The possibilities weren’t enough to get me to turn back. I needed to see it. I knew the scene would be enough to hurt me into never letting myself feel again. I needed that pain to be my constant reminder, to help me return to indifference. I had apparently forgotten about the agony I already harbored, allowing Blaine to take up space in my heart and mind. They had both been destroyed, but somehow Blaine had begun to repair the damage.
They say that a broken heart never really can be fixed. Yet his touch had sealed the gaping wounds and even filled the tiny fissures that couldn’t be seen. My heart may have not been completely healed, but Blaine had nurtured it with lingering smiles, whispered words and soft kisses. It had been out of order for so long, and over the past weeks, had slowly but surely begun to function again.
I pulled up to his house, palms sweaty and breath shallow. I could do this. I had to do this. I owed it to Angel for every lonely night she spent longing for someone to love her. I owed it to Dom for all the pain and suffering he had endured at the hands of someone who proclaimed to love him. And I owed it to myself for all for the love I had been too afraid to feel.
Love. It was the thing that bound us and tore us apart. It was our disease and the remedy of our shattered hearts.
It was a sonofabitch.
I counted down from 10 with every step I took towards his front door. I didn’t see his truck, but it could’ve been in the garage. I didn’t know what I walking into, and the uncertainty seized my joints, making me work for every single movement towards my fate. It felt like I was walking the green mile rather than the paved stone path to Blaine’s porch.
My pressed the doorbell before my brain could talk me out of it. No answer. I hit the button again and waited another 30 seconds. Shit. All that worrying and he wasn’t even there. I shook my head at the absurdity and rummaged through my purse. Then I left a folded piece of paper on his doorstep. At least he’d know I’d been by. And if he had moved on, maybe this would make him think about me. Maybe even enough to not want to forget the memories of our time together that I clung onto like a lifesaver.
“Kami?”
I slowly spun around, the air in my lungs abandoning me at the sound of his voice. Blaine stood just feet away from me, shirtless, and dripping wet with sweat. Black athletic shorts and running shoes were the only thing gracing his magnificent body. His tanned skin glistened underneath the setting sun, and his sandy brown hair stuck to his forehead. A single, solitary drop of sweat hung onto one of the longer layers over chocolate-brown eyes that watched me with appreciative surprise. I suddenly grew incredibly thirsty – parched, even—and only that drop would ease my dry throat.
“Kami?” he repeated, pulling the earbuds from his iPod out of his ears.
I didn’t realize that I still hadn’t said a word to him, too wholly captivated by his near nakedness. Blaine was gorgeous. Magnificent. The prototype of what a man would look like if fantasies were realities.
“Oh, um, sorry I didn’t call…”
“That’s ok,” he interjected, stepping towards me and bringing the dark ink adorning his body into focus. Intricate patterns and script kissed his fingers, arms, shoulders and torso. I had discovered more on his legs at the lake but never got the chance to study the designs. Now I was close enough to glimpse the reds, yellows, greens and blues that crawled up his left calf. Every piece was stunning and sophisticated.
“Is that for me?” he asked, pointing towards the abandoned piece of paper tucked in the corner of his doorframe.
“Uh, yeah. Figured it’d be better than leaving a note,” I shrugged.
He reached past me and squatted down to retrieve the little origami frog, giving me a whiff of his sweat slicked skin. His scent, coupled with the trace of mint and spice that I had grown to crave, was masculine and erotic. It was exactly what I imagined his sweat to smell like, and I wanted to bathe in the tiny droplets.
Blaine fingered the delicate paper and looked down at me with a half-grin. The heat from his body enveloped me, igniting fire in my belly. “Or you could’ve called me.”
I worked to keep my tight-lipped smile even. “Some things need to be said in person.”
He nodded, fishing out a key from the iPod armband that hugged his sculpted bicep. “Come on in.”
Blaine’s house was immaculate, just as it was before. Seeing it again brought back memories of his hands and lips caressing me, his strong arms holding me, and the tender words he uttered after I awoke in the dark. The look on his face when he shared his past with me, the intense feeling of wanting to take away his pain—it all came crashing back.