“Look, I know you can take care of yourself, and I’m not trying to patronize you, but...”
Great. He did see it.
“You can stop right there, Felix.”
“He is not a good guy, Virginia,” he warns.
“He’s better than you think.”
Felix moves a bottle of tequila restlessly and levels me a skeptical look. “See, if you had said ‘I know,’ then I might believe you know what you’re getting yourself into.”
I won’t tell him he doesn’t know Rafe the way I do because I know exactly how it sounds. He’ll be thinking I have the same intellectual capacity as the dumbest booth girl Rafe has ever brought in.
Instead, I say, “Look, please have enough respect for me not to say anything to anyone else about this. It’s
really nobody’s business.”
“I don’t want to see you get hurt,” Felix says seriously. “He goes through women like Kleenex, Virginia. He uses and discards them. He’s not the kind of guy you can tame.”
“I don’t want to tame him,” I state, lifting my tray.
“Then what the hell are you doing?”
“I don’t know,” I answer honestly, since no one else knows enough to ask. I spin around, look at him, and shrug, honest in my bafflement. “I don’t know, okay?”
He watches me for a moment, then slowly nods and looks down at the bar. “All right. Well… when he breaks your heart, come see me; I’ll buy you some shots.”
That was both the meanest and the most honest thing he could have said to me. I swallow, lift my chin, and turn around, not sparing him another word.
Monday night ends much the same as the night before—with me in Rafe’s bed, both our bodies sated and slick with perspiration. I am completely limp in the aftermath of a pair of mind-blowing, drawn out orgasms that have robbed me of the ability to think, and his strong arms are wrapped around me, keeping me close.
Heaven, basically. The only place I ever want to be.
When I get enough strength into my body to move, I turn on my side so I can face Rafe. He hasn’t said much this evening. I mentioned that Felix saw his hand on my hip earlier because I thought being forthright was the right thing to do, but I’m not sure it was. He told me he’d talk to him, I assured him I already handled it, and he told me he’d talk to him anyway. Then I felt bad. I didn’t want to sic Rafe on Felix—especially because I like Felix, and while Rafe doesn’t generally bring his gangster face to the restaurant, in my experience, when he “talks to someone” he’s more forceful than friendly. I would feel horrible if Felix came in tomorrow with a black eye, or even just a chip on his shoulder, since he would know I ratted him out.
I noticed Rafe watching me over at the bar every time I went to get a drink after that. I felt oddly uncomfortable, so I avoided talking to Felix even though I normally would, and things have been weird ever since.
When I got back to Rafe’s table, he completely threw me by asking, “Is Felix gay?”
I blinked, then my eyes widened in surprise. “Excuse me?”
“I thought Felix was gay.”
I stammered, completely lost for what to say. Finally, I managed to say, “No, he’s not gay.”
He didn’t say anything more about it, but the whole occurrence was incredibly odd, just like Rafe’s general quietness afterward. I don’t know if things are weird because Rafe doesn’t want people at the restaurant to know about us and maybe he hadn’t even thought of it, or if there’s some other reason.
Now it’s just us though, and we’re great in our bubble. If we could spend all our time together alone, I wouldn’t be worried about anything.
Rafe reaches a hand toward me, brushing a rogue chunk of hair off the side of my face, then dragging the backs of his fingers along my jawline. I close my eyes on a sigh, but I open them right back up because I don’t want a miss a single moment of looking at him, gloriously naked in bed with me.
I never thought this would actually happen.
“What are you thinking?” Rafe asks.
Given what I was just thinking isn’t something I necessarily want to share, I pause to reach for another thought.
Rafe shakes his head. “Nope. The first one.”