Page 21 of With This Lie

“It’s something to help with my anxiety and thoughts. Believe it or not, I have a lot of negative thoughts about myself. The rubber band is my way of trying to replace at least some of them with some other action. To keep control. I also tend to snap it when I’m nervous,” he says.

I nod my head, understanding in this moment that perhaps Lucas is maybe a little more sensitive than first perceived. “What’s your favorite color?” I ask.

“Do you have question Tourette’s?” he asks.

“Maybe.”

“I like green,” he says. “You?”

“I like gray. Gray is my identity. I’m just a gray area,” I say.

“I don’t think you’re gray, but I will take your word for it,” he says.

“What color am I then?” I ask.

“I don’t know yet. I’ll tell you when I figure it out.” He smiles.

We spend the next hour or so like this, exchanging both meaningful and meaningless questions and answers. It’s nice to sit and talk with someone like this. I don’t do a lot of it, especially with someone of the opposite sex. I keep those interactions either business or sexual in most cases.

“What was your childhood like?” he asks.

I don’t really like this question. I don’t want to answer it. But I don’t want to lie either. “Um, it wasn’t great. It wasn’t terrible either. Just normal, I guess. What about yours?” I ask. That wasn’t the entire truth, but no one wants to hear about foster care and a hooker mother.

“Well, my mother remarried after my biological father died and they had another son, my half-brother. It was okay, I guess. My mother was happy so I tried to be happy, but my stepdad wasn’t a very nice man, at least not to me. My brother was a chip off the old block. We never really got along. My mother died a couple of years ago. And since then, I’ve been trying to smooth things over with my brother since he’s my only family left really. Some drama went down between the two of us a long time ago and we really haven’t spoken since,” he says.

“What kind of drama?” I ask.

“The kind of drama you save to talk about on a third or fourth date,” he says, grinning at me.

I smile back. He does make me smile a lot. He makes it easy. “Can I ask you one last question?” I ask.

“Of course,” he says.

“Do you want to kiss me?” I ask.

“Of course,” he says again.

I lean up to sit my glass down on the coffee table and tuck my hair behind my ear. I turn back to him, sitting up a bit. “What are you waiting for?” I ask.

He bites his bottom lip and his eyes run over my neck and jaw and mouth. I like the way he looks at me. He makes me uneasy. Not many have been able to do that.

He sits forward a bit and puts his own wine glass down. “I was waiting for permission,” he says, his voice lower now, deliberate.

“You need me to say it?” I ask, my own breath getting heavy.

He leans in closer and I feel my heart starting to race. He lifts his hand up and caresses my jaw. He runs the tip of his thumb over my bottom lip and I close my eyes.

“I don’t need you to say it, but I want you to,” he says, his words almost a whisper into my hair. I inhale sharply.

“Kiss me,” I say, eyes still closed.

And then I feel his lips pressing against mine, mouth parted. I feel the tip of his tongue meet mine. His hand moves back into my hair as he pulls me into him, into this kiss that travels down my sternum, bolts through my stomach, and causes the center of me to quiver.

It might have lasted ten seconds or ten minutes, I’m not sure, but as he pulls back, I find myself lusting for more. I take a breath and open my eyes to find him gazing at me, lids heavy, but a wild look in his eyes that is unmistakable. He looks hungry again. Hungry for me. I’m sure I have the same look on my face.

“Damn,” he says, exhaling, a smile spreading over his lips.

And I agree. Damn. I run my hand through my hair as if that somehow helps me gain my composure. “Agreed,” is all I can manage.

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