Page 54 of Honey, Honey
“You do honest work. More honest than anything I do, or have ever done, to get paid. Why would you think I would give a shit about your job?”
She shrugged. “Because everyone in this town cares about that stuff. You know that. It’s always who you know and what you do, not who you are or what you feel.”
I smiled at her. “True, but fuck those people.”
She laughed, the sound of it small, but it was a laugh all the same. “You should laugh more. It’s...nice,” I said, because I didn’t say what I really wanted to say, which was that it was beautiful. That it sounded better than anything I could remember hearing or would ever want to hear. Words like that made me sound like a kid that didn’t have his shit together when it came to women and love.
I almost made a face. Love. What the hell was I doing that ‘love’ was a word that managed to make it across my brain? Outside of the context of I loved her tits, or I loved the way her mouth felt on my dick, or I loved eating her pussy? What did I know of love?
No, this had fuck all to do with sex and her body, or how she made my dick feel. This went to what Honey was making me feel inside. The emotions she was waking up in me were big, too big for me to make sense of this early, but I was going to have to try if I wanted to keep my head in the game.
“Thanks,” Honey said, smiling at me. It was small, thin, but like her laugh, it was there. “You have a good laugh too.”
“When did you hear me laugh?” I asked, because I couldn't think of doing it around her.
“You did it twice,” she told me without hesitation. “Well, twice but... the same time, you know?”
I shook my head because I didn’t know. “No.”
She sighed at me as if it was my fault I wasn’t keeping up with her half formed thoughts. “In the rain, you laughed twice then.”
“I don’t remember doing it.”
She shrugged as if that didn’t matter. “I still heard it. I liked it. You sound different when you laugh. A whole different man.”
“That’s good, I guess,” I ventured when she didn’t explain.
“It is. You sound like a man you can make–” she stopped and then shook her head, cutting herself off.
“Like a man you can make what with?” I asked, interested now that she was looking like she wanted to be anywhere but here. “What were you going to say, Honey?”
“Nothing.”
“What did we say about lying?”
She grimaced and then said, “What I was going to say was that you sound like a man you can make a life with when you laugh.
We both froze. Honey because I knew she was nervous at the honesty she’d given me, and me because I’d never been told I was the kind of man that could make anything. I was a man that broke things, people, and lives. I took. I had always taken, right from the beginning it was how I earned my place on the streets and at the table beside mafiosos. I broke people and names with my hands. Even my corporation was focused on taking companies apart bit by bit until there was nothing left. My hands did not create. Not ever.
But now this woman...Honey, thought I was a man she could make a life with and all from the way I sounded when I laughed. I wished I could remember laughing around her because I wanted to know what she looked like when she thought that about me.
It had to be beautiful. I bet it was. Would bet half my damn fortune on it. I grunted when she gave me a curious look.
Honey rolled her eyes at me. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means I’ve never heard that before.”
“Maybe you should laugh more.”
“Could be.”
We stared at each other and then she was grinning, a giggle coming from her lips. “I like that you don’t really. Laugh, I mean. And...and I like that I got to hear it.”
“What else do you like?” I asked, switching the topic to something that mattered a whole lot more to me than my laugh. Though I could see from the pinched look on Honey’s face that she thought my laugh was plenty important.
“Nice conversation switch,” she sighed, setting her mug down on the cart beside the bed and stretching out like a cat in the sun. Arms over her head and leaning back on the down pillows the bed was piled with. I swear I’d never seen a more overstuffed bed than this one. I was surprised she wasn’t swallowed by the blankets and sheets when she climbed in, but I did like seeing her surrounded by soft things. Things I knew were comfortable and delicate, just like her. I wanted to keep her like this where nothing and no one could hurt her.
But in order to do that, I needed to know exactly what I was working with when it came to Honey.
