Last night with Lexi was intense. I don't know what came over me when I decided to tell Lexi about that night where I almost...I've never told anyone before, and I was unsure how to feel about telling someone now. Her of all people. When did she become the person I wanted to tell things to? Deep things.
I won't lie. I was a little freaked out with how well we were doing together. The apartment isn't fully put together, but she's making an effort to keep things cleaner than she's used to, and I've made the effort not to be anal about it.
We sleep in the same bed. Comfortably. We have toothbrushes next to one another's. I wake up to her tart apple scent every morning when I am inevitably pushed up against her, like I can't help myself even when unconscious.
I go to sleep usually after having great sex with her. In between all that we have our own stuff going on. Work and things. But we shared meals together more than once this week.
She reads, I read. She walks around half naked all day, and I watch with enjoyment. She goes to castings, I go deal with the Russian's and the Irish aftermath now that they've tucked their tails and run.
Then we come home to each other. Whether my knuckles are red from a fight, or I had a short day and I'm undoing my suit and tie, realizing I was looking forward to getting home to her. What the fuck is this? This isn't supposed to be real, so why is it working out that way?
Like a real married couple, doing real married people shit.
I'd been on my way home with a bottle of champagne, because Lexi called me earlier in excitement to tell me she got a job for the fashion week thing she'd been talking to me about. I know that's a huge deal for her career, and I was proud of her. So I bought champagne and I was gonna make us dinner...which feels very domestic.
I don't know why I'm bugging myself out so much. I should be happy things are running smoothly, seeing as we won't be getting rid of each other any time soon. But I'm not happy. Not exactly.
I'm not happy about actually being happy when I shouldn't be. We promised not to get lost in all this. To remember what this really is between us. A fake marriage contract. No relationship. NO feelings.
When I got home I noticed I was the first to get here. I knew she'd been with Mia and possibly that Karl fella. She'd told me she was on her way though, so I stopped for the champagne and now I guess I'll cook something.
I'm used to moving around my old kitchen, where all my things were put in the place they'd been for years and years. I moved easily because everything was familiar and everything was comfortable.
Right now I have none of that. Half our stuff is still boxed up. We haven't figured out what goes where, so the seasonings for the meal are in one place, and I have to open and close cabinets all over to find it.
I know it's an adjustment, it's just been a really long time since I've had to do that. I've lived alone for so long, and in the same apartment at that.
Relax Rizzo...it's not real.
-
I heard the front door and glanced over my shoulder to see Lexi coming in, kicking off her shoes. She smiled when she saw me, but stopped short and looked down at her discarded shoes. "Uh, I'll put those away. Promise" she gave me an innocent shrug.
Before putting her shoes away though, she came to me to see what I was doing.
"That looks so good" she sniffed the air. When I turned to her she came up on her toes and pecked my lips hello. Again...too domestic. Like a habit. You can't make a habit of something you know is temporary. That's how things turn complicated. And I don't want complicated. I want simple.
"I'll set the table" I heard her say. We don't have a dining room, but the kitchen is spacious enough for a table, which was where she was setting the dishes down now. It's quaint, but this place suits her. Suits us. There I go with that word again. Us.
"I bought champagne" I called after her. I heard her hum in satisfaction.
"And what are we celebrating?" She asked me, suddenly coming up at my side and hugging around my torso. "You, dummy" I nudged her. She flipped me off and winked at the same time. I like when she has that soft half smile on her lips. It's not a face she grants just anyone.
Oh fuck...listen to me. I'm in trouble.
"Karl is kinda nuts" she started talking to me while I moved things off the stove and out of the oven. With this part we moved too smoothly around each other to grab this and set that. Like how I was back in my old kitchen, in my old apartment, with all my old stuff. My familiar.
Lexi shouldn't be familiar. She's practically a stranger.
-
After dinner Lexi asked if she could take a shower before we cracked open the bubbly. I'm starting to notice little things about her. Like how Lexi sings in the shower, but not in the belt out the lyrics kind of way. No. She's very quiet and she actually sounds really pretty. It's always to oldies music too. Never anything that's playing on radios now.
I noticed how she smiles in parts of movies that most people overlook. She reacts to a book she's reading like no ones in the room to see it. I noticed how life is lived by Lexi's standards. For example, the other day I walked into a room and observed what she was doing.
"Is that eyeliner?" I asked her. "Yeah" she stated without looking up. "Why are you writing with your makeup?" I bothered asking. "Cuz I didn't have a pen" she gave me such a 'duh' tone that perplexed me because Lexi Petrov, or Rizzo I guess, lives her own truth. She can make the world hers, and suddenly someone so sure of themselves no longer feels so sure. She could shake me that way. Like no one else.
She can wear an expression like she's perpetually bored at times. In others she's more lively, like when she's passionate about something.
The other day the mail left a Pisa Pizza menu at our door front and she immediately went inside, ripped the thing in two, and dumped it in the garbage. When she saw me observing her she said, "I don't eat Pisa Pizza."
"Why?" I asked. "The owner of the company is racist, so it's just not an establishment I support," she told me. And when I asked what happened she started telling me all about it. Racist comments on facebook and other things. It was a scandal she'd heard a while back, but she still sticks to it.
When I think of pizza I just think of pizza. I don't pay enough attention to the background stuff. Since knowing Lexi I have learned to pay better attention. So now I do not eat Pisa pizza either.
Lexi can make a joke one moment, which makes me laugh and shake my head. Then she can say something deep and introspective in another. Like when she told me, "I like my house how I like my men." And of course I asked, "How?" With a smirk on her plush pink lips I adore she said, "kept in their place."
She made me laugh. She told me she likes my laugh. How I chuckle from deep inside my chest. She notices little things about me too I guess.
But in an introspective moment Lexi turned to me and said, "You know what I think the best kind of love is" she looked across the room to me when we were on our sofa, which we haven't quite placed in a permanent spot yet.
"Absent minded love," she told me. I questioned it, which kept her talking.
"Yeah, like, have you ever been next to a dog and you're doing some normal thing like watching tv, you've been doing it this whole time but then you lean over and pet the dog, without thinking about it. Or when a person just randomly leans over and kisses their lover. It's not showy. It's not even totally of your own control. Just somewhere deep in your subconscious you released a little bit of love. Absentmindedly."
I'm learning all about the unapologetic Lexi, I'm given a rare glimpse of her day to day life, I've stepped into her world. And it scares the fuck outta me.
-
Two champagne flutes later I clinked glasses with the wet headed Lexi. "Congrats" I told her, "I'm proud of you." And when she smiled she slayed me. Lexi slayed me...just how Mia used to. More so than Mia ever did. And it freaked me out.
I didn't mean to do it, but I sort of stepped away from her. When she came to kiss me I quickly took a sip of the bubbly to stop her motion. She didn't think much of it, but whatever expression I wore after the fact was starting to give me away.
She kept looking at me while she sat on our countertop with the flute in her hand. I was now standing more so in the middle of the kitchen instead of between her legs how I had been before.
"Now that we're done fawning over my great success, what're we doing tonight?" She asked me innocently. I shrugged. I started feeling this weight, this pressure in my chest. I can't explain what it is or what it stems from, but I suddenly felt like I needed to go. To leave.
"I'm probably going out" I said, dumping the champagne and rinsing the cup so I wouldn't have to look at her.
"Where?" She asked. And I'm sure it wasn't meant to be controlling or jealous. She was just curious why I was randomly leaving, so she asked. But I didn't like how it all felt. I felt crowded. I felt like everything in this apartment was happening too fast. Was running too smoothly.
So what did I do?
"Since when do we keep tabs on each other?" I asked with more of a clipped tone than I meant to use. Her brows furrowed at my response, which only made me feel more defensive under her inquiring blue gaze.
A color I resign to Lexi alone. A color she's made her own just by how beautiful her eyes look to me. That blue...
When I realized my thoughts I flipped out. I will admit it was not my finest moment. I suddenly whirled around and started searching for my shoes. "What's going on?" She asked. Rightfully so, since I was acting like a loon, but still I felt crowded again.
"We said we weren't gonna do this, Lex. We aren't dating. We can do whatever we want" I told her, fiddling with my shoes and trying to put them on with urgency to run. "What the hell?" She tipped her head at my words or my behavior, probably both. "Why are you being a dick all of a sudden?"
I scoffed. "I'm a dick for speaking the truth? Remember, this isn't real. You said so yourself. You told me not to forget it. These meals together, this sitting at home together like some married couple...that's not what this was meant to be. I used to go out all the time. I live a Made life" I told her.
Now she was the one to get feisty.
"If you don't wanna play house, that's fine, but don't be a prick to me. If you think we're getting a little too comfortable, then how about you go ahead and take the couch tonight when you get back from your Made life" she told me, and stomped away.
My first impulse was to stop her and apologize, but I fought against that. I just let her go and I left myself. What the fuck am I doing? I swiped a hand down my face and took a breath outside the front door. Where the fuck am I even going? I had no plans.
Yeah, before Lexi I would go to the illegal card den with the guys sometimes, or the club, or De Luca's with the fools I call my friends. I'd show up to the Underground or hit up a girl I wanted to fuck.
But the girl I wanna fuck is in my apartment right now. Our apartment. So what am I doing out here?
I decided I needed to talk to somebody. I called Enzo, even though Lexi is an odd subject between us now. Still, he's like a brother to me. When I'm feeling unsure I usually go to him. Even if he is a fool. When he told me I could come by, but to be quiet because Daisy was at his house tonight, I almost decided to say never mind. But I didn't. I went.
-
"What's going on? Marriage problems already?" He teased me, rolling a joint like he usually does. He licked the paper and rolled the thing up smoothly. I had a beer in my hand the second I walked through the door. Now we're on his couch.
"No. Well, yes, but not because of anything actually happening" I told him. When he looked at me like he didn't know what the fuck I was talking about I just decided to explain it as best I could, because I barely understood it myself.
"You're happy, so you're sabotaging it cuz you think she's gonna hurt you" Enzo called me out. I scoffed. "No" I rejected that opinion. I don't think she's gonna hurt me. What's he talking about? He chuckled which irked me.
"You like her" he told me, not asked. I denied that too. "Rizzo...you fucking fought me, Andrei, and anyone else just to get the point across that she was yours and you would protect her, even if it meant almost killing yourself in the Circle with that crazy fucking Russian" he called me out. I took a swig of my beer.
"That was because she deserved better. You'd be a shittier husband than I am. And I knew I could give her that freedom she was hoping for" I reminded him why I did what I did. It was for her, sure, but not because I liked her like that.
Enzo finished rolling his joint, so his eyes shifted up to mine and he wore a stupid fucking smirk. I'd whack it off him if I could reach from this side of the sofa.
"You married her, dude. You brought that burden upon yourself. It wasn't asked of you...you made this your problem. Why? Because you like her" my cousin told me. I flipped him off.
"I do like Lexi, but just not in the way you're implying" I told him. He hummed sarcastically. "Let's go smoke this?" He asked, holding up the joint. I nodded, yeah. I could use it.
"It's just weird to live with someone like that...sharing everything. Doing normal everyday shit together. You know me, I was never one to do that. I never had to" I said. And he knows. He took the lighter and lit the tip up until it stayed red and the smoke filled his lungs. He only spoke after releasing that breath.
"I told you getting a one bedroom was fucking stupid" he reminded me. I rolled my eyes and snatched the joint. The hot smoke filling my lungs gave me the excuse not to talk back.
"You're a couple of years shy of 30, man. You're gonna eventually have to learn how to live with people, unless you wanna live your life like a fucking hermit" my cousin tapped me for me to pass the roll up. "But this is temporary. Why would I get used to it?" I asked him. Or reminded him. Again he smirked.
"Is it?" He asked me. I definitely wasn't high yet, but I didn't catch his meaning. "Is it temporary?" He clarified. Why would he ask that? Of course it is. "It's a fake marriage, dude..."
"Yeah, but if you're all freaked out because it's working well with her then maybe it's working well because it's right," he pointed out. I laughed. I had to.
"Who the fuck are you? 'It's right', since when do you talk like that?" I ragged on him. "Oh fuck off" he sucked his teeth.
"Go ahead and make jokes, but you're the one who just got hitched to a chick you'd already been falling for... You're fucked for life man. This marriage doesn't end with divorce. Not with the Russian's involved. You're in denial...but things are much more permanent then you've let yourself believe" Enzo patted my shoulder before taking another long hit.
Is there no end to this? We got married on the idea of it being temporary. We figured when the heat dies down they don't care so much anymore. Was I being stupid? Enzo says I push people away when I think they'll hurt me first. Have I given Lexi that power? Can Lexi Rizzo hurt me?