“Sure,” I offer easily, leaving him to it just before he snatches me by the wrist and pulls me toward him. His eyes bore into mine as he crowds me next to the car. He dips and kisses me, and I allow it, my heart thundering into the moment. My body begs me to relieve it of the ache, but my mind still forbids me from stepping into the free fall I’ve allowed myself one too many times before. It’s not a matter of falling, but a matter of making sure I know how to land at this point. Denying I love him, am still in love with him, is pointless. Denying he’s here and sincerely wants this to work is taking effort on my part. But forgiving him, that’s what’s stifling our progress. It’s still too soon to embrace it—embrace him fully. Yet in those few seconds, he separates my lips with his tongue, tasting me thoroughly, and I can’t help but feed my greed. He kisses me for long minutes, and I drop my purse, my appetite begging me for a minute more before he pulls away and presses his forehead to mine.
“I said I wouldn’t hide anything from you, and I won’t. I have these bad days, sometimes.”
“What’s bad about them?”
He pulls my hand from around his neck and kisses the back of it before pressing my fingers to his temple. “Here.”
“Does it have to do with Dominic?”
“A lot of the time, yeah. Driving his car…I don’t know, I got lost in my head a little.”
“I’m sorry. I just, I thought you might want to drive it instead of my Audi.”
He shakes his head. “Don’t be. Maybe it was good for me.”
“Not by the looks of it.”
All I can feel is the ache seeping from him and my instinctual need to comfort him. “Sometimes I wish,” he exhales. “Sometimes I wish I dreamed the way you do, so I could exorcise my thoughts that way, and maybe I wouldn’t have these days.”
“No, you don’t, Tobias. I promise you that you don’t.” I dart my eyes away. “I should let Beau out. I need a shower.”
He nods and releases me. Shutting the front door behind me, I push out a long breath. Being in the same space with him again, there’s no denying the sheer force of what his presence does to me. I’m still breathless from his kiss, core throbbing from the need thrumming between us, but his pain overshadows all of that. So much of me wants to give in, hear his words, take them to heart and truly let go of all of the grudges so we can start to heal together—in a way that brings us closer.
I have to try. I have to give in, meet him halfway at some point.
It’s clear we’re living the opposite of what we collectively pictured after our reunion in the parking lot, and I can physically feel the disappointment in both of us every time we lock eyes.
I’ve barely let him touch me or given him a chance to explain himself. But I can’t lose myself in him again, at least not completely. Getting physical with Tobias is not simply sex. It’s close to a religious experience. I’m not in denial so much that I don’t realize that I’m the one preventing our progress.
I head to the fridge to grab a water bottle and decide on something stronger. Maybe a drink will help relax me to the point of starting a conversation. Reaching for my whiskey tumbler, I open the freezer for some ice and see that he’s grocery shopped, and not only that, he’s zip-locked red grapes for me and frozen them. Visions of the days where I lounged by the pool at my father’s mansion sucking on them while he swam laps run through my mind. Though our history was brief, we were together twenty-four-seven for weeks, studying each other’s habits, learning each other’s bodies, falling crazy in love. Then, he’d used my brand of toothpaste. And despite my resentment-filled comment, I do know him, his habits, his moods, and it was jealousy from my dream that told me otherwise.
The devil is in the details, and I remember my devil well. It’s gestures like this that brings me back to that time he doted on me endlessly. The dinners he used to cook for me, the baths he drew that we took together, and our long talks during. The long hours playing chess, our time in the clearing drinking Louis Latour while stargazing. Making love for hours and hours, covered in sweat, eyes locked, bodies humming, before we fell into an exhausted sleep just to wake up and do it all over again.