“How long were you together?” I asked.
His hand knocked over the honey as if the question had fuddled him. Grabbing it before the sticky liquid marked the counters, Andrew cleared his throat. “Eight months.” He answered my next unsaid inquiry. “We broke up six months ago.”
“What happened?”
“Life. Do you want any cream or sugar in your tea?”
Andrew was undeniably done with this conversation. While I wished for further facts and details, I didn’t push. He would divulge when he was ready.
“Cream and honey. Please and thank you,” I said.
“It’s cute when your manners come out.”
He made my tea to my liking. Handing it to me, we walked into the living room together and plopped onto the couch. Like two magnets, our bodies were drawn together. Side to side, knee to knee, we cuddled. Outside, pale pink streaked the sky, welcoming a new day.
“Do you want a blanket?” Andrew covered our legs with a cashmere throw. “It can get chilly in this apartment due to the cement and exposed brick walls. I keep telling the super to caulk the windows but he doesn’t listen….”
Queen of nervous rambling, I recognized Andrew was doing exactly that. Rambling to fill in a silence that didn’t need to be filled.
I patted his knee. “Let’s drink our tea and enjoy the beautiful sunrise.”
“Oh, thank God. Most women want to talk all the time. It can be exhausting.”
“I’m not most women.”
Andrew interwove his fingers through mine and squeezed my hand affectionately. “I’m starting to realize that.”
My heart fluttered in my chest and in that moment, all I wanted to do was feel Andrew’s mouth against mine. Let him take me to a place only he could, where rainbows and unicorns did exist. Where everything was light and color. Where nothing bad could happen. Where I was safe. I set my cup down and tenderly cupped his face into my hands. His eyes sparked to life. I leaned in and Andrew met me halfway. Our lips collided in a symphony of sensations. Goosebumps erupted on my arms and I pressed my chest into his, seeking warmth. Andrew tangled his fingers into my hair, exposing my neck. Hungry kisses were planted against my skin until he reached my ear. I moaned as he nibbled my earlobe.
“Andrew,” his name was a desperate plea. “Please.”
“So beautiful.”
Our lips found each other again. The barrier that was there between us before had shattered and raw lust consumed our desires. Andrew’s fingers slid underneath my t-shirt, running a trail of fire as they traveled over my stomach. I arched into his touch.
“You feel like velvet,” he said against my mouth.
“And you taste like every dessert I’ve craved.”
A groan tore out of his throat while his tongue swirled with mine. I gripped the waistband of his pajamas, desperate to feel his thick hardness in my palm. Andrew’s hand stopped me from going further. Our breaths came out ragged as we separated.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Nothing. You’re perfect and you feel like heaven but….”
“But you don’t want to go further?”
“Yes.”
Death by blue balls was a distinct possibility right now. “You’re killing me, Andrew. Are you like a virgin or something?”
“Nope but like I said, I don’t…”
“Want to rush things? Yeah I know.”
My bottom lip jutted out in a pout. Andrew laughed, put his arm over my shoulder and pulled me into his side. “I promise when it does happen, it will be magic.”
The next night after a typical soul-crushing shift at Rogue, I stood on the sidewalk and waited for Andrew to pick me up. He said he would be there at 2:00 am. Looking at my cell phone, I saw it was fifteen minutes till. A cold wind snapped off the lake and I buried myself deeper in my coat. The kiss Andrew and I had shared still burned on my lips, but the notes I’d found couldn’t be forgotten. We were diving head first into the shallow end of the pool. While dangerous to my sanity and heart, the gears had already begun spinning. I had to hold my breath and hope the impact wasn’t lasting. Down the street, a flash of neon red caught my eye. Monica.
She looked like a woman on a mission as she approached. “Where the hell have you been?”
Shame crawled up my cheeks. Monica had called me several times but my finger found the ignore button more than I would like to admit. It’s not that I didn’t want to talk to her; it was just that I didn’t want to explain everything.
“Sorry,” I said. “I have been busy.”
Monica’s eyebrows hit her forehead. “That’s a lame excuse. I had to hunt you down like an elusive snow leopard.”
Whenever things went south with a guy, she binge watched the Discovery Channel. Over the years, the random facts she’d gathered found their way into conversations.
“I said I was sorry.”
“Whatever. At least tell me you have been having hot monkey sex with that hunk of man meat that was in your shower.” Monica jumped on my beat of silence. “OMG! I knew it! Ok, you’re totally forgiven.”
“We are not having sex.”
Her face crumpled as if I had delivered the worse news possible. “What? Why not? I know it’s been two years since you’ve gotten some but let me remind you. Sex is when a man puts his penis into your vagina.”
“I know what sex is,” I snapped.
“Jesus, you really do need to get laid.” She hitched her purse higher on her shoulder. “Then what have you been doing? Drinking hot cocoa and talking about politics?”
There was no way going around it. I had to tell Monica what Sumiko did and the resulting consequences. Unstitching my wounds, the story spilled out.
When I finished, Monica had murder in her eyes. “That bitch. I don’t care if she thought she was protecting you. You don’t steal from family. It’s like in the bible or something.”
“It wasn’t her that did it. It was the drugs.” Once again, I found myself making excuses for my family’s shitty behavior. “Never mind. I take that back. She had no excuse.”
“Thank you. I’m glad you’re finally seeing clearly. So Andrew offered to harbor you until things blow over?”
“Basically. I have no clue why though. He’d only known me for less than twenty-four hours when he did.”
Monica sighed. “Because he likes you. Why else?”
“He must have a thing for crazy then, because I thrust him into a shit storm of it.”
“Your life isn’t boring, that’s for sure. Have you seen Sumiko since the incident?”
The last ten phone calls to her cell had gone straight to voicemail. As much as I wanted to strangle her, I was worried Big Ted would hurt Sumiko like she said he would. I had to somehow get the remaining seven hundred dollars, which was the equivalent of two weeks of work. I had a feeling Big Ted wouldn’t wait that long.
“No, I have not,” I responded. “She wrote me a letter but that was the last I heard from her.”
“Man, I thought my family was messed up, but yours take the cake.”
Monica’s dad had gone to jail for armed robbery while her mother abandoned her at the age of five. In the care of her eighty-year-old grandmother, she made sure Monica stayed on the straight and narrow. While Monica veered off the path a handful of times, she turned out better than she would have without her grandmother’s influence.
“Do I get a trophy or something?”
“Nope, but….” She dug into her cleavage and unearthed an individually wrapped chocolate. “You get chocolate if you want it.”