Page 35 of Romeo

Me: Sweet dreams, Ma Belle.

Nothing after it. Because goodnight generally ended conversations. Reasonable people understood that. I wasn’t feeling especially reasonable. My thumb hovered over the keypad. One question. I could ask one question.

Me: Tell me something nobody knows.

I hit send before the smarter part of my brain had chance to interfere. Delivered. Unread. I stared at it. One minute. Two. Three. Well, genius, she’s probably asleep. I was about to put the phone down when three dots appeared. A grin spread across my face.

Ma Belle: Why?

Me: Because I asked nicely.

Ma Belle: You didn’t say please

Smart-ass. There was something seriously wrong with how much I enjoyed that.

Me: Please tell me something nobody knows.

The dots appeared, disappeared, then appeared again. This time I waited. Whatever she sent next mattered because she was choosing it. I’d asked for something nobody knew. Now she had to decide whether I belonged inside that circle.

Ma Belle: I sing when I’m alone at the Creamery.

I read it twice. She sang. Not some devastating confession. Not some secret meant to crack her open. Something small. Something hers. For some reason, that felt more intimate.

Me: Good singer?

Ma Belle: That wasn’t part of the question.

My lips spread into a grin; she was such a smartass and I fucking loved it.

Me: What do you sing?

Ma Belle: Whatever’s playing.

Me: I need proof.

Ma Belle: Absolutely not

Me: Voice message.

Ma Belle: No

Me: Ten seconds.

Ma Belle: Still no

Me: Five.

Ma Belle: You negotiate like a criminal

Me: I’m charming. People confuse the two.

Ma Belle: Tell me something nobody knows about you.

My grin disappeared. Well, fuck. I’d walked directly into that one. What exactly was I supposed to tell her? That I’d known the second I saw her that something inside me had shifted permanently? That I thought about her more than any grown man had a right to think about someone he’d spent so little actual time with? That somewhere in the back of my head lived a very violent little bastard who hated the idea of another man putting his hands on her?

Probably not.

There were truths, and then there were truths you eased somebody into.