Chapter 2
brUNO
Just what the fuck is happening to me? I can’t take my eyes off her.
Can’t stop thinking of her. Shit, I don’t know how to act around her.
I’m a damned fifty-year-old man who never had a relationship, who doesn’t know his way around one, and who certainly doesn’t deserve the pure beauty of this girl.
Aurora Johnson. I keep rolling her name in my head, admiring it, studying it.
In the same way, I go over the memory of her voice and the sight of her.
I’ve felt desire, sure; no man my age could say they never felt it.
Johnny is proof of it—the result of a one-night stand who decided to show up with a kid years after he was born.
I didn’t question it—my biological child or not, I knew she needed the help.
I also thought that even if I had known desire, I would never know the love of a woman, so at least I could have the love of a son.
When I look at Aurora, smiling at her co-workers, laughing with my son, or suggesting the smartest choices to our customers, I wish for something I never hoped for. I wish for her to be mine.
And shit, I know she’s Johnny’s ex-girlfriend.
I know she’s still in college, studying to be an engineer.
Aurora is as beautiful as she is young and innocent.
This relationship will remain professional, and I can only allow myself to dream about it.
To imagine what she smells like and picture her taste on my tongue.
Fuck, I shouldn’t be thinking that. I’m lucky I’m in jeans.
This is ridiculous, and this should stop. Where in the world would a father want to date his son’s ex? This is absurd.
I go back to my office and force myself to focus on the forms I have to fill and the products I have to buy. They only keep me distracted for about twenty minutes, then I’m thinking of her again.
The way her hair cascades down her back. How her hips sway with every step she takes. The way she smiles.
Fuck. What am I going to do?
I have never been a man for friendships and the sort. My work is my life, so my employees understand when I don’t leave the office for the rest of the day. My manager knocks on my door to let me know the store’s closed and leaves. I rest my face in my hands and release an enormous sigh.
When I get home, I message Johnny to ask him if he wants to have dinner together.
He’s lived his entire life with his mother, coming to see me on vacations, and I think it’s about time we create some sort of relationship.
I want to get to know him, but he keeps dodging these dinners, coming up with excuses every night.
Once more, he says he can’t because of a prior engagement. He could have stayed here with me, but he’d rather have an apartment for himself. I paid for his Airbnb rental fully to make sure he’d have money to have some fun, but now I regret he might be having some fun with Aurora.
Jealousy grows in the pit of my stomach. Shit. No, I shouldn’t be thinking this way. Shouldn’t be jealous of someone who isn’t mine and who will never be mine. This is stupid.
I cook up some dinner and sit down with my phone.
And I tell myself I want to check on how my employees spent the day and how my son fared, but I open the CCTV for other reasons.
The recordings of the day on my phone screen, I follow Aurora wherever she goes, changing the cameras to keep an eye on her.
On her blond hair cascading down her back. Her full curves, the delicious ass swaying with every step…
Shit, this is so wrong. Am I obsessed? I can only look at her while I eat, my entire focus on her pretty face, ethereal even in the poor quality of the camera. And when I go to sleep, I know she will take my dreams.
I’m doomed. A man like me should never hope for something like love, but there’s no way around it. I can’t get her out of my head. And maybe I don’t want to.