I smile at it. Ever since going away to college in the Midwest, I’ve loved the Florida accent. It’s subtle and only comes out in certain vowels, but it always sounds like home.
“Wow, Shadow,” I say. “So, you haven’t spoken with your mother in how long?”
His arms go slack around me, and I feel like he might get up and out of the tub. Did I push too far? I must not have, because he settles back against the porcelain, which is doing a heroic job holding the weight of both of us. He sighs, though, a long, ragged sound that breaks my heart into pieces.
“I try to be a good son,” he says defensively, almost like he’s arguing with himself. “I send her cards and flowers. I…” He hesitates as if he’s not sure he wants to share this next thing. I run my fingers along the tops of his immersed thighs, trying to quietly reassure him that I want to know this about him. I want him to tell me. “I pay for a grocery service that brings her food every month.”
“Is your mom alone?” I ask.
“Nah. Mom is married to a really decent guy. Straight arrow. He treats her well, holds down a good job. They’ve got a little place not far from here.”
I’m confused. “If your mom is married and doing okay, why do you buy her groceries?”
He sniffs and runs a wet hand through my hair. “I don’t know. I don’t need to. It’s just something I do. It started a few years back, before she met Gary. Ma was texting all the time, inviting me to dinner. I was working on some shit for the club and just never got around to going over. Ma said something once about buying all the stuff I love to make a homemade meal for me, and it fucking gutted me, like she was putting in all this effort every week to have stuff on hand just in case I made it. And I never did. So, I started buying groceries for her. I didn’t want to feel like she was wasting her time and money on me.”
I twist a bit, the wet ends of my hair covered in bubbles, and try to look up at him. He looks wrecked. He’s a smart man. He knows he could make one meal a month with his mother. He could, couldn’t he? The club can’t have him so busy that he has no time for his mother, can it?
I cup his bearded cheek with a sad smile, then turn away, resting my back against his chest and closing my eyes. That just proves my point. How can a man who can’t even make time for his mother be a father? This could never work. He would never, ever be able to do this.
I don’t know what I’m going to do with this information.
I manage to blow-dry my hair without puking, and God bless him, Shadow makes us both a light dinner of chicken and rice. We eat quietly on my couch, the television playing an old movie in the background. But neither one of us speaks. He’s beside me, our thighs touching, and it’s nice.
And that’s all it can be.
I’m overcome with sadness then. Will I end up like Shadow’s mom? Raising a child who never comes to see me? Marrying a safe, stable man someday who will always stand in the shadow of the man I never got over? Because having Shadow right here and not being able to have him is killing me.
I jump up from the couch and run into the kitchen before the tears start.
“Violet, you sick?” Shadow follows me into the kitchen, where I’m standing over the sink.
“No,” I say. When I face him, it’s like everything hits me at once. I see him standing here in my kitchen. He’s so huge and muscled, his heavy, dark tattoos a stark contrast to my cottagecore décor.
He doesn’t fit. We don’t fit.
I don’t know why I even let myself hope for more.
I try to brighten my voice. “No, I’m just…” The tears come fast and hot. “I’m sorry. You don’t have to stay. You’ve done so much for me, taken such good care of me—for the second time now. You need to get back to your real life. What really matters. I don’t want to slow you down anymore.”
“Why would you say slow me down?” He’s folding me against his chest and wiping my tears when he says, “This is my real life, Violet. Don’t you know you’re what matters to me right now?”
I hear the right now, and it doesn’t make me feel any better.
“Thanks,” I say, sniffling and pulling away. “But eventually, you have to go back to the compound. To whatever you do for work, or are you planning on staying here and making me chicken soup forever?”
“You want forever?” His face darkens, and he stares at me as though I slapped him. “Is that what this is really about, Violet?”
I shake my head. “I can’t do this.”
I try to walk out of the kitchen, but I don’t know where to go. If I run to my bedroom, will he follow me? I don’t think I have the strength to watch him leave. To see us separated again, this next time for who knows how long.
I pinch the bridge of my nose and try to calm down. I know I’m exhausted, emotional, not to mention hormonal. But I have to know what this is once and for all. I can’t spend the next nine months or nine years wondering what could have been.
“I didn’t want to leave you after the storm,” I say quietly. “I wanted you to want me to stay.”
“I did,” he says quickly. “I said?—”
“You said I could come back whenever I needed an orgasm,” I remind him, but there is no cruelty in my voice. I lift my arms helplessly. “I can’t help it if I want great orgasms and the man who gives them to me. I want all of you, Shadow. I wanted all of you. And I knew that would never be possible. Even if you did feel the same way, how would we make it work? I’m a librarian, and I am truly not judging, but I don’t know if I want to know what you really do for the club.”
