We were sweaty and maybe thirty seconds after he’d pulled off the condom wasn’t the best time to ask. I wasn’t trying to be needy, I was simply wondering.
With all the calls that he took after he slipped of to his office and all the days he would be gone at a time, I knew his work was important to him. He had a lot to handle, I got that. And I never wanted to be one of those people that depended on someone else so in a way, it worked for me. Sometimes, the nights we were apart I felt a little lonely, but he would always make it up to me when I did see him again.
He slipped back into the bed and waited for me to cuddle next to him.
“I’m not sure yet. I have some calls to make tomorrow and I’ll let you know.”
He didn’t have an angry edge to his tone but there was something about his statement that seemed a little tight. I shrugged it off because he didn’t talk about business things with me. He had said he didn’t want it to come into‘our time’and basically never told me what he was up to or where he was going. Since I didn’t feel the need to question him, I never did. I trusted him. He hadn’t given me a reason not to.
“Is everything okay?” I asked. It wasn’t an act, I was worried he was stressing out about something. All I wanted to do was help ease the tightness.
“Yes,” he said, though his tone made it far from believable.
“Okay,” I said. “I just want to help you if I can.”
His face softened and he kissed the top of my head.
“I know. I love that about you. But there’s not really anything you can do.”
“How often are you running around putting out fires?” I asked with a small laugh. I was playing around and didn’t really expect an answer.
“Enough,” he answered with a tightness.
“But you love it, right?”
“Yes, I do.” I looked up to see a smile spread across his face. “Some parts more than others, though.”
“What made you buy your first endeavor? It was the bar, right?”
“I had too much money and needed someplace to put it.” There was a smirk on his face as his head did a little nod. It was like it was funny somehow.
His answer was a little odd and I figured this was one of those times he was trying to be funny but it came off more as strange.
“So you were like a rich kid then?”
“No,” he said with a chuckle. “Quite the opposite, actually.”
“Really?”
“That surprises you?”
“I mean…” I said with a little shrug. “You seem so put together.”
“I grew up having to fight to survive. The neighborhood where I lived, well, it made you hard even before you were a man.”
I tried to picture it, but I had to admit it was hard.
Something inside me melted. This man wasn’t really all that different from me. He could have gone in so many directions but he’d worked hard and pulled himself up and out. He’d made a better life for himself.
Really, that was the exact same thing I’d been trying to do all my life. It seemed like I was always jumping from the frying pan into the fire though. Running from one bad situation only to thrust myself into something equally as harmful.
My fingers drifted over his face as I tried to see him like that. A hard little boy. It was kind of weird to picture but if you looked deep into his eyes, you could see it there. The knowledge of a life that wasn’t so easy. The scars might not have been visible to most but I recognized them. Could he see the same thing in my eyes? Is that why I’d been so drawn to him? I could question it all day but I didn’t want to. I wanted to know the man he was now because this was what he tried so hard to make himself be. This was the life that he’d dreamed of and found a way to make it a reality. I guess that was all I’d ever wanted for myself. I was still a work in progress though.
As I breathed in his scent deeply, I felt like I was a few steps closer to that life where I would wake up every day smiling.
I really believed that he could be the beginning of something great, to a life where I was happily settled and content. One where I got to see my dreams come true in vivid colors. And it wasn’t because he had money and could take care of me no matter what I needed. He would, I knew that, but he also knew that wasn’t the thing that I needed most. I wanted and deserved someone that would be there for me. That would love me for the broken girl inside of me and the woman I strived to be.
I didn’t normally talk about my past. It wasn’t pretty and no one needed to be brought down with that kind of thing. And typically, when people found out about it, they looked at me differently. I didn’t feel like that with Ray. He wouldn’t judge me and it wouldn’t change the way he felt. Some part of me believed that he already had some clue. Like he could see that thing in me that I saw in him.
