The Monster In Us

26- bluEbird iN mY heart

"You heard me tell you that we can't go to my apartment because it's basically a health hazard, right?" I wonder jokingly. "I know messy, it's okay."

"Do you want something to change into?" He asks me, noticing that my blouse, pencil skirt, and three inch heels probably aren't the most comfortable things to spend my evening in.

"Yeah, that'd be great," I nod, still looking around the room to notice everything that there is to notice, especially all of the books.

"Clothes are through that door," Dante says, pointing to a door right beside the book shelf so I walk over there and walk into a fairly large walk in closet. I momentarily feel smug that my closet back home is way bigger. There are a lot of sports jackets, dress shirts and pants, some jeans, and it's all very neatly organized. I choose a long sleeved sweater that looks warm and I exchange my office attire for the sweater, leaving on my underwear but taking everything else off. I throw my hair into a messy bun and then exit the closet to put my clothes near the chair to keep all of my stuff in one spot.

While I was changing in the closet, Dante had apparently chosen clothes from his black dresser to change into because he's now wearing a t-shirt and sweat pants.

"I'll get us food, you're probably starving," Dante observes me as I invite myself to take a seat on his extremely comfortable bed. He then joins me, sitting on the other side of the mattress. He then pulls out his phone and starts texting somebody, maybe a chef, to start dinner or to order out.

"How can you tell?" I wonder because I am starving but I didn't think that my stomach was rumbling that loudly.

"You didn't eat lunch again," He reminds me. "And you're also always hungry. How's Chinese sound?"

"Sounds good," I nod at him, I then decide that I want to do something that I've never done before, something that I will only ever do for him, and I get up from the bed again and walk over to the chair where I had left all of my stuff. "Take off your shirt."

"What?" Dante asks me with an understandable level of incredulity in his voice.

"Your shirt," I repeat as I get to my bag across the room. "Take it off please."

"Chinese food doesn't take that long to be ready," He tells me, looking very amused as I carry my large tote bag back to the bed so that I can find what I'm looking for.

"I'm not trying to seduce you," I assure him but he still isn't moving to take off his shirt like I had asked so I crawl over the bed to the side that he's sitting on and I grab ahold of the hem of his shirt with a threatening look. "I will do it for you if I have to."

He doesn't fight me so I pull his t-shirt over his head and then quickly kiss his lips before I crawl back to the other side of the bed. I lean into his very soft pillows and pull my sketchbook out of my bag along with a pencil.

"You're going to draw me?" He finally understands what's happening. "Why did I need to take my shirt off for that?"

"I want to get your tattoos," I explain. "Just stay relatively still."

"Sitting like this?"

"Yeah, this is good," I assure him, focusing on the drawing so that it looks good and that I get every detail of Dante as perfect as possible so that even when our time has passed, I will have this to remember him by. I will remember the curves of his muscles, the waves in his hair, the terrifying gleam always found in his dark eyes, the colorful designs etched all the way down his arm, and the beat of his human heart. Obviously, I can't get that last one drawn on the paper but I will remember it, how human he is, despite the reputation that surrounds him.