Page 77 of Existential
“I need to know I can trust you, before I tell you.”
“Trust that my intentions come from a good place,” he offers. “I screw things up, Dagne. It’s just what I do.” He drops his hand away, rubbing his fingertips over the leg of his jeans instead. “I’m goin’ to hurt you, but it’ll never be intentional.”
“That’s not exactly a winning offer,” I admit.
“But I’m tellin’ you the truth, ain’t I?”
Yeah, he is. It’s just not a rose-lined walkway through the Garden of Eden, it’s an uneven dirt road through hell.
“What happened in there …” he says, holding a hand out to the clubhouse. “I didn’t realize that I was using the grief with you to get at Digits for personal reasons. I mean, it made sense when you said it, but up until that point, all I was focused on was makin’ the son of a bitch hurt for the things he said to you.”
“I don’t need violence, though.” I shake my head. “I need resolution.”
“Violence is how I resolve things.” He looks skyward, as though searching for an answer in the stars. “We’re from two different worlds, sure, but haven’t we both been hurt the same?”
“I guess.”
“So what really is so different about us?”
He has me, literally, figuratively, and every way in between. We’re not so different in the center of it all. I want to belong, and he feels he needs to be worth something to the people around him. I’m trying not to repeat past mistakes, and he’s doing his best to make up for the ones he’s made.
“I guess … nothing.”
His heat envelops me as he steps forward, tentatively reaching for my face with both hands as though he could startle me out of this daze at any second. And he could. I’m lost in a fog when I’m with him, but it’s a beautiful mask for the burnt forest of failures around us.
“So stay, Dagne.” His palms rest against my jaw, cupping my face in his hold. “Come back to Fort Worth with me and promise you’ll give us time to understand how this goes. We’ve got the pieces, babe. We just need to figure out how they all work together.”
I close my eyes, letting his words sink in as I fight back my emotions. It’s so perfect, so magical out here with him in the night. If I could freeze time and live in the bubble we create, I would, because it’s quiet in here, even from my own mind.
“Okay,” I whisper. “I promise this time. No more running.” No more hiding from what I don’t understand. No more fighting fires before they’re even lit.
No more.
“Thank you.” His breath caresses my lips before he seals them with his own.
I soften into his hold, my hands finding their own way instinctively to his sides as he leans me back a little, deepening the kiss. It’s fairytales, folklore, and all that bullshit I don’t believe in, right here for the taking. Yet I don’t know if I can, because what if love still isn’t real and, just like my dreams as a child, he’ll fade away with time?
I can continue to survive on my own, but I can’t be loved only to be left alone again. It took me too long to get to this point, and it’s not a road I’m willing to walk again.
One hand slips to my lower back, the other still possessively cupping my face as I reach up and wrap mine around the back of his neck. He breaks away, our foreheads still touching as he seems to gather himself before moving in for a second round.
It’s completion, satisfaction, and the unique euphoria of knowing you’re on the right path, that you’re doing exactly what you should be, when you should. It’s a moment of bliss in an otherwise fucked up reality, and it’s everything we need to survive.
“We’re goin’ to head inside,” he murmurs, deep and breathless, “and you’re putting that fuckin’ bag down with my shit upstairs. You feel me?”
“Yeah, I do.”
His eyes fix on my mouth as he caresses my bottom lip with his thumb, an intense focus that leaves me shivering for more.
“I’m not goin’ to sleep tonight unless I know you’re in the only place I can keep you safe.”
“Here?”
“In my bed,” he states, “with my arms wrapped around you. Ain’t anyone threatenin’ you again on my watch.”
I can handle that. “You know I’ll probably hurt you too,” I whisper. “It’s just what I do.”
“It’s a given.” He straightens, sticks both hands under my arms, and hoists me up against him.
I wrap my legs around him automatically to save from falling, linking my hands behind his neck. “Just shows that I care,” I tease.
“Then I hope you make me bleed.”