“Honestly, just like this. Just like the past two weeks have been. I know that my life is extremely busy, but I imagine dinner dates, nights laughing together, trips away to here when we can or anywhere else in the world that you would like to explore. If you accept that rose, I don’t expect much to change from how we’re feeling right now. It’s just that both of us are making the exclusive commitment to each other and we can be honest about our relationship to the rest of the world,” he said as his lips dropped. “Look I know that it’s far from easy dating me. I know that coming here and secluding ourselves can make it feel that way, but I am well aware of all the unwanted attention that I come with back home. I know that being with me isn’t the easiest life, but I do want to make it a fun one,” he said.
I kept my jaw locked, my face still as I stared back at a very sexy naked Henry, who was still gently caressing me. There was no downfall to dating Henry. So what if he liked a little blood, you had to take the good with the bad of people. Andif that was the only downside to the world of good when it came to Henry, I had just proved to myself that I could meet his needs comfortably. The attention that Henry was talking about I liked, because it didn’t just show my friends and family how much a man like Henry wanted me, but the unwanted attention took pictures of our love to show the world. That’s if… that’s what this was, was this love? The future that Henry said that he envisioned for us, sure made it feel like that.
I sat up in bed looking around the room. I knew that this wasn’t a part of the plan. This was not how the girls and I decided that this was exactly how I was going to get the man of my dreams. But that was only because I was completely blinded to think that I didn’t already have him. Of course I did, he wanted this as much as I did. Maybe even more after he told me how much he had been thinking about our future. He had offered me a rose, he wanted me in his future, Henry wasn’t someone who just wanted to fuck and leave. He was here, he wanted me.God, Molly, you’re dream man has even offered you an incredible business opportunity.I wasn’t waiting anymore. I finally understood the meaning of when you know you know, and now I wished that it was something a little bit shinier than I was accepting.
I spun around, untucking myself from the sheet, running butt naked over to the bench of the bar where a large bouquet of flowers sat. I pulled a long stem rose from bunch, running back over to the bed and cocooning myself back up into the white sheet. Henry laughed as I handed him the rose.
I took a long inhale. At first, he looked confused, but I held his gaze and nodded softly to him.
Henry smiled, holding the long-stemmed rose between his two fingers as his spare hand took hold of mine. “Miss Molly, would you do me the honors and accept this rose, accept this rose as a token of my feelings for you, of my loyalty to you and my initial promise to you, to start building this incredible, yet colorful life that we both have, and share it as one.”
“Yes, Henry, yes I will.”
Chapter Sixteen
Iwoke up gasping, sitting up straight in bed. The blinds were still wide open, the stars shining down on me. Henry lay fast asleep and silent next to me. I was having the craziest dream running through the jungle, but as soon as I opened my eyes, I couldn’t remember what I was running from.
I also couldn’t remember falling asleep. But the rush of yesterday, the sun, the alcohol. Waking up in the middle of the night my head was spinning, and my mouth was dry. I needed water and at the same time my stomach rumbled. I needed water and a snack, and I needed it pronto. I forgot that I had hardly eaten yesterday. What I would give to be presented with that delicious seafood platter now. I wondered if there was any that they kept left over. Surely, there would be a couple of cooked prawns hanging around downstairs.
I slithered my way out of bed, careful not to wake Henry up, tiptoeing towards the door. I saw the bright red long stemmed rose sitting on top of the piano in the room and all the images from last night came rushing back to me, making my heartpound and sending my head and tummy into even more of a spin. Holy shit. He said yes. No, I said yes, he offered me, well himself, this life for us to be together and I said yes. I said yes and still we hadn’t even fucked. After our wild bath, we’d spent the rest of the night locked in each other’s arms reading the stars until I found out that Henry really could play the piano. He’d had lessons as a young boy and had continued to teach himself through the various family friends’ houses that he had moved through as a child. Once again, he was good-- really good. Why was it that Henry excelled at everything that Henry had set his mind to? The last thing that I remembered from last night was his fingers dancing so eloquently along the piano keyboard. It must have been the soft music that put me to sleep.
My stomach rumbled again, as I remembered the corner of the bathroom where I last left the kimono that Jackie had given me after our swim. I tiptoed over to the room, found the garment and slipped it over my naked body. I then pressed the elevator, waiting a minute for the doors to open. I took a step into the illuminated doors, holding my breath I finally sighed out as the elevator shot down, glad the bright lights didn’t wake up Henry.
The elevator doors opened again of the ground floor and I stepped out opposite the bar. As I scuffled back towards the kitchen, using the lights of the elevator to find my way through the dark floor, I noticed the door to the kitchen was open and the light was on.
I snuck my head into the doorway expecting to see one of the chefs, hoping to ask for a midnight snack. Instead, I saw the short sandy-blond man, a familiar star tattoo printed on the back of his neck. Dressed in a white chefs collared shirt, he was wiping down the kitchen benches. Two large trays filled with fresh pastries ready to cook lay either side of the stainless-steel bench he was wiping down. It was the exact same man I thought I saw walking past the bathroom. He turned his head to look up at me.
I jumped. “Dylan?” I said, this time my jaw dropped open, my heart beating through my chest but not as it was before remembering last night. A well-known feeling of panic raised a lump up into my throat.
He froze, spinning around to face me, gripping one hand onto the bench beside him. His hand began trembling against the stainless steel and at the same time he began to shake his head, like he was about to deny who he was. The very man who I knew too well, the very man who was standing right in front of me… now working for Henry.
Dylan was my greatest love, the only other man that I had loved. We’d met at the beginning in high school back in Philly and we had been inseparable till the end. He was the only other man, until now, that I had ever opened up to about my life, Dylan was present with me when the grief took over, who sat with me, listening to my grandiose dreams as I did his. He had always wanted to be a chef, and I had always imagined him living out his life in a five-star Michelin restaurant. He used tocook for me and Elyse and even on his worst dishes we would smile and nod at him and tell him how good it was, because we were just so happy for culinary creativity. Elyse loved Dylan, she had always loved Dylan, she’d never questioned his intentions. And as I stood here now watching his frozen body and his shaking hand, I was reminded why I loved Dylan so much too. I had been the one that had ended things between us. All the reasons that I had ended it had nothing to do with him but was simply just because of my selfishness. I had been the one that had wanted to move away, to explore the city. I wanted to get out of my hometown and learn and build my career. I was scared as hell of finishing high school, then graduating college, and well, ending up exactly like my sister. Not that she wasn’t successful. She had had a much more successful career than I had. But she had married the only boy that she had ever been with. And something about that scared me, something about that made me want to run, like I may have been cutting myself short of missing out on experiences.
I’d be lying if I didn’t think about Dylan over the years. It would always be after a short but abrupt dating ending. I thought about him every time that I was hurting, and I would always stop and question if I really did make the right decision letting go of him… he had been the best, well not just the best but he had been the only real serious relationship that I ever had until now and now, the first person that I laid my eyes on after officially being in a new one, after all this time single. How was this happening?
“Molly,” he sighed, as he finally stopped shaking his head. He couldn’t ignore me, or pretend that he didn’t know me now, I took a step inside the kitchen.
“Dylan,” I said.
“Molly, what are you doing here?” He let go of the table, crossing his arms in front of his chest as he furrowed his brow. He of all people should know exactly what I was doing here. I was the guest of this place for the week and if all the rest of Henry’s staff seemed to know that, then I don’t know why he wouldn’t either. If that was him that I had seen earlier today, why hadn’t he stopped to say hello? I guess this was weird. Me being here, him being here after all this time, and then the first time that we lay eyes on each other since the break-up. Our final moment spent curled up in each other’s arms crying before I turned my back, hopped on the plane to New York and never looked back. Our relationship had not been perfect. Most of it was messy, confusing, and I knew that a lot of that was due to me. It was Dylan who had always been the consistent one, the one who had always loved me, at least that’s what it felt like all those years ago. Or maybe that was what I had turned it into, reminiscing on the good memories of the past rather than ruminating in the trauma. But now he was standing there looking at me like that.
I had thought about what would happen if we ever did manage to bump into each other once again and this, this was not what I had imagined.
“I was actually looking for a snack, and some water, if that’s okay. I didn’t end up eating much dinner and I just woke up with the driest mouth.” If he was going to stare down at me with the biggest frown on his face, looking at me with what I would almost refer to disgust, then two could play this game.
“Fuck,” he sighed, closing his eyes as he shook his head, running his fingers through his hair. Holy shit, he looked a lot fitter since the last time that I had seen him. “You’re the Molly, you’re the guest…. Fuck this can’t be happening.”
“Well, it is,” I snapped. “You better believe it, here I am,” I said throwing my hands out either side of me, like I was some sort of surprise. Apparently, it was to him, but it was obvious that I was the very last surprise that he wanted.
“Wow, um Molly, I’m sorry, I really am. This is not exactly how I pictured things would go if there ever was a moment that we saw each other again. Now you are here, and this is the last place I wanted it to be. Oh God,” he said as he began fidgeting with his hands and pacing back and forth between the long stainless steel kitchen benches.
I just stood frozen, wondering why on earth he was acting like this. Why did he not want to see me here? It couldn’t be the fact that he now knew I was with Henry. I wondered if he had a girlfriend or maybe even a wife by now. Was he happy? Did he have kids?
“Take a seat,” he said pulling up a stool beside the pastries on the table. “I’ll get you something to eat and drink,” he said, now avoiding my eyes sight as he continued to shake his head,placing the two trays of pastries in a large conventional oven behind him. I took a seat down, watching him in silence as he fiddled around in the many fridges that were lined against the far wall of the kitchen.
Dylan placed a large glass over water in front of me, followed by some sort of sweet yogurt dish that looked so goddamn delicious.
“What is this?”
