Page 72 of Sunflower Persona
She waits near the doorway while I move through the darkness to turn on the overhead light. The sudden bright flash is jarring, and we both flinch. Most nights, I don’t even bother with it; the bulb under the microwave is enough for me to move around without knocking into things. I wish I would have turned that on instead. Under the orange-tinted glow from the ceiling fan, my apartment feels dingy and small.
Itisdingy and small, but the lighting doesn’t help.
“Do you want a water or coffee?” I ask as uncertainty floods me.
“I’m good,” she says, wandering over to the shelves of pictures near the TV.
My fingers twitch with the urge to stop her. I don’t like people inspecting my stuff and invading my privacy. Every moment that has ever felt important is memorialized in those cheap particle board bookcases: my family, my friends, remnants of a dream that never got to be. I’m a sentimental fool. The only reason I let her explore is Morgan said I needed to do the whole emotional vulnerability thing, and this is a good start. It might be easier for me to tell her about myself and my past if she has specific questions. Maybe this will be more successful than the whole fancy date advice I got from Nathan, because that was a load of shit.
I give her a few minutes to take it all in and head to the kitchen to grab myself a glass of water. I’m not thirsty, but it’s something to do besides stare at her like a creep. When I come back to the living room, she’s still poring over the shelves.
“Find anything interesting?” I ask as I step up behind her to look over her shoulder.
“Is this your mom?” She points at a photo of Ma, my brother, and me in front of a Christmas tree in her apartment.
“Yeah, and my brother Layne.”
“Does she live close?”
“Nah. They’re both back in Boston, but I make a point to visit a few times a year to see them.”
Ma would wring my neck otherwise. She hated when I left, even if she understood why I needed to do it. The least I can do is make sure I stop by for the major holidays.
“That’s really sweet,” she says.
“Layne and I are all she has. My dad passed away when I was in high school.”
Kori gasps and reaches behind her to grab my forearm.
“I had no idea. I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to dig up old wounds.”
“It was years ago, and I’d rather talk about him than pretend he never existed. He had cancer, but it all happened so quickly. One day he was complaining about a pain in his chest, and a few months later, he was gone. Ma took it hard, understandably. They were high school sweethearts, and he was her whole world. She didn’t even have time to grieve properly—not with two kids to support and a job that would’ve fired her at the drop of a hat for missing her shifts. I think she should have let them fire her. It’s not like it was enough anyway. Money got tight, so I dropped out and got a job washing dishes that paid under the table and didn’t mind breaking a few labor laws.”
“Gage…” she starts, but I don’t want her sympathy.
“None of that. Tell me about your family. Are you close?”
“Yeah, we’re close. It’s just my mom, my dad, and me. I don’t have any siblings, and my grandma passed a few years back. They live a little over an hour from here, but we video chat at least once a week.”
Her attention shifts to another frame. This one has a picture of Karis and me at the belt ceremony where she got her purple belt a few months after she joined Double Teep. The photo beside it is almost identical except instead of purple, her belt is brown, and the one on the end is the two of us after I got my black belt.
“How long have you known Karis?”
“Damn, it’s been close to six years now, I think.”
“Six years? How old is she?”
Kare would kill me if I spilled that she was rapidly approaching thirty, so I just shrug and wrap my arms around my woman. She melts against me, resting all her weight against the front of my body.
“Do you remember the other night?” she asks and looks back at me with a shy smile.
As if the memories of her lips against mine and the way she rubbed her pussy against my aching cock haven’t been the center of every dirty thought I’ve had over the past few days. I think I’ve jerked off more in the past seventy-two hours than I did in the six months before I met her.
“Which night?” I ask, bending to kiss the curve of her neck.
“You know exactly which night I’m talking about,” she says with an adorable, annoyed huff, even as she tilts her head to give me more access.
“What about it?” I ask with my lips against her skin. I don’t trail them along the column of her neck like I want to—not yet, at least. The last thing I want is for her to feel any sort of pressure to do anything physical with me. I promised her tonight wasn’t about sex.
