Fatal Attraction (Dark Desires 4)

“Yeah, I wanted it to be nice.” I shrug awkwardly. “I don’t want you to have to do anything.”

Cici nods and takes a seat on the couch. She watches me put Jordan into his crib with a light shining behind her eyes. If anything, at least she can see that I know how to take care of my son now. If she wants to break up, and I hope to God that she doesn’t, then she can see that I can handle things alone.

“There, I think he’s settled,” I say quietly. “He’s due a nap anyway. But you know that…”

“Yeah, I know. He’s in a pretty good routine, surprisingly considering everything.”

I step back from Jordan letting him rest, then I take a seat on the other seat to look at Cici. The atmosphere is thick surrounding us, we both know that it’s time to talk, and I don’t think either of us want to start. I don’t even know where to begin. I’m very aware of how I want it to end, but how do I get to that point?

“So, how are you?” Cici asks, blurting out a shocking question. “I know that you’ve told me all the practical stuff that you’re dealing with, but I don’t know how you’re doing. It can’t be easy with Landon…”

“No.” No one has really asked me that question yet. Jones has danced around it, but Cici is going right in. “It isn’t easy. I can’t sleep very well because I keep thinking about it, but I’ll be okay.”

“Don’t put up your walls.” She shakes her head. “Don’t do that with me. I know it hurts.”

“It does.” My voice has gone all raspy. “It does hurt a lot but I’m carrying on. You know how it is.”

“Oh, I know. You’re strong. But I’m here if you want to talk about it. I was there too. I know more than anyone else what it was like. I didn’t see the shot, but I know how scary it was.”

I gulp, trying to stop the emotion from overwhelming me. I don’t want to burst into tears right now. Cici shouldn’t have been there, but she saved my life. If she wasn’t in that business park, I would be dead for sure.

“I don’t want to talk about Landon right now,” I admit. “I want to talk about us.” I’m ripping off the band aid, getting started before I fall apart. “Things were bad before, and I know that it was my fault. I was a terrible person. I put work before you, I didn’t hear you out, I didn’t list to your point of view, and I regret that now. Massively.”

“Oh, wow.” Cici looks like she wasn’t expecting that. “Yeah, well it wasn’t just you… I wasn’t perfect.”

“None of this was your fault,” I growl, angry at Landon again. “I really don’t want you to blame yourself.”

Cici nods and slumps back in her chair, I can see that she’s trying her hardest to process that. “It wasn’t either of our faults, was it, really? It was a situation that was thrust upon us. None of us invited this in.”

“I know that. I get that, but I still didn’t handle it right. I should have been better. I didn’t handle it and I took a lot of things that I shouldn’t have. I said some things that I didn’t mean, because I really do love you.”

“I love you too,” Cici replies almost right away. “And I said some terrible things. Things I didn’t mean.”

We sit in silence for a couple of moments just looking at one another. My heart lifts, I hope this means what I want it to, but I’m very aware that she could say that love isn’t enough. That it won’t hold us together. My past behavior might have been so bad that she doesn’t ever want to speak to me again. Only as a father.

“So, where do we go from here?” I ask her with a one shouldered shrug. “What shall we do?”

“I don’t know.” Cici bites down on her bottom lip. “I mean, I want to give us another go, but I’m scared. Things got so screwy before and I don’t want to go back to that place again. I’m scared that we couldn’t get through the hard times without tearing one another apart, and that’s a sign we can’t do this.”

“But… we did make it,” I insist. “I know it wasn’t easy, but we’re still here. We sitting across from one other, talking despite the fact that everything in the universe is tearing us apart. We’ve already been through more than most people do in their entire lives, we’ve suffered ridiculous things during the time when we should have been getting to know each other. If we can still be here after that, then we should be able to cope with every day life.”

I need her to know that I mean this, I want her to understand that we can do this, but the choice is hers. I guess I will just have to be patient until she makes that choice.

Chapter Thirty Three – Cici

He’s giving me the choice, Will wants me to decide whether or not we should be together, which is too much. I know that I want him, my heart yearns for him, and I’m sure if we can properly give things a try then it’ll be different. Without Kingpin hanging over our heads, it’ll all be so much easier. But I’m still very scared.

“I… I do love you,” I say with a shaky tone of voice. “I do want to be with you, but I’m scared.”

“Scared?” Will nods, he understands. “I know, I’m scared as well. It’s terrifying. But we should try.”

We should try, I want to try. God, I want to be with him. I look at Will lovingly, wanting that wonderful sensation of being in his arms again. He’s been wonderful with me ever since it happened, and great with his son too. I hardly hear him talk about work anymore which is a massive change. It could be different. I gaze at him, seeing the intense love behind his eyes. I know that it might be insane to think of, since so much has happened, but maybe we can actually break the mold and things can be different. No one will believe us, but I might.

“Yeah, okay,” I hear myself saying with a nod. “Okay, let’s give it a try. Let’s do this.”

I don’t even know what I’m doing, but it feels right. I don’t feel like I’m making a massive mistake when it comes to me and Will. I feel like we owe it to each other. After everything we’ve been through, we should see what we can be. Maybe I won’t work, but at least we won’t constantly have to ask ourselves what if. I mean, we have to be in each other’s lives, we share a child, so we can’t avoid it. We might as well try.

“But I don’t want things to ever end on bad terms,” I continue with a gulp. “I’m scared that we’ll fall apart.”