𝐁𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐭 𝐋𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐌𝐞

65|| Gut Feeling

Dante // August 3rd
•••

Celeste is finishing the last part of her cheeseburger next to me as we sit in my car, parked next to a now closed fast food restaurant.

I knew she was still hungry because she wasn't able to eat much of the dinner I'd gotten her at Paradise, so I ordered a bunch of different food in a drive through.

She ended up insisting it was 'way too much' but then wasn't able to meet my eye for four minutes after she ate nearly all of it.

"We had to do that in the orphanage," she says, breaking the silence as she gestures at the soccer ball she'd gotten me.

For my birthday.

No one had ever bought me something so thoughtful for my birthday.

Granted, I'd stopped celebrating it shortly after we'd moved to Chicago, having grown tired of the let downs that came with the date very quickly.

But this time it was different.

Celeste eyes the 10 I'd written on the ball, her head resting against the seat. "We had to write our numbers on our belongings otherwise someone could claim it as theirs." Her eyes filled with nostalgia moved to me. "Cece and I used to wipe and cut other numbers off of things, that's how she got her music box."

"That sounds like a good way to make enemies," I note.

She smiles. "It was."

She looks so beautiful. Even after fighting on the floor, getting wasted for the first time and traveling for hours all in one day.

I'd wondered for the past four months about what I'd do when I saw her again, and now I know.

I want nothing more than to get on my knees and apologize in all the ways she allows me to.

Every time I look at her I have to force back the 'sorry's' and excuses that are laying on the tip of my tongue, knowing she'd only scoff in response.

I was hesitant with sending gifts first, unsure if she'd take offense to the materials but after a day the possibility of her forgetting about me was a far greater disaster than her not liking the gifts.

A yawn coming from her mouth snaps me back into the present and it's then I notice her dropping eyelids.

I start the car. "I'll drive us back home."

"No," she says. "I'm staying at an hotel, Dante."

I try to ignore the burn behind my ribcage and she gives me the address of where she's staying.

She looks out the window as I drive through our city, making wrong turns on the way to her hotel – accidentally of course.

"The city looks different," she notices, her voice soft from the exhaustion. "Wait.." She sits up straighter as we pass one of Lester's old casinos. "Dante, we're in the Irish's territory."

That statement would've been true a few months back, but I'd been cleaning out Celeste's home ever since she left. So when she finally came back, there wouldn't have been a single thing to remember that stronzo Lester by.

I feel Celeste's questioning eyes on the side of my head when I don't make a move to turn around.

"I've been busy," I say.

"With what?"

"Rearranging our city a little."

The unspoken message isn't lost in the silence as I drive deeper into what ones were Irish-owned streets, right until we reach the hotel Celeste is staying in.