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Or about how when I was sixteen and coming home from a pool party at a friend’s house in my modest bathing suit, she had backhanded me so hard that I flew into the end table in the living room, cutting up the side of my face, because I had come in with my tits all out in front of her boyfriend, giving him all kinds of ideas.
Or maybe even about the time she told me when I was eighteen how I completely ruined her life and scared her man – my father – away, that she wished she’d never had me, or had dropped me off at the fire station, or had drowned me in the bathtub.
Maybe I could tell him that.
Maybe I could get it off my shoulders.
Maybe I could know what it felt like not to keep all that to myself.
To open up.
To let him in.
As I got up and brushed my teeth, put on my makeup, my clothes, got myself safely behind my masks again, there was a deep, undeniable sadness at the idea of that lost opportunity.
Why?
I couldn’t say.
There could be other men.
Someday.
That came into my life.
But that being said, history had shown me that none had seemed to get it, to understand the persona, that there was a reason for it, that if they just showed me that it was safe to do so, I could open up, I could let it all fall away.
So far, Gunner was the only man who saw through me, who knew there was something painful underneath that I tried to keep hidden, who wanted to see what the other parts of me were like.
“Coffee is getting cold, duchess,” Gunner called, as though he knew I had been done for a long time, was just standing there looking at myself until my own reflection became foreign and ugly to me.
“Coming,” I said, shoving all my makeup and products back into their bag, slipping on my heels, then moving back out into the main area, finding he had already packed everything else up and left a tip for housekeeping on the dresser. “I can just eat on the run,” I assured him, gesturing toward the plate he had set out on the desk.
“And deprive you the use of your beloved table? I think not,” he teased, smile curved up, but it somehow didn’t quite meet his eyes.
“I didn’t use the table last night,” I objected.
“You used the nightstand,” he shot back.
“Where else was I supposed to put the container?”
“In your hand. On your lap. Seen chicks balance those fucking things on their tits,” he informed me, making me snort as I drank my orange juice, a bit worried it might come out of my nose very elegantly in response to that image.
“I don’t have much of a shelf here,” I informed him, waving at my body. I doubted I could balance a candy bar on my breasts, let alone a takeaway container.
“Got enough,” he informed me in that offhand way he talked about basic facts.
It certainly was no high praise, but I must have been starved for compliments, because it made me feel oddly warm inside to hear that.
I picked at the fruit, yogurt, and granola parfait he had gotten for me, liking it too much that he had chosen exactly what I would have chosen for myself out of the many options I knew the hotel would have set up, from omelets to French toast.
“Ready?” he asked when I had tossed what was remaining, grabbed my coffee, and stood.
“Yeah. Can we get my pad out of the back before we take off?” I asked, knowing that whatever I worked on would be a bit shaky depending on the roads, but needing something to keep my focus on other than him, and me, and the chances we would never get to explore.
“Sure,” he said, not looking back at me as he hauled up the bags, and made his way to the door.
It was something I would notice for the whole day as we drove.
He watched out the window.
The rearview.
He looked at his phone in its mount to check his course.
But he wouldn’t look at me.
Not even when I started shifting in my seat, finding my stomach bothering me more than I thought it should have, enough to wonder if something was maybe wrong.
He didn’t even look when I rummaged in my purse to find my pain medicine I knew he knew I hated taking, and popped two.
Not even a look from his peripheral.
Or so I thought anyway.
I woke up to him growling at me, not sure how or when I had fallen asleep, but blaming the pain medicine on principle.
“The fuck is this?” he asked, making me jump, looking over to find my sketchpad in his hands.
“I didn’t say you could look through that,” I half-shrieked, reaching for it, but he just yanked it back away.
