Page 14 of Accidental Alliance

The muted vibration of my phone skittering somewhere across the hardwood floor is a persistent mechanical hum beneath the heavier quiet of the apartment.

The screen throws a dim, fractured glow up the side of the bed and across the ceiling, pale enough to look almost ghostly from where it lies half under the foot of the bed.

For a second, I do not move.

I lie there on my back with Isabella draped against me, the warmth of her body still sunk deep into mine after hours spent tangled together in the sheets.

Her leg is hooked lazily over mine.

One arm is curled across my ribs. Her hair is spread over my arm while her cheek rests against my chest, using it as a pillow.

The faint scent of her perfume carries beneath the musky remnants of sex.

The phone keeps vibrating, nearly making me sigh. Reality always knows when to intrude at the worst of times.

I close my eyes for half a second and exhale through my nose, already irritated by the simple fact of being needed.

There is always another demand, another problem requiring a firm hand and a cold mind.

Another late-night call most likely demanding blood be spilled or money collected. Maybe both.

Tonight, instead of purpose forcing me to rise from the warmth of my bed, resentment keeps me still.

For the first time in my life, I have something I do not want to part from.

When the vibrating stops, plunging the apartment into silence once again, I let my eyes slowly drift shut.

The absence of the sound feels like a small mercy I’m rarely ever granted. Whatever it is can wait until morning.

Sleep begins to creep back in at the edges of my thoughts.

The tension in my shoulders slowly starts to unwind once more, dragged down by the steady cadence of Isabella’s breathing and the residual ache of spent desire in my bones.

Then the phone starts vibrating again.

The sound rips through the room with the persistence of a barking dog, somehow louder this time.

The cold glow of the screen flares once more against the ceiling, flashing through my closed eyelids like a signal fire.

This time, I do sigh.

That is how it always works, though, isn’t it?

Every good thing in my life has always arrived with the shadow of consequence close behind it.

Peace never stays unpunished, desire never comes easily.

And love, if that is what this is shaping itself into, is probably the most dangerous indulgence of all to give in to.

For one wild second, I consider smashing the goddamn phone against the wall.

Watch the screen shatter and the call die unanswered on the other end before I drag Isabella closer against me and choose oblivion over obligation just this once.

The fantasy is brief and probably the clearest evidence yet that she is changing me in ways I do not entirely understand.

It is harder than it should be to disentangle myself, not because she’s particularly heavy, but because I simply don’t want to.

The sheets whisper around us as I shift and move with the slow, controlled precision I normally reserve for drawing a weapon in a crowded room.