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“We shall make our bed of dried leaves; the sun will shine on us as on man and will ripen our food. The picture I present to you is peaceful and human, and you must feel that you could deny it only in the wantonness of power and cruelty.” - CH 17
The sun was soothingly hot. Not in an uncomfortable way, but a way that makes one want to stretch out like a cat. Two days prior, a pleasant late-Spring storm had rolled through; the air was still a little heavy with humidity and a hint of petrichor, but the sun bled through the treetops casting spots of light and just enough heat.
Meeting at the lakehouse occasionally had started as a group activity once Encom had settled into a new operations routine. A long weekend here or there would see Seth and Ajay jumping off the pier, Erin was usually sunbathing, Ares insisting on cooking for everyone. Even Sam Flynn could be convinced to make an appearance once in a while since they’d started communicating again. A program showing up on his doorstep in Mexico had naturally led to a lot of questions.
Now and then, however, Eve would slip away from the city for a weekend night or two, hiding from the lights and sounds of a big city in a big glass condo that often felt empty. Ares still felt a restless urge to continue traveling, though throughout the last year his visits had become more frequent. There was a more fluid rhythm to the group, a bit of a family dynamic, now.
Ares took a deep breath through his nose, reaching his arms above his head and arching his back off the ground to let his muscles resettle, rolling onto his side and propping himself on an elbow. His eyes were closed, a content expression on his face as he enjoyed the smell of the still-damp soil. The blanket he was laying on was thick enough to fend off the moisture from the ground, but still let the cool temperature seep through and provide a contrast to the warm air.
“It’s alive.”
He opened one eye to look across the blanket to the chair set up beside him. Eve sat with one leg bent and the other dangling so her toes brushed the edge of the soft fabric. She peered at him over the top of the book she was reading.
“Just like a real boy,” he teased with a small smile.
She slipped a leaf between her pages as a bookmark and set it in the seat next to her. “I thought you were going to sleep all day.”
“Hmm. I wasn’t sleeping.” He tilted his head and raised a questioning eyebrow. “We've been out here for three hours and you’ve been reading for two of them. You only turned the page 15 times, suggesting about 30 pages read. Give or take. That’s half your average speed. As Thomas More would say, ‘A penny for your thoughts?’”
Eve shook her head. “It’s still weird you can do that so easily. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it.” She didn’t want to talk about her mind wandering to remember “Encom family” weekends with Tess or that she couldn’t shake the feeling that some big thing was looming in the distance for them.
She gave in and let herself yawn. “Maybe I’m the one who’s tired and I’m just slow. I think I read the same page about three times and I still couldn’t tell you what it said.”
He reached forward and tugged gently at her dangling ankle, silently asking her off the chair. She obliged, slinking down and moving to lay next to him as he stretched out on his back, right arm folded under his head.
Eve rested along his side, head on his shoulder and a hand on his chest over his heart. He’d left the first few buttons of his shirt undone and his skin was warm under her palm, his pulse steady and comforting. Ares breathed deeply, settling his body and crossed his ankles with Eve’s, his left hand reaching around her to draw light, soothing lines along her arm.
“Perhaps,” he mused, “a nap might do us both some good. There is, after all, a couple more hours of sunshine before the temperature is due to drop. The humidity will certainly rise as it gets darker.”
“I don’t nap,” she murmured, voice clearly drowsy.
He leaned just right to press his lips to the crown of her head fondly, holding back laughter as her breathing slowly deepened and found a solid cadence. Happily, he closed his eyes, drifting off to the rise and fall of Eve’s chest and sun on his face filtered through the leaves.
These moments were ones of contentment that he would hold close to his heart and keep for the rest of his time in this world. If there was one thing he learned from being surrounded by such genuine people in life it was that, sometimes, to be human was to know peace.