“I do. Take a left here.”
The restaurant we end up in is a tiny corner Italian place, which is ironic because everywhere I would have chosen would have been classic San Diego, Mexican cuisine. It’s almost like Orion is trying to take me close to where he grew up, even if it is only through my stomach. I’ve never been here before, but that’s probably a good thing considering they don’t print prices on the menu, and the wine glasses are cut crystal. I feel out of place and awkward. I’m glad I’m dressed in the Vivienne Westwood lilac cocktail dress; this isn’t the kind of place where jeans and a hoody can cut it. Orion pulls out my chair before seating himself, it’s weird, being in such a normal situation with a man who is a creature of myth. Anyone looking in on this sees a normal couple having a first, if not slightly extravagant, date. No one would be aware that come the rising sun we will slink, hand in hand, back into the warm waters of the ocean, ready to defend the seas another day. There are several other diners, though they seem to be toward the end of their meals. A waitress comes over and takes our drinks order. Her eyes slipping over Orion in a way not at all unlike the way a vulture eyes a carcass that has already been picked clean, starving and wanton. I don’t hear what he says to her, or what drink he orders for me as I make my stance very clear, locking my eyes with his, letting them heat. I’ve already had him, as crazy as that may sometimes seem. He is mine. He keeps my gaze and the waitress shuffles off, blonde ponytail bobbing behind her.
“I ordered the Pinot Grigio.” He informs me.
“I don’t know anything about wine.” I tell him.
“I should think not, being eighteen. I don’t believe Americans can drink alcohol until they are twenty-one, if I am correct?” He enquires, looking truly unsure about this most simple fact.
“Yes, that’s right.”
“It’s a shame. Where I grew up we had wine a lot.”
“Greece, is that right?” I try to remember, but in all honesty, the details of the myth escape me.
“Cyprus, well an island off the coast. It’s beautiful there. You’d like it.”
“I’d like to see it.” I admit, wondering what it would be like to see his home.
“I could take you. But my home is long gone.” He looks sad a moment and I want to cry. The sexual simmer from earlier has vanished and I feel naked. Without the wonders of the ocean or my new tail to distract me, our relationship seems uncertain, raw and under scrutiny. We are just two people, having a meal in the real world, talking about our lives and discovering each other for the first time. I blush; scared I’ll run out of things to talk about. Thankfully, the waitress brings back the wine, she doesn’t question my age, too busy ogling my man and almost spilling the wine as she pours Orion’s glass a little too full. The scarlet tablecloth catches a few drops and I scowl, placing my hand bluntly over the top of the glass to stop the flow.
“Oh sorry!” she gushes, tilting the bottle back and I scowl again. Orion catches my discomfort and dismisses her.
“You can leave the bottle; we will both have the Carbonara.” He orders the pasta dish and she scurries away, I pity her. I wouldn’t want to be under that icy fury. Being caught in his placated gaze was hard enough.
“You can’t blame her for staring.” I feel slightly calmer at the idea of women checking out Orion.
“I could say the same thing about that gentleman over there.” He jerks his head and I turn with the least discretion possible. There is a young man, presumably in the middle of an anniversary meal. However, rather than staring at his girlfriend, a pretty five-foot red head with large assets, his eyes are bearing into my back.
“What is wrong with people?” I huff as Orion smiles, taking my hands across the table as I reach for the crystal wine goblet and take a sip. “Mmm. This tastes good.” I compliment and he nods as he takes a slug from his own glass, his lips capturing each droplet and teasing them into his mouth with his tongue.
“So …” He begins, but I cut him off.
“How did you know about this place?” I ask, observing the gentle atmosphere, the fairy lights strung from the ceiling. It was perfect, intimate, and romantic.
“I know quite a few places to eat around here. I’ve …” He trails off.
“Did you bring another woman here?” I ask, heartbeat heightening a little.
“I …”
“It’s okay if you did.” I whisper as the waitress comes back, placing two plates heaped full of Carbonara down sloppily on the crisp, scarlet tablecloth.
“Is it?” Orion asks the question as though something inside him is aching. “I … if I could take it back I would, Callie.” He shrugs and swizzles some pasta around on his fork.
“I know; it’s just …” I stop, placing a fork full of food into my mouth, it is divine, the sauce creamy and the bacon strips thick and chewy with salt.
“What? Tell me, princess.” Orion implores me, taking another sip of white sparkling liquid.
“I feel like there’s so much I don’t know about you. Like there are things those other girls knew that I don’t.” I whine, feeling stupid but at the same time determined to get to know him better.
“Nobody knows me like you do.”
“But I don’t know anything about you.” I insist.
“What do you want to know?” He looks impatient, sighing almost.
“It’s not anything in particular. I want you to want to share things with me.” I try to explain, feeling vulnerable now after spilling the darkest parts of myself with him after so little time.
“I just want to forget my past, Callie. You’re here now. I want to look to the future.” I feel robbed. Like I’ve taken off all my clothes and he stands there fully clothed, armoured up and ready to strike.
“But I want to know you, Orion.”
“Can’t you just love me for who I am?” This shocks me. How he can question my devotion? I’ve given him my virginity, my life, and my trust all in one week. I’m hit with a feeling of nausea.
“You don’t think I love you for who you are? I do Orion. That’s kind of what you’re missing here. I love you for YOU. I want to know YOU. Not a perfect picture you want to paint me.” I look into his eyes deeply.
“Why can’t you just drop it?” He asks me and I exhale deeply.
“Why can’t you just tell me?” I retort.
“Why do you care so much?” Orion whispers. He looks like he’s becoming angry. I haven’t seen him this angry before.
“There’s this thing … this thing that happened when I met you. This crazy attraction that told me you were right for me.” I begin, lowering my voice as he looks up from his plate and takes another sip of wine. “Then I got murdered and sprouted a tail and you’re telling me I’m going to spend forever with you? Just like that?” I look at him incredulously and he sits back in his chair.
“Just like that.” he smiles at me like a cat that’s pleased with itself after peeing on the sofa. His anger has dissipated.
“No. Wrong. Not just like that.” I correct him, wanting to wipe the smug smile from his perfect face while keeping my voice low. “I’m not a damsel in distress, Orion. I won’t put up with dishonesty or any other crap just because we are supposedly destined. I won’t put an ideal over my needs.” I say it with conviction but internally my resolve is shaky at best.
“You need to know about my past?” He takes more wine into his mouth and narrows his eyes. I sense a shift in his mood.
“Yes. I do. How can I think about the future when I’m imagining you touching someone else? You’ve had almost five hundred years to be with other women, Orion. That’s the length of ten decent marriages. Fifty meaningful and long term relationships.” I am feeling my chest constrict at the thought of him married. Did he have children running around out there? How can I even think about the next five hundred years when I don’t know about what he’s already lived through? I sit back in my seat, the dim atmosphere in the restaurant has gone flat at the intensity of the conversation. Ori
on narrows his eyes again and I can tell he is working over something in his mind.
“Okay, what do you want to know?” He concedes and I relax a little.
“Were you ever married?” I ask him and he looks pained.
“No. Absolutely not.” he shakes his head almost in disbelief and I feel my gut unravel.
“What about children?” I ask him and he looks surprised at the question.
“Not that I know of.” he places a finger along the bottom of his jaw and strokes rhythmically.
“That you know of?” I look at him questioningly and he empties his glass to the dregs and pours himself another.
“No. I don’t have any children.” He replies again, starting on glass number two. I decide to drop the issue in lieu of something more pressing in my mind.
“Have you ever loved another woman?” I ask him totally stone faced and he nearly spits out his drink.
“No … For the love of the Goddess … No!” he exclaims looking hurt.
“Okay, it was just a question, no need to choke.” I smile slightly but he looks completely uncomfortable. We eat in silence and finish our pasta. I let minutes pass before asking my next question.
“So can you tell me about some of the women you were with before me?” I am getting bold with the questions that are falling from my lips like tiny bombs. I wait for this one to explode. Orion exhales looking uncomfortable.
“Callie, did I do something wrong?” He looks sad, as though my question has tormented something within him.
“No, I just wish I knew everything about you. I love you so much already. I just want to know you. Inside and out.” I say the words; measure them out with careful deliberation, wanting to convey exact emotion.
“I see. So asking about other women is you getting to know me?”
“Yes.”
“It’s not something I want to revisit, Callie.”
“But …”
“No. You don’t understand. What happened with those women, it was meaning-less. I didn’t know them at all. It was just sex.” He says the words and I wonder when he became a male cliché.
“Please, Orion. It matters to me. I want to know, I’m asking you to tell me.”
“I don’t want my debauchery in your head.”
“If it’s just sex. If it doesn’t mean anything like you said. Then it shouldn’t matter.” I muse, placing my knife and fork onto the empty plate in front of me.
“I don’t want to hurt you, princess. Please don’t make me.” He pleads me with a look so heart shattering, I struggle to swallow the measure of wine I have just taken into my mouth.
“Don’t look at me like that.” I beg him.
“You’re not ready. This is too fresh. With us. Give it time, I’ll give you all of me, past, present, and future. I promise. Please just give it time. Give me time.” He pleads me to relent and I do. I don’t know why I do. Maybe it’s the desperation in his stare, or the way his hand clasps mine over the table, but I relent, feeling his fear.
“Fine.” the word comes out in a bite and I know it’s a female cliché but I don’t care. The waitress brings over a sharing sundae for dessert. We hadn’t ordered it and I wonder if she’s brought it over just so she can stand near Orion.
“Don’t be angry at me. I can’t take it. You’re too beautiful when you’re angry.” He compliments; I fold my arms.
“Don’t try complimenting me; I’m still mad at you.” I grab the ice cream sundae and take a spoon, shovelling in the creamy concoction. I sigh. Ice cream fixes everything.
“And still stubborn it would appear.” Orion watches me spoon down ice cream hungrily and a smile creeps across his lips. I feel angry at his adoration.
“I’m not the one withholding my past.” I retort, feeling the anger rise again. This was not the meal I was hoping for.
“No, but I am the one who waited.” He replies, a good reply, but an infuriating one.
“Are you going to use that against me forever? I wasn’t born.” I say the words truthfully, hating him for using the fact he has waited against me.
“No … I …” He buries his head in his hands, falling apart at the seams. I’m cracking him, slowly.
“You can’t just …” I start to reply and he interrupts me; rising up and looking frighteningly unhinged, his eyes ablaze, frustrated and caged.
“I KNOW!” He bursts and the other diners stir, turning to look at him, irritated. He sits back in his chair with a thud and continues in a strained whisper. “I’m sorry; I’m not handling this well, Callie. I have no idea about women, least of all you, a woman who comes from an entirely different world to my own.” He grasps my hands, squeezing it so tight I’m afraid it may break. “I don’t know what the rules are. I’ve lived alone a long time. I’m selfish, I’m shut off, and I’m controlling. I know all these things. But I can’t just change overnight. I need time. I need your time. Your patience. Please.” He implores me and I feel a tear break from my eye and fall. “Don’t cry, princess.” He begs.
“I’m sorry.” I sob out quietly. I feel like all I’ve done tonight is cry.
“I’m sorry.” He strokes the tear away; I can’t believe I’m having a break down in a restaurant of this reputable nature.
“I love you.” I choke.
“I love you too. I’m trying my hardest. I promise.” He kisses my fingers, his smooth lips caressing the back of my hand, loving me intimately.
“Promise me we will get there. Get to where I know it all. Even if it hurts.”
“I promise, but I won’t hurt you on purpose, Callie.”
“I don’t care about pain. I care about the truth.” I feel my honesty making me vulnerable but I don’t care.
“You wouldn’t say that if you knew what you’re asking.” Orion looks at me and grimaces.
“You don’t realise how much I love you if you think that anything you’ve done in the past would make me run.” I whisper and he looks surprised.
“You can’t expect me to believe you’d be okay with knowing about the hundreds …”
“Hundreds?!?” I exclaim feeling horrified. I watch him smile to himself slightly. I realise that I need to get a grip. Take my own advice and realise what he had done was in the past. He was with me now.
“Yes … Hundreds.” Something is dancing behind his eyes and I wonder if it’s memories. I think back to my own memories … something he said to me after the first time we’d made love. It’s never been like this before. I wonder, maybe my motivation behind wanting to know about his past wasn’t about knowing him at all. Maybe it was about knowing myself. Knowing I was different, that I wasn’t just another fling. But didn’t I know that already?
“So you came here with another woman?” I ask him, returning to my earlier concern but with different motivation. If his relationships were purely sexual, then why was he frequenting romantic restaurants?
“Yes. I brought Star here.” He relinquishes this information and I feel the balloon of tension in my abdomen deflate.
“Your sister?” I ask him and he nods innocently.
“This is for real, isn’t it?” I ask him and he smiles.
“More real than anything I’ve ever known.” He grips my hand across the table and I lean forward. Dipping my head as he kisses my cheek.
“I’m scared.” I admit as I lean back.
“Scared?” He looks worried.
“Of losing my grip … on reality.” I word my analogy specifically. So I don’t have to utter the words. Don’t have to make my fear more real.
“Me too.” he admits.
“Thank you.” I breathe out heavily.
“For?”
“Being human for just one second.” I laugh and feel a tear falling to the tablecloth.
“I don’t understand.”
“I need your weakness and your insecurity sometimes, Orion. I need to know I’m not crazy with how mixed up I’m feeling all the time.”
“You’re not crazy, Callie.” H
e rubs his hand across the back of his neck.
“I’m not?” I exclaim, raising my eyebrows.
“No, I feel that way too. I’m half burning for you and half frozen to the spot with the fear of losing you.” He admits and I sigh. Finally. The man behind the scaled mask appears, and he’s vulnerable. Just like me.
“Me too.” his eyes meet mine and something mutual ignites between us.
“So back to Lunar Sanctum?” I ask him and he shakes his head as I scrape the last of the ice cream from the bottom of the sundae glass. God that was good. I love ice cream. Especially chocolate.
“No. I have a better idea.” He gets to his feet to pay the bill. He towers above me and I swoon at the manliness of his stature, unable to help myself in light of everything going on around me. He helps me to my feet and I feel the future stretch about before me again as his hand envelopes mine. The night, after all, was still young.
It has been the longest time since I have been into Downtown San Diego. Somewhat bland, cuboid, skyscrapers tower above the road that cuts between them, dividing the city into lots of angular square pieces, each filled with a building representing some multi-million dollar company or another. After seeing the Occulta Mirum, with its jade needle-pointed Alcazar Oceania and cylindrical helter-skelter surface scrapers, I can’t help but feel less than awed by my old city. It isn’t just the city that feels dull in comparison to my new life as I realise even the feeling of being human seems like a hindrance. Orion indicates where I should drive and we end up in the Gaslamp district. The roads are quiet, though packs of people wander the sidewalks, on the prowl for late night satisfaction. The women are all dressed somewhat provocatively in low cut, or high hoisted scraps of fabric in the hope they’ll attract a mate. The men are all wearing t-shirts sporting some sarcastically arrogant or derogatively masochistic slogan slashed across the front in bold lettering. I wonder why I’m separating myself from the people, compartmentalising myself as different when just a few days ago I had been one of them. I realise that I myself am wearing something equally as provocative as anything that can be seen strutting along the sidewalk, the dress may be flouncy but it’s also short and low cut around my chest. Something sparks between my synapses.
The Kiss That Killed Me (The Tidal Kiss Trilogy Book 1) Page 26
