Chapter 13 – I Know.
I swallowed at the sight of him. Would it ever get old? Looking at him, I mean. He was such an effortlessly handsome figure of a man. Of a...something.
His eyes passed over me and it looked as though he was attempting to fight back an emerging smile.
Unimpressed, I quirked an eyebrow. "What?" Then glanced down at myself where he'd been looking. Oh.
You're kidding me.
"It's okay," Dante's smirk couldn't help but make an appearance. "I sometimes hit the streets in my PJ bottoms too." The groove etched itself wider to the corners of his mouth.
I had absolutely no doubt he was joking. No way does he make the mistake of popping to the grocery store in PJ bottoms the way I'd just done, let alone grocery shopping himself or wear PJ's at all. This guy totally goes to bed naked.
Talk about absent minded. I'd thrown anything on and didn't think twice. I sighed like the realisation it was. No wonder I'd been getting the side-eyes at the grocery store. Not just my pathetic lonely vibe then.
"I mean, it's discreet," he examined with an unconvinced tilt of his head. "Kind of. If it wasn't for the uh...faded puppies all over it."
Here's to my navy blue PJ bottoms with paler blue puppies scattered all over them looking like wearable wallpaper. Great. You don't see a hot-as-fuck guy for weeks and when you do, faded puppies. Mortified. What else had I dragged myself out in?
I sheepishly ran a hand through my hair and resisted the urge to tell him this wasn't my usual get-up, because newsflash; it was. Now my hair was all the wilder by the bite of the wind which had taken over the sparse sprinkles of before. Too late to act like this wasn't a mistake but I pretended to own it nonetheless. While watching his charmed grin turn steadily straight and impassive, I wondered why I'd run after him.
"You're looking at me funny." Dante watched me. I guess my thoughts were a little too obvious.
At first, he coolly stared, his eyes a startling spark against his dark hair, his chest heaving as he straightened and only just parted his lips against the cold. Could I have been any more beguiled by that one movement alone? Or was this a case of what Nate had told me? Everything just felt intensified with him?
"You returned my dress," I simply said, not knowing what the hell to say.
"I did."
"What are you doing here?"
"You chased me down to ask me what I'm doing here when you know full well I came to return your dress?"
"What I mean is you didn't have to do it yourself. You could have sent anybody else. Even your no-name assistant."
He nodded. "You're right. I could have," he said without much else.
"Why didn't you?"
"T'was a nice day." He mocked.
"Oh c'mon Dante. You can do better than that. What is it? Making sure I keep my mouth shut about those eyes?"
I wasn't exactly serious but there was a moment's silence. Having kept a keen eye on his surroundings he finally addressed me.
"I need to be sure you won't say anything."
And in that moment I didn't say anything. I paled. I wasn't prepared. I had to tell myself not to react beyond the small lump in my throat I couldn't help but swallow. My eyes drifted in and out of his. How many times would I say something in jest and have it come back to sting me?
The second Dante's voice cut through with a small queried "Ariel?", I realised how long I'd gone without a word.
I lagged before I forced a nod of understanding. "Of course." I tried brightening my smile for the millisecond it lasted. "Yeah. It had to be that." What was I expecting?
I couldn't meet his eyes. I wandered a look off and averted my gaze, taking in the swallow in my throat while not really seeing whatever was in view. I was sure I was looking at something. A sign. A person. I don't know. It was a blur to me. So stupid.
"Forget it." I shrugged away. "Pointless being here anyway. I just want to go back to my life when it was normal so who cares? Good thing you said what you did. At least you're being honest. You had to hook me in somehow, right? The dress worked."
"That wasn't—"
I put a hand out and shook my head. "I don't need any excuses."
A harsh frustrated breath escaped him and he almost spoke but he contemplated how to say it.
"Seriously." I tugged my lips out for a quick forced smile and shrugged it off again. "It's cool, so you can just leave it." No need for him to be gentle now.
"I should have left already, Ariel," he said. "Ten, fifteen minutes ago actually. I dropped that dress off then and I haven't left. I've been here. Standing here. Standing in front of your apartment door. I wasn't exactly rushing to get back to my car."
I eyed him up. "Why not?"
"Because you're a real headache and I haven't been able to get you out of it since."
Dante started to look around for his car and went back to it and had a short exchange through the window as if both informing and instructing at the same time. He spun around and took me by the elbow. "Walk with me."
My shoulders hitched, wary.
"You're tense." Dante observed and loosened his grip. "You think I'm gonna hurt you?"
"Thing's are just different now that's all." I murmured as we went.
He let go.
I continued on. "Guess I'll take it from here, shall I?"
"Please." He followed. "You know this place better than I do. Be my guest."
"I think you're my guest, actually."
"Details details."
He didn't care where we went. He'd called our previous spot a "fish bowl" having likened it to sitting ducks and was just glad to be out of it.
"You say that like we're in danger." Suddenly, my awareness widened out to everyone around me.
We wafted through a casual stream of routine pedestrians, a far cry from the suited and booted stream of commuters in Morditchgate and the stressed, rushed-off-their-feet folks of Willoway House. This was neighbourhood territory, where supermarkets, corner shops and pubs tried to make up for the betting shops every five doors down the high road.
"It's just if we're gonna have this conversation," he said, "it can't be here." His hyper awareness did nothing to dispel my observation.
"Your car is trailing us."
On Dante's side, his chauffeur driven car slowly moved up behind us a small distance away without breaking pace.
Dante dismissed it. "It's his job."
To the immediate right where the road turned in we approached a side street of terraced houses that we both instinctively turned in to. We kept on going, slowing down the further out of the main road we got. It was quieter up here. All parked cars, short brick fences and tall wooden ones lining houses to flats. Skeletal trees naked to its bark and stripped to the branch lay sparse either side of the road.
"Listen." He stopped me by a railing to face him, inhaled hard, then composed himself. "I can't pretend there's just a single reason I'm here because there isn't. It's messy and it's complicated but," he broke off when his car settled distractingly near us. "We can both win here. I help you, you help me. We both get something out of this and in the end we can serve our personal interests independent of each other."
"Personal interests."
He set his eyes to mine as if evaluating all the ways in which that phrase could hold meaning. At least that's what I imagined.
I cleared my throat. "What's it worth?" Perking up, I let defiance prop me up and forced the first thing I could think of to recover whatever was left of my sense of self. "Your secret. Whatever it is." I added quickly. "What's it worth?"
Dante fidgeted and caught a quick peripheral glance at a passer-by as if just the word 'secret' came with being exposed.
I caught that. "Maybe we can make a deal?"
His gaze challenged me. "Don't for a second think that I'm a bargaining chip. Nobody bargains with me. I do the bargaining. We clear?"
His commanding tone challenged my boldness for a sec. Trying to suss each other out and establish each other's motives was a tough one to navigate. Having once been intimate and still not know intimate details about each other was a weird juxtaposition here, too.
"Well, see, either I have something you're after—", remembering what Nate had said, "—or I'm in the way of something."
I could have spoken Nate's theory word for word because I hadn't stopped thinking about it.
Finally Dante answered just before I was due to add more that Nate had said about him.
"This is bigger than you, Ariel. It's bigger than both of us. This..." Abruptly, he stopped.
I became confused. "This...?" I prompted.
He watched my eyes with all the intensity of a deep thought come to life. I was just about to query him again but his words were faster than mine.
"Who am I kidding?" he muttered and then simply gave in. "You're a dilemma. And I'm unfamiliar with that. Particularly in the form of someone like you. Someone I—" his eyes lowered over me quickly, "—want."
His tone dark, I swallowed. There was thrill in that. The kind that reminds you to lick your lips before you speak again. The kind that has him looking at you like this street had four walls.
His gaze seized my small lip action.
"I don't need you to want me," I said.
He spoke quieter and softer than my lips likely appeared to be. Almost to a whisper. "I'd rather not either but I do. You're not exactly a thought I can control."
"What do you want from me? For me to tell you I think about you too?"
"Do you?"
I breathed hard. "About yelling at you, yeah."
"I was wondering if you forgot to be angry at me."
"Oh, I didn't forget." My quiet menace came out grudgingly.
He smiled. "I see you're not convinced I came here just to return your dress. I'm not convinced you came to find me just to thank me for it."
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the mouth I pulled had more to say than I did.
"You know what I think about?" he began. "You keeping me up at night. Because, I tell you, if you had any idea just how many nights it was. I would literally wake up sweating because your annoyed face was in a dream trying to throw things at me."
I blinked. "Throw things at...?" And just like that, out of the sheer unexpectedness of it, a small smile slipped across my mouth. I tried so hard to hold the laugh in.
"Yeah," he nodded. "You were picking up things that were impossible to pick up with one hand. A sofa, a table, a washing machine. A car. Just fucking flying at me. Perfect aim and everything. Right on target."
I laughed. I just had to.
"Weren't expecting that, were you?" he said through it. "Well, imagine my surprise. Ducking and diving and waking up in cold sweats."
"Look," I said, unsuccessfully holding back my laugh by attempting to talk through it. "I didn't mean to throw that vase that time"
"I think you did." He nodded with a grin.
"I mean...okay...yeah, I did." My hand on my heart, "but I didn't go into it thinking that I'd..."
"I know." He nodded, catching my laughter that became his, too. "It's just you're pretty deft at it. Darts, was it?"
"And Rounders." I calmed to a giggle.
"And Javelin."
I was surprised he remembered. He even said, "You should put that to use some day." A staggering charm sparked in his eyes.
I forgot myself. Eventually our smiles softly gave way to a reality we'd momentarily forgot.
Seeing how unexpected this all was, I composed myself and cleared my throat. I didn't want this...thing...to look like something it wasn't. Whatever unexpected joy I found myself in was a fluke. I'll have him know I hadn't taken my eye off the ball for one second, but I certainly needed to take my eye off him for one second more.
"Yeah, well," I kept my mind straight, stepping away. "Maybe you should be kept awake all night," I said moving away from him. Every night, as I was. "It's only fair."
Fair that I wasn't the only one having that night play on repeat between my ears. "If you were even remotely tormented by it, well then, good. You should be. Because I was too."
Only after he didn't respond did I turn around. When he pulled his collar up against the wind I noticed his hand.
"How'd that happen?" The jagged raised line of skin across his knuckles bore visible. It wasn't quite a scar and it was unusual on him.
"It's nothing." He balled his fist examining at it. "It was much worse at the time. I heal quickly. Just...not quite a quick as I used to. Getting old probably."
"Old huh?" Sure that was the reason. Thinking back, it became apparent he really did punch his fist through the wall that night.
He shoved his hand into his pockets avoiding scrutiny the more my eyes became suspicious of them, then raked a hand through his hair to finger brush it back. It wouldn't stay back so he held it there long enough to properly observe me. His gaze scanning momentarily. "You're shivering."
A bit. I definitely shivered now that he came closer. I gulped against the snap of the cold and his burgeoning proximity.
"You seriously don't have to do that," I said the closer he got.
Skimming a look over me turned into a glowering groan. "You're really not expecting me to stand here and watch you shake are you?"
"I'm fine," I said. "I'm not cold."
His gaze bore into me and wouldn't let up until either I did something about it or he did. His observation of the disconnect between my mouth and my body didn't escape me as he glared through my pretence that my legs weren't knocking for warmth and my teeth hadn't chattered through the word cold. It was like I was standing in torrential rain without an umbrella while maintaining I'm desert dry despite being soaked to the bone. I hiked my shoulders like I could pin warmth into them. Damn it, spring chills shouldn't nip this hard.
He couldn't watch me any longer if his sharply spent breath was anything to go by. A noise of exasperation came loose. "You're such a stubborn woman," and unbuttoned his coat.
With his hands in his pockets, he opened his knee-length trench wide, inviting me into it. "Come on then." He nodded over. "Get in before I change my mind."
I stiffened. I hadn't come anywhere near him like that since Rayflower.
"I'm a personal space kind of guy, I like it, and yet right now I'll gladly let you into it because you freezing is annoying me more than it should. So, do I have to wrap you up in me or are you doing it yourself?"
He was letting me in without letting me in. His coat still wide, I was yet to respond, hesitating again.
"Judas fuck, get in." In one swift motion he stepped closer, allowing contact between our bodies. Once he closed the coat around me, he wrapped me in his warmth against his chest, encasing me in it with him. With his arms wrapped around me, the warmth of his coat had taken up his body heat. I took in the crispness along the column of his throat. Could smell his body too. The intimacy with which his smell had images of our one night unravelling before me took me elsewhere. As my hands reached around his back and settled there I warmed up against him. Pretty quickly, actually. Not too surprising I guess. He was probably all hot because...you know. This was nice. Too nice for me.
I lifted my chin off his chest and pulled from his coat.
Dante sighed. "I don't know how many times I've got to tell you that if I wanted to hurt you I would."
I glanced around, uneasy. "No, it's just," I pulled some hair behind my ear and easily looked away. "You doing all that isn't necessary. I don't need hugs and all that stuff."
"You thought that was a hug? I don't do hugs."
"I guess that's out of both our comfort zones then. Cool."
"Yeah," he seemed unsure though, but still finished with, "Cool."
In that instant he motioned for something. A car. Malcolm.
"Sit in it." He ordered as it moved up and came to a stop beside us. He opened the car door for me and I sighed with exasperation instead.
"Look, it seems like everybody wants something from me this week and I'm just tired of it, okay? And I mean, I don't get it." I said. "You practically told me to go that night. Told me that you were horny and that's what had driven you. So just...just piss off, will you?"
He shut the car door. "I can't."
"You can do anything."
"You'd think." A sharp fuck-it breath after. "I came here for a reason and then when I saw you, I realised I might have two reasons. That one was strictly professional and the other was that I just wanted to see you again and I don't even fucking know why. And now that I'm here I can't make sense of that. Because me, usually I just fuck and leave. So whatever this is about...it's got me all..." He couldn't find a word for it.
Suddenly, his gaze passed between mine, a depth to them I hadn't seen before.
"Well, you know," I started gently edging on sarcasm to explain, "in the land of people more like me than you, that would mean you kinda like me. Which is weird, I mean after all, I shouldn't trust a word you say, correct? I should know better than that, right? They're just the ramblings of an aroused man, after all." I reminded him.
He scoffed at himself as if he couldn't believe he'd said that and backed up by a lamp post "How about that." He quietly reflected. The deep contemplation was evident.
I watched him, the width of the pavement between us as he stood against the street lamp at the curb opposite, while I stood up against the railing. He was all tall and incredible looking as if beauty exists in monsters.
When we looked between each other, he stared silently at me.
"What?" I asked, sensing something. "Why you looking at me like that?"
"I told you I'd done a lot," he began, all straight faced.
My brows furrowed.
"Back at mine that night," he said. "I told you and you walked off like it was nothing. Why didn't that freak you out?"
My eyes narrowed at him. "That's why you're here? You curious about me, Greco?"
"Why didn't you judge me?"
I held his attention, suspending the seconds that gripped my thoughts. "Because I'm no angel." We exchanged looks. I could see his mind tick with it before I said, "And neither are you."
His head rose defiantly as my meaning became clear. I don't know what he clocked, but it was enough for his entire vibe to change in an instant.
"I need your help getting into the funding books for Willoway House."
No fucking about now it seemed. "You mean you couldn't flatter me some more before you dropped that? Something that might have suckered me in a little more so you'd be guaranteed a yes to your request? I'm disappointed."
"I wasn't trying to flatter you. I meant what I said before."
"What, that you wanted to see me again or that you need my help? The two aren't the same."
"I need to know if someone named Hall is working with Jacey now? Not just hearsay. Officially."
"Keeping things strictly business now, are we? What was it, Greco?" I moved in. "Did I get too close? Did I say something I wasn't supposed to? Is that why you're shutting yourself off now, being all serious with me? Getting back to the name of the game realising you should never have taken your eye off the ball?"
He got closer. "Is he or not?"
"I don't know. Why?"
"Find out." He ignored.
"What's in it for me?"
His quiet laughter came with a hint of respect. "A girl after my own heart. What would you like?"
I blinked. "You mean I can ask for anything?"
He gave a mini shrug like go on then. No big deal to him.
Hm. "Can I get back to you on that?"
"Not if that's how long I have to wait for confirmation on Hall, no."
"Who is he?"
He huffed. "If I can sort this out now you will never need to know and trust me you don't want to."
I paused, cowed by what that could mean.
"Let me get him out the way now," Dante said. "It's safer for everybody."
"For everybody or for you?"
"Everybody includes me."
For a long time I contemplated everything he said and all the reasons I was here. This was so more than I needed in my life. Nope. Not doing it.
"You know," I began on a long breath glancing around. "I think I'm done here." I started backing away. "So you know, all the best on finding out where this Hall guy is."
"So that's it then?" His voice rose to reach me.
"Yep."
"Just back to your everyday life."
I turned now, walking off and threw "That's right," over my shoulder.
"You think it'll ever be the same again?" He came after me. "Your life, that is."
He caught my ear with that.
"You think you can go on with it pretending the genie isn't out of the bottle? That you can go back to how things used to be after knowing there's something about me that doesn't fit into your version of normal?"
I started to slow down.
"There is no 'way things used to be' any more, Ariel."
I finally stopped.
"It's too late."
Standing soundlessly I faced him.
"You think I don't know what you're trying to do?" He said, our silence tense. "That I don't know what your life is like? The grind of your everyday—though safe and non-threatening—is something you've convinced yourself you want, but it's made you so weary. Seeking a moment's fun. Wanting a little pleasure. Maybe some company. You saw an opportunity and took it with me. But then I became more than you bargained for. And maybe you became the same for me too."
I swallowed that. I'd been breathing too fast and couldn't bring myself to acknowledge why.
"And now here we are," he said. "Neither of us have a fucking clue where to go from here."
"No." I examined him. "You want me but I'm in the way of something you want more. Something you've wanted long before you met me. I'm a fork in the road. And you don't know what to do with me but you know you want something with me."
"I want to do more than just something with you. I want to fuck you into oblivion but if Hall truly is here then we have to look like the one night we were. And only one night."
I began to put two and two together. "Is that why you said what you did that time?"
"I said it because it's true. I shouldn't have pursued you but I'm a selfish prick so there's that, and I'll just have to take that won't I?"
I studied him, silently agreeing on selfish prick, but saying nothing till he couldn't take the unease unfolding between us any more.
He was just about to turn to his car but said quickly," Right, hold on."
He headed back over to the driver's side of his car. Arm over the roof, and leaned into the window of the driver's seat for a quiet word with Malcolm. Once done, he hesitated before turning to face me.
Saying goodbye should be easy enough. He goes his way and I go mine. Except I sensed he had something to leave me with first. My spine straightened, I was ready.
"I do have to, uh, make sure." he said. "Whatever you saw about my eyes, it's just you who knows about that, right?"
I considered it as my mouth dropped and I closed it again. "How many people do you think would believe me if I told them that Dante Greco's eyes are made of fire? I'd be pulled into Jacey's office, told I'm sparking concern, sent on leave and probably later committed." I laughed with a nervous edge, but Dante didn't return it. Then I shrugged it off. My nervous smile weakened at meeting the weight of Dante's stare. "Look, I already have enough to deal with at work. I don't want crazy added to that too."
"I didn't say anything."
"Exactly. You're not saying anything and it's making me nervous."
He sort of smiled. "Cute." But that was it. His added silence had me breaking mine.
"Seriously," I said. "How hard are you gonna stare before you're convinced that nobody knows a thing but me?"
"I don't need an excuse to stare at you."
I stifled whatever tinge of however that made me feel.
He nodded. "I'll be in touch."
I almost asked him when but stopped myself. "Should I just thank you for the dress and walk away?" I asked.
"You in that dress..." You'd think the image was right in front of him. "Try forgetting you in that."
I think every girl wants a man to look at her like that.
"I bet I looked like a smacked ass," he said.
Then smack mine if it looks that good.
His chest heaved as he finally acknowledged he needed to go. "Well..." he said nodding, not finishing.
I nodded too.
He opened the car door but didn't get in. Instead he chucked his phone in it. When it landed in the seat, his driver, confused, pulled his window down. "Dan—"
He couldn't get a word out because Dante dismissed him.
"You were right, Ariel," he said instead. He looked around, scrutinising his surroundings. "There is something else I want."
I couldn't get a reaction out of him when he took to the pavement. Calling him wasn't enough.
He'd crossed a huge stretch of ground before my feet picked up after him.
"I know about you!" I called after him before he turned the corner. "I know what you are!" I was loud enough to twitch a curtain of curiosity through any number of these windows for anyone in.
He stopped and spun around. His brows perplexed.
"Look, I know, okay?" I reiterated just as loudly, pushing my wanton hair back from my eyes. "Not just your eyes. You."
His face drew tight. It took a split second before it loosened with the realisation of what I truly meant. As it hit him he breathed in hard. Yeah, he'd heard me right. I know.
He walked up a little and stopped while he looked unsure how to approach this. We both were unsure, only several cracked pavings between us.
I only registered a passing cyclist when it dawned on me how many people like her pass him everyday, going about their lives, blissfully unaware they were in the presence of a non-human entity.
"So now what?" I asked, my hands lifting and slapping the sides of my thighs in one swift questionable moment. I had to say whatever just so I could fill this silence with something. Anything. My gosh it was deafening.
Finally, he filled the space between us. His hair a beautifully swept motion. He'd be close enough to kiss me if he took one more step. His voice quiet, he finally spoke.
"And you're still here?"
I'd done dumber things before.
"Why?"
He was so immersed in the potential answer and yet I wasn't ready to explain it. Between the both of us I wasn't sure who needed this answer more.
"Because I don't remember the last time I got to face..." I couldn't say it.
I could barely express myself to people on a normal day let alone now. I lash out. I throw hands. I throw things. I shove. I usually feel so emotionally illiterate cos I was never confident in how anyone would handle my truth.
For once I had to use my fucking words. So here goes. Nothing to lose. For the next minute I paced myself because the rest didn't come easy.
"I don't like acknowledging my demons. I let them get away. I let them hide. I distract myself from them because it's easier. I wanted to pretend you were just some guy I slept with and then put you aside like you were nothing but you're not just some guy. You're...this. And walking around like I don't know is impossible. It's not about forgetting that you happened, it's about figuring out where the fuck I'm supposed to go from here now that you have. You're everything I've ever run away from, Dante. All the darkness and the secrets they hold. You're literally it. And maybe I don't want to run any more. Not this time."