"Ah," Daniel said with a knowing nod. "A gift from a boyfriend."
"More like a parting gift."
"Parting gift? Who gets a chick a fish as a parting gift?"
Faith stretched out her heavy limbs slowly, sliding her legs under the blanket, suddenly aware of how cool her apartment was. "Guys who want to teach you a lesson."
"What the fuck kind of lesson is a tiny little fish?"
"It was supposed to teach me how to nurture something. I am, apparently, cold and withholding."
She said it in a matter of fact, casual way that had Daniel's brows drawing together as he moved onto his side to look her in the eye again. "Your ex was a fucking dick. And you're not cold. You're guarded. I figure that has a lot to do with what happened to you and your parents as well as people like him coming into your life. I figure you two fucked, right?" he asked oddly, making Faith let out a surprised laugh.
"Ah... yeah..."
"Then I don't see how the fuck he could think you were ever withholding. You gave up fucking everything to me."
He wasn't wrong.
But then again, he was.
Because she never completely let down her guards with a man before, not even during sex.
"Alright," she said, shaking off that heavy feeling she had inside. "I have given you two stories now. You've only given me one."
Unphased, Daniel shrugged as he kicked the covers up his body and shared his body heat with her. "What kind of story do you want?"
"What about your childhood?" she asked, surprising herself more than him. She never asked questions like that. Most people had boring, average childhoods. There was no reason to hear about how they broke their leg falling off their bikes at ten or how they got into all kinds of trouble with their best buddies.
"I was an Army brat. I moved all the fuck over so I never made any real friends. I made causal acquaintances feel like my oldest buddies because I had to imitate intimacy with people since I never got the chance to create it for real. My dad was a typical Army guy- hard outer shell but soft on the inside. My mom was sickly a lot. Back then, they could never quite put a finger on it, but as she got older, they figured out it was auto-immune. Lupus."
"Was," she said when he stopped talking.
"What?"
"You said your dad was and your mom was."
"Yeah, they're dead," he said, not much emotion behind it, likely indicating it had been a long time and the wounds had gotten a chance to heal. "My dad had a heart attack when I was, ah, twenty-two. My mother overdosed on her pain pills about six months later. They couldn't say for sure if it was accidental or not. But I know it wasn't. She couldn't cope without him. He was her caretaker, her everything. She didn't know how to exist without him."
"That's almost sweet in an incredibly sad way."
He nodded, reaching out to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. "How about I raise you a story and you owe me another one down the road when you're comfortable enough?"
"Sure."
"Well, you gave me a relationship story so I will give you one."
"A relationship story?" she asked with a smirk. "You don't seem like the type."
"The type for what? For relationships? I think everyone is a relationship type at some time or another. It depends on the time in your life and the person."
She got the distinct impression he was telling her that for a reason. And her heart squeezed a little at the idea that maybe, just maybe, he was telling her because he was saying it was the right time and she might be the right person. But that was a bit too cheesy for her to she tried like hell to push those thoughts away.
"Okay so tell me a right time, right person story."
He chuckled at that. "Don't really have one of those, baby. I have a couple right people, wrong time stories. I even have one or two right time, wrong people stories. But none that were both. Obviously."
"How is that obvious?"
"Because if it was the right person and the right time, I would still be with them, wouldn't I?"
"Can't fault the logic there," she agreed, though she wasn't sure she truly believed in right times or right people. Not anymore. Maybe there was a time when you were open to relationships. And maybe there were people who you could tolerate more than others. That was about as romantic as she got. "Stop stalling."
"Alright, so I was dating a girl right out of high school. Typical young and stupid shit. Moved out together."