When I woke up he was there. Two weeks ago that thought would have sent me into a panic. Now, it was proof that I was safe. His soft snoring and tousled hair were welcome sights; proof that I was still here in the place that I was finally, hesitantly, learning to call home. In my nightmares, I'm always trapped far away from here. I'm always far from him and unable to save my grandmother. I'm always alone, too slow, too weak, and too late. I suppose that's what makes them nightmares.
"Am I that handsome?"
His voice shocks me out of my open admiration.
"You're okay. I've had better." I toss a pillow at his head and sit up in bed.
"Just admit it. You find me attractive."
"You're not an ugly man. You already know that. Do you really need me to tell you how good looking you are?"
"You could show me instead," he says, taking my hand and pressing it above his heart on his shirtless chest.
"Oh really?" I look at him through the heavy curtain of my hair. I know I must look a fright. Braiding my hair is at the top of my to-do list, filed under self-care.
"We are married after all. I'm yours. Do what you want with me." He scoots closer to me, invading my personal space and caressing my skin with his heated gaze. A girtl would have to be made out of stone to not respond to a man looking at her like that, but I resist the urge to go to him and wrap myself in his arms.
"I'll remember that you said that," I say, pinching the tiny bud beneath my fingers. He flinches but doesn't pull away.
"See?"
"Masochist," I whisper softly against his mouth, teasing him with a kiss and then increasing the pressure on the tiny lump of flesh between my fingers.
"Sleeping next to you and not touching you, that's masochism. This?" he cocks an eyebrow as he looks down at his chest. "This is just a love tap."
I release his nipple and escape the bed before he has a chance to convince me to reevaluate my decision not to sleep with him.
The safest bet would have been to sleep on the sofa int he next room or to buy a cot, but somehow he'd allowed me to talk him out of it. Trying to sleep alone in that loft apartment, in that large bed seemed like too daunting a task and I was simply too tired of fighting my fear and slaying my dragons to continue to put up a good front.
That evening he's sat by my bed nearly all night, holding my hand as I struggled to fall asleep. The next night he returned to do the same. I was the one who made space for him in the bed.
"It's yours, after all, you should sleep in it," I told him.
"Everything here is mine," he said with a smirk, sitting next to me on the bed and stretching the duvet folded at the foot up over his legs.
And he was there, every morning since that day. What unsettles me the most about everything is how normal it all feels. Our mornings have become routine. Coffee, breakfast, check emails and then off to "work", which is a set of desks that Enzo begrudgingly delivered to the loft. Every day this marriage feels a little more real.
"I'm going to be out for a few hours today," he says, snagging the cinnamon toast from the toaster before I have the chance to defile it with butter and orange marmalade.
"Where are you going?"
"It's Friday," he says without looking up.
"Can I go?"
"It's Friday. Do you want to go?"
"Jummah?" I pour a cup of coffee for each of us and hand him his mug. I still don't understand how he can drink it black.
YOU ARE READING
Unintended Consequences (Act One) Completed
Spiritual"It's simple; you help me convince everybody that we're a normal married couple and I help you hide from your homicidal gangster ex-boyfriend." "And the cuffs?" Unique held up their shackled wrists. "Don't look at me! I was as drunk as you were!" *...
