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“Sometimes I wake up at six and you’re already gone.”
“Lilah . . .”
“Are you married?” I ask, the words terrifying as they leave my lips. He responds instantly, a look of shock and frustration clear on his face. Not frustration with me, but with . . . this. The situation, maybe.
“God, fuck, no, Lilah. You. It’s you.”
“Where do you work? What do you do? What’s your family like? You come in the middle of the night and fuck me and fall asleep with me and then leave before the sun rises. What the fuck am I supposed to think?” His thumb moves along my cheekbone, and he watches it move before looking into my eyes.
“I just need you to trust me.”
“I don’t know you!” I say, my voice rising. “God, this is fucking crazy.” I try to move, to get up, to put space between us, but that hand in my hair holds tight, not letting me go. Not aggressive, just firm. I give up on my escape, facing this like an adult. My eyes meet his when I ask the next question, ready to decode even the slightest movement. “Am I some kind of secret?”
“No,” he says, but again, there’s a lie there. I raise an eyebrow, questioning, arguing. “Not the way you’re thinking. There’s . . . Fuck, baby. There’s so much. So much I need to tell you, that we need to talk about. But I’m telling you, once that happens, there’s no going back. It won’t be easy like this anymore.”
“Easy?” This is easy? Him sneaking in and out of my apartment with no warning, meeting me while I was working as a stripper, a pile of secrets between us?
“Right now, it’s just us. I come as soon as I can, I fuck you, I eat you, and I feed you if it’s not too late. It’s just us, and you are mine.” My mind fixates on that last piece.
“Am I yours? Only yours?”
“Fuck, yes. Please. We have nothing if we don’t have trust. If we don’t have this foundation, we will collapse when the easy is gone. You have tangled me so deep, you’ve consumed me. I’ve never been this lost for a woman. I’ve never risked everything this way for a woman.”
“What are you risking?!” My voice rises with the words, frustration running in my veins.
“I don’t want to open that door. Not yet.”
“What does that mean, Dante? You’re speaking in hidden messages and metaphorical situations. None of it makes sense, and to be completely honest, none of it is very comforting. This isn—" His hand tightens in my hair once more, forcing me to stop talking, and finally, finally I see it there.
The honesty.
The fear.
The panic.
And something so close to what I’ve imagined love would look like on his face, that it scares the shit out of me.
“Lilah, one day, it won’t be like this. One day it won’t be easy and without pressure. While we can, I want this.”
I stare at him and don’t answer. Every part of me is warring, with different answers and responses running through my mind.
“Please, Delilah,” he says, and his eyes say it all. The honesty. The potential, the pleasing. And I know.
I know that even if this man is to be my downfall, I will take this for what it is while I can.
In that moment, I wonder if maybe I really am just like my mother.
* * *
The night doesn't get less stressful when a couple hours later, my phone rings, and I look at it quickly. Dad is displayed on the screen.
"Little late for calls, isn't it?" Dante asks.
"It's my dad," I say, hitting the button to quiet the screen.
“Shouldn’t you answer that?” he asks, and I shake my head. The phone lights up again moments later, the screen showing a missed call.
Four, to be exact.
