sides. I shiver in my jacket and rub my arms, making my way over to the thermostat and cranking it up. Peeking over the couch in the formal living room, I note the board still intact sitting where it rests on the lip of the fireplace. Unbelievably, the pieces are set up from the last time Tobias and I played chess.
“Your move,” he prompts after taking another of my pawns.
I sip my wine and gaze at him bathed in the amber light of the few candles I lit when I came downstairs after my shower. We’d shared an intimate smile when I spotted him from where he stood, uncorking a bottle of wine. After lathering myself up in juniper lotion, which I learned was his catnip, I’d chosen an off the shoulder, thin sweater, and nothing else. I don’t own any lingerie, except for the nightgown he bought me that I decided to save for our last night together, which will be the night before I leave for school, which I refuse to think about. The clear approval of my choice shines in his eyes as he sweeps me appreciatively while passing me my wine before we take our seats. The board rests diagonally on the fireplace, where we sit across from the other, very little space between us. The game itself, I still find incredibly boring, but the beauty and mystery of the company I’m playing with make it more than bearable. And if I’m truthful makes for some intoxicating foreplay.
“Is there another game you would ever play?”
“Non.”
“And you never watch TV aside from the news?”
“I do when I’m sick.”
“How often do you get sick?”
“Once every three to five years.”
I roll my eyes. “I don’t suppose we’ll be bonding over any sort of binge-watch then.”
He glances over at me, the touch of vulnerability evident in his gaze. “Is that what we’re supposed to be doing?”
His question is serious. As naïve as it is for a man his age. Over the last week together, I’ve learned that much like his brothers, the man truly doesn’t at all run in any circle, or include any norms of his life that would indicate standard ‘American’ living. Though he went to school abroad, he was raised in the States for a long period of time, but it doesn’t seem to have rubbed off on him in the McRib way, which is crazy ironic for a man with his finger on the pulse of current events. A man who is so in tune with the world yet so far removed from it in a personal sense. One, he’s very much a hermit and a creature of habit. His touch of OCD making his routines hard to deter from. Two, he lectured me endlessly when I told him I was craving said McRib. In fact, he went full-on French snob. I barely got away with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and now have to hide my junk food.
The man’s indulgences include expensive coffee beans, his food must be nothing less than fine dining standards, and his wine choices—though delicious—are very, very, expensive. And every one of his suits is designer and tailored, that much I knew, but I have yet to see a repeat in the two months he’s taken me hostage. While his tastes maybe a little over the top, I don’t at all fault him for spending his money on the finer things because he didn’t grow up in a house like the one we’re occupying, he grew up enduring a ‘wrong side of the tracks’ type of lifestyle answering to an alcoholic aunt who considered cockroaches a part of the family while trying to play father to his little brother.
He hasn’t lived a charmed life, and I’m happy that he gets to not only experience these things but demands them for his daily life. If he’s selfish about anything, it’s these little indulgences that bring him joy. He’s complicated, yet simple. And he doesn’t seem to require the stimulation of the average man. He seems to consider most things an experience, not music, but a single song, not food, but a feast, not wine but a tasting. And sex, that he takes even more seriously. For him, it’s an art form, and one he’s mastered beautifully.
“What?” he asks, flicking his gaze to mine while contemplating his first move.
“I don’t hate you anymore.” I don’t miss the slight lift of his lips. “You smile, but I really did hate you, Tobias.”