Hard Rules
“You are?”
“Yes,” he says. “I am.”
“So am I.” I hesitate on what I want to say, but only for a moment. “You said trust is different than control.”
“It is and I fully intend to show you how.”
“And trust is important to you because of your family.”
“Right again.”
“Then I really need to tell you a few things.”
I expect some sort of reaction, perhaps withdraw in anticipation of what I might say, but he simply settles his hands on my waist. “I’m listening.”
“I know you said we’re just fucking, but—”
“Because I needed, we needed, to ‘just fuck,’ not because we’re the equation of a few random fucks. Be clear, sweetheart, for my part and I am sure yours, I could have called any number of fuck buddies tonight. I didn’t and that was because they aren’t you, and therefore they aren’t what I needed.”
It’s everything I want to hear, and yet … “I’m confused, Shane. At the office, you said we are a problem, because your family is a problem.”
“Trouble doesn’t begin to describe my family, but I’ll be damned if I want to give you up right now.”
Right now. Inferring that he still intends to give me up later, which makes the confession I’d been about to make irrelevant. But I get him and understand where he’s at. His father is dying. He needs someone right now. Maybe he actually needs that to be me for some reason, and I want to be that someone. I reach up and cup his cheek. “I don’t want to give you up right now either.”
“Well then,” he says. “I vote we order room service and actually enjoy it this time.”
“I’d like that,” I say, and he lifts me off the sink, setting me on the ground in front of him, but we don’t move. We stand there, the way we do sometimes it seems, staring at each other. I know that we’ve just said we are all about right now, inferring later won’t matter, but there is something shifting between us, something warm and wondering, I don’t understand, but I want and need.
He reaches down, lacing his fingers with mine, his lips slowly begin to curve. My lips curve too, and suddenly, we’re smiling for no reason. He leads me forward, holding on to me as we walk, and I think that is part of what really gets to me with Shane. He holds on to me like he’s afraid he’ll lose me, when no one else does or cares.
We reach the living room and I sit down on the couch. Shane doesn’t immediately join me, instead handing me a throw blanket before using a remote that ignites a sleek, glass-paneled fireplace in the far right corner. “I’ll grab the menu,” he says, leaving me feeling cozy and safe in a way I haven’t been in a very long time. He makes me feel safe, which is probably why I’ve told him things I shouldn’t have. Why I want to tell him everything, but I can’t bear the idea he will hate me, or he’ll end up hurt.
“Here we go,” Shane says, placing the hardcover menu on the table in front of me. “How about a drink?”
“I better not. I’m a lightweight and I might not make it home.”
“A drink it is,” he says, placing his phone on top of the menu. “Room service is programmed in my numbers. Call down and order my regular egg white omelet and whatever you want. I’ll get the drinks.”
I twist around to follow his progress to the bar behind me. “I feel like I’m invading your privacy tabbing through your phone.”
“If I was worried about it,” he says, casting me a sideways look as he opens a glass decanter. “I wouldn’t give it to you.”
I wouldn’t give it to me is the problem. Trapped in a huge lie and falling for a man who is swimming in a sea of those very same monsters, I leave the phone on the table, and wait for what turns out to be his quick return. “Cognac,” he announces, claiming the spot next to me, and setting two glasses on the table, before giving me a curious look. “You didn’t order the food, did you?”
“Let’s just drink,” I say, picking up a glass and downing the sweet, potent liquid.
“Emily,” he says, softly, setting the glass on the table. “What’s wrong?”
I’m lying to you and I need to be honest in every way I can, I think, but I say, “We were talking about trust. Remember?”
“I remember,” he says, his tone cautious now.
“Okay then. Confession time. When I said I could never forgive you this morning, I’d already forgiven you. I just thought I had to do that to keep you away.”
“And you did that why?”
“There are things in my life I can’t and won’t involve you in.”
He reaches over and strokes a lock of hair behind my ear. “What if I want to be involved?”
“You barely know me.”
“But I want to know you.” His voice is low, a silk caress on my raw nerve endings. “I’m not going to press you now, but when you’re ready, you can trust me.”
“It’s not that simple.” And oh how I wish it were.
“I’ll make it simple.”
But he can’t make this simple and I quickly change the subject, before he doesn’t let me. “Your mother cornered me at the office tonight.”
His reaction is to down his drink, refilling it, and hands mine back to me. I follow his lead, emptying my glass, a fog begging to take over my brain. “Whatever that is tastes good but I better stop before I forget how bad of a drinker I am.”