“I can’t believe you kept this from me.”
“Well, I think you can understand the need to hide an uncomfortable truth.”
He nodded. “I certainly can, and I don’t blame you for not wanting to admit your original intentions. I just wish you had opened up to me about it sooner. I wouldn’t have held it against you. You didn’t know me then, and honestly, my father was a shitty human being, so you had every reason to want retribution.”
“I would never want to do anything to hurt you now, Dex. Please believe that. I feel so foolish thinking back to that time.”
“You know what I think?”
“What?”
“We’ve both made mistakes—especially me. I think we’ve done enough lying to each other and enough apologizing. Why don’t we stop dwelling on the past. Let’s stop letting other people get in the way of our happiness, too, whether that’s fictional Jay, Caroline, or my father. Let’s just move on.” He kissed my forehead. “Unless you have anything else to confess?”
“I don’t.” I smiled. “Thank you for understanding. And you’re right. No more focusing on the past.”
“You could’ve told me something far worse, and, honestly, at this point, Bianca, I’d have let it slide because I want you too damn much. I can’t go back. You could’ve told me you murdered someone, and the next thing I’d know, I’d be harboring a fugitive.”
“You’re crazy, Dex.”
“I know you have trust issues, and I know I’ve contributed to them. But I really do want to help undo some of the damage.”
“It goes far beyond what happened with us. My father’s affair, his leaving us when I was so very young, really made me an untrustworthy person, in general. There’s no man a girl is supposed to trust more than her father. His betraying my mother when times got rough conditioned me to always wait for the other shoe to drop. I won’t let you take all the blame for my hesitation with you. It goes far beyond you or…Jay.”
“Okay, then we’ve established that we both have the same fear.”
“The same?”
“Yes. You fear that I’ll turn out like our fathers, and that’s exactly my own fear. I worry that even though I know right from wrong, that I’m somehow genetically predisposed to being a bad person. Honestly, the Jay facade made me wonder more than ever. The fact that I was capable of pulling that off—of deceiving you—served as evidence in my own mind that my fear is warranted. How much control do I really have over my actions if I was able to make a split-second decision like that? So, I worry, too. But at some point we just have to let go and see what happens.”
He was right.
I happened to look down at that moment and noticed that he looked like he was packing a snake in his trousers. “Oh, my God. Are you hard?”
“Yes.”
“How can you have gotten an erection when we were in the middle of a serious conversation?”
“Do you really have to ask that? When am I not hard around you?” He pointed to his skull. “I’ve been talking to you with this head. My other one downstairs has a mind of its own.”
“Too bad you’re not really Jay,” I joked.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, if that relationship were real, we would’ve been dating for a while by now. We’d probably be home participating in all the things you are imagining at the moment,” I teased.
“That’s just cruel. I already hate that guy enough as it is.” He placed his hand around the back of my head and brought my face into his, speaking over my mouth. “Let me ask you this. What can I get away with tonight?”
“Well, I don’t trust myself to be alone with your ‘beautiful cock,’ so we’re not going back to your place or mine.”
“Okay…so then where can I have my limited way with you?”
“Honestly, the only place I’d probably trust myself to let you touch me is a crowded theater. At least there, I would know it could only go so far with other people around.”
Without hesitation, he called the driver. “Sam, head to the Lincoln Square Loews Cinema.”Perfect. The entire back row was empty. We’d gotten here so late that all of the good movies were sold out, but it didn’t matter. I wasn’t here for the show.
When the lights dimmed, I placed my hand on Bianca’s knee. We at least attempted to watch the very beginning of the movie—some bank heist comedy.
A few minutes into it, she turned her head toward me. Bianca was looking at me when she should have been watching the movie, and I knew that was my signal; she was giving me silent permission to start what she knew I’d come here for.
I felt like a teenager, so excited about the prospect of feeling her up for the first time. Turning my body toward her in my seat, I held the back of her head as I brought her lips to mine and growled into her mouth as I began to kiss her hungrily. There was something wildly erotic about testing the limits in a crowded theater. Having the back row to ourselves was the best of both worlds; no one was looking, but you still got the thrill of doing something naughty in a public place.