16. Strawberry Kisses
Strawberry Kisses
The drive out to the park feels like slipping into another world. The city falls away in miles of green, the air sweeter with each turn. When we crest the last hill, the meadow opens wide, dotted with wildflowers, a pond catching the sunlight like glass.
We spread the blanket under the shade. Zosia plops down, immediately demanding strawberries, while Dominik unpacks the rest, bread, sausage, cheese and jars of jam Mama must have slipped in.
My chest tightens at the sight. He didn’t just throw this together; he thought about it awhile, planned everything carefully.
It’s easy, the three of us. Zosia rambles about bugs and trees, hands sticky with fruit, commanding our attention like a queen.
I wipe her face, Dominik pretends not to notice when she smears her hands on his jeans.
We laugh until my cheeks ache. After lunch, Zosia wanders toward the pond to collect rocks.
Dominik leans back on his elbows, watching her, then turns to me.
“She really loves you, Auntie Kasia,” he says softly.
Warmth rushes through me. “The feeling’s mutual... she’s easy to love.”
“Her Tatu? is fond of you as well…” His gaze lingers, steady and intense. “We hope that’s mutual too.”
I scoff, popping a strawberry into my mouth. “Her Tatu?? Hate him. I only tolerate him to spend time with her.”
This time, he doesn’t laugh it off. He leans closer, stealing the taste of the berry in a kiss, sweet and tart, shared at the edges, quick but charged. We dare not let it linger, not when we both know where it would go.
Zosia barrels back, triumphant with her rock collection, plopping it between us like treasure.
For a moment I think we’ve gotten away with it, until she declares, “That’s not how Tata kisses.
You do it like this.” She seizes his face in her sticky, dirt-covered hands and plants a kiss on his forehead.
Dominik grins. “Tatu? got confused, thank you for helping me.”
We both chuckle as she proceeds with her demonstration on me, the late May sun wrapping us in gold. My heart feels impossibly full, my world rewritten in the space of an afternoon. How did I ever live without these eyes on mine? Without sticky kisses pressed to my forehead?
Dominik is still asleep when I slip from the bed, his arm thudding softly to the sheets.
The morning smells like freshly cut grass from some stubborn neighbor doing yard work at an ungodly hour, and Dominik’s skin pressed against mine.
Yesterday still clings to me in fragments, the picnic, the wine, Zosia’s face as she proudly displayed her rocks.
Last night swims up with it too, the way things almost went too far, how my back arched into him before he caught himself and laughed under his breath, saying Piotr would actually kill him if he didn’t take me out properly first. A real date, dinner, just the two of us, before we tumbled the rest of the way.
It took everything in us to stop, but he was insistent and so damn earnest I couldn’t help but find it adorable.
It all feels like a cloud I don’t want to step off of.
I grab my phone more out of habit than need. No alerts from the clinic, nothing urgent. Just one text glowing on the screen, timestamped hours ago. Unknown Number.
watch the cover tonight.
I think you’ll appreciate it.
This morning is his final appointment, two weeks since his fall, just one more interaction and then he won’t be my patient. I thought maybe he’d gotten bored once the messages stopped. I thought maybe today would be the silent end of whatever this is.
Apparently not.
I shouldn’t watch. I know I shouldn’t, but I slip into the bathroom anyway, close the door, press my back against it, and open my usual page for fan videos. There it is, already uploaded, a fresh account watermark pulsing in the corner. I press play.
He’s already onstage, hair damp, leather vest shining with sweat, the edge of his veil catching the light.
The crowd noise is a living thing, a thousand throats letting him know they are there for The Riven Altar, for him, for Obelus.
He raises a hand behind his piano, and the room hushes like a held breath.
“This next song…” His voice is low, steady. “It’s a cover, a Polish song I fell in love with. Let’s visit my version of The Weight of Silence, together.”
The camera swings, the band members shift and my stomach twists. My mouth actually falls open. The crowd erupts, screams, whistles, a rising chant. Comments flash over the video:
"THE WEIGHT OF SILENCE?? who tf is ghosting this god?!"
"this is the darkest, sexiest thing he’s ever done"
"this is a RELIGIOUS experience!!!"
He drops his gaze to the mic and starts. The first notes are slow, low, the entire song turned into something dark but full of lust, the guitars droning like a pulse.
It feels like you’ve been in me for years, a melody I can’t silence.
I clap a hand over my mouth, my heart is hammering. He leans into the chorus, voice tearing just enough at the edges:
I… I’ve forgotten how to live, don’t know who I am without you.
I scroll down, other fans are losing their minds:
"he’s singing to someone. he’s in love. who is she???"
"to be the one he’s singing this to… i’d sell my limbs!!!!!!!!"
"WHO brOKE HIS HEART?!?!"
The bridge builds, his voice a raw thread over the soft piano:
One more sunrise, or a thousand winters,
I would wait if your hand was in mine.
But silence is your only answer,
Still I breathe your name… tonight.
The comments scroll so fast I can’t read them all:
"this is the hottest thing I’ve ever heard i stfg"
"if you are ignoring him PLEASE stop i’m begging"
"I’m pregnant. Screaming. Crying!!!!"
My chest feels torn open, like my heart is beating in two places at once, one in the bedroom with Dominik, and one out there on that stage with him.
I slide down the door until I’m curled on the tile, phone pressed to my ear like I could crawl inside it.
His voice is heavy and soft at once, dripping over the words like a confession.
Dominik and Zosia sleep on the other side of the wall. I should go back. But for three minutes and twenty seconds, I belong to the sound of his voice. I can’t pretend otherwise.
The last note fades, leaving only the roar of the crowd in the shaky fan video.
I sit on the tile floor, phone pressed to my chest, throat tight enough to hurt.
I should delete the text. I should go back to bed, to warmth and safety and the man who actually knows me.
I stare at the empty reply box for a long time, pulse hammering in my ears.
Every warning voice in me says no and yet—
It’s a beautiful cover.
Four words, safe, neutral enough. Nothing that could get me called into an ethics review, nothing that can’t be brushed aside as polite.
But it’s still an answer, the reply he's been looking for. The hand reaching out, no emergency of the eye required. I hit send before I can think better of it. The message whooshes away, and I’m left staring at the screen like I’ve just stepped over a line I swore I wouldn’t cross.
I wish I could snatch it back. I stare at it, tempted to delete the thread entirely, to pretend I never pressed send.
Before I can even lock the screen, it lights again.
you listened.
Two words. That’s all, just the certainty of it.
My breath sticks in my throat. I don’t know if I want to laugh or cry.
Because he’s right, I did. I broke my own line and now he knows it.
I press the phone to my chest, squeeze my eyes shut until the tiles blur behind my eyelids.
Then I force myself to stand, to slip back down the hall.
By the time the alarm on Dominik’s phone trills, I’ve only dozed in fits.
He blinks awake slowly, scrubs a hand over his face, then reaches for me.
For a moment I stiffen under his arm, the glow of my phone still burning faintly under the pillow, but he just draws me closer and murmurs something about coffee.
I help Zosia find her shoes, braid her hair, wrap her lunch. She chatters about her spelling test and the rock she’s bringing for show-and-tell, and somewhere between the stove and the schoolbag I start to feel normal again.
When she’s ready, Dominik pulls me in by the waist, flour on his fingers, and kisses my temple. “I could get used to seeing this in the morning,” he says, voice low, eyes warm. “My eyes are blessed.”
I laugh, leaning into him without thinking, forgetting everything else for a heartbeat. Just warmth, just this small, steady world. He means it. He’s the one here, holding me, the one who reaches for me over and over, through every version of me.
Then the clock nudges me. I have to get home, shower, and get ready for the clinic. My stomach tightens. In a few hours he’ll be there, Obelus, having broken down my defenses just enough, finally.
I try to tell myself it's nothing, it’s all professional.
That there’s no reason I’m taking extra time with my hair, with my makeup, grateful for the early wake-up call of school runs and sleepovers.
But a part of me knows it's not just routine or armor. It’s a little thrill, a brush against fire I don’t intend to touch, just one I intend to watch smolder.