Sit With Me
Dahlia
I might never be able to move again. Never, ever has my belly been this full.
How different would my life have been if Vex didn’t save me? Where would I be right this minute? Would I be hungry? Would I be—
Fear courses through me like rivers of anguish.
“Dahlia?” Vex turns away from the game to look at me like he can sense my pain.
“I’m okay.” Will that ever be the truth? Tears slip out of my eyes and the trembling starts again.
A strong hand wraps around mine. “You’re safe. No one can hurt you here.”
The rivers settle into a bubbling creek.
Why is it that with a single motion, he can take so much anguish away? This can’t be healthy.
What would it feel like if he looped an arm over my shoulder? Vex has been sitting in that chair most of the day. “You must be uncomfortable.”
He startles a little bit. “I’m fine.”
“Why don’t you lay on top of the duvet? You’ll be able to relax and enjoy the game.”
“I’m fine here.”
Leave it alone.
Don’t push.
He’s fine.
But I’m not. My heart is greedy for just a few moments, with nothing but peace. The kind of peace I felt when he held me safe.
Now I’m waxing poetic about a crime lord who bought me steak… a really good steak. Is it wrong to ask for more from him? To demand more? “You can’t be comfortable on the hard chair for all those hours. I don’t want to put you out in your own home.”
Vex clicks the screen off. “Dahlia?”
“Please.” I know I’m asking a lot, but when you’re close, the noise in my head stops. Those are the words I should say, but instead I coward out. “It makes me feel bad knowing that you’ve sat there all those hours when you could be more comfortable lying on this bed that’s bigger than most couches.” It’s bigger than most apartments in Urbium. “Please.” Please don’t make me explain. Please don’t make me dig any deeper into the swirling pits of confusion.
Vex stares at me for a long moment. Is he trying to bore a hole into my brain? He won’t like what he finds there. “Fine.” It only takes him seconds to walk around the bed, slip out of his loafers, and climb on top of the bedding.
The edge of the bed. He’s left every bit of space between us possible, given his massive size.
Why does every part of me want to sigh in relief? He’s actually farther away now than when he was sitting on the chair. Nothing makes sense today. Nothing at all .
It’s completely reasonable for my hand to be slipping across the duvet towards Vex’s. Holding hands with a veritable stranger on his bed is so not something that I would do… ever. Yet that’s not stopping me from doing it.
My hand touches his, and my soul settles.
Vex’s eyes leave the screen and move to our hands. He threads his fingers through mine.
***
My phone rings and I jump out of my skin. “Mom!” I scoot away from Vex like a teenager caught alone with their boyfriend. “That’s my phone.”
“She can leave you a message.”
My mother leave a message? Yeah, no! “You don’t understand how my mother works. She’s probably already called my house a dozen times. If I don’t answer the phone, her next call is going to be the Mayor or the Chief of Police.” Or worse, my neighbors. At least the other two options are complete strangers.
He blinks at me a few times in shock or possibly confusion. I’m not sure I want to know which. Without letting go of my hand, he reaches over, opens the bottom drawer of the nightstand, and pulls out my purse. “Why do women carry bags this large?”
That is a question with many answers. “Cookies!”
“Huh?”
I hold out a ‘1 second’ finger as I answer the phone. “Hi, Mom.”
“Where are you Dahlia Prudence Fleur? I called your house a dozen times this morning and you didn’t answer. Did you forget we were going to have coffee together?”
Did I? Sort of, but not really. There’s no way I want to explain to her what happened. Vex doesn’t need the kind of drama in his life that my mother would bring if she found out something bad had happened to me. “I’m out watching a baseball game.” That’s sure to distract her. If there’s one thing she hates more than sports, it’s me loving them.
“Of course, you’re at a game. How are you going to find a man spending all your free time at baseball games?”
“One game is hardly all my time.” Though to be fair, when baseball season starts it’s a bit more often.
“You need to be out with your friends meeting a man. What about that neighbor of yours?”
She can’t have heard about Massimo Vincenti. My life is over if she has. There will be no end to the meddling and torment. “What neighbor?”
“That Vincenti guy…”
They’re all named Vincenti. Literally the entire neighborhood.
“The one your father talked to when you were buying the townhouse.”
Ahh. She means Talon. “He’s happily married, Mom. And old enough to be my father.” Quite literally, since his son is older than I am.
“Well, he has to have a brother, cousin, or something.”
“Mom!” Is it possible to die of embarrassment sitting on a bed?
“Fine. Fine. And your boss is really out of the picture?”
What is with everyone and Adonis? “Yes.” Time to change the topic to something less humiliating. “Where are you and Dad going?”
“He wants to go to Florida. He said something about golfing while I’m at the beach.”
“That wasn’t a wise suggestion.” Dad never wins those kinds of arguments.
“Oh, I agreed with him totally.” There’s an evil glee in Mom’s voice.
“What did you do to him?”
“Nothing at all, dear.”
“That bad.”
“There’s something you need to learn about men. They have to make their own choices in life. You can’t tell them what to do or it just breeds anger and resentment.”
Uh oh. “Poor Daddy. What did you do? ”
“I just went shopping to get a few things to wear to the beach while he golfs.” Her voice is so sweet and innocent it’s practically wicked.
“And what did you get?”
“Did you know they made things called cheeky bikinis? I never saw either of them before. So I bought ten.”
“Poor Dad’s heart.”
“Your father’s heart is just fine. He changed our hotel to a room with a private beach in the Caribbean. And it was all his idea.”
“Of course, it was. Do I even want to know what you would have done if that hadn’t worked?”
“Nope.” I can all but see her sipping her tea with a self-satisfied smile on her face. “Your father says hi. We’re going to watch a game now, then head to bed. We’ll see you soon.”
“Bye, Mom. Love you.”
“Love you too. Try to make some friends while you’re at it.” She clicks off before I can respond.
If I stare down at my blanket-covered feet for long enough, can we just pretend this never happened?
“Your mom seems nice.”
Vex used the word nice in a sentence. Why does it scare me more than him using it to describe my mother? “She’s anything but nice. My father loses every argument.”
Vex laughs. “Seems to me he won this one.”
“But he wanted to golf.”
“When a man has the choice between golf and the woman he loves, golf is never winning.”
That’s so romantic. Do men really think that way anymore? Instead of responding with something cheesy, I put my phone back in my purse. “Your cookies! How could I have forgotten your cookies?”
“What? ”
“Your ‘thank you’ cookies. I forgot all about them. They were the whole reason I came to your club in the first place.”
“You brought me cookies?”
“What you did that night… how could I not make you ‘thank you’ cookies?”
His hand flexes around mine.
“All of this is… well, I get that it’s way more than a thank you cookie event, but I need you to know how much I appreciate all that you have done for me. I don’t know… I don’t know how I would have handled all of this waking up in a hospital… scared, alone, and confused.” Tears slip out. “Thank you is not enough, but I need to say it anyway. Thank you for taking care of me.” It’s a long moment before I can bring my eyes back to his inscrutable ones.
Is he regretting his decision to bring me here? Maybe I should go home?
“What kind of cookies did you bring me?”
“Chocolate chip. You said they were your favorite.” Why can’t his face be a bit more expressive so I can figure out what he’s thinking?
“And what did you choose for nuts?”
He remembers the conversation! “I added my favorites, pecans and caramel chips.”
“Well then, let’s taste them.” Vex holds out his free hand to me.
There’s no way I’m going to mention that I already taste-tested a few of them. Lifting the heavy tin out of my purse with one hand is a challenge.
Vex takes the cookies from me staring at the kittens and flowers on the outside of it for a long moment. He uses our joined hands to hold the tin steady while he lifts off the lid, pulls away the paper, and lifts a perfect cookie to his mouth.
Does he like them? Sometimes I get too fancy with things, and a simple cookie would have been better.
“You win.”
“What does that even mean?”
“You’ll figure it out.” Vex clicks the game back on as he eats his cookies.
** *
I don’t want to wake up, even though the sunlight is peeking through my closed eyelids. Just a few more minutes. I cuddle into my pillow… It’s not a pillow. The firm heat… My eyes pop open as the last few days flood back.
This isn’t my bed.
This isn’t my little townhouse.
And that certainly isn’t my pillow. Why in the world is Vex’s chest more comfortable than any pillow that I’ve ever owned?
Worse… why don’t I want to ever move again?
My life is messed up. Everything is messed up, but I don’t care as long as I can stay right here forever.
It’s selfish and wrong to attack Vex in the middle of the night like this. If he had done it, I’d be shouting loud enough for the world to hear… maybe.
Right this moment, the world feels too right to complain or even move. I’ll just lay here enjoying the few more moments of peace I have. When Vex wakes up, I’m going to have to move away and apologize. Until then…