Smith swallowed hard and nodded.
“Okay,” I said, letting my hand fall away from his face with some reluctance. I needed to focus.
Turning the car on, I threw it into drive and headed back toward my side of town. There was a new Italian place that had opened a few months earlier, but I hadn’t been there yet. Damon swore it was the best sauce he’d ever had, and I was interested to find out for myself. When I parked a block down from the restaurant and walked around to help Smith out of the car, he narrowed his eyes at the buildings behind me, pressing his hand against the center of my chest.
“I could have come to your place,” he murmured. “There was no point in you driving all the way to Hollywood to just bring me back here.”
“There’s plenty of point in it,” I assured him, trailing my hand down the side of his arm before tickling my fingers against his palm. “Let’s eat.”
A short while later, we found ourselves at a small two-top table in the back corner of the restaurant, nestled beneath twinkling lights like the ones around my headboard. There was a single rose in a vase in the middle of the table, and I shoved the whole thing to the side so I could watch Smith without petals orthorns in the way. He smiled at the gesture, and I knew I had to tell him about Ev.
“I hate to do this,” I said, biting my cheek. “But I have another confession.”
His mouth pulled into a smile. “Seems to be the way of it with us.”
And as quickly as he’d said the words, his lips fell into a tight line.
“I’m not married or anything, it’s nothing like that,” I promised. “And it’s not worse than the ace thing.”
“I trust you,” he murmured, brow knitting together. “And also, being asexual isn’t bad. I’m sorry if anyone has ever made you feel otherwise.”
Whatever I’d wanted to say to Smith died on my tongue at the simple words he’d given me. Over the years, there had been lots of opinions about my sexual identity, but rarely had any of them been so forwardly accepting as Smith seemed to be. Damon didn’t care because we’d only ever been friends, and Ev…the way of things between us had worked for us both. There’d been an adjustment period, but the love had been more than enough to smooth over any bumps.
“I appreciate that,” I said. “And that’s why I want to be honest with you. Being with me probably feels like a lot?—”
“It doesn’t,” he interrupted.
“We hooked up at a BDSM club and now we’re on a date. I’ve already told you sex with me is not going to be what you’re used to?—”
“I’m not used to it at all,” he blurted, eyes going wide at the confession. “You know I don’t have a lot of experience, but I also don’t have any complaints.”
“You’re being so easy about this.”
“Nothing you’ve given me is hard,” he said.
The waiter arrived after that, leaving a bottle of wine Smith had ordered and two glasses. He poured for us both and lifted his in the air, clinking the rims together with a lilting chime.
“I’m not married now,” I told him before I lost the nerve. Smith’s lips wrapped around his glass and he tipped some of the dark purple drink into his mouth. “But I used to be.”
Smith swallowed, traced his tongue across the front of his teeth, and set down his glass. He nodded, slowly at first, barely noticeable, and then a bigger gesture.
“That makes sense,” he finally said.
“Does it?”
He hummed. “The light on the nightstand. You’ve never turned it off.”
“Maybe I’m afraid of the dark.”
“It doesn’t match the rest of the house,” he said.
I pulled my lips between my teeth and tucked my chin against my chest. I’d been caught. Found out. Smith didn’t say anything else; instead he sat quietly and waited. I imagined that was the patience of being the youngest child in a house full of older and louder men. He had to choose his words carefully because it was so much work to be heard over the roar, but I never wanted him to have to wait to speak with me.
“He didn’t leave me, it wasn’t…well, he did leave.”
“He died,” Smith guessed, reaching for my hand across the table.
I gave it freely, smiling softly down at the way my tattooed skin looked so dark and ruined against the golden glow of his smooth fingers and uncalloused knuckles. I wondered what he saw when he looked down at our hands, because he was certainly looking, just like I was.
