He took his shoes off outside the apartment door, keyed it gently open and prayed he walked on the floorboards that didn’t squeak. He’d make a bed on the sofa, not that he expected to sleep.
“You needn’t creep in like a thief.”
“Fuck.” He jumped, dropping a shoe. She sat in a single chair in the far corner of the room, her bare legs drawn up, arms wrapped around her shins. Her hair was scraped back from her face. In the filtered light from the street he could see her distress.
He stayed where he was, at the furthest point from her. Crawl. He put his back to the wall and slid down it till he was sitting with his legs outstretched.
“I thought you might’ve been asleep.” He was clumsy and his voice sounded too damn loud when he needed to be gentle and soft. She turned her face away. There was no comfort in the silence, or in being in the room with her and having stripped himself of the right to touch her. There were silver tear tracks on her face, but she was dry-eyed.
He’d already done the worst. He felt the shame like the weight of a truck on his shoulders. He might never be able to get off the floor.
“I didn’t understand how much it would hurt to hurt you.”
She kept her face turned away. This was the shit and the glass and the false pride he had to drag his belly through. He wanted to ask about the feedback she’d gotten, but not if it meant hearing what the Master thought. He wanted to ask how she felt about her performance, but he hadn’t earned that knowledge.
“You were so naked and so fucking beautiful, I thought every man in that place deserved you more than I did. I wasn’t ready to see you like that. The first time I watched you dance I didn’t even know your name. Lux. For deluxe, for the best. Now I’m in love with you and it fucking messed me up to see you on that stage, to know other men wanted you like I do.”
God, he was pathetic. “It was the longest two minutes forty-five of my life. And when you came out to the bar and you were still in costume. I wasn’t ready for that either. I saw you too, and he was touching you. I thought you’d decided to cut me out.” He ripped at his hair. “I know, I know. I’m an idiot teenager, but the feeling was real to me.”
Nothing from Zarley, but she had to be listening and all he had was the truth.
“That woman, her name was Marja. She told me all the contest girls fuck the Master if they wanted to win.”
That scored a hiss from Zarley that felt like a kick to his soul.
“Knew you’d never want to win like that, but the way he touched you, the way you were tonight. You belonged to every man in that room and not to me.” He stopped to catch his breath, rubbed his hand over his chest where the pain was vague but constant.
“Marja put my hands on her body. She kissed me. But I let it happen. I could’ve stopped it and I didn’t. Everything I did tonight was wrong.”
“Why?”
He started at the sharp retort.
If he understood why, it wouldn’t have happened. “I don’t know.”
“Did you want to fuck her?”
He was glad of the distance and the lack of light. He could look at her, but not meet her eyes. “Not for a second. Zarley, not for a second.”
She unfolded her legs and sat forward in the chair. “But you wanted to kiss her.”
“I wanted to kiss you. I wanted to bring you back here and tell you how incredible you were tonight, but I thought you’d rejected me.”
“You thought I’d fucked another man.”
No denying it. “Yes.”
“Because I couldn’t win without doing that.”
“No, because he could give you what you needed and I can’t.”
They lapsed into a silence so heavy with the sense of ending it hammered him into the floor.
“I have nothing you need, and in my heart I figure you’ll realize I’m hard work and move on. I’m terrified of that. I thought you’d done it tonight.”
She went to her knees in front of the chair. “Why would you think that?” Her voice wobbled and that shame was on him too. “What have I done to make you trust me so little?”
She’d done nothing except be the woman he’d fallen for. This was all on him. He got to his knees and crawled closer to her. Not close enough to touch. He sat cross-legged so he wouldn’t spook her.