Homesick for Haiti. And another book excerpt.

R,

I cried in the shower today. Silly I know, but I was using the same shampoo that I had taken with me to Haiti. And suddenly it smelled like warm breeze, and hummingbirds, and black coffee. (The shampoo is rose scented.) So I cried because I ached for Haiti. 
I didn't feel like writing you an entire post, so here's another excerpt from my book. From chapter 2. Enjoy.
--S 

He stretched his arms up over his head, running his fingers along the bricks of the wall. As he shifted his weight, Vega murmured something in her sleep and rolled over so that her back was to him. Her hair was coming out of its braid and spreading across the pillow in bronze waves. The charcoal that she lined her eyes with everyday smeared under her lashes. Even like this, she was the most breathtaking sight he had ever laid eyes on. He turned his face into her hair and wrapped his arm across her bare shoulders, feeling her damp skin, breathing her in. She smelled like cloves and oranges. And of course the ever present sweat and dust that clung to everyone in the city. His favorite times with Vega were the mornings, when she smelled like herself. Not the lingering scents of others she’d been with. In those moments, he could pretend she was his.

The market was opening up, the city coming to life, and he closed his eyes, hoping for more sleep. It couldn’t be much past dawn, and being awake meant being hungry, and too hot, and without Vega. She was muttering something fitful, lost in her own mind. He pulled her closer against his body, wishing that he could protect her from whatever demons haunted her dreams that morning. Her bones felt small and delicate, like someone who needed saving.

Giving up on the idea of more sleep Taurean opened his eyes. The library was dimly lit now, light streaming its way through cracks in the walls. He stared at the tattoo of the sun on the back of Vega’s neck. He had been with her when she got it. He remembered her squeezing his hand as they filled in the intricate rays.

It took hours.

She laughed, and cried, and when it was done they sat in the shadow of the eastern temple and ate stolen pomegranates from a vendor on the other side of the city. Tearing into the fruit, clawing out the juicy seeds with broken fingernails, and with such desperate greed you’d have thought it was to be their last meal. The sun went down, and the moons rose one at a time until they lined up, in the monthly formation, perfectly above the two orphans like three broken eggshells. And the two had kissed with lips stained red from the fruit, and as cracked and bleeding as the desert around them. And the world had felt whole.

He smiled with the memories as he began to trace the lines of her tattoo, until she twitched his hand away irritably.

“Sky, stop it.” She murmured into the pillow.

He pulled away quickly as though her skin has suddenly scalded him. “I’m not Sky,” he said, getting to his feet. “I’m Taurean.”