Page 120 of Perfect
I go into the kitchen, watching him warily. Aside from being a little red around the eyes, he doesn’t seem drunk at all. He lets me gently slip the bottle out of his hands but just keeps staring at the oven, his face blank.
I look over and see that he’s watching a chicken roast, the timer on the oven showing another fifteen minutes. I pour him a glass of water, and he sips it slowly, still not looking at me. I stare at him, but I have no idea what to do, so I put my arms around his waist and hold him tightly.
If he can share, I can share.
“If you think I’ve got a problem with my drinking, you should have met my mother,” I say, resting my head on his chest. “She was the worst when she was drunk, super mean and critical, and she drank alot. My dad was controlling andreallypassive-aggressive, so between the two of them, I couldn’t do anything right, no matter how hard I tried.” Theo doesn’t respond, but he wraps his arms around my shoulders and holds me tightly, his thumbs tracing slow circles on my skin. “I tried so hard,” I whisper, and he pulls me closer and kisses my forehead before he rests his cheek on the top of my head.
We stay like that until the chicken is done.
Theo says nothing, makes me a plate, cups my face in his hands and kisses me softly, and goes to bed.
I drink a large glass of wine, put the untouched plate in the refrigerator, and go downstairs shortly after. When I crawl into bed, Theo’s already asleep, so I wrap my arm around his waist and tuck my other arm underneath his pillow, curling around his back.
I try to ignore how I feel when he relaxes back into me, how I feel as my hand finds his under the pillow, how I feel as I twine my fingers through his and press a kiss to his shoulder, but I can’t.
There are no lines between us anymore. Everything’s blurred together into a huge mess.
36
THEO
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 24
The day after Alex finds the photos, I have such a bad hangover that I can’t even make her breakfast, so I give her the car keys and the details for the spa and go back to bed. She’ll be irritated when she realizes I’ve booked her for every service they offer, but she won’t say no.
She acts like she hates gifts and hates being pampered, but she doesn’t.
I was supposed to need her to be out of the house for hours to set up decorations and put gifts under the tree and make gingerbread for us to build a house and all the other shit I thought might make for a perfect first Christmas together, but now that’s pointless.
I scrap all my plans for the day, and I drink instead.
I don’t think about the photos, or about Kevin and Ashley, or about Melissa and Jason, or about Boss and Nana. I just drink and think about the fact that after Thanksgiving, I didn’t bother to ask Alex how she felt aboutotherholidays because I’m a selfish fucking asshole who wanted to have something nice with her.
I lie on the couch and stare into the fireplace, somewhat drunk and exceptionally angry that this isn’t going how I wanted.
Fuck it, I’m going to dooneof the things I had planned for this weekend. I already have everything I need to make a panettone because there was always some in the photos of her and her parents at Christmas, and she should have one thing that feels familiar to her, that lets her know her traditions matter in this relationship.
As I make the dough, I think about what I need to do to kill Danny. I’ve never planned to kill someone before, and figuring out what I need to do to not get caught is annoying. He’s a cop, so I have to factor in that the cops will give a shit that he’s dead and actually investigate it. Still, it shouldn’t be that hard. I cover the dough and slip it into the fridge to rest overnight, trying to figure out if Alex would be likely to run away back to Boston if she got her old identity back.
I don’t think she would anymore. I think we’re in a good enough place that she’d stay with me, where she fucking belongs.
I cut myself off from drinking after the dough is made so that I’ll be relatively sober when Alex gets home. I don’t want to be drunk around her again, because I almost told her I loved her last night when she came upstairs to comfort me.
She’s not quite there yet, but she’s close.
Alex comes home pampered and glowing and exasperated. I smile and try to act normal, but she’s not buying any of it. Shewraps her arms around me and tells me I’m a shitty liar and tries to get me to open up to her, but I don’t. We talk about virtually nothing over dinner, but it’s comfortable.
When we’re sitting on the couch afterward, Alex crawls into my lap and kisses me, undoing my belt and telling me she wants to make my day better. For the first time ever, it takes me a while to get hard for her, but she doesn’t say anything. She keeps kissing me and touching me, and I lose myself in her affection until she kneels between my knees. I can’t tell exactly why she’s sucking me off, but the idea that she might be apologizing makes me uneasy. I watch her closely, but she’s so engaged, her face flushed and not blank at all, and she looks up at me adoringly as her cheeks hollow out around me.
I think she’s trying to take care of me, which makes me come immediately.
Alex curls up in my arms after, shyly asking me if that made me feel better. It did, but I don’t know how to feel about the fact that she’s using sex like this, so I make her come instead of answering her.
This isn’t going how I wanted.
This was all supposed to go so fucking differently.
When we go to bed, Alex gently turns me away from her and curls up around my back with her arm around my waist, pressing soft kisses into my shoulders.
