I fight the tears that want to come out when there isn’t judgement in his eyes or in his words. But when my brain registers that despite everything I’m still a human being, and not just something that can be used and disposed of when the urge to spend their seed inside me is sated, a sob leaves my lips. I bite them hard to contain my sorrow.
“You knew,” I say, when it hits me that he didn’t even flinch at me calling myself a hustler. “Of course you knew. I was on my knees in an alley, with someone else’s dick in my throat…”
He touches my lips with his fingers as if to stop me from speaking.
“Don’t say these things about yourself.” His touch doesn’t last long because his hand soon disappears under the table. However, his touch stays with me.
Has his voice become a little softer, gentler?It must be my imagination, and I stubbornly continue to judge myself.
“But it’s the truth.” The tears in my voice are unmissable, but I’m all jumbled up inside, and there’s nothing I can do to stop myself.
I’ve always believed no one will accept me after I’m free of this life. Instead, Haden is giving me hope that my life as I want it to be is still something I can dream of.
“Maybe… but sometimes people are forced to do things they don’t want to do, only because they don’t have other choices.”
Is he speaking from experience?
“You could have called for help.”
“Someone begged me not to.” Did his lips curve just a tiny bit upwards?
I look closer, but if it was there now it’s not. “Jeremy?” I say, when my brain registers his words.
“Yeah. He was very persuasive.” Another twitch of his lips.
I’m getting jealous.
“He left me there with you. So I brought you here.”
That’s Jeremy. If words don’t work, actions do. He always knows when he can’t help, and he’s even better than me at judging people. If he left me with Haden, it means he trusted him enough not to hurt me.
“Thank you.”
“There’s no need for that. I only did what was right.”
“But why bring a stranger inside your house? I could have killed you or stolen from you.” My mouth doesn’t really know how to stop spouting shit.
“Should I be worried about that?” he says with a furrowed brow, but his eyes don’t reflect his words. They seem to be dancing in amusement.
“Mh… no?”
This time he laughs, and oh boy, if it isn’t something I want to hear forever. It’s not loud, as I expected from his bigger form, but instead is soft and hoarse, as if laughing is something new to him and he doesn’t really know how to do it. But nevertheless it curls around me like a touch on my lips.Magnetic and unforgettable.
My brain, so lost in the pleasure of his first laugh since we met, makes my mouth run again, but this time I wish I’d put a shoe in it. “Why were you there?”
His face becomes marble. No expression, no more laughing, just a void of emotions that makes me tremble. Not in fear, but because of a deep pain that’s showing in his eyes.
There are cracks in his expression that push me to reach out, so I grip his fingers with mine expecting him to reject me. Instead, they close around mine.
“I lost my sister a few weeks ago.” His voice is flat, drained of all emotion. But the grip of his fingers laced with mine tells a different story.
My heart cries for him and I grip his fingers hard. “I’m so sorry.” My own voice is shaky and on the verge of breaking.
He doesn’t seem to be here with me anymore, because he continues, as if hes need to get things off his chest. As if he’s overflowing with feelings and the only way to make space is to let some of what he has inside come out.
“Yesterday was her funeral.” His tone now is distant, as if he’s building walls around his heart.
I have to stop myself from standing up and wrapping my arms around him. It must be true, the rule that at night it’s easier to open up, because I never expected Haden to be this vulnerable with me. It’s also true that talking to a stranger is easier.
