19. Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Eighteen
Leif
“I wish things could be easier without having to sacrifice what I’m feeling. ”
What he’s feeling…
What is he feeling?
I should ask instead of staring at him, but our food comes and Aliko’s attention is pulled. The man loves food. It’s easily one of his top favorite things. Close behind music, I’d bet. Maybe I’m there too.
But I can’t stop thinking about what he said.
Because what does he mean?
Is he feeling the way I’m feeling? Is this a two-way street instead of the one-way I assumed it was? I know how he’s been acting, and I know how it’s made me feel…
I also know that I don’t hate it.
But it doesn’t mean he wants more. It’s just… I don’t know.
“Aren’t you hungry?”
“Hm?” I look up at Aliko, who has his knife and fork in hand, looking at me with a furrowed brow. The dim light casts shadows across his face, giving him an intense look.
“Are you going to eat?” he asks, his tone gentle.
“Oh. Right. Yeah, of course.” I chuckle and grab my fork, dipping it into the mashed potatoes and putting it in my mouth.
They’re delicious. Of course they are. This restaurant is well known. I can’t imagine their food being bad or even sub-par.
Aliko eyes me carefully a few times until he’s satisfied that I’m eating my food and there isn’t a problem. We both ordered steaks, medium rare. He got his with roasted potatoes and Brussels sprouts while I got mine with mashed potatoes and honey-glazed carrots.
We don’t speak much as we eat, and thankfully, I don’t think it’s bothering him. He seems to be enjoying his food.
When our plates are cleared, we drink wine and look around at the buildings and people enjoying their night, both full and sated from the food.
But what now? Where do we go from here? After this nice dinner on a rooftop restaurant that was a date and after Aliko said he has some kind of feelings for me. I’m left confused.
We’re halfway through our second bottle of wine, and that always hits me harder than other alcohol, despite having eaten so much food that I feel like I’m going to pop.
“What did you mean by feelings?” I blurt.
Aliko brings his attention toward me, a confused look on his face.
“What?”
“You said feelings. You said you wished things could be easier without having to sacrifice your feelings. What does that mean? What feelings?”
He holds my gaze for a just a moment before shaking his head. “Doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me,” I say urgently, my heart pounding just a little faster.
“I just meant it sucks having to hide. Makes things difficult.”
That doesn’t feel right. It feels cheap. Like he’s lying. But I accept it, because if he’s going to lie to me, then he doesn’t want to talk about it. Or he doesn’t want to upset me. So yeah, I let it go.
We finish our wine. Aliko pays the bill, even after I offer to pay or split it. We head out, back onto the street that looks busier than earlier, even though it’s nearly eleven. We walk back toward the hotel but never go around the corner to reach the front doors.
“Thank you for tonight. It was nice,” I say.
There’s a frown on Aliko’s face, one I don’t quite understand. Something is going on with him, but he won’t open up about it. It’s not my place to dig into his personal stuff, so I don’t ask.
“Are you coming back to my room?” he asks.
I can’t help but smile. “Do you want me to?”
“Yes,” he says honestly.
So easy to be honest about that, but not about anything more than face-value.
Got it.
“I’ll be there in ten.”
His gaze dips to my lips like he’s thinking of kissing me, but he turns away instead. He rounds the corner and I glance at my watch, so I know when I need to head after him.
Because I will head after him.
Every single time he asks me to.
We lay naked in the bed, both content after two rounds of mind-blowing sex, Aliko’s tentacle wrapped around my cock as usual. I shouldn’t be surprised that it’s always so good… but I am surprised that it’s just always so damn good.
“What about this one?” Aliko asks, showing me the tablet in his hand.
I take it and scroll through the photos. “It’s nice.”
“There’s a but.”
“It doesn’t feel like you.”
“Isn’t that what decorating is for?”
“Well, yeah. To some extent. There are too many windows, and the rooms are too small.”
I offer it back.
“Too many windows?” he asks.
“You don’t come across as a guy who likes to let the bright light in.”
He chuckles. “Yeah, I guess I’m not. But I can buy curtains.”
I hold his gaze. “If you like the house, buy it.”
“I don’t like the house.”
Now I laugh. “You need to look closer to the ocean,” I comment. “Maybe not right on it, because that’ll be millions—though, if you want to spend that, be my guest. I’m just saying that you can get something close to the beach and it doesn’t have to be absurdly expensive.”
He offers me the tablet back again. I take it with an eye roll and add some filters to help him find a house.
“You want a pool?” I ask.
“If it’s saltwater.”
“I think you can convert it?”
“If I’m near the beach, probably don’t need it. No pool is going to fit my true self unless it’s custom built.”
I nod and keep going through the options, my mind flicking back and forth to how big his true self really can be.
Lying here together, looking at houses for him to buy, feels very intimate. It’s far beyond the scope of a hookup, and much closer to the dating comment that he made. Only, I guess it stops there.
His other comment is still bugging me though. Because I don’t think he’s telling me the whole truth. And I want to know what that truth is. I just need to figure out how to get it out of him.
“What about this one? Two floors. Grand staircase. Spacious. Open layout for all the rooms but the important ones—bedrooms and bathrooms. And the master bedroom is huge.”
I scoot closer to him and swipe through the photos instead of handing it over because maybe I want to stay close.
“I like it. Let’s get it.”
I bark out a laugh. “You’re just going to buy it?”
He shrugs. “Isn’t that how it works?”
“No,” I say with a shake of my head. “Not at all. Buying a house is a pain in the ass, though I’m sure if you flash your name around, they’ll accept. But also flashing your name around may make them not accept and raise the asking price.”
“Asking?”
“When people want to buy a house, they have to put in an offer. Depending on the market, they may put it in under the asking price or over. If there is work that needs to be done in the house, they can put in an offer under asking, too. There are a lot of factors.” My head spirals.
Buying my house was the most stressful thing I’ve ever done.
He sighs, taking the tablet and clicking the button to turn off the screen. “This is too much work.”
“Hire someone to do it for you.”
“I can do that?”
I laugh. “Yes, Aliko, you can do that.”
I turn on my side, throwing my arm over his chest. His arms and tentacles wrap around me, holding me close. Like he always does when we cuddle like this—that one tentacle still holding my soft cock.
“Where do you live?” he asks.
“In California,” I say.
“Near the ocean?”
“It’s about an hour drive for me.”
“That’s not far.”
I shake my head. “No, not bad. I have been thinking about moving though.”
“Closer to the ocean?”
I huff a laugh, shaking my head. “Not everyone wants to be near the ocean, Aliko.”
His eyes go serious. “But if you’re near the ocean, you’ll be near me.”
His voice is so quiet, so low when he speaks those words, it’s as if he’s afraid to say them at all.
Is this part of the truth he’s afraid to tell me?
“You want that?” I ask, my voice just as low.
He blinks a few times, then nods. “Yes.”
I feel the seriousness of this situation. I understand what he’s saying. But for some stupid reason, I say something completely ridiculous.
“There are other guys you can hook up with, Aliko.”
His brow furrows so deep he almost looks angry. Or maybe he’s feeling something else—something I don’t want to admit making him feel.
My heart pounds in my chest, that little voice in my head telling me to speak up and tell him I didn’t mean it.
That I’m just joking. There are a hundred things I could say to turn this conversation around and not let him think exactly what he’s thinking—that I don’t want anything more than a hookup.
But I say nothing because apparently I’m a coward.