Oh Lord.
“I’m all what?” he pushed.
“Can you let me go?” I snapped.
To my shock, he let me go, and not only that, he took a step back.
You will be safe from anything you perceive might make you unsafe, including me.
I started breathing funny.
“Would you like me to explain why I don’t wish to give up?” he asked.
Hell no.
“No,” I answered.
He let that slide and told me, “I want to be clear. I don’t want to come on strong.”
“Well, you’re failin’,” I shared.
At that, he smiled.
I felt my throat close.
With that smile, the cynicism and sly went right out of his eyes.
They were twinkling at me.
Twinkling at me.
“You mistake me,” he said softly. “I don’t want to come on strong. I don’t want to take this at a pace you aren’t comfortable with. Not with what happened to you, but you should understand, I wouldn’t do that even if that hadn’t happened to you. So you’ll set the pace. Just as long as there is a pace.”
“And if I don’t want there to be a pace?” I asked.
“Then I’d like the courtesy of you sharing why you wouldn’t.”
“And I’d like the courtesy of you not makin’ me do that,” I shot back.
He studied me a second then looked beyond me.
Again, he changed and he did it taking another step away from me, his face closing off so much, the cynicism and sly didn’t even come back.
He gave me nothing.
“I see,” he murmured.
I shouldn’t ask.
I really shouldn’t ask.
I asked.
“You see what?”
“You know who I am.”
“Yeah. You’re Marcus Sloan.”
He shook his head. “That’s not what I mean and I believe you understand that.”
I did, right then.
And what I understood made me laugh.
It just poured out of me.
And I guessed I really needed to laugh because I did it so hard, I bent over with it, wrapping my arms around my belly.
When I got myself together, still giggling, I straightened, lifted a hand to my eye and swept it across the wet under it, hoping my hilarity didn’t mess up my makeup seeing as I’d had to wring miracles to conceal the fading bruises that morning.
“That’s funny,” I told him unnecessarily.
He didn’t find anything funny. He still looked closed off but also there was a hint of transfixed that I didn’t get.
“Your laugh sounds like bells,” he whispered.
I immediately stopped giggling.
He visibly pulled himself together and kept talking.
“Even so, I’m not certain what was funny.”
“You,” I shared.
“Me?” he asked.
“You, thinkin’ I’d have a problem with you bein’ Marcus Sloan,” I expanded.
“Do you know who I am?”
“Nope.” I shrugged. “Don’t care either. Though, that’s to say ‘nope’ don’t mean that I don’t know. I just don’t really know. I still don’t care. And that’s not why I don’t wanna have dinner with you.”
“I’m still not understanding.”
“Honey bunch, I’m a stripper.”
“Yes. And?”
I shut up.
Dear God, he thought I thought I was better than him.
No.
He thought I thought I had reason to think I was better than him.
“I don’t judge,” I said quietly. “Life’s life and a person’s gotta do what they feel they gotta do to get along in it.”
“This is correct.”
“So I don’t care what you do or who you are.”
“And this delights me.”
My heart started racing because it did. It delighted him.
And I knew this because his eyes were again twinkling.
“Men are assholes,” I shared.
“Some of them are, yes,” he somewhat agreed.
“Not met many who aren’t. My count, all my life, that number equals two.”
Those twinkling eyes stopped twinkling in order to flash.
“Just two?”
“Yup. Two,” I confirmed.
“Although I find that knowledge upsetting, I’ll share I’d like to make that three,” he told me something I already (mostly) got.
“Listen, Marcus, this,” I gestured between us with my hand and this time he didn’t watch it, he didn’t tear his gaze from my own “it’s sweet, honey. Real sweet. Thanks for it. For the daisies. All that’s real nice. But a woman lives the life I’ve lived and finds herself raped in a parking lot, she makes certain decisions. And those decisions don’t include dinner with a hot guy who wears a suit real well, has a superior set of lips, and opens the door for her. She goes about her business her own damned self and that’s that. I got me a good job. I got me a Porsche. I’m in the market to find me a house I like where I can garden and set the table like a good Southern woman should. What I don’t got and don’t want is a man.”
“Would you allow me to try to change your mind about that?”
I shook my head and his eyes moved then, watching my hair shake with it.
They came back to mine when I answered, “Nope.”
“Would you allow me to not allow you to not let me attempt to change your mind about that?”