But as his face softened, I remembered that Demir wasn’t the type to pity me. From the very start, he had seen me as a strong, self-confident man, the same as I saw him.
He just cared, I realized.
“Marco and I were talking about it, and you’re welcome to stay at our place for more than just another night,” he said carefully.
I raised my eyebrows and felt a flicker of happiness. “I couldn’t put you out.”
“You wouldn’t be. We’ll both be working all the time, but so long as you don’t mind if we’re busy all day, we’re happy to have you around in the evenings and the mornings.” I pressed my forehead against his chest, eager to feel his strength. “We like having you there with us,” he added.
I pushed my hand through my hair and tried pulling myself back together. “I could probably do a couple more nights,” I said, “before I come back to Lou.”
Demir glanced down, and Lou did a little flip for attention. “You could bring him,” he said casually. “If that would make it easier for you to stick around for a while.”
I blinked. “Really? You’d want a cat in that beautiful apartment?”
Demir chuckled, his laughter soft in his chest. “Marco has been talking about getting a cat for the past two years. I’m sure Lou will be welcomed with open arms.”
Another tornado of emotions threatened to tear through me, so I quickly nodded instead. “Let me just grab some things, then. Do you mind waiting a minute while I do my shot? I keep forgetting.”
Demir nodded, and I was glad he seemed to know what I was talking about without needing an explanation. I hurried off to inject my testosterone, then grabbed a few essentials from around the apartment, shoving them in an old backpack. With Demir’s help, I got Lou’s supplies packed up and his carrier ready, and we loaded up his car.
“Glad I didn’t drive the motorcycle,” he joked. “I almost tried to surprise you with a cruise around town for distraction.”
I chuckled as I got in the front seat of his sleek black car, then turned, petting Lou’s nose through the netting on the side of the carrier. Demir popped on a pair of aviator sunglasses, and I directed him through the back streets and to the craft center.
“It makes sense to me that you’re still working,” he said. “I think part of the reason I put so much energy into opening the club was to distract myself from what happened with my parents.”
The sentence sat in the air as the car quietly rumbled beneath us. “Yeah, it does feel good to have a distraction,” I said. “If I wasn’t worried about losing clients, I’d probably be lying in bed all day.”
He kept his eyes on the road but laid his hand on my knee. “It’s okay to do that, too, you know.”
I nodded. “Thanks,” I said, although I wished I could say so much more.
Demir found a spot in front of the craft center. I stretched back to give Lou another tickle on his nose, then turned back to him.
“For everything,” I added. “Thank you.”
Demir leaned forward. He placed a hand on the back of my head, then pulled me closer, his breath hot on my lips. I kissed him quickly, and he kissed me back.
“Ready to drop off this project?”
I got the box from the back of the car, then walked Demir through the craft center. I told him about the history of the place and introduced him to a few artists I knew. We found Alyssa in the back, and I managed to largely contain the crying fit that came on when she hugged me and told me how sorry she was.
After leaving some instructions for the person I had hired to fire the tiles that night, Demir and I took a slow walk back through the building. We didn’t compare our families anymore or dive into stories about our parents. But we both knew that the other person understood, that Demir had lived through the same kind of double loss I was living through, where we had to say goodbye to our mother twice.
Instead, we got to talk about what mattered to us now. I got to show him the beautiful array of objects that came out of the center, each one unique. And when we got back to the car, with Lou mewing in the backseat, I could have almost sworn I was starting to feel better.
“What do you say?” Demir asked. “Back to the loft?”
“Yes,” I said.
Take me home.
