one who snuck out without leaving any way to contact you.”
“That’s the universal code for this is only a one-night stand.”
“Which is why it took me seven and a half months to show up.”
He’s intense when he’s serious. Intense and vulnerably accurate. I’d held back adding the half to our months apart because I didn’t want to give away that I’ve counted the time, but he’s put it out there for me to see it of him. Even if he’s scared, he’s so much braver than I. I’m too scared even to respond.
Boldly, he reaches across the table to stroke my hand with his thumb, the way he did that other night. I should pull it away. This series cannot lead to the same series now as it did then.
But he’s pinned me in place with the simple power of his touch, and like an animal frightened by a possible predator, I remain in place.
While I stare at the path his thumb takes, I can feel him staring at me. “I was trying to honor your choice,” he says softly, a whisper really. “I really was, Camilla, but I couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t keep pretending that there was anything in the world that interested me besides you.”
Oh my.
To be wanted. To be wanted enough to be pursued. I haven’t entertained those possibilities in a very long time. Haven’t even entertained the fantasy. It’s too ludicrous when I feel so unworthy of that kind of wanting.
But I’m trying to look at the proof, and the proof is in his words. The proof is that he’s here. And for a handful of seconds I consider what could become of that.
The considering doesn’t go too far before I remember that the vulnerability he’s offering has to be met in kind for it to work.
And I can’t be that naked, in any sense of the word. Not for Hendrix. Not for anyone.
I pull my hand away abruptly. “I’m sorry, I don’t feel the same.” The bitter taste of deceit returns. Before I’m tempted to wash it down with truth, I stand. “I think it would be best that we call it a night.”
I’m heading out the door before he can stop me, confident that he won’t follow. He knows there’s no use chasing after the animal he’s after. He knows it’s best to lie in wait.
Outside, I pull up the Uber app as soon as I realize that catching a taxi in this part of town on a Saturday night is not happening. Car ordered, I lean against the stone exterior of the pub and will myself not to cry.
Next thing I know, Hendrix is standing next to me. Because I’m not an animal, I’m a woman, and why would he stay in the pub when the bill was already paid and I’d left?
And if he was the type of man to follow me to London, he certainly wouldn’t be the type of man to leave me brooding in peace.
I sigh when I see him, a big, desperate, anguished sigh. “I can’t,” I say. Because I can’t. I can’t anything with him. I can’t even with myself.
“I know,” he says calmly. “So let me.” With his hands in his pockets, he steps in, so close that I can’t look in his eyes. So close that we’re almost touching. It feels like we’re touching, even though there’s not a part of me in contact with him. “I know you don’t mean what you said in there. I know that you feel something. And I know that, for whatever reason, you aren’t able to let that keep you from walking away right now.”
His tone is patient. His words, given as a gift, not to persuade but to soothe. And the electricity bouncing between us...would it send mixed messages if I let him take me in the alley for a quickie?
It’s sad that that’s where my mind goes, when sex is already part of my routine and what he’s offering is something so much more uncommon in my life. Happiness. Not the daily small joys I have naturally with Freddie, but the kind that come from being chosen. Is that why I run from it? Because it’s too foreign? Too unknown?
Probably that, and also it’s hard to trust something so intangible. Sex is easy in comparison. It’s concrete. It has a clear objective. It has a clear end.
Of course, with what he’s said, with the declaration of his interest, sex can’t just be sex anymore.