Page 30 of Moonstruck at Midnight
“Aren’t you bored?” I replied, placing my elbows on the table, leaning my chin against the back of my fingers. “Don’t you have anything to argue about with Aaron or something?”
“Bored?” He snorted. “I’m gathering material for today’s report. Your father is going to want to knowallabout your new—boyfriend.”
“He’snotmy boyfriend,” I whispered.
“If he’s smart, he’ll seal the deal by the end of dinner. At least his transcript says he is.”Did he say transcript?Caleb walked back to his shadowy spot to continuegathering material.
I wondered how in-depth the background check on Thomas had been. If I was allowed to come to dinner with him, that meant they okayed him. I’m sure that’s what bothered Caleb. He wanted to find something awful about Thomas, and he didn’t. I shook my head in his direction.
Thomas returned and sat beside me. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about why I disappeared on you,” he said, placing his velvety, perfect-shaped lips on the wineglass to take a sip. “I have a somewhat complicated relationship with my father, and it only gets more complicated as time goes by.” Thomas looked down into his plate, holding his wineglass in front of him.
“I had a brother, Joshua. He was three years older than me.” He looked at me, and I could see the pain and the rage in his eyes—the same I’d captured with my lens in Paris. I held his gaze and allowed him to continue talking. He had my complete attention.
“Joshua was gay, and he knew it from a young age. My father had a tough time accepting it—acceptinghimfor who he was. He never respected him and constantly tried to change him—to convince him otherwise as if it could be done.” He took a longer sip of his wine and asked for a refill. Heck, I’d want a refill too.
“My father pushed and pushed. He would regularly compare us and even got to threaten him. Being a politician, he only cared about the optics and how that might affect his career. But one day after a—nastyargument, Joshua wanted to storm out of the house, like he usually did, so he ran down the stairs and fell.”
Thomas cleared his throat for what seemed like the fifth time since he started talking and paused for a few seconds, rubbing his forehead. I could tell he was having a hard time talking about his brother and all the horrible things he went through.
Our server brought him a fresh glass of wine and left quickly afterward, probably sensing the vibe. Thomas took a sip and continued. “He hit the nape of his neck with the edge of a step and died from the impact. My mother she—hasn’t been able to forgive my father ever since. And my father, well, I guess his problem was solved when Joshua died. He was only eighteen years old, and I was fifteen,” Thomas said with an empty stare.
His eyes began to glaze when they met mine once again. He licked his bottom lip as if to hold in the emotions that wanted to leak out of him. I reached out for his hand, and he held it with no objection.
Still, I said nothing. I wanted to make sure he was done talking.
“Paris was one of my father’s attempts to parade us around like the happy family he wishes to portray to the public. He doesn’t want my mother’s forgiveness—he knows he won’t—can’t have it.” Thomas’s voice went a little grave and continued, “But he does fear for her, for her mental health mostly. And I … I’m just stuck somewhere in the middle of all that chaos, and honestly, I was glad about leaving D.C. and coming to Princeton. But I still can’t brush off the feeling of guilt. Of leaving my mother alone—withhim,” he growled as he uttered the last word.
“Anyway, things got complicated when we flew back from Paris. There are things I still can’t share with you. Not yet. But I wasn’t in the best headspace. I thought about you every single day, and I kept thinking if dragging you into this—mess was fair to you. I’m sure you’ve dealt and might still be dealing with your fair share of messiness. So, I kept busy with school and rowed myself to exhaustion, trying to convince myself you were better off without me. We had met just once, anyway. And I thought maybe you’d forgotten all about me.” He said the last part making no eye contact, putting his wineglass down.
I felt for him. I felt his loneliness, his pain. I’d been there too. I’d felt that anger, grief, rage, the void inside my chest—the injustice of it all.
“I thought about you every single day, too,” I managed to say with a dry throat, “and I’m glad you sought me out, sent me those flowers, and that we arehereright now. Thank you for sharing this with me.” He offered me his hand, our foreheads found each other, and I whispered, “I’m sorry you had to go through all that. That you still are.”
He lifted my chin slightly, aligning his eyes and mouth with mine. His warm breath collided with my lips as he parted his mouth, just a dab. “I told you the day I met you, Billie. I’m not letting you out of my sight,” he whispered. “I meant that—if you’ll have me.”
I nodded in response. He was so close to me that I wasn’t sure if I was even breathing. He finally pressed his warm lips against mine. It was a soft kiss that didn’t lack intensity and slowly caught up with a rhythm that lured me to cancel out every thought and sound around us.
His delicious wine-tasting tongue searched for mine while he held my hands with both of his, making me feel safe—cherished. He stopped for a second, our moist, wandering lips still grazing. “This face will be the death of me,” he whispered, slowly shaking his head, and once again, he leaned in to kiss me.
For the first time in my life, I felt like someone could understand me and what I’d gone through completely. He also knew about grief of the same magnitude.
He had faced death, eye to eye, just as I did. He knew about loss and loneliness, and I was tired of feeling alone, and so was Thomas. I didn’t want to pretend anymore—or feel like I had to be strong and carry on. Sometimes you need to fully disarm yourself and allow the weakness to seep out of every breath and every heartbeat till there’s no more left inside of you.
Thomas made me feel like I could do that with him—that I was safe.
We broke away from the kiss, and our food had been magically placed in front of us.
“We should eat. You’re probably starving,” he said with a small smile. He seemed lighter now that he’d opened himself to me.
“I am,” I replied with a faint laugh. I looked up and saw Caleb staring at me, but he quickly looked away when he saw me looking his way.Shit.He obviously saw me kissing Thomas, and I was more than sure he didn’t like it one bit. I could see it in his face.
At some point during dinner, Aaron went back to the apartment and brought the SUV to the restaurant. They didn’t want us to walk back home so late at night. We were only a few blocks away, but that’s how they are.
“Do you need a ride home?” I asked Thomas when we stepped out of the car outside my apartment building.
“No, that’s okay. I’ll walk for a bit and grab a cab or something.”
How I wish I could do that someday. Just walk around—alone—grab a cab, go places.
