Page 20 of Longing for the Minotaur
But it isn’t long of looking up at my ceiling before the darkness of the world outside pours in. What we did just now… it was the best thing to ever happen to me. And yet no one can find out. Nobody can know what Val and I have done together, the kinds of feelings we harbor toward each other.
I should fall asleep right away after a doozy like that, but those thoughts keep me up for hours. What would I say if Mom and Fred found out? Fuck. She’s his twenty-one-year-old daughter. He would certainly have some thoughts about that.
Falling asleep doesn’t register at all in my memory. What does is waking up to sun coming in my window, extra bright because it’s reflecting off the snow that fell last night.
My eyes feel heavy and laden from not sleeping. I drag myself out of bed, hoping for some coffee at least. Mom is already in the kitchen busying about, getting ready to make her famous pancakes.
“Oh, you look like you need this,” she says, grabbing a mug before I’ve even sat down at the table. She fills it up from the pot and deposits it in front of me, rubbing my back before returning to her work. I’ve never been much of a morning minotaur, and I love Mom even more for remembering that.
Then Fred comes in, as chipper as ever, and calls out, “Good morning, Banon!” He’s cheery now, but wait until he finds out I’m banging his daughter.
Goddamn it. It was so good, sofuckinggood, so absolutely right to be with her—and it might have been the biggest mistake of my life. I can’t even look Fred in the eye as he pulls out the eggs and starts cooking, not after what I did with Val last night.
I shouldn’t have done it. I should never have opened that door between us. I have to figure out how to shut it, for both of our safety, for the safety of this family.
VALENTINA
The next morning, I practically leap out of bed, completelyrested and ready for the day. Sex with Banon last night was like the best drug possible. I slept like the dead, and right now, the world is my oyster. I am a new woman with a new lease on life.
I come out of my room bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. I smell eggs cooking, and I hope it comes with pancakes. Marissa makes the best banana nut pancakes.
As I come down the hall, I can hear my dad laughing as Marissa says, “And then Robert told him to find his own plumber!”
I’m clearly the last one to arrive. As I’d hoped, my stepmother is in front of the stovetop, flipping a pancake, a stack of cooked ones beside her. Dad is taking off the eggs and spooning them out onto plates. They both look cheery—but then I notice Banon at the table.
He’s leaned over his coffee, dark circles under his eyes. He glances up when I arrive, and his brows rise, his mouth twitching up in a smile. But then, as he looks around the kitchen where Dad and Marissa are busying about, it falls from his face and he stares down at the placemat.
The pep drops out of my step. I hope he doesn’t regret last night. Oh, god, I hope everything is all right after how we left it. It seemed like he was excited for the future, but now he looks like the Cryptkeeper.
“Good morning,” I say, forcing myself to sound chipper. I smile at Banon, hoping he’ll return it, but he simply drinks his orange juice.
“Morning, sunshine,” Dad says. “OJ?”
He pours me a glass of orange juice, and I join Banon at the table. We put the leaf away so I can sit close and not look too awkward. Under the table, I put a hand on Banon’s knee.
The minotaur tenses all over, his eyes darting to mine. He tips his head and then shakes it. A clear message:don’t do that.
My hand drops to my side. What’s going on? What happened?
So itwasjust a dream. Just a stupid fucking dream.
I try not to let it show on my face how miserable that feels, smiling and nodding when Dad and Marissa serve up the food. They talk to me and I do my best to process it, answering accordingly while the entire back of my brain wonders,Why? Why would he do that with me?
Maybe I was right. Maybe it was the ultimate humiliation, a joke he was playing on me, after all.
“Banon, will you take Val back to school on your way home?” Dad asks as I plate up bacon and pancakes, slathering them with maple syrup.
“Sure,” he says, then yawns. “No problem.”
I try to catch his eye, but Banon carefully looks away from me, and I become more certain that everything that happened in my childhood bedroom was a huge mistake. But I maintain the façade as we finish breakfast, then head to my room to pack up. Banon’s waiting by the front door and doesn’t speak as we head out to his car.
I don’t even know what to say when we shut the doors and he peels away from the curb. I’m too shocked, too hurt, to even open my mouth. I think over everything I might say as he speeds toward my school, but it all sounds pathetic.
I’m so pathetic, thinking he would love me in the light of day.
The entire ride is silent, all the way until Banon pulls up outside my dorm. I sit there in the passenger seat, unmoving, trying not to break down.
“Really?” I finally ask. “Like we don’t even know each other?”
