“He’s not my father. More of a teacher. A mentor,” I said.
“Your brother in crime,” she said.
I smiled. “He wouldn’t accept the label, but it’s as good as any,” I said. “He taught me a lot.”
“So he’s a good guy?”
I glanced at her. “No. Not in any sense that you would conceive of it. But he’s honest. Very straightforward,” I said.
“More than some can say,” she said.
“That it is,” I said.
Then I went quiet, having moved on from Maxim but not yet ready to broach the next topic.
“Go ahead. Tell me,” she said.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Something’s on your mind.”
“I’m surprised you can tell,” I confessed, though that wasn’t entirely accurate. I was no longer surprised by Milan’s insight into me anymore. But I admired her perceptiveness and welcomed the connection to her.
“Why?” she said.
“One of the things my mentor taught me was to keep my thoughts and feelings to myself. How is that you’re so good at reading them?”
She shrugged. “Maybe it’s one of my superpowers,” she said.
“There are others?” I replied, reaching for her.
“Yes, ones that I’ll be happy to show you, but first we need to talk,” she said, holding her body away from me stiffly. Then she smiled.
I returned the expression. “Isn’t that what men say when they’re about to break someone’s heart?” I said.
“Ones lacking the creativity to come up with something better. Or ones who don’t care enough to try to.” She tilted her head, her gaze taking on an assessing depth. “I bet you’ve probably used that line before,” she said.
“No. Never,” I said.
She looked at me skeptically. “Never?”
“Never,” I replied.
“So what? You have some kind of patented breakup system in place?”
“No system. No breakups.” It was simpler that way, and with all the complexities of my life, I’d had no room for feelings, no capacity or desire to care for another’s emotions.
“Oh God. You’re going to tell me that you don’t do relationships,” she said.
“I don’t,” I said.
Milan smiled, but as she watched me I saw her expression begin to change. “You mean it?” she said.
“Yeah. No time for that in my life,” I said.
“But you’re not a virgin,” she said.
“No. There’s a wide gulf between fucking and a relationship,” I told her.
“Yeah. I guess that’s true,” she said, an almost understanding expression on her face.
She went quiet for a moment, and in the second that passed, the distance that separated us had never seemed more impassable.
What the fuck was I doing?
Her life, her experiences were so different from mine that we might as well have been from different universes. How could I explain to her that relationships, even if I had wanted them, were impossible when my time was entirely devoted to building a criminal empire?
She viewed the world through the lens of breakup lines and cheesy movies; every move I made, sometimes every sentence I spoke carried with it the weight of life or death. Even being with her like this, allowing her this close was a liability. So how could I relate to her?
I couldn’t.
Any attempt to bridge the vast gulf that separated us was futile.
“What do you have to tell me?” she asked a moment later.
She’d sensed the change in me, and there was no reason to pretend otherwise.
“I have to leave you,” I said.
She sat up and then sighed.
“This conversation again?” she said incredulously, her brow furrowed, her nostrils flaring with what I recognized as the beginning of her anger.
“Yes,” I said and then I waited, expecting her argument, actually prepared for it for once.
“So now’s the part where I argue,” she said.
“If you’d like,” I replied.
“Will it change your mind?” she asked.
“No. I need to be able to focus, to think…”
“And you can’t do that if you have to babysit me,” she said.
I untangled my hand from hers briefly, reached up to stroke her cheek. “I can’t do that if I’m worried about you,” I said.
“I thought you didn’t use pickup lines. That sounds like one,” she said.
“It not. It’s the truth.”
There was also the unspoken truth that I had no idea what I would confront, no idea what I might have to do. Beyond worrying about Milan, which I would, I also worried what she might think if I had to show her parts of myself that I hadn’t yet.