Don't tell my best friend.

7. Table for four.

Days had gone by, I was seeing Raphael once or twice a week, meeting for dinner, going to watch movies in random theaters, driving out of the city to go to lonely places, sometimes hanging by the ocean or watching underrated movies on Netflix at his place.

I was happy, even if sometimes I felt like I was dating someone who was in the closet or worse with a cheater. He had told me not to worry about it, but my mind kept going to the many possible outcomes of Lea finding out.

We kept meeting at McDonald's. A public place and not far from my work, so I could get there quickly. Every time we met I felt like a teenage girl who was running away with her lover. The thrill of being caught, the stolen kisses and treasured moments. It was just too nice. I kept waiting for someone to wake me from this dream because it all felt too good to be happening to me. My sister kept messing with me, telling me I was always going too dressed up to wok or that I was too smiley. Lea, on the other hand, had told me several times I was abandoning her for this guy.

I kept stalking and watching their post together, Lea's and Raphael's and they just seemed too good together. She was smiling more than before, her relationship with her mother had also improved. We talked almost daily, sometimes meeting at work to catch up during my lunch break she asked how my life was going on, when everything was fine, for once, my anxiety attacks were almost gone. I don't know if it was Raphael, but something in this new lifestyle had helped me. Lea was also good, work was good, she was working in a marketing agency, she was stylish and most of her works were on magazines and even on some TV commercials. I was so proud of her. And I was just here at this cafe, still going through my quarter life crisis, trying to find my place in life or just something I could be good at.

Whenever they met, she was glowing with love. It was so good seeing her happy, not so closed as she always seemed, always hiding her feelings like she used to do. Seemed her grandfather's death and the reunion with her mother had brought positive things on her life. Sometimes tragedies were necessary to change us.

Sometimes I felt like Raphael's side bitch, even if I wasn't but a part of me thought about that, which brought the anxiety again. When he hit me after midnight it made me feel like that, even if I didn't want to. Sex wasn't the only thing we did, we spent good quality time together, like those things he could not do with Lea and he like to share them with me. Weird cravings, weird movies, I was on for all the weirdness, it was different. Even if sex was amazing and he was really there for me, I was getting tired of being kept in the shadows. But sometimes that was all I could think about, that we were never going to have a formal thing. I hated thinking that was all we were going to be, that I was just going to be his toyboy. Even though I knew what I had signed up for, since the very beginning.

I was scrolling through his Instagram, full of white and black photos, no color whatsoever.

It gave you this dark side of him like he was a mysterious boy with dark fetish and shit. Probably he was though, he seemed so chill and so artistic at the same time.

That jawline and that beard, I felt my heartbeat racing as I thought of the touch of his beard on my face and my body. I started to get wet and sweat with the thoughts of his touch when the sound of my phone interrupted my fantasy. The notification sound kept boosting. I was going crazy when I found tons of texts from Lea.

-Boooooy!!!!!!

-Hey, what hppn?

-What time do you get out on Friday?