Calliope #2
What am I supposed to say? That I’m attracted to the need to hate him, because it terrifies me more than anything else to like him. And he’s making it really fucking hard for me to hate him anymore.
“You have friends.” His voice is gentle but firm. “You have us.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.” The words slip out before I can catch them.
His hands pause again. “Why?”
“Because I don’t trust it. I don’t trust myself around it.” I gesture vaguely between us. “This. Whatever this is. I’m terrible at relationships.”
“You’re in one now?” The question is casual, but there’s something underneath it.
“No! That’s not—” I huff, frustrated with myself. Because Vex could be something. Someone important. If I’d just allow myself to feel it. “You know what I mean.”
“I don’t, actually.” His hands have stopped moving entirely now, just resting casually on my knees as he leans back.
It’s just a normal move that is anything but normal.
We aren’t anything to each other and yet my legs resting on his lap, and his hands on me feels more normal than sitting here alone.
“I—” I gaze out toward the river, the lights look like sparkles on the water. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“Does anyone?”
“I like to think there are people out there that know exactly what they’re doing at any given moment.” I rest my arm on the bench seat. And my head on my arm. “To balance it all out.”
“Soren,” he says. His grip tightening just so. “I’ve always admired how he always just simply knows what to say, when to say it, how to say it.” There’s a deep love there for Soren. One that almost makes sense of them being a package deal.
Which I will circle back around to. As soon as I find my balls.
“And Vex?” I prompt needing to know who they all are to each other.
“The opposite,” he scoffs and closes his eyes. “He drives me insane.”
“Explain the package.”
“Not yet.” He side-eyes me. “When you’re ready.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means,” he drops my legs. “When you’re ready.”
“What determines ready?” I stand up and stretch. “You? Shouldn’t that be me? I determine when I’m ready.”
“Not for this.” He presses a palm to my back guiding me to a food truck.
What is it with these men and their food trucks?
“Hungry?”
“Always.”
“Good we can get it to go and head back.”
“Uh no.” Oh it’s hot dogs. “I need a dozen.”
“Soren is bringing a car.”
“Soren is bringing the car,” I mock. “Do you know how pretentious that sounds?”
“Yes.” He glances down at me. “When you say it like that.” He turns to the cashier. “Dozen. And a,” he looks at me. “Caffeine-free Pepsi.”
“Excuse me?” I turn to the guy. “All the caffeine.”
“You’ll be up all night.”
“Again, my problem.” I smirk at the cashier. “Onions. All the onions. Garlic on a few too.”
“Guess you’ll need mouthwash as well.”
“Lazarus.” I gasp. “Do I detect a personality?”
This man has the audacity to chuckle, and I like it. “You’re determined to make this difficult, aren’t you?”
“Always.” I grin, accepting the loaded hot dog he hands me. The smell of onions and garlic hits me immediately, and I take an appreciative bite before I can embarrass myself further.
The rest go into a box, and not his mouth. The cashier gives us both sodas, though he side-eyes Lazarus a little. Which, fair. He is intimidating. Or he’s also trying to determine his penis size.
Seriously those shorts are scandalous.
We find a spot on the riverbank, sitting on the grass instead of returning to the bench. The food truck’s lights cast a warm glow around us as darkness settles over the city. I’m hyperaware of every inch of space between us, how his knee nearly touches mine when he shifts position.
“So,” I say between bites, “you run, you order me hot dogs, and you boss me around. Anything else I should know about the mysterious Lazarus Dagon?”
His eyes meet mine, and something shifts in his expression. “I collect vintage typewriters.”
“Really?” I set my food down, genuinely intrigued. “That’s... unexpectedly charming.”
“Charming?” He raises an eyebrow. “I’m not sure anyone’s ever described me that way before.”
“First time for everything.” I take another bite, studying him. “Why typewriters?”
He shrugs, looking almost embarrassed. “I like the permanence of them. Digital words can disappear with a keystroke, but typewriter words...” He trails off.
“Leave an impression,” I finish for him. “Literally.”
Something passes between us as we lock eyes. A moment of understanding that makes my stomach flip. I look away quickly, focusing on the river instead. If I think about this moment too deeply, I might soften and I don’t know if I’m ready for that. If I’ll ever be ready for that.
“Soren will be here soon,” he says after a moment.
Is it bad I almost want to stretch this moment out a little longer? Yes. Yes, it is strange.
But it doesn’t feel strange.
“Bummer,” I say then shove a hot dog in my mouth to avoid accountability.
“You sound almost sad.” He bumps my knee. “We could go on a date.”
“That was hard for you to say, wasn’t it?”
“You have no idea.”
“Maybe,” I say licking ketchup off my face. “Depends on the plan.”
“I have to run it by you?”
“Always.” I laugh. “Life is too short to go on a bad date.”
“You want me to clear the date with you?”
“Is that so awful?” I nudge his shoulder. “Show me what you’ve got.”
Am I doing this? Entertaining this idea of dating my boss, of tossing myself out there into the wilds and am I even willing to get to know this man who ripped my dead heart out of my chest years ago?
I don’t know. Not really.
All I know is this moment right here right now and I want to be present in this moment.
With him.
I really know how to attract the toxic ones.
“The gym.” He glances over at me just a little, but I can see he’s trying to gauge my reaction.
“The gym?” I repeat. “For a date?”
“Yep.”
“A date.”
“I said that.”
“I’m just trying to wrap my head around where a first date to a gym is a thing.”
“Join me and find out.”
“I’m not so sure I like this side of you.”
“I like this side of you.”
I pause at his words. Unable to react as my mind digests them little by little.
“Tell me why you’re a package deal.” I lick some missed ketchup off my fingers. Stuck between the knuckles. “And then I’ll say yes.”
He sighs. “You drive a hard bargain, Calliope Cantemir.”
“Only on the weekends.”
“I beg to differ.” He looks at me, eyes rolling over every inch of my features like he’s stripping away my skin to understand the woman underneath.
“I’m simple, Lazarus,” I tell him softly, knowing he’ll hear me.
“I don’t ask for much. Just honesty, conversation, snacks.
But see the honesty part I really fucking need.
I’ve been hurt. Broken. And some days I still think I’m sitting amongst my broken pieces with empty glue wondering when it all shattered.
” I can feel the tears welling in my eyes.
“The bare minimum isn’t something you should hope for, Calliope.” There’s a raw seriousness in his voice. “Maybe you aren’t broken.” He swipes a tear off my cheek. “Maybe those pieces are just the shell you dug yourself out of to find the woman you were always meant to be.”
“It was easier to hate you,” I admit to him. I doubt that I’d have ever said anything to him before this moment that was heartfelt. But here on the grass under the moonlight. I see him not as my boss but as someone who I could love.
And that? Is far more dangerous.
“Would you prefer that?” He wipes away another tear. “To hate me.”
“I’m not so sure anymore.” I look for the answers in his eyes, the ones that tell me whether letting this man in will hurt me. But I already know that answer. Lazarus holds the ability to destroy me in ways I’ve never felt before.
But more than that, I know I could love this man and not lose myself in him. I just have to say yes and let him in despite the potential for a triple heartbreak.
“I won’t survive another heartbreak, Lazarus.” I blow out a breath, “let alone three.”
“And I can’t promise you that you won’t ever feel hurt by me,” he whispers back. “But that’s the risk we take, isn’t it?”
Risk. It’s so much more than that. My heart still aches over the pain of my past. Over the little deaths I endured for a decade. Willingly opening myself up again. To that?
I need to know why they’re a package deal. Without that I’m just walking into a triple homicide on my already broken heart.
“Soren is my home,” he says after a long moment.
“Lover?”
“Home,” he repeats. “He is who I go home to at night. Cook for after a long day. He is who I talk to when the world bends its weight toward me. When everything else feels like nothingness. When nothing in my life mattered, Soren was there. I can’t imagine a life where I wake up and he isn’t at the table reading the paper and sipping coffee. ”
“And Vex?”
“Vexing.” He smirks a little before he looks out to the water. “I’m not sure yet.”
“I’ll go, on a date with you. To a damn gym,” I rush out before I can overthink it. “But I want snacks afterward.”
“Done.”