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Understood. I am out front when you’re ready.
I read his reply three times before I go off script.
Me:
It seems like a nice night for a walk, so why don’t you check in with Rafael before calling it a night.
It takes him a lot longer to reply, so I anticipate more than a one-word text.
Darius:
Understood.
You shouldn’t be able to hear someone’s worry in a text, but I can.
Me:
I will reach out when I need you.
Darius:
Copy that.
After I store my phone, I move to one of the windows I opened when I learned my culinary skills aren’t as proficient as I believed. I keep my gawk of the taillights of a blacked-out SUV hidden by raggedy but meticulously clean curtains.
It takes Darius almost ten minutes to obey my order, and I’m highly skeptical it wouldn’t have occurred if he hadn’t received Rafael’s approval first.
Their defiant personalities are infuriating, but I guess it could be worse.
They could not care at all.
“Is everything okay?” Mara asks upon returning to the kitchen and spotting me by the window.
She looks up at me with captivating eyes, her watch weakening my hesitation for every second she stares. She’swearing a long-sleeved blouse and a skirt that teasingly flaps against the glossy skin just above her knee. Her heels are strappy, and the kinks my bad hairstyling skills added to her locks make them extra voluptuous. Her makeup is demure in a way a woman as beautiful as her could never pull off, and her lips are glossy.
She is stunning, and my inability not to stare doubles the electricity firing between us. It seems so natural to stand across from her that I forgot she forced the resurrection of my ghosts only hours ago.
I should hate her for making me so vulnerable, but deep down, I know the purge will inevitably strengthen me. I just need the shame to fully disperse first.
“I thought we were eating in?” I murmur when I realize Mara will turn the head of every man in the five-star restaurant she should be dining at, not to mention a handful of women.
Mara’s eyes flare like she heard my private thoughts before she says, “We are. This old thing is nothing.” She spins, fanning out the hem of her skirt. Her happiness is infectious. If I could bottle it up, I would be an extremely wealthy man. Her eyes glisten with joy when she stops spinning. “It was once a tablecloth.”
“A tablecloth?” A low hum escapes her before she nods. “Then perhaps we should lay it back on the table?”
The innuendo in my question can’t be hidden, and I don’t regret it. Our mini therapy session did little to ease the intensity of the sparks firing between us.
If anything, it’s made them more potent.
My cock hardens when Mara whispers, “If you play your c-cards right, that could be a possibility.” Her stutter isn’t in fear or because it would be foreign for her to speak without stammering. It is from the unbelievable heat in her kitchen.
How do I know this? My throat feels just as scratchy when she hits me with a playful wink before she helms our exit from her apartment.
The direction of her eyes when she deadbolts her front door announces the neighbor watching Tillie for the night. If I remember correctly, Mrs. Lichard is a sixty-four-year-old widow with two grown sons. Her eldest is an investment banker, and her youngest is serving in the military. Barring a broken wrist from a motorbike accident, her children’s medical records hint at a normal upbringing.
Their medical files are too thin to measure. Mara’s are several inches thick.
Yes.Files.She has more than one.