“I’m not liking this,” I shared.
“You like my mouth between your legs?” he asked.
My body tightened and I returned sharply, “That’s not the point.”
“Answer me.”
“You know I do.” My voice was getting snappy.
“You like workin’ beside me on your house?”
I said nothing but I knew he’d read me.
He did and thus he kept going.
“You gotta bake a cake, I’ll eat it. Happily. Do it on September fourteenth. I’ll accept a blowjob as a present but nothin’ else, only need to wake up with you in the morning and bed down with you at night. And I’m not shittin’ you about that, settin’ you up for me gettin’ pissed because you didn’t buy me anything. Special occasions are about the people you spend them with, not about the shit you can get out of them. And while I’m sayin’ this, same goes for Christmas. Far’s I’m concerned, I get another shot at Christmas with you, or luck out and get fifty of ’em, each one can be like the one we already had, except I sleep beside you, fuck you wakin’ up and fuck you again before we go to sleep.”
God, he made it hard to be angry at him.
“You wanna know the man I am, I’ll tell you,” he kept at it. “I’m the man who’s gonna take your shit but best you at it so I can at least replace about five square feet of shingles on your roof. But if I’m on my game, I’ll be the man replacing the whole roof.”
“Deacon—”
“And I’m the man who’s gonna work the next week alongside you cleaning out the gutters on your cabins, because if you didn’t think to do that to your house, you didn’t think to do it to your cabins, and they’re probably fucked up too.”
“Dea—”
“And I’m the man who’s gonna sit beside you at your friends’ house tomorrow night and like bein’ there ’cause I haven’t been around many good people the last ten years. Quick count, there are three.”
More not good.
He kept going.
“And I’m gonna get off on bein’ at a table with people who bring a woman that means somethin’ to them that they’re worried about a hot fudge sundae to try and make her happy.”
I lifted a hand to his jaw. “Honey—”
“And food’s gettin’ low so I’m gonna be the man who pays for groceries when we go to the store and I don’t give a fuck if you argue with me at the cash register. I’m payin’. You can pay the next go.”
It occurred to me he was talking and doing a lot of it so I decided to shut up and listen because he wasn’t only talking a lot, he was saying a lot.
“I’m also the man who’s gonna eventually have to take a job but I’m gonna do it thinkin’ of when I can get back to you, and when it’s done, I’m gonna haul ass back to you. And I probably won’t sleep or eat while I’m doin’ that so you’re just gonna have to suck it up, feed me when I get back, fuck me hard like you just did, and let me crash.”
I had something to say to that.
“I don’t want you to get in an accident.”
At that, he dipped his face so close to me, I could feel his breath on my lips.
“Baby, that shit happened, my ghost would come to you.”
Oh my God.
Yes, oh yes.
He was saying a lot.
“Now, do you get what kind of man I am?” he asked.