I need to figure out a way to be around Robert that doesn’t mess with my head, making me forget myself, because God help me, I do want to be around him. Things move in slow motion when I’m with him, and at times it can be totally euphoric. I’ll watch his hand move, anticipating if he’ll try to touch me. Or I’ll notice him shift his body nearer to mine, until he can’t get any closer.
Robert’s fork clanks onto his plate, disrupting my thoughts. He’s already finished his dinner, and I’m only halfway through mine.
“Are you feeling any better?” he asks, tenderly brushing my messy hair away from my face.
“Yes, it just takes a while for me to adjust after a scare like that,” I reply.
He nods, his brown eyes consuming me. He scoots close and puts his arm around my shoulders, giving them a soft squeeze. “You certainly gave me a scare. I don’t like seeing you sick.”
“It goes with the territory,” I tell him. “I need to be so careful all the time. It’s exhausting.”
“You can’t let loose,” he adds.
“Exactly,” I say, eating one more forkful of the stir fry before setting it aside.
“My behaviour this week can’t have helped,” he goes on.
“It didn’t, but I’m at fault, too. I shouldn’t have deleted those pictures. Even if I don’t like being the focus of them, or the method you used to capture them, they were yours, and I destroyed them.”
He smiles wistfully at the loss and turns his head down to mine. “Well, I can always take more.” His thumb brushes back and forth over a tiny spot of skin on my shoulder.
My heart speeds up. “What do you want with pictures like that, anyway? They don’t make any sense.”
“They make sense to me. Big scenes are all well and good, but I’m a details man. It’s the small things that fascinate me.”
“That’s very…artistic. I’ve never thought of you as an artist, but now that I think of it, you kind of are. The way you use a camera is different – unique. You don’t take shots like most people do, all plain and straightforward. Your stuff is always from a certain angle another person wouldn’t think to shoot from.” I pause to see him sucking in my words like they’re the essence of life. “As I said, they’re artistic,” I finish, feeling self-conscious now.
His smile spreads wide across his face as he squeezes my shoulders tighter. “Ah, you see me, little red. I wasn’t sure if you did, but you do.”
My phone buzzes on the nightstand, with Sasha’s name flashing on the screen. I pull away from Robert to answer it. “Hey, Sash, what’s up?”
There’s noise and music in the background. It sounds like she’s in a pub or a restaurant. “Hey, kid, you home safe and sound?”
“Yeah, I’m in bed, actually. I had a rough day health-wise, so I’m getting an early night.”
At this Robert lets out a low purr and begins rubbing my shoulder. I elbow him to shut up.
“What was that?” Sasha asks.
“Uh, just a movie I’m watching on my laptop.”
“Oh, okay. Well, are you all right? You don’t need me to come home, do you?”
“No, I’m good. A night’s sleep and I’ll be right as rain.”
Robert chuckles now and purrs again. I elbow him harder. He begins kissing my collarbone and I melt.
“Cool. Sorry I didn’t mention it earlier, but the guys at work organised an impromptu night out, and I got roped into coming along. I’ll be home late, if I don’t end up sleeping on someone’s couch.”
“Okay, Sash, enjoy yourself,” I say.
“Sleep well, kid,” she says before hanging up.
I scowl half-heartedly at Robert. “You’re evil. What if she figured out it was you doing that…whatever the hell you were doing?”
He sits up straight and pulls away to look at me. “Who cares? The sooner she finds out about us, the better.”
“Us?” I ask.
“Us,” he states firmly before starting a trail of kisses down my throat, his hand moving over my nightie towards the apex of my thighs.
Air escapes my lungs in a gasp, and I feel that anxiety coming on, the one I get when I’m alone with a guy and things begin heading in the direction of intimacy. In my mind, my mother’s crime scene stories flash like images in a constant loop.
“We can’t,” I breathe heavily. “Sasha will be home.”
He laughs as he kisses me. “Sasha won’t be home.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I know where she really is, and it’s not at a work night out.”
I push away from him. “What?”
He leans back against the headboard and blows air out through his mouth. “It’s amazing how you can be so close to my sister, Lana, spend so much time with her, and yet you still don’t really know her.”
I narrow my eyes sceptically. “I know Sasha better than most people.”
He smirks. “You’re completely blind. You can’t even see the most obvious thing about her. Maybe you’re too close. You’ve never taken a step back to look at the landscape.”
Okay, he’s starting to piss me off now. “All right, if that’s true, then what don’t I know about her?”
He folds his arms and states, deadpan, “She’s gay, Lana.”
Right, now I am pissed off. “Ugh, you’re so judgmental, Robert. Just because of the way she dresses…”
“It’s not because of the way she dresses,” he interrupts me. “I know she’s gay. I discovered it when we were seventeen and I spied her snogging a girl in our dad’s guest bedroom one summer.”
My cheeks redden as I let that sink in. Then my mind starts to whirl as it all falls into place. All those men she goes on dates with who she never ends up seeing again…
Oh, my God. Robert’s right.
My best friend in the whole world is gay and I never even saw it, never even considered it. I just thought that if she was, it would be something she’d tell me. Why wouldn’t she tell me?
“Has she admitted it to you?” I ask with a note of jealousy. I can’t help it that I hate the idea of Sasha telling Robert something so important that she didn’t think she could tell me.