Page 55 of Moonstruck at Midnight
“He implied that I wasnaughtyafter seeing us … dance. He touched my shoulder and told me toloosen up.I brushed him away. He wanted to dance with me, so he grabbed my arm. I shook him away again. He said you didn’t mindsharingevery once in a while. What’s up with that?” I’d been so consumed with Thomas, just him, that I didn’t know anything about him besides whatever he chose to tell me.
“I’m going to fucking kill him,” he said, his knuckles turning white.
“Please stop cursing. It makes me nervous when you talk like that.” I wasn’t against curse words, but the way he said them and the tone he used when he said them made me uneasy.
“What did Nicholas mean when he said that thing about sharing once in a while?” Thomas kept shying away from answering my questions. But I insisted until I got what I needed, just as he had taught me.
He sighed. “I went out with a girl a while ago. I really liked her. And he—snatched her away.”What?To me, that sounded like the worst possible friend someone could have. I couldn’t understand why he kept him around.
“What about ‘mixing it up’ and me not being your type? What’s your type, Thomas?” I never thought I had to worry about my hair color or any other physical attributes until now.
“He’s just trying to mess with me. It’s not like I have a type or something. I’ve never dated a redhead before you, that’s true. But that doesn’t mean anything. You’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen. You know I love your hair, your face, everything about you,” he said, befuddled. I hated to see him like this, drunk with a split lip and a blood-stained shirt.
My mind reminisced about how we met. Maybe Thomas thought his politician father might like him dating an ambassador’s daughter. I mean, our parents knew each other. Was Thomas with me for me? I never thought he’d care about what his father thought anyway.
I needed answers. I asked about Nicholas’s comment on Thomas “finally getting himself a decent girl”and the bit about “making his father proud.” If his father gave his brother a hard time about being gay, maybe he pressured Thomas into dating only a specific type of girl. From what Thomas had mentioned, his father did sound like the controlling type of person.
Thomas took a deep breath and exhaled slowly out through his mouth, making awhoosound. “I won’t lie to you and say that my father didn’t like that you’re James Murphy’s daughter. But that’s absolutelynotthe reason why I’m with you. You know this. When I met you in Paris, I didn’t know anything about who you were. I was drawn to you immediately.”
Were all the times he said,“I can’t lose you,” about wanting to keep pleasing his father?I knew they had a complicated relationship. But if anything, a child always wants to please their parents, whether they admit it to themselves or not.
I didn’t know what else to say. I just had too many questions and doubts in my mind. “Please, say something, don’t push me away.” He gently brushed his finger down my cheek, but it was still tender from the blow. I flinched away. He frowned, looking sad, not upset as I would’ve expected.
Nicholas didn’t add any value to him as a friend, and I couldn’t believe Thomas wasn’t aware of it. I kept thinking about how there must be a reason for him to keep Nicholas around. That worried me, so I voiced my concern to him.
“I’ve told you. We go way back. We go to the same university. If I get on his bad side, it will only make things worse. I’m not afraid of him, but I know how difficult he can be. Today was just too much for me. I couldn’t stand him near you. I’ve never hit him before, though.”
He sipped on his water through a straw. His lip had clotted but still looked tender. “That’s why I was a bit nervous going into the party, and why I asked you to change. I didn’t wanthimto look at you. That dress looks spectacular on you.”
Thomas apologized repeatedly and promised to fix things. He begged me to trust him, but I started crying again instead.
Could I believe everything he said to me? My main issue was how fast I could forget things and move on. I didn’t want this to become a pattern, but I wasexhaustedand emotionally drained.
“Okay, let’s call it a night. I want to go to bed. We’ll talk tomorrow.” I stood up and invited him to do the same.
“Let me spend the night, let me make it up to you, please,” he begged, pulling me closer to him. He placed his hands on the small of my back and slowly brushed my back up and down. Luckily, his lips were off-limits because I knew I wasn’t strong enough to back away from a kiss.
I was doomed. Thomas knew how much I loved him and how to make things go away.
“Caleb’s outside. You can’t spend the night.” He glanced at the door, and his lips settled into a grim line. “I’ll walk you downstairs and have them drive you back home.”
“I’ll get a cab, don’t worry about it,” he replied.
I insisted. I feared Thomas would go back to the party looking for Nicholas or something of the sort. I wanted him to go home and sleep it off.
He finally agreed and threaded his fingers with mine as we stepped out of my apartment. Caleb leaned against the wall to the left. He looked at me, but I refused to hold his gaze. He still looked furious and annoyed by the whole situation. I asked him if someone could take Thomas home. He quickly pressed on his earpiece and said something in Hebrew while escorting us downstairs.
Thomas hugged me in the lobby and gave me a soft peck on the lips.
“Ow,” he whispered with a subdued smile. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
He turned around and started toward the exit. The few tears that kept drowning my eyes trickled down my cheeks like a freaking broken faucet you can’t get to stop from dripping.
And as I stood there like a crying statue, watching how Thomas left, William and Tobias waltzed in with three girls. They were all laughing, having a good time, it seemed.
William looked at Thomas, at his blood-stained shirt, then at me. He slowed his pace to almost stopping in front of me, but one girl, a pretty one, pulled him to the elevators.
There wasn’t anywhere for me to go. I couldn’t walk out of the building or step into the elevator and share it with them—no way. So just I stood there with an empty stare, hoping they would quickly disappear.
