Chapter Three
A few weeks later, I woke up in a familiar bed, but one that was not my own.
I stretched out and reached for my clothes where we had abandoned them in a small pile the night before. Darius was still sprawled out on the bed next to me, fast asleep. He was naked too, and I took a second to look at him as he lay flat-out on his stomach. The muscles in his back were visible through his skin, and I fought the urge to reach out and run my hands along them. I didn’t want to wake him up yet, before I’d had a chance to shower and get a coffee in me.
He was out late most nights, so would normally sleep longer than me when it came to mornings like this. Last night, he’d been out at a fight while I’d been working a shift and he’d picked me up at Dino’s (I snuck around the back to make sure that no-one saw who I was leaving with) and we came back here and fucked ourselves stupid.
He had balanced me on the kitchen counter, strong arms wrapped tight around my body. Just the thought of it was making me all…mmm. A shiver ran down my spine as I got myself dressed. I could very happily have spent an unthinkable amount of time screwing with Darius.
It had been just under a month since we’d first agreed on our fuck-buddies relationship and, so far, things were pretty much perfect. I’d never had a prolonged fuck-buddy before; I was either a one-night-stand or a full-blown relationship kind of girl. This was entirely new territory for me, and I had to admit that I was having a whole lot of fun exploring it.
Darius was incredible in bed, or hell, maybe the two of us just had that kind of chemistry that didn’t come along very often and bounced off each other. Things had only gotten better since the first night we hooked up, and I found myself regularly crashing over at his place after we spent the night in bed.
I had mentioned this to Nina, and she had given me a look over her coffee cup while we were at the café close to where she worked. I hadn’t seen much of her since she and that coach had started hooking up, but we were both happy to take the opportunity to actually talk about how our respective love lives were going.
“What’s that look for?” I demanded as I tucked into my brownie. I had skipped breakfast that morning as Darius had insisted on taking me back to bed instead, and who was I to refuse his advances?
“So, you’re keeping it casual, but you’re staying over there most nights of the week?” She confirmed. I shrugged.
“Yeah, that’s right,” I agreed. “I don’t see what’s wrong with that.”
“And are either of you seeing other people?” She pressed, leaning forward in her seat.
“No, but-“
“Honey, you’re dating this guy,” She remarked. “No shame in it, but you guys are in the early days of boyfriend/girlfriend stuff.”
“Trust me, that’s the last thing I want with Darius,” I rolled my eyes. “He’s an amateur boxer, for God’s sake. And the people he hangs around with aren’t always the…well, the most legal of people.”
She was still giving me the look.
“What?”
“You guys said you were going to keep it casual, right?” She confirmed. I nodded.
“Well, I hate to break it to you, but you’re totally not,” she shrugged.
“And you and your guy are?” I teased. “You seem pretty smitten with him.”
“With his dick, maybe,” she replied, loud enough that a couple of people turned around and gave us dirty looks. I glanced at them apologetically but had trouble keeping the smile off my face. Nina had no filter, and it was by far one of the best parts about being friends with her.
“But seriously, if you’re not looking for something serious, you need to nip this in the bud,” she suggested. “Keep it strictly about sex.”
“But I like spending time with him…” I admitted, and Nina pounced at once.
“Do you like him? Like, like him like him?” She tapped her fingers against her coffee cup.
“What are we, in high school?” I rolled my eyes, but only so I could deflect her question for a moment longer.
“Okay, so you’re basically in love with him,” she replied. matter-of-factly.
“Look, yes, I guess I don’t hate him,” I conceded. “But I’ve got my head over my heart here. I know what’s good for me.”
“Whatever you say,” she eyed me suspiciously, and I could tell that she didn’t believe a word of what was coming out of my mouth. “Hey, how’d that audition go?”
“Not bad,” I replied, stirring my coffee to try and distract myself from the little uptick of excitement that came when she mentioned the audition. I had gotten a call from a friend of a friend of Darius’ – his band was looking for a new bassist to come play a few gigs around the city, with a view to taking on the position permanently. I had gone out to play for them, and they seemed to really like me, though I hadn’t heard anything from them since then, so I wasn’t getting too excited.
“I’m sure you’ll get it,” Nina beamed across the table at me. She had always been my biggest cheerleader when it came to stuff like this, and I couldn’t help but smile back at her enthusiasm.
“Thanks,” I bowed my head gratefully, and turned the subject back to the crazy shit she’d been getting up to in bed with her new beau. I was happy to get the attention off me for a while because, frankly, she had given me a lot to think about.
So, there I was that morning, at Darius’, slipping into his shower to get myself ready for another shift at work. It had taken me a while to learn how to use the damn thing, but now I had it figured out -- I just had to let it run for an age until the water got hot.
Darius liked cold showers anyway, especially when he got home from a fight, so he didn’t even realize that there was something up with his shower until I pointed it out to him. I smiled as I climbed under the warm rush of water, thinking back to the stunned expression on his face when I had let out a yelp of displeasure when he’d pulled me under the freezing water with him.
I washed my hair with the shower gel I’d dumped there a few days earlier, dried off, and got myself dressed. I made my way through to the kitchen, and found, to my surprise, that Darius was already up and out of bed and had made us both a cup of coffee. He handed one to me, and I took a sip.
“Mmm,” I sighed, satisfied. “Thanks, I needed that.”
“You’re going to work, right?” He furrowed his brow at me, as though desperately trying to remember what I had or hadn’t told him the night before. I couldn’t really recall much past the two of us getting in the door, myself.
“Yeah, that’s right,” I nodded.
“I’ll walk you there,” he suggested. “It’s a beautiful day out.”
“Are you sure?” I frowned. “It’s a long way, and if you’ve got stuff to be getting on with I don’t mind.”
“I want to,” he assured me, catching my face between his hands. “Trust me.”
“Okay then,” I gave him a look out of the corner of my eye as he sipped his coffee and wandered through to the bathroom to get his shower ready. I couldn’t help but think about what Nina had said to me when the two of us were at that coffee shop -- that we were actually dating and just playing at keeping things casual. And I wasn’t sure that she was wrong. Whenever I saw him, I felt that little buzz of excitement in my chest, and it was getting harder and harder to ignore. I thought what we had was just attraction, but the more time I spent with him, the less likely that seemed to be.
I drank my coffee and reached for my phone, planning on scrolling through the news as I caffeinated myself up to the gills. Instead, I saw a message waiting for me. Who was texting me at this hour? I glanced at the time- I wasn’t late for work, so it couldn’t have been a supervisor demanding to know where I was, already. I didn’t recognize the number as I tapped the message open, but as soon as I saw what appeared on my screen, I wanted to punch the air with glee.
Darius came out of the shower, wrapped in nothing but a towel, and found me beaming down at my phone.
“What is it?” He came and wrapped his arm around my waist, the smell of his shampoo filling my senses. I turned to him and held out the phone.
“Look!” I exclaimed, louder than I meant to, but damn, I was just so excited. He squinted at the message, and then his face lit up.
“You got the gigs!” he replied, matching my level of joy at last. “That’s amazing, well done!”
“Thanks,” I sighed, already giddy. “I haven’t played in so long. I can’t wait.”
“When’s the first one?” He asked as he went through to the bedroom to get himself dressed.
“A week tomorrow. I’ll need to start practicing, like, yesterday.”
“Shit, I have a fight that evening,” he frowned. “I really wanted to come along and see you play.”
“Don’t worry about it!” I waved my hand. “No big deal.”
“I’ll be at the second one,” he promised as he pulled on a shirt.
“You really don’t have to,” I assured him, but he shook his head.
“You’ve seen me fight, it’s only fair that I get to see you play,” he flashed me a smile. “Come on, we should probably think about leaving. You ready?”
“When you are,” I agreed, and we made our way out the apartment and down in the direction of Dino’s. I found myself babbling away in excitement about the upcoming gig, the nerves already setting in as I imagined playing in front of an audience again. Darius reassured me at every turn, and before I knew it, the two of us were standing at the back entrance to the bar.
“I’ll catch you later?” Darius ran his hand over his hair, and I nodded.
“Give me a text when you’re next free,” I suggested, and, before I could think about what I was doing, I leaned in and planted a kiss on his lips.
We both stood stock-still for a second, and then Darius glanced around, presumably to make sure that no-one from work had caught us. Nope, we were alone. He actually flushed- and backed away a few paces.
“I should probably be getting home,” he mumbled, and I nodded, looking at the ground.
“See you later,” I muttered in reply, and watched as he vanished back around the front of the building and out on to the street.
I stepped into Dino’s and grabbed my apron from the rack, absently tying it around my waist. Shit. Had I just seriously fucked things up between us?
I went about my usual chores, and tried to reason with myself- he’d kissed me just as much as I’d kissed him, after all. It was just a little peck- but it was the first time we’d so much as touched outside his apartment. I knew no-one had seen us, but still…the panic pulsed at the back of my mind, and I wondered what would happen if anyone found out that the two of us were together.
Were we, though? Together? I had no idea, and the lines were getting more and more blurred between what I knew to be true and what we’d promised each other we wanted from this relationship. We’d agreed that this was going to be casual-- nothing serious, just some fun between co-workers after we fortuitously found ourselves in each other’s lives once again. But maybe Nina had been right, maybe there was something else going on here. I did my best to put her raised \eyebrows and her unasked-for commentary on whatever we had, out of my head, but it was hard-I knew that what she had told me was getting closer and closer to coming true. And, beyond the fact that it would be proving her right, I didn’t want to admit it.
The feeling of his lips on mine lingered on my skin, and I touched my fingers to my mouth as if trying to recreate it. Did I want him like this? He was bad news- the kind of guy my mom would have thoroughly disapproved of. But then…that was what made it hot in the first place. He was forbidden, a bad idea, a sure thing set to failure, but I had to try. I had to taste him, to try him out, to see how we went together and remind myself why our pieces would never slot together.
And what I’d found was that I liked him. A lot. More than I thought I would. When I saw him in that ring six weeks ago, I’d already painted a picture of him in my head, convincing myself that he would be a cocky asshole who wasn’t worth the time of day. Yeah, he was hot, but so were a lot of guys, and most of them weren’t dragging around this kind of baggage.
I kept him at arm’s length in my head. In doing so, I’d given him an in. If he wasn’t an option, then there was no harm trying him out, right? And that led to nights together, to days together. To the acknowledgement of the fact that I fucking liked Darius and that he was one of the sweetest, most thoughtful guys I’d ever come across in my life.
Fuck it.
I stepped out on the restaurant floor and made my way around the empty tables, setting out places and cutlery for the lunchtime rush. I knew I had walked into a mistake, the most obvious one I could have made -- of course I was going to fall for him, of course things were going to go too far. But for now, as long as I was here, I could play at being the girl I wanted to be -- removed, restrained, distant and independent. And I could pretend that I wasn’t falling hard for a guy I’d promised myself I never would.