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He presses his lips together dispassionately. “You’d know if you brought you ass with me this evening.”
Okay, so we are deflecting, I think, not bothering to answer that. “When were you going to tell me that Natalie is back with the campaign?” I ask quietly.They never had sex. They never did anything other than kiss.
“You mean like you told me you were fourteen when we met?” Standing from the table, he takes his plate over to the sink, rinses it, then puts it in the dishwasher.
“Forget it.” I lie back on the couch, ignoring his dumbass. I want to say,Die mad, bitch. So I do, just loud enough for him to hear it, turning my back on him, going back to my Tristan and Isolde retelling.
A shadow looms over me. “What did you say?”
I shrug. “I don’t like repeating myself.” I don’t bother looking at him. I just keep my eyes trained on my iPad, rereading the same sentence at least four times.
I feel a dip when he sits at the other edge down by my feet. After pulling out the game console, he starts playing his video game, and eventually I start getting absorbed into the story.
I’m so engaged in the story, I don’t notice for a while that the room has gone quiet. I look over my shoulder, and he’s sipping cachaça, a liquor he imports from Brazil. “Would you like some?”
“You know I’m a lightweight.” I curl up close into myself, feeling drawn to him despite his anger at me, my guilt, and the knowledge that nothing, maybe not even time, will fix this chasm between us.
“I’ll make you a caipirinha if you’d like to try it.” He moves to stand before me, this time not threatening. Maybe he just needed to decompress? I don’t let myself believe it anymore. He’s told me more than once that I know who I married. I do. I know why he’s this way. Hoping won’t make the path I’ve chosen for myself easier.
I take his olive branch and offer him one in return. “Okay, you can show me how to make one.”
Following him into the kitchen I can’t take my eyes off his beautifully strong body. My tummy clenches as I remember last night, how he took me so ruthlessly and completely.
The center of my tights is getting wet just looking at him take out the ingredients. Knowing he’ll soon be able to see with the light pink of the material, I mumble, “I’ll be right back.”
“Alright,” he says, heading into the pantry, blissfully unaware of what he’s doing to my body.
I bypass the bathroom by the kitchen, heading straight to my own. Inside, I take care of my lady business, swapping out the light pink for dark gray, changing the top to a matching razorback for good measure. I took a shower earlier and have done nothing since, not even the hoop, to make a stinky enough sweat to need to change clothes. I feel silly, but for some reason I’m too vulnerable to freely allow him to know I want him so badly when he’s on the verge of hating me, and rightfully so this time.
For six years, I didn’t tell him the truth about my age. It was unforgivable. After the first year, he would have probably helped me reunite with my family. He probably would have done it right away, if I’m being honest, but after he told me our families didn’t like each other and they’d frown on our friendship, I realized I didn’t want to give him up because I already considered him mine.Minha, that’s what he called me when he said I was his.
Pain squeezes my chest as I think back to the way his face looked when he saw my birth certificate. This is the first time I really let myself think about it. Until this very moment, I was in survival mode. Not seeing him all day allowed me to push aside everything but the grief I felt at losing him all over again but now—now I can fully appreciate the pain I cause him.
Love is not fear. Love is living out loud. Never hiding. Being bold and brave and uniquely you no matter the package you come in, my daddy would say, when he talked about the love he and my mom had and how it surpassed all understanding. How they were willing to leave everything they knew just so they could be together. How hard they fought to keep their family together.It was all worth it in the end to love her everyday I was free to love her, he whispered right before that.One day you are going to have that, my darling Nikki, and don’t you ever let that go.
I can forgive myself for loving Mathias so much I never wanted to let him go, not even for a little while. I just don’t know if he will ever forgive me for it.
Body dry, coochie calmed down and clothes changed into non-sticky tights and a razor back top, I head back into the kitchen.
Mathias is standing by the long stainless steel counter with all the accoutrements to make the drink in front of him. He has a cocktail mixer set in front of two glasses.
“Ready?” he asks, doing a quick assessment of me yet saying nothing about my change of clothes. I don’t know why relief washes over me the way it does, but I feel like I can breathe.
“Yep.” I nod, keeping my gaze on the ingredients and the supplies. Anything but the mercurial man I pledged my life to.
“Okay, I’m going to talk you through it as we go.” He hands me two limes. “Muddle the limes like this.” I follow as he presses the limes into the glass along with two teaspoons of sugar. We squish them, pulverizing them and the sugar. When a sweet sent emanates and the citrus is barely recognizable, he drops some round ice cubes into our glasses. “Now the cachaça,” he says, measuring two ounces of the beautiful clear liquid. Then he adds the unnecessary lime wheel as a garnish.
“Cheers.” He raises his glass, finally letting his gaze rake over me admiringly.
“Yummy.” I breathe, sipping the delicious drink. “I can see why people love it.”
“It’s the national drink of Brazil.” His mouth kicks up. “I’ll take you to my family’s estate there.”
I try not to choke at his words. I don’t let myself do anything but keep my glass steady while I sip the sweet aromatic libation.
“Do you want to go?” he asks, looking so earnest.
“Of course,” I say, putting down the drink, mindful that I haven’t eaten a lot today. Crossing my arms over my middle, I add, “I’m just not sure where my place is in your life anymore.”
