When he had agreed to this - rashly, as he now realised it had been - he had not imagined that Kieran would be working on the floor. He hadn’t pictured it in particular detail at all, to be honest, but now he wished he had somehow been given some warning that Kieran would be on his knees the whole time. On his knees and occasionally looking up at him with an intense focus in his eyes and - well, sitting right across from him, it was much harder than Jude had expected not to let his imagination wander to places it shouldn’t.
Because he was stuck here, mouth dry, and sitting very still and Kieran was regularly looking, so if he started getting flustered or didn’t clear his thoughts soon, Kieran would absolutely notice. Hm. Perhaps he ought not to look Kieran’s way at all, because he’d been staring at the line of his jaw and the base of his neck and then at his hand on the paintbrush for far too long now without realising it, and when he glanced up slightly again Kieran was looking somewhere too close to his face - and Jude couldn’t let himself keep staring, because what precisely was his excuse?
So he shifted in place, as much as he dared, and dropped his gaze swiftly to the book in his hands, trying to latch onto the words on the open page so he could pretend he had so much as noticed the title of it. “Oh - Twenty Thousand Leagues,” Jude affirmed. “Yours?” He could better picture it being Kieran’s than Eileen’s, somehow. (Could better imagine Kieran reading here in the flat for fun, too; and he had a suspicion that Kieran would probably read anything and everything he came across without judgement, would give anything a chance.)
There was the hint of a smile on his face as he considered the book properly, though. Jude hadn’t read it in years - not since his Hogwarts days, probably - but he had been rather fond of it at the time.
Because he was stuck here, mouth dry, and sitting very still and Kieran was regularly looking, so if he started getting flustered or didn’t clear his thoughts soon, Kieran would absolutely notice. Hm. Perhaps he ought not to look Kieran’s way at all, because he’d been staring at the line of his jaw and the base of his neck and then at his hand on the paintbrush for far too long now without realising it, and when he glanced up slightly again Kieran was looking somewhere too close to his face - and Jude couldn’t let himself keep staring, because what precisely was his excuse?
So he shifted in place, as much as he dared, and dropped his gaze swiftly to the book in his hands, trying to latch onto the words on the open page so he could pretend he had so much as noticed the title of it. “Oh - Twenty Thousand Leagues,” Jude affirmed. “Yours?” He could better picture it being Kieran’s than Eileen’s, somehow. (Could better imagine Kieran reading here in the flat for fun, too; and he had a suspicion that Kieran would probably read anything and everything he came across without judgement, would give anything a chance.)
There was the hint of a smile on his face as he considered the book properly, though. Jude hadn’t read it in years - not since his Hogwarts days, probably - but he had been rather fond of it at the time.
