I stare after her with a notch in my throat, wondering once again exactly how difficult life has been for Chloe. But it’s not my business or my problem, so I stuff the worries into a box that overflows with the ugliest of feelings inside of me, sealing the lid on tight once again. And I go to make coffee. By the time she joins me in the kitchen, the coffee has dripped its last drop into the pot.
“How do you take it?” I ask.
“Just black, please,” she says, awestruck at the steaming mug I slide toward her across my kitchen island. Breathing in the steam for a few seconds, she takes a sip and moans, knotting every muscle in my abdomen. “Delicious.”
“I bet you are,” I rasp, adjusting my erection, though the bulge is hidden by the kitchen island. Thank God. I can’t have her thinking I’m stupid enough to believe she’s going to be spreading her legs for me. “Why did you choose the night of a rainstorm to carry Curtis all the way up the hill?”
She sets down her mug. “I had no choice. They were…well…extra determined tonight. To get into our apartment. Barricading the door wasn’t working anymore. There were too many of them. I bundled up Curtis and climbed out the window, down the ladder—”
“Wait. Hold on, back to the beginning, girl. Who was extra determined? Who in God’s name did you have to barricade your door against?”
Her swallow is audible in the silent kitchen, no other sound expect for the raindrops landing on the window panes. “The men that drink in the bar next door. I can mostly avoid them during the day, since we work in different parts of the factory. But after they drink too much at night, they begin to grow…aggressive. It’s sort of like mob mentality, you know? Until tonight, they just banged on the door and yelled at me to come out, but they’ve never tried to break in by force before.”
A nerve pulses dangerously behind my eye. “They wanted to break the door down to reach you. So they could…”
“Yes,” she says quietly, before taking a long sip of coffee and putting the mug back down. Squaring her shoulders. “But there’s no use dwelling on what didn’t happen. Only what could happen. Possibilities are endless if you look in the right places.”
“I assure you, girl, I’m definitely the wrong place.”
Some of her aplomb wavers. “Well, then at least I got to drink a hot coffee.”
Suddenly, I wish like hell I had more than one flavor of the stuff. A dozen for her to choose from. Vanilla, hazelnut. All I have is plain coffee, but I want to see her react to other kinds. Every kind. “Are you always this optimistic?”
“No. Sometimes I have to fake optimism until the real stuff kicks in.” She shakes her head, shrugs. “That’s everyone, though, isn’t it?”
“No.” I’ve never felt like more of an ogre than I do in front of this ray of sunshine. Yet I only want to move closer and bask in the warmth. Instead, I grip the edge of the kitchen island to keep myself stationary. Lest she know she’s getting to me. That the soft way she shares herself, her unclouded philosophies, is eroding the concrete slab that guards my insides, leaving me vulnerable—a feeling that simply doesn’t work for me. “But I can only speak for myself. I’m alone here. I don’t exactly get a chance to observe a lot of human behavior.”
“Is that by choice?”
“Yes,” I say, too harshly, making her inhale quickly.
“You weren’t always…” She trails off, shaking her head.
“I wasn’t always what?”
“Hardened.”
My heart starts to beat faster. “How do you know?”
“I don’t,” she says quickly, staring down into her coffee. “It’s just a guess.”
The fact that she pointed out how firmly I’ve taken root in the darkness doesn’t sit well with me. I know. I already know I’ve become a bitter hermit. I’m comfortable in this skin. But seeing it through someone else’s eyes—beautiful hazel ones, to be exact—forces me to examine exactly how far I’ve fallen into this black pit of solitude and avoidance.
“Well, I’m hardened now, girl.” I circle around the island, letting her watch as I grip my erection crudely through my fly. “Very hard, actually. Let’s go upstairs so you can do something about that, like you agreed. Unless you’d like something to eat first?”
“No,” she says, her eyes riveted by the jacking strokes of my hand. Probably disgusted by them. Right now, I’m sure she’s plotting her escape route. She still hasn’t even taken off the coat. There’s no way she ends up in my bed tonight. All I’m doing is calling her bluff, while deep down, I’m hoping for a miracle. I’m hoping to bury myself inside of her. Deep. God, so deep.