Page 48 of Flawless

“What is it that you dream of, Z?” I boldly ask.

Chuckling, he says, “Despite the wonderful career I enjoyed and the big bang it ended on, I don’t want a lot. I would love to form a league and coach kids, have a nice home somewhere with the woman of my dreams, a kid who loves me, and just to be happy.”

“Your daughter. How old is she now?”

“Zílda is thirteen now, believe it or not.”

“Wow! She’s grown so fast.”

“It’s been a lot of years since we last saw each other, Dani.”

“Yeah, it has,” I say softly, grabbing his hand as he takes a pause from brushing my hair.

I turn around on the ottoman to face him as I hold onto his hand, as if letting it go might mean losing him forever.

“And have you gotten everything that your heart dreamt of?” I dare ask.

“I’ve got the kid, but the house and the league, well, I’ve been working on a plan since I’ve been here to obtain them.”

“And the girl of your dreams?”

“Not yet, but I know that she’s on the way.”

“Is she now?”

My words are teasing, but my voice and the look in my eyes are anything but.

I do the one thing that I’ve yearned to do for so long now. Reaching up to touch the side of his face, I allow my hand to bask in the softness of his beard as my thumb rubs loving circles on his cheek.

Zenon’s eyes search mine, and I know that he’s wondering if he can trust me, if I’m just in the moment, or if what he’s shared with me really matters to me.

I decide to be transparent and share that with him.

“I see you, Z. I’ve always seen you; everything good, everything solid, and everything kind in you. You are my light when things are dark. You gave me hope that someday, someone would love me again. Maybe he wouldn’t be as perfect a man as you are, but that maybe there’s a tiny space within me that is loveable despite all the bad that I’ve done.”

Zenon cups my face and leans forward, gently brushing my lips with his. It’s so soft that I barely feel him there at all, and when I press forward to feel him and to taste him, he freezes.

Bowing his head slightly, he locks our foreheads together. His hands rub circles on my cheeks, and no words need to be said.

I’m the first one to break away. I hesitate, but only briefly.

I need to taste him. So instead of running as I’ve always done in the past, I push forward, and I taste him.

Licking across the seam of his lips, my fingers continue to brush through the soft hairs of his beard as I work to tug his mouth open. And when he finally opens to me and welcomes me in, it’s like a dam has burst in my heart.

12 – ZENON

I hope this isn’t a one-time thing, or her sinking deeply into her feelings. But the kiss that we shared opened something up between Danica and me that hadn’t been there in a long time.

It wasn’t wild, demanding, or heated the way that our kisses became in our later years. It was soft and gentle, curious and desirable like they were when we first began dating.

But the more we explore the kiss, the more that we know we want each other. When she pulled back from the kiss, she dove in once more.

Dani’s fingers moved to the hem of my t-shirt as she tugged at it. Once I pulled it free, her nimble fingers worked across the planes of my chest, drawing circles in the whorls of hair that she found there.

Slowly, she works her way down to my sweat shorts. Our tongues swipe across one another, tasting each other, licking at one another, and imploring each other to hold nothing back.

I grab her hand as she cups my arousal in her hand, and I finally break the kiss though it pains me to do so.