliary duct spleen squirting liver gastric juice coils of intestines like pipes. Lean people long mouths. Are you saved? He doesn't chat. Lady Chettam had not been travellers, and at last turned into a road which would make her unjust or hard—that women, devour many a disappointment between breakfast and dinner-time; keep back the half of a man used to call him big Ben. No sound. She felt some disappointment, of which she herself enjoyed the more venom refluent in his aversion to these callings by a careful telescopic watch? But my poor brother would always have sugar.

Wonder if he were really vexed, Ladislaw is a squareheaded fellow but he could say was, that you might take your own bread and onions. Running into cakeshops. They wheeled lower. But he was painting the landscape with his back to the carriage, had risen high, not coldly, but seemed to contradict the suspicion of any of you, faith?

He walked along the curbstone and went on by means of such aids.

Celia said to _him_ for a covert judgment, and is so much praised. Gaudy colour warns you off. Jonah should make an unfair use of being exquisite if you please. Mr Bloom said. Brother, began Mrs.

Meshuggah. Tan shoes. He was second cousin and her preoccupation in leaving the room. I can by abusing everybody myself. Ah, you know. Safe in a family interest to be trusted to give the poor woman the confession, the head upon which the old man had laid down his sketch detestable.

Might take an objection. She said. Nectar imagine it drinking electricity: gods' food. Mr Bloom ate his strips of garden at the tables calling for more bread no charge, swilling, wolfing gobfuls of sloppy food, chyle, blood, I don't believe it.

What a stupid ad! Well, my dear, take me, what is this?

What do they be thinking about? Dedalus' daughter there still outside Dillon's auctionrooms. Of course the other side of the earth's surface, that money was a room where one might fancy the ghost of a boy. Didn't cost him a leg up.

—Wife well? How can you own water really? A bony form strode along the curbstone and went on by means of such aids. Other steps into his mouth. —Yes, said Mrs. Straw hat in sunlight the tight skullpiece, the stale of ferment. Touched his sense moistened remembered. I don't mean to say that. You ladies are always courting slaveys. Asking.

Take a pair of tumbler-pigeons for them to have the bow-windowed and melancholy-looking: the grace and dignity were in her friend's face, prepared many sarcasms in which she did not depart after the handsome treating to veal and ham. After one. She felt almost guilty in asking for knowledge about him from another, but the dread of that myself at one time. See things in their hams, said Mr. Brooke, smiling and bending his head towards the vulgar rich was a kiddy then. But then Shakespeare has no ar no oysters. Stonewall or fivebarred gate put her mount to it. But their watch in the blues. Fibres of fine fine straw.

She used to come to think of it. Waule.

Might anybody ask what their brother in the kitchen-corner, still pursued. Davy Byrne said. Then having to give the breast year after year all hours. Such things had been treated by him with a handkerchief. Waule's question had gone by safely, while the captives look up that ad some Birmingham firm the luminous crucifix.

Wrote it for the station. Various feelings wrought in him the determination after all. Drink till they puke again like christians. —Yes, do bedad. Ah soap there I yes. Women won't pick up for a big tour end of this month.

Why did I? Yes, please, said Mr. Brooke, with the air.

Things go on same, which in the Red Bank this morning. Poor papa's daguerreotype atelier he told me. My word he did it out of high retail prices, and would have suited Dorothea. I drop into old Harris's and have won the other.

Mr. Trumbull's movements, were likely to yield a knowledge of the Augustan poet—speech at a wide angle.

I come to supper tonight, the similar sounds. I like that to marry a man with public business, I think—from which she would have been as impious as others see us. —His name is Cashel Boyle O'Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell, Mr Bloom said. Mr. Trumbull, you're highly favored, said old Featherstone, contradictiously.

Like the way Mr. Trumbull, that air of discontent.

Look on this side of the ballastoffice is down.

I was going to introduce Tucker. —I don't know. Oh, Dodo, said Mr. Brooke, much relieved. Prepare to receive cavalry. Gasballs spinning about, crossing each other, I suppose it is, she said—I hope Chettam and I don't take it, a delicate irregular nose with a smile of unmistakable pleasure, saying—a-crown, these times!

Handel. Well, if you expect him soon. Hates sewing. I don't mean to say that. Women won't pick up pins.

Busy looking.

Swindle in it. Swans from Anna Liffey swim down here sometimes to preen themselves. Let this man pass. Six.

—Three cheers for De Wet! Doubled up inside her trying to butt its way out raised three fingers in greeting. All to see Mrs.

Soft warm sticky gumjelly lips. —Sad to lose the old parsonage opposite. Need artificial irrigation. Peaceful eyes. You know the nature of everything, he added, looking up at Mr. Featherstone, he being a rich man and not about learning!

Is coming! Wellmannered fellow. No-one about.

Ladislaw. Dorothea was not only of much blander temper but thought himself much deeper than his brother Peter; indeed not likely to be rather coarse; for whereas under a weak lens you may think of his apprenticeship at fifteen, and standing with his oldest neighbors? On the pig's back.

—Who's standing?

Was he oysters old fish at table perhaps he young flesh in bed no June has no go in and invent free.

Women run him. Said. One can't eat fowls of a baron of beef. Said Rosamond, dimpling, and showing a thin but well-nigh elapsed since the series of events which are more fatal to have fat fowls. Absurd. He got it this morning: we have, all he could hardly have been legatees, and that their brother in the window to admire her in on Keyes. Flybynight. His wives in a shoe she had been inconceivable to her, when Mary re-entering the garden, and was not much vice. Sss. He always walks outside the lampposts. Can't bring back time. Pity, of which there is something in the Portobello barracks.

Young people should think of me and my children—which was a very stiff birth, the cannibals! Bolt upright lik surgeon M'Ardle. —So long! I don't think it can be nice to marry Mr. Casaubon could say something quite amusing. She minds what she said. —Mustard, sir. He doesn't buy cream on the contrary, having some clerical work which would lead him back by this time of his experience, which could not help rejoicing that he should change his gardener.

I behind. They stick to your Mrs. No, said old Featherstone, who was just as you pretended to be tough from exercise. Vitality. Didn't you see he has no ar no oysters. Nasty customers to tackle. On leaving Rugby he declined to go to Italy, or wind itself up for a penny! Say it cuts lo. Can't blame them after all. Very good for the women out of families, said Mr. Casaubon, smiling and bending his head towards the southwest front, with her usual openness—obliged to get my coals by stratagem, and who among all the way it curves there.

Just beginning to plump it out on his high horse, cocked hat, puffed, powdered and shaved. Sir James never seemed to melt into a new moon out, back: trams in, Brother, began Mrs.

—Nothing in black.

I like that, she said.

Or we are to be a young relative of mine, a heavy cloud hiding the sun. —O, Mr Bloom asked. Celia, turned quickly and said, snuffling it up fresh in their minds. —Love!

As manager of the visitors alighted and did: a public character, and pinched delicacy of face, which her uncle had long ago, the mere idea that. Poor thing!

Thus Stone Court continually saw one or other blood-relations might be other answers Iying there. Cadwallader.

All appeals to her before was mysteriously spoiled. I would furnish in moderation what was it she wanted? Hot fresh blood they prescribe for decline. Dorothea since this engagement: cleverness seemed to insist on its being put off till she is doing, I must.

Mr Bloom said, seating herself comfortably, throwing back her wraps, and had changed his dress, intending to ride the faster in some doubt whether the recognition had been urged also by a lady gave a neighborliness to both rank and religion, and public prints had not been without foresight on this side of the corridor, with her pale-blue dress of a baron of beef. He felt that it was the pure enjoyment of comicality, and had been making as many acquaintances as he got the colic. Very good. He passed, dallying, the only two children of their parents, who are not thinkers, you don't mean to say or do something or cherchez la femme. Why I left the church in Zion is coming.

If anybody had observed that Mr. Casaubon has a position down in the way of a cow. As to his wife's shoulders, and that their brother in the face of the impression she must be narrow. There's nothing in a bathchair. My heart. Yes, do turn respectable.

Lovely forms of women by following them about in their hams, said Mrs. Themselves at least a moderate prize.

Nearly three months off. Like sir Philip Crampton's fountain. No, no.

The grounds here were more confined, the conversation did not proffer, and the preliminaries of marriage rolled smoothly along, shortening the weeks of courtship which a loving faith fills with happy assurance. Not saying a word. Someone taking a rise out of the situation in which fascinating younger sons had gone to deliver that message, Dorothea could hear sounds of music through an open window—talked about the independent line, and then the others copy to be taken into the freemasons' hall. Can't blame them after all to go on same, day after day: squads of police marching out, back: trams in, Brother, began Mrs. Goosestep. Heads bandaged.

Grafton street. Will, this would be in a hand of Mr Bloom walked towards Dawson street, Mr Flynn, Davy Byrne said.

See?

#Ulysses (novel)#James Joyce #1922 #automatically generated text #Patrick Mooney #Lestrygonians #George Eliot #Victorian novels #British novelists #Bildungsromaener #didactic literature #Marian Evans #Middlemarch (novel)

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