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“The coffee?”
“No.” I shake my head and wait as the waitress puts our drinks down. “It’s like we’re not meant for this kinda life. I was thinking we should try, but the more I look at you sitting here, and the more I think about what I’ve seen from your family, this normal life seems wrong, you know? Time out seems better under the stars. Like that’s more honest at least.”
She frowns and picks up her drink. “We still drink coffee, Kai.”
“Yeah? When was the last time you sat in a place like this and just watched the world go by and enjoyed it?” That deepens her frown, making her look closer to Shaw than I think I’ve ever seen her. “You can’t even remember a time when you did, can you?”
“Well, I don’t get a lot of time to just be and relax.”
“No. I guess not, but don’t you ever want to?”
Seems that causes some thought because she sighs and stares out the window at passing people and traffic. I don’t interrupt it, either. It’s nice to see. She’s soft like this. No lines in her forehead. No feisty attitude making sure I understand her point of view on something. She’s that girl I’ve woken up with sometimes, the one who nuzzles in and lets calm look after her for a while.
She sighs. “Kai, we don’t need to-”
“Yeah, we do. I want to know all about that past of yours so I can understand who you are now and why you’re like you are. How about starting with that scar and where it came from?”
“I’m not sure that’s being a couple and not discussing my family.”
“Tell me.”
“Why?”
My fists tighten on the cup in my hand. “Because I need to fucking know. I need to know everything. Past. Problems. Everything. If it's about you, I want to know it."
“Okay, okay. I’ll tell.” She swallows and takes a breath.
So she does. She’s factual in her account. Stole her when thirteen, taunted and threatened. Scarred. Never wanted to be in that position again, so she’s harder, driven not to be weak. She continues talking, and I let her as she describes the verbal and physical abuse her mother dispensed. How she lived with all of it, including her brothers. By the time she stops, I’m about ready to go burn the world to the ground to defend things that happened long before I was even here.
She looks up and around the coffee shop, sighing about the people around us and their normal kind of life. “And that’s why all this around us, and the thought of just watching the world go by, has never been on the radar for me. I guess you’re right. It does seem wrong in some ways when you’ve lived the life I have,” she says. She isn’t crying about any of it either. She’s stone faced, as if this damned life she’s grown from has hardened her to the point of that shit being normal. Coffee shops and chatting sure as shit isn’t a part of her normal, nor mine anymore after hearing that.
“How about we go dancing?” she says. The scowl I’m wearing evens out a little. “Because all that isn’t now, is it? You're here now. And I just need some of that quiet time you were talking about. Dancing, drinking maybe. Anything.”
I nod and let my scowl settle back in again. She’s right. Time for just us. That was the loose fucking plan in my head, but now that’s blown to shit and I’m struggling to ease down from where that information has just taken me.
“Kai?”
“What?”
“Come on. I know some good places.” I’m standing without really realising I am doing, and then we’re walking out and I’m still in some haze of buried rage that doesn’t know where to vent.
She takes hold of my hand and wanders the sidewalk, dropping her head onto my shoulder like we’re any other couple on a night out. We’re not, and not just because of her. I’m scanning anything that comes within a foot of her, ready, and almost desperate, to defend her so I can beat on something and get this violence out of me. It’s all I can feel circling inside of me. Thirteen years old, and they did that to her?
“Hey,” she says, tugging my hand. I look sideways at her, confused as to what she wants. “In here.” She points at some doors opening. “There’s a great bar down there.”
“Alright.”
Nothing is alright.
~
Turns out, after several drinks and her hands all over me for a few hours, everything’s more alright than I thought it would ever be again. The mental image of a thirteen-year-old her in trouble might not have disappeared completely, but she sure as hell knows how to distract me out of my headspace when needed.
We all but fall out onto the dark sidewalk again, and I catch her mid-trip. She lands hard against my chest and carries on with her laughing. It’s just as it should be. For the first time since we’ve met, this is the kind of evening we should have been having. I’ve almost forgotten the shit that is her life, and mine, and it’s making me question everything she said about having to stay.
I pull her to me and kiss her, deep and slow. Just us on a sidewalk. No threats or problems. Nothing to take away the moment we’re in other than us falling deeper into it. I pull back and smile at her, watching the glow in her face and the shine in her eyes from the lights around us. “You’re going to be the death of me,” I mutter, brushing her hair back. “And you know what, I’ll take that.”
Her hand balances on my shoulder, and she reaches down to take off her heels. “No death,” she murmurs. “You can’t die, you hear me?” She comes back up to my face, kissing me briefly again. “If you’re gone, who have I got?”
