The Gun Runner(17)

Michael’s military career made perfect sense. The Marine Corps was his family and the war was his home. When the war ended, he probably felt that his family dissolved.

“I’m sorry.” The words seemed insufficient and shallow. It was all I could offer.

He sat down on the couch. “Don’t be.”

I sat down beside him, feeling like dismissing the subject was insensitive. On the other hand, talking about it would have made me an emotional mess and I was sure I couldn’t offer him anything he hadn’t already heard.

“Well, I am,” I said. “And I’ll leave it at that.”

“What about your parents? You never mention them.”

I needed to tell him something that would support my not having introduced him to them, and the fact that I never really discussed them. “I don’t get along with either of them, really. I just do my own thing.”

It was true. Kind of. My mother always nagged at me for not being married, and my father was a gangster and never wanted to talk about anything for fear of revealing a secret.

“I see,” he said. “So, how was your night?”

I laughed lightly though I still felt like crying. “It was interesting.”

“How so?”

“I went out with the girls, and I thought I was going to have fun, but I spent the entire night wishing I was with you.”

“If it makes you feel any better, I sat in the office getting caught up on paperwork, and thought of you the entire time. It’s weird. I’ve never really been this way.”

I turned toward him and cocked my head to the side. “Which is?”

He stared back at me, seemingly confused. “Huh?”

“You said you’ve never really been this way. What way are you talking about?”

“You know, obsessed or whatever you want to call it.”

“With me?”

“Yes, with you. Who else would we be talking about?”

The feelings of sorrow all but vanished. Suddenly, I was filled with a warmth and something that resembled hope. I finished my drink, couldn’t decide what to do with the glass, and eventually placed it between my legs. “So, what is it that we have? I know it’s only been three weeks, but what would you call this?”

He crossed his legs and offered me a shitty grin before taking a sip of his mimosa. “Call what?”

I exhaled sharply. It sounded almost like a cough. “Our situation? You and me.”

My father would kill me if he found out what I was doing, but Michael was so much more than a novelty to me. He was everything I wanted in a man, but he wasn’t Italian and I didn’t think he was Catholic—and my father would settle for nothing short of both. Convinced I didn’t care what my father thought, I wanted Michael to put a label on what it was we had between us.

“Oh. I don’t know. A discovery phase?”

I sat up in my seat. “A what?”

“Discovery phase.”

I steadied the glass between my legs and sat up straight. “What the fuck is that?”

The Italian girl in me had been unleashed. A discovery phase sounded like something curious teenagers did nervously in the basement while the rest of the family was upstairs watching television.

He leaned away as if I’d insulted him. He shrugged. “Trying to decide just what it is we want from each other. You know, discovery.”

“What do you want from me?” I snapped back.

“Fuck, I don’t know, but I think you either need another drink or a fucking nap. Somebody’s got an attitude.”

I stood up and spun around to face him. “Damned right I’ve got an attitude. Discovery phase? Sounds like a teenager giving out hand jobs in the basement to me. I discovered you in the parking lot of Starbucks one day. That was the discovery phase.”

My lips were pursed. I was breathing through my nose, and sounded like a bull preparing to charge the matador.

“Settle down, Terra. Jesus. Okay, same question to you. Where are we? What have we got between us?”

We had met for coffee twice, lunch once, and then went on our first date. After the date, he sucked my pussy until I collapsed on the floor. Afterward, he was enough of a gentleman not to try and fuck my stupid drunken self. In fact, I never got a chance to suck his cock on that night, and I didn’t get a chance to see him naked. At least not yet. In the week that followed our first date, we had met for coffee twice in the middle of his workday.

It was a good question. Maybe I simply wanted more than what I was entitled to. I certainly didn’t want to make him angry and give him reason to end something that had barely started. I clenched the empty glass in my hand, stared down at him, and realized I was being nothing short of a bitch.