Page 101 of The True Garza
There’s no need to utter words that would suggest otherwise. We both know there’s a looming expiration date. A rather short one.
When every last morsel of food is cleared from my plate, I close my eyes for a few seconds and say a silent prayer of thanksgiving and appreciation, because that was a damn good meal.
Satiated and happy, I sluggishly get up. “Thanks for cooking, True. Brook is gonna love it. I’ll do the dishes.”
“Does this make up for Sunday?”
“No.” I start clearing the table. “Cooking for me and sharingyourmeal with me are two different things.”
His sigh is laced with frustration. “I don’t get it.”
“You probably never will.” I take the dishes to the sink “And that’s fine.”
“It’s not fine, London. Youleft.” He comes up beside me at the sink. “I need to understand….”
“All there is to understand is that we’re just two people who enjoy fucking each other. Nothing more. We shouldn’t be doing things like sleeping over. Or anything that might confuse what this is.” I grab the dish soap and squirt some on the sponge. “Same goes for pseudo-dates, like taking me to your brother’s race. I mean, I thought you didn’t take women on dates.”
“You’re not ‘women,’ though.”
I look up at him. “What?”
“You’re….” He trails off, as if searching for the right word. “Mine. You’re mine, and I want to be around you and take you with m—”
“Stopfucking saying that,” I half-shout. “I’m not ‘yours,’ all right? Sure, my body loves submitting to you, but that doesn’t mean I belong to you. It’s just sex. Pleasure. Don’t start saying all this other confusing shit when youknowyou’re incapable of giving, or being, anything more, all right? That’snotokay, True.”
With that, we stare at each other for seconds on end. His eyes cool to impassivity, jaw set tight. While I’m just…tired.Mad at myself, but projecting it at him.
A phone rings.
His, since mine’s left in my bedroom.
“You should get that,” I tell him, then turn back to the task at hand.
While he takes the call and wanders off, I tune him out and finish up the dishes. The last thing I want is to overhear a conversation with one of his women.
Once I’m done and the kitchen is cleaned to Brook’s standard, I go fetch the stolen car keys from my nightstand.
I’m coming out of my room when I bump into him. He smells like sun and spice. My nipples tighten and heat crawls along my skin, but as turned on as I am right now, I’m too tired for sex.
“Here.” I offer him his keys. “Thanks again for dinner. But I’m beat after that semi-double shift, so I’m gonna get some rest.”
“A shift and a half means you’ve got the next two days off,” he muses as he takes the keys. “I’ll have Jules send a masseuse here tomorrow. I know your feet have gotta be sore.”
And I wish you were the type to stay with me and massage my feet and ask me how my day was. “You don’t have to do that.”
“I want to.”
A massage sounds great, so I don’t fight it. “Another thing, can we hook up somewhere else instead of your house? For privacy’s sake.”
He regards me for several long seconds before agreeing, “If that’s what you want.”
“It is.”
As a subtle nudge for him to get going, I move forward. But he doesn’t budge. He stares down at me with a relentless, penetrating intensity that makes me want to drop to my knees and bow my head.
A lump forms in my throat. Something tightens in my stomach.Why am I so hot? Unable to withstand it a moment longer, I go to step around him—but he stops me by seizing my chin and forcing me to maintain eye contact.
“Whenever you’re ready to stop, just tell me, okay?” he says. “I like you—a lot. But, more than that, I respect you. So the last thing I’d want to do is unintentionally hurt you.”
