Chapter 13 Elio
Knowing that she was going to come back at noon, I had a limited time to do what I needed to do.
The girl was suffering from PTSD because of me.
Dresden Harrow was my mistake. If I hadn’t roughed up Jimmy like that, he would have never come.
But he was dealt with, and now I had to deal with the consequences of his presence in her life.
I began with ten bouquets of roses in her living room. I didn’t do that on my own. There was an interior design team led by my friend Bernard Mercetti. He gave the entire place a do-over with decoration, frills, roses, new sheets, fresh pillows, scented candles, and everything else.
Now how did I know she was a roses kind of girl?
Well, I stalked the hell out of her Facebook and Instagram.
It wasn’t illegal, as far as I was concerned.
I mean, we were in a situationship, after all.
That’s another word I learned. When you can’t define the relationship clearly, and it’s a strange situation, it’s a situationship. An apt descriptor for our relationship.
Hopefully that would end today. Hopefully, she’d see me as more than just a guy she’d had a fling with, a guy who got her in trouble. Hopefully, she’d see me as someone she could share her life with.
Why her? Now that was a question. In all my life, across several casual relationships, college girlfriends, and breakups, I had never come across a woman who was as wise, as bright, and as intelligent as her.
But that wasn’t all. She was ridiculously funny, insanely pretty, and optimistic in a way that I’d never even imagined myself to be.
It was only when I was with her that I felt that same optimism about the future, about my life.
She made me feel optimistic about myself.
The décor wasn’t the only thing I did. I also made lunch.
Here was one thing she didn’t know about me.
I loved making food. Steaks, pasta, a dozen kinds of sauces, grilled chicken, barbeque, salads.
She didn’t know this about me, but I spent a lot of time on my own, especially when I was working sales on the West Coast. And after some time, all the takeout and outside food started to take its toll on my well-being.
Not to mention you got bored of it all. So I learned how to cook.
I was horrible at first, wasting a lot of ingredients making shitty food.
But then I learned. And as I learned, my cooking got better.
At least I hoped it did.
I was just finished making a salad bowl and braised chicken when I heard the lock click.
I turned around, apron on, the salad bowl in hand, and there she was.
It was priceless seeing the expression on her face.
First there was surprise, then there was a smile, and then she was just staring at it all wide-eyed, the decoration, the table I’d set, the wine glasses, the wine, the food I’d made.
“Elio,” she whispered. “What’s going on?”
“We’re reclaiming this space,” I said, putting the salad down on the table next to the braised chicken.
There were plenty of sides I’d made. They were easy to make.
Mashed potatoes, stir-fried vegetables—those took like thirty minutes in total.
But the braised chicken, the salad, and the lamb chops were the main courses, and those had taken me an hour.
It was surprising how fast time went by when you were enjoying what you were doing.
If someone had told me when I was eighteen that twenty-eight-year-old me would fall in love with cooking, I’d have laughed at them. And yet, here I was, bathed in the scents of the kitchen, sweat on my brow, utterly enjoying myself.
“This place was yours, and then Dresden barged in and made you feel unsafe. You need to feel safe again in this place if you want to live here. I figured a bit of decoration, a bit of early dinner, some wine, and some company would help.”
“Company?”
“Oh, it’s just me,” I said, pulling a chair and taking her purse. She sat down, smiling at everything. “I’m the company. And this is your home.”
“Thank you,” she said, looking up at me, holding my hand, squeezing it. That one soft squeeze said it all. I’d succeeded in making her happy. And I was surprised at myself at how happy I felt seeing her happy. “No one’s ever done something like that for me.”
“No compassionate ex-boyfriends?” I asked, sitting down across from her, pouring her a glass of wine.
“Before you, I’ve only ever dated like three boys, two of them in college, one after I graduated.
One of them was this weird ass literary type who considered anything not written by Hanya Yanagihara, David Foster Wallace, and a few other choice writers to be crap.
He and I fought over it at times. He said that my taste was dogshit.
I told him his pride and his elitism were.
It didn’t work out. Didn’t even have sex with him.
It was like our third date, when we were supposed to, you know, bump uglies, and he came over, looked at my books, and started making fun. ”
We ate as we talked. From the way her face livened up, I could tell she was enjoying my cooking.
“This braised chicken is so tender and juicy, Jesus!” she said, closing her eyes, moaning a little as she ate it. “Where the hell did you learn how to make something like this?”
“Believe it or not, YouTube,” I said, putting some more on her plate, and then adding a couple of lamb chops in there. She needed to try them too. “That’s where you learn everything. I learned how to tie my tie on YouTube. Anyways, that’s a story for another time. What happened with that prick?”
She took the lamb chops, ate them slowly, relishing their flavor.
I’d cooked them on a slow heat, making sure that they were crisp.
I’d seasoned them with paprika, salt, a little bit of vinegar, black pepper, and cilantro.
No need to overdo your ingredients. Let them all meet each other and create a fusion. That’s what the YouTube video had said.
“Oh, him, yeah. So, he was pretty drunk when we fought. I told him I’d read all the books he’d read and that reading was subjective, not objective.
Just because he had a couple of favorite authors didn’t mean that other books were terrible, that other authors sucked.
He couldn’t hear criticism of his criticism, and so he left, banging the door.
Good riddance. A week later he sent me an apology text, but by then I was so over him.
Actually, that was the last guy I dated.
And he kinda made me disillusioned with the whole notion of guys being good.
I’m not being sexist, but you know what I mean.
Don’t you have any ex-girlfriends who made your life hell? ”
“A string of casual relationships,” I said.
“Nothing that ever lasted more than a week. As I told you earlier, I like my partners to be intelligent, to really question me, challenge me to rise to my best. Those other girls, they were only ever with me because of the whole mafia thing. They’d read one too many mafia romance novels, and they thought that I must be one of those dark tropey heroes. Know what I mean?”
She threw her head back and laughed. “That’s what I thought at first. I was kind of scared, and then you were just you. And it kind of took away from the fear of it all, until you pulled that gun out on Jimmy.”
I sighed, drinking my wine. “I’m sorry about that. If I’m being honest, I was just trying to protect you.”
“I know that. That’s why we’re still together, eating, talking,” she said, smiling, rubbing her foot against my leg playfully. “I knew that then, too. It’s just, I get scared with guns around. At least Dresden had the sense not to show me a gun.”
“Instead the idiot slaughters a lamb,” I said, biting down on my lamb chops and feeling a little guilty.
“Yeah. Crazy guy. I hope karma gets him.”
“You know, I know you said you don’t like guns and violence and all that, but it was the most satisfying thing, punching him,” I said, nodding at her. She stopped eating, looking at me intensely.
“I know I said I don’t like guns,” she said.
“That I don’t like violence.” Her voice was low, and her gaze was sultry.
“But when you pulled the gun on Jimmy, and when you punched Dresden, you have no idea how much it turned me on. And then it scared me how much it turned me on. Like there were entire island nations in my subconscious that I didn’t even know about. ”
“You’re coming around on my gun range offer?” I asked, chuckling, but she didn’t chuckle. She was still looking at me with desire in her eyes.
“When you pulled up with your squad, and you made him feel powerless, I wanted to fuck you right then and there in that Maybach,” she said.
Lunch was forgotten as she got up from her chair and I got up from mine, the two of us meeting right in the middle of the living room, arms wrapped around each other, wild kisses planted on each other’s faces, neck, lips. Passion culminating. Arousal doing what arousal did best.
“I need you,” she moaned in my ear as I kissed her cleavage and let my hand travel up her thigh, touching her wet underwear. She wasn’t lying.
I lifted her up by her thighs, taking her to the bedroom, the two of us kissing, her hands in my hair, my hands feeling her smooth porcelain skin.
I pulled her dress off with one effortless tug.
She lay before me, legs open, her bra sliding off her shoulders, her perky breasts peeking out.
I pulled her panties off. I wanted to worship this woman, to sing odes to her with my lips right next to her pussy.
I parted her thighs and descended upon her, my tongue ravenous.
I needed to taste her, to feel her warmth on my mouth.
I licked vehemently, cradling her clit on my tongue, my fingers kneading her thighs, then reaching up to her breasts and squeezing them.