“Did I do something wrong?” I have this new sensation of being utterly truthful with this giant hulk of a man who’s taken me into himself, bit by bit in microscopic increments, over the last few months.
He’s taken me, then he’s spilled it all out and shaken me up, spun all my desires into a beautiful package and given it back to me with sensations that make my head light. My heart is filled with truth, connected now to someone else, a feeling like nothing I’ve ever known.
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” he says reassuring me. “I did. I let you stay in a place like that.” Even under the thick darkness of his beard I could see his jaw tense, and hear it pop.
After we went inside the motel room to get my duffel and the few clothes I hung up, Magnus said he would arrange to have the Corolla towed to a mechanic near the cabin tomorrow. But I could tell as soon as we pulled up to the dump where I slept last night, as soon as he took a breath so deep his jacket tightened across his chest, that he wasn’t happy.
Now, he’s driving but he’s still holding his breath. He’s alternating holding the steering wheel and gripping his nose and mouth. I had to shake
his shoulders to get him to draw in oxygen.
“You didn’t let me stay there. It was all I could afford right now. I told you that. It’s not your fault.”
“I know what you told me, but it’s still on me. I wasted too much of our time. All the time from the day I met you, and during that time you lost your mother, your dog, your home. Where the fuck was I while that was going on?”
Magnus smacks the steering wheel with the heel of his palm. He then grips onto the circle, spinning us onto the interstate, heading north toward Lake Sherwood. I should be nervous doing this, going to his house when no one else knows where I’ll be. But like I said, I feel safe with him. Safer than I have since Mom got sick. In a way I feel safer than I ever have.
After a few minutes, I see his jaw muscles relax and an uneven breath leaves his lips.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I lost my temper with myself, but I never will with you. I don’t ever want you to be frightened of me. Let’s stop and eat. I know a great restaurant about another hour from here. I want to eat with you baby. How does that sound?”
“I could eat.” I agree with an excited lip bite. It’s been a while since I had a real meal and I’m surprised how great is sounds.
For the net hour, he’d peppered me with questions. Nothing too serious and by the time we pulled off to eat, he seems more relaxed. He pulls the Charger in front of this bistro type place with linen on the tables and a wine selection that Magnus had said is one of the best in the country.
After the restaurant, he opened my door and buckled me in before closing the door. We ride in silence for a few minutes until I can’t stand it.
A chuckle sneaks out. Then another, despite knowing he’s still a bit un-nerved from our conversation about the wine he’s been bringing me for months. At the restaurant, after he opened the door and we stepped inside, a hostess had seated us, the sommelier had come over and Magnus started talking wine with him, finally ordering us a bottle.
When the tuxedoed man came back with Magnus’s selection, uncorked the bottle and poured some in my glass, my face went hot with embarrassment. How was I going to tell Magnus that I had not tasted a single one of the hundred or so bottles that he’d given me?
Then, when the man held the bottle out over Magnus’s glass ready to pour, his huge hand came down to cover it, shaking his head.
It turns out neither of us drink. That’s right, neither of us. Not only had I never tasted any of the wine he’d sent me, but he hadn’t either. Nor any before that.
He kissed me right there in the restaurant as the sommelier cleared my glass and snapped his fingers for the staff to bring us two ice waters in wine glasses.
My chuckle draws his attention. He looks at me with a question in his dark eyes. “You still laughing about the wine?” He asks with his own crooked smile. When he does that, his left eye closes slightly and the scar just underneath almost disappears.
“Yes.” I smile as he finally brings my hand down, resting it along with his on my leg, sending a shiver down to my toes. Every touch ripples over my skin, and I wonder for a moment if it will always be that way, or if those kinds of things pass.
I can’t image it not being like that with him. I feel like we’ve been together so long. Like there is some other part of us that knew each other before. Another life, maybe, or just two souls that share things about themselves without words. A high-speed conduit that communicated differently than most people. It has to be something, because I barely blinked when he said we were going to his place on the lake.
Our place. He says it’s going to be ours. That thought makes me realize we are moving at warp speed but for some reason, I am happy to be here for the fast ride.
“The wine thing was funny. But don’t lie to me. From now on, complete honesty, okay? I can’t take anything less than all of you, and when you lie you keep parts of yourself from me. I can’t have that. I want it all. I need it.”
“And what if I do? Lie I mean.”
He lifts and pats our combined hands onto my knee, then rubs them up and down my leg.
A little chuckle escapes his lips. “Then, Angel, your ass will be upturned and as red as a good Bordeaux.”
Magnus looks behind us, thumps on the accelerator and the Charger lurches forward so fast my head bounces on the headrest.
“In a hurry?”
“That pussy’s not going to fuck itself.” His words pool heat between my legs as he breaks into a smile that melts me into a puddle.