Page 138 of Perfect
I look at him, confused. “Um, I took my time to think about it and decided I want to give you a chance.” He cocks his head to the side and looks at me with disbelief. “I thought that wasobvious. Why didn’t you ask me this on Sunday?” He looks over my head, and the table shakes as his knee bounces.
“Uh, I hadn’t slept in a few days, and everything seemed so surreal that I wasn’ttotallysure it was happening. The only reason I know it happened is because there’s food in my house now. I had to talk to Dr. Mills about that yesterday,” he mutters unhappily, and I desperately want to reach out and take his hand, but I hold myself back.
“What did she say?” His eyes widen, and his mouth becomes a thin line.
“Please, no. I’m not trying to keep it from you, but it fucking sucked and I’d rather talk about anything else tonight.”
“We don’t have to talk about it.” He looks at me gratefully, and I give him a soft smile, which makes him relax a little. “If we’re going to do this, I have some conditions, but -”
“I’ll do fuckinganything,Alex. I want to fix this,” he says, his voice pleading. I try to keep the pity off my face, but I’m not sure I’m successful.
“Theo, youcan’tfix this.” He instantly looks devastated. “That’s not what’s happening here. I’m giving you a chance because I want to, not because I think it will fix anything you did.” He stares at me intently as though I’ve spoken in a different language and he’s trying hard to translate it.
“Wait, what?” I smile shyly at him and nod. He opens his mouth to say something, but our food arrives, cutting him off. I smile at the waiter and thank him, catching Theo’s displeased glare at how the waiter smiles back at me.
I have a hard time not rolling my eyes.
“Theo, stop it," I hiss as the waiter walks away. "I’m not on a date with him, am I?” His face relaxes a little. “Listen, we can’t start over, but we can make something new, right?” He nods, looking very nervous and very hopeful. “Pleaseeat something, and then we’ll talk about my conditions.”
We eat in silence, and Theo seems to relax a little more every time he looks at me. I gently tap my foot against his under the table, and he smiles at me, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.
It takes him all of three minutes before he finally can’t help himself.
“What do you want me to do? I’ll dowhateveryou want.” I take a sip of my wine, watching him closely.
“The biggest thing for me is that you have to be completely honest with me abouteverything. I want to get to know you, so I don’t want any more lies or half-truths. I’ll be honest with you, too, I promise.” He seems extremely uncomfortable but nods slowly. “Good. I’m also making all the choices for the time being. I’m making our plans, I’m choosing when to contact you, I dictate how physical we are, everything. I need to be the one in control of things this time.” He winces a little, but nods enthusiastically.
“Yeah, of course. Whatever you need. What else?” I take a long sip of my wine, trying to brace myself for his reaction to the next condition.
“We can’t spend time at either of our places because we’renot having sex.” He pouts immediately, and I can’t help but laugh.
“Can I at least ask why not?”
I frown at him. “Theo, I don’t think we have a real shot at seeing if this works if sex is involved, at least in the beginning. The sex is so distracting for both of us, but it’s maybe a little more distracting for you?” He cringes, looking down at his food. “At least we already know the sex is fuckingamazing,” I mutter, and he’s himself again, smirking up at me and chuckling.
“That’s an understatement, honey,” he mutters back. “Okay, what else?” I grimace a little.
He’s going tohatethis one.
“I want you to work harder in therapy,” I say slowly, and his face falls. “Like,actuallybe open with your therapist.” He pales and groans in protest.
“Please, no,” he begs.
“I know it’s hard on you, but I think you need it. You’ve got a lot of problems, and I’d like you to at least know whether or not something is real.” He takes a deep breath, and his knee starts bouncing again.
“Sweetie, I can’t tell my therapist everything, and I kind of hate her.”
I shrug. “That doesn’t mean you can’t work on yourself, and you can always talk to me if you want.” Theo’s jaw sets as he leans back in his chair and crosses his arms, and I know he's going to push back. “Whatever I want, right, Teddy? It’s important that you do this for me,” I say in a soft voice, and he sighs.
“Fine. Anything else?” I shake my head. “Do I get to ask anything of you?”
My eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “What do you want, besides the chance youbeggedmefor?” He looks at me for a long moment, his expression somewhere between confused and desperate.
“Why are you giving me a chance?” he asks, and I laugh a little.
“Because I like you.” It’s not a lie, but there’s no way I’m telling him the real reason until he proves himself to me. He stares at me for a second before he nods slowly, and we go back to having our slightly awkward dinner.
He barely relaxes, and he tries hard not to look displeased when I interact with the waiter. We both drink more, and I can tell we’re both trying to figure out how to be with each other now.
