Page 50 of Break for Me

I was nothing short of uncomfortable when he leaned forward on the table to see if being physically closer would offer those blue eyes a better look into my existence.

thirty-seven

JERSEY

“Why were you crying?” I asked.

“Please don’t act like you care now,” she said quickly. “We both know you have no heart.”

I didn’t care.

I just needed her to get whatever it was out of her system now so we could be done with it. I needed her to go back to being all fire and razor sharp edges. I needed her to be as ready to hurl insults at me as I was when it came to her. This weird, vulnerable, emotional girl in front of me was hard to look at. I needed the one who spewed acid from her mouth relentlessly so I wouldn’t have to feel like such an asshole for stuffing her into the trunk of Seph when we left this horrible fucking city in the morning.

“Tell me,” I said.

She sighed and looked at something over my shoulder for the third time since I’d sat down.

“I was so upset that you’d asked me out as a way to get to me,” she said, still not looking at me. “I was pissed at you for doing it. I was pissed at you for having a job like this, for not caring about other people enough to just not kidnap someone. I was pissed at you for existing. But I was so ashamed of myself for falling for it. It’d been a couple months since the guy before you. I’d been through several cities without a problem. I started to let myself think I could calm down for a minute. I was able to do that every so often before where there was this lull between the people coming after me. And then I thought —.” She stopped herself for a second when her voice cracked. “I wanted to think maybe there was still a chance at me having a life with another person. Cue your stupid fucking gorgeous mug walking into that bar. We know how that ended. But I’ve been sitting here all night staring at the couple behind you. They’re so happy with everything. So in love. I don’t even think they know they’re in public, in a restaurant surrounded by other people. It must be nice.”

I wasn’t about to say anything back to her. She wasn’t going to play the manipulation game with me anymore and actually win it.

“I’m really not the hopeless romantic type,” she said and laughed at herself. “I’m not interested in someone burning the world down for me. I can light a match all on my own. I don’t need or want grand gestures. Truthfully, I don’t even want date nights in places like this. This place is ridiculous and a waste of money in every way.”

“What is it that you do want?”

She swallowed hard and finally looked away from that couple behind me to look me dead in the eye.

“Security.”

“What?”

“I think love for me would just look like safety. That’s how fucked up my life has been,” she stopped to laugh and shake her head again. “I want to be able to fall asleep and wake up knowing I’m safe. That my heart is safe. That’s it. That’s all there is to it.”

Her eyes drifted back over my shoulder, so I took the opportunity to fill her glass again with this liquid that should’ve been made from pure gold based on the price of it.

“That,” she said. “And I mean, if he could also have a dick the size of an elephant trunk and know how to find my clit, that’d be cool. I think I could be happy with that. Seems most men are only ever in possession of one of those superpowers. So few of you were manufactured with both. Those of you who have both abilities are all fucking psychopaths. Doesn’t seem like a reasonable trade off to have to give up orgasms in exchange for stability.”

I nearly dropped the fucking wine bottle.

“Stability isn’t worth more than an orgasm? How drunk are you?” I asked while I laughed and pulled her glass and the bottle of wine closer to my side of the table.

She laughed. “I’ve already had to give up too much. If these are my dream demands, I’m for damn sure not giving up orgasms. I want both.”

This conversation got so strange so fast.

I couldn’t tell if she was drunk out of her mind, or if the alcohol was freeing what was real and everything up to this point had been a defensive encasement. I slid her glass back across the table, because I was a shithead and I wanted to find out what was happening here.

She had that glass gone before they even brought our food to the table. So, I asked for another bottle.

“Who wants you back, Fancy Face? Why all this trouble to get someone like me to find you?” I asked.

“Who is Memphis to you?” She asked instead.

“My handler, you already know this.”

“Yeah but who is she to you really? Childhood bestie? Are you siblings? Cousins? Fuck buddies?”

“You’re almost cute when you let the jealousy out,” I said. “Memphis and I were assigned to each other when we started in this line of work four or five years ago. That was the first time we ever spoke. Her first day doing this was my first day doing this. She is only my handler.”

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