Raphael was busy wiping down a table when I stepped into the tea shop.
"Hey."
He glanced up and threw the rag he was using over his shoulder. "Hey, sit down. Coffee?"
I took a seat, twisting a napkin between my fingers, and watched him retreat to the counter.
The sun was setting behind the tall city buildings, and some other guy in an apron stopped to tell him something. Made him smile, casually speak back, casually brush shoulders. I wondered. But then his hand touched his arm and it was no longer just a jealous theory.
Half a fuck.
Whatever.
Raphael came back with my mug and slid it across to me. "I spoke to Dan."
He plucked out the pen behind his ear and snatched the napkin between my fingers.
"Hey, I was using that," I spoke out.
"You were tearing it apart."
"Same thing."
He glanced up and raised his eyebrows. "I got him to talk. Are you interested or not?"
"Of course I am."
Then pen in his hand flew over the napkin. "He got into some trouble with a bunch of people, owed them some money..."
My eyebrows knit together. "Are you sure?"
"You know him better than I do. Would he lie about this?"
I shrugged. "I really don't know him at all. Not well enough to be certain."
"Then what do you make of this?"
"I think he's trying to cover up for something more."
"Correct," he said. He set the pen down and lifted his chin. "I knew he was lying, so naturally I confronted him about it."
I waited. "And?"
He shook his head. "He refused to say anything to a stranger."
I leaned back in my chair with frustration. "He won't speak to me either. I might as well be a stranger to him."
"No, he agreed to speaking to you."
"Really?"
Raphael nodded. "But I did get something out of this."
"Yeah?"
"It's about a girl."
I sat up again. "You're kidding."
He shrugged his shoulders. "He could have been lying about that too, who knows? It might explain the whole roses thing."
"Roses?"
"As in plural," he affirmed. "When you left, they sent in a few more."
"Romantic."
"Extremely so."
We didn't say anything as I thought it over, but I couldn't come up with a better explanation. "So, what? He knocked a girl up, her father found out, and sent a gang over to beat him up?"
"Maybe he's gay."
I scoffed. "Are we talking about the same guy?"
"Just thinking out loud."
He pushed the napkin over to me, and I glanced down to see a sketch of what looked like my lips.
"Raph," I said. "Keep it."
"I already have a lot of these. And others."
I ignored the tear in my gut. "Keep those, too."
"Fine." He stood up. "Are you going to finish that?"
I glanced at my untouched coffee. "Yeah."
He eyed me one more time before making an exit.
â
"He's at the door," Scarlet said.
I was sitting on the couch and working on an overdue paper, with the TV on for background noise. "Who?"
"Raph."
I jerked my head up. "What?"
"He told me about the nickname. Cute." She grinned.
"Does he tell you everything?"
"More or less."
I cursed under my breath and pushed my laptop aside. "Tell him I'm busy."
"I already sent him up," she said. "There are leftovers in the fridge if you feel like snacking. I'm calling it a night."
"What? It's still early."
She winked, grabbing a can of beer on her way to her room.
I cursed again, and stood up to answer the door.
Raphael's head shot up, his eyes looking surprised to see that I was there. "Hey."
"Hey."
He shifted his feet and peeked over my shoulder. "May I come in?"
"Why are you here?"
"It's about Dan."
I hesitated for a second before nodding, and let him walk through.
I watched him gaze around, eyes falling to my laptop. "Were you working on something?"
"Yeah."
"Sorry, I'll be quick."
I fell back against the couch. "What happened?"
He looked torn between standing and joining me on the couch, but eventually settled for the latter. "I was thinking about it, I have a lot of time to do that in between washing dishes and smoking outside-"
"And?"
He cleared his throat. "It might not be a woman."
"I told you, I'm pretty sure he's not gay."
"No, I mean. What if it's a girl? Not a woman."
"I'm not sure I follow."
He sat up a little straighter. "What if it's a kid?"
"A kid?" I raised my eyebrows. "I thought we already established that he didn't get anyone pregnant."
"Maybe not necessarily his own kid," he said. "Maybe a niece, or a stranger."
"What makes you think so?"
He toyed with the hem of his t-shirt. "It's just a theory. I saw a stuffed animal in his drawer when he pulled it open for a second. Why would he hide a toy?"
I thought about it for a second. "Good point. I'll see what I can get out of him tomorrow."
He nodded, still seemingly distracted by another thought.
I wondered if there was any way to politely kick someone out of your apartment.
"So-"
"I can come with you," he interrupted.
"Raph." I corrected myself, "Raphael. That's okay. He's more likely to talk if I'm there alone."
"You're right," he said. "I'll wait outside."
I stared at him blankly. "What will it take for you to give up?"
"Forgive me," he said.
His voice seemed to echo in the space between us. Ringing in my ears, bouncing along the walls in my head. "Why should I?"
"So we can both move on."
"I thought you already have."
He flinched. "And you haven't?"
"This isn't about that."
He scoffed. "You brought it up first."
"Raphael, please." I rubbed my temples, and a queasy feeling hit my stomach when my eyes landed on the unfinished work on my laptop. "I need to get things done for school, balance work, and visit Dan at the same time. I don't need this."
"You're right."
I glanced up, not expecting it to work so easily.
It didn't.
He stretched over my legs and grabbed my laptop.
"What are you doing?"
He stood up and set the laptop aside, on top of a tall shelf.
"I can reach that," I added. "I'm taller than you."
"I can distract you," he said. "Relieve the stress."
Usually, I would have brushed him off and stuck to sneaking into the bathroom when I was sure Scarlet was asleep.
Usually, he wouldn't look so good standing in the glow of a humming television screen, gazing at me like I was something he wished to devour. A white t-shirt clinging to his skin like an extra layer, barely stretching over his hips.
"How?" I found myself asking, forgetting all about pushing him away and not needing him and every other bullshit I spewed just to torture myself.
His eyes landed on Scarlet's bedroom door. "Perhaps we should start with moving to your room."
He shifted an inch towards me, and I could see things clearly now. The way his golden hair curled at the sides of his face, his blown out pupils. See him holding my hand, see him kissing me softly, see us together in his bed, in his apartment, outside, in the streets. Months, weeks, years from now.
My fingers were stiff as they reached out for the back of his neck, too long since they touched his hair and his skin. He looked at me, but I ignore it. Ignore it and the feeling in my stomach. "Perhaps not."
"Scarlet could hear."
"She would hear either way." My fingers warmed at the contact. His skin flushed. "Walls are thin."
Raphael lifted his chin, as if accepting the challenge. Although he didn't say it out loud, he never did, and it was never that easy.
"But you would risk it?"
His lips moved and my eyes followed. He noticed that, too. Allowed his tongue to dart out across the surface, teasing me.
"Yes." My fingers squeezed against the back of his neck and pulled. Lips twisting, tongues stirring, until we both ran out of air and pulled back.
Kissing him again. Feeling his lips again. My head was spinning, lips tingling out of control. I could feel him wanting me too, pressing closer to me. He could feel me, too.
"Bedroom," he muttered against my lips, nose brushing against my cheek.
"No," and I yanked him with me, his legs stumbling, and we crashed against the couch, lips interlocking and sealing together.
What he didn't know was that I wanted her to hear. I wanted everyone to hear. I was fucking up big time, what did it matter if they found out? Let them find out that I was reckless and naive. That I never learned from my mistakes.
Raphael's teeth caught my lower lip and tugged, sucking the pink flesh into his mouth. I bucked my hips, to feel him again and remember again.
"You're doing a bad job at distracting me," I said it, knowing it would frustrate him.
"Fuck you," but it came out as a gut wrenching moan when my hands slipped down his spine and under the hem of jeans.
"Raph." His eyes glittered at the sound of his name on my lips, and I held his gaze as my fingers found their way inside him.
The sound that flitted past his lips was sinful, his nails raking against my sides. "I'm supposed to...fuck."
Raphael pushed himself away and sank down between my legs. My fingers lost the warmth from his pulsing ring of muscle, but he made up for it.
He did beyond just make up for it.
--
I forgot how he looked like in the morning, as if I never bothered to take in the time to stare at him long enough to have the details of his face memorized. How his lips puffed from sleep, and perhaps from the previous night's endeavors. I rolled onto my side to trace a finger over the plumpness of his lower lip. Then rolled away, hands tucked under my pillow to keep them from wandering.
I was aware that I was watching him sleep. He'd hate that.
It didn't take long until his eyebrows twitched and his eye lashes fluttered. "You're staring at me."
"Yes."
His voice was heavy with traces of sleep. "I hate it when you do that." He rolled on his side so he was facing me. I refused to touch him. He'd have to touch me first.
His fingers found their way to my hair first, running them over the tips of my bed hair.
Finally, I reached out and clasped my fingers around his wrist. "What's that?"
"What?"
My eyes noticed the black ink on his thigh the previous night, but amidst the swirl of lust and little lighting I assumed it was a scab. It looked like a scab.
"That," he said, following my line of vision, then promptly pulling himself away from me, "was a drunken mistake."
I frowned, reaching out to trace my thumb against it.
He roughly shoved my hand away. "Don't."
"You didn't care last night," I bit back.
He laughed humorlessly. "Last night."
Raphael was sitting up, retreating. I wasn't going to let him.
I rolled over him and pushed him down on the mattress, fingers curling around his wrists.
"What the fuck? Get off me."
"Tell me."
The remains of his cynical laugh still lingered in his smirk. "So you care now?"
I sacrificed one of the hands I was using to hold him still and traced my fingers over the mark again. "Raphael."
He rolled his eyes, shoving me off. "You know what it is."
"What were you doing?"
"I wanted to do it, all right? I was sick of being so fucking afraid of it all the time."
"That's not how you overcome a fear."
He shook his head, standing from the bed. "You're the expert, right?"
Without another word, he crept into the bathroom.
I'd forgotten how quick he was to wash any trace of me from his skin.
But that wasn't the case, something changed, and he took no time at all to reemerge. I must have been staring obviously, because I could see the corners of his lips twitch as he brushed against me to scoop his clothes from my bedroom floor.
"What was it supposed to be?" I said.
He dressed silently. Finally, after staring at him covering the skin I grew so fond of, he said, "Your name."
I stared at him. Long enough to have him turning around to glance at me fleetingly. "I was drunk."
"Right." I felt dizzy.
I tried not to imagine it.
"I have to go."
He was alone in his dark apartment, holding that machine in his shaking fingers. Stripped naked, perhaps. Or only had his pants tugged off. Either way, he moved the needle over his flesh, and he was thinking of me. My name, permanent and real.
Feeling sick, I nodded. "Early class."
"Yeah. Work. I should go."
He did, and I stared at the spot he was standing in minutes after he moved away.
Scarlet raised her eyebrows when she found me. "You two are confusing."
I finally moved. "Fuck."
She laughed. "That's an understatement."
Scarlet simply pursed her lips when I intentionally burnt her toast at breakfast.
heyy, fuck midterms and fuck uni :)))
There's something missing and I can't get it right and it's so frustrating fkdsjfhlskdfj wtv
Too much dialogue?
Thanks for reading!!