Love Ridden

I am standing in front of his door, having knocked and just dropped my hand to my side, waiting for him to answer. I've prepared myself to see her even though I know she won’t be here. I am the not so other woman now. I exist in a realm outside of their relationship.

I am the secret affair, an affair of friendship.

When he finally opens the door, I realize just how much I have missed his face, his stupid, adorable face. He wraps his arms around me and brings me inside with a hug I have missed almost more than him. I smell his scent, a combination of cologne, deodorant, and him. His own skin, a smell that I find absolutely intoxicating.

I wonder to myself if she feels the same way when she smells him. Does it make her heart unfold like a flower? Do her toes curl like they are digging into warm sand? Does it make her want to bring him closer to her? Close enough so that she could wrap herself in him like a sweater, one where she pulls it up to her face and breathes him in?

I have to remember that he does not smell this wonderful for me. This is not for me. Nothing he does is really for me.

He takes my things. Helps me with my coat. Tells me, I look beautiful.

“As always…”

He’s always been a charmer that way. I take my shoes off and make myself at home because this feels like my home. Just as my place feels the same for him. It was like this from the very beginning. The first time I came over I reached for a glass and knew just where they would be. I knew exactly what drawer to find a spoon. And I knew that if I looked in the fridge, I’d find a jar of mustard in the door, half the label peeled off. We had mirrored each other. Even before we knew each other. Something that we had laughed about when our friends pointed it out and we realized we hadn’t even noticed before. It was just the way it was.

Now I am standing in his kitchen, watching as he lightly stirs a pan of sliced peppers. He is making fajitas, one of the few dishes he could actually cook. This was one he was quite good at now. I listen to the oil popping in the pan. I enjoy the scent of the garlic and onion. I take a sip of my beer. “It smells delicious,” I tell him just so I can see him smile.

"It’s going to be. You know I make great fajitas!" I watch, my breath caught in my lungs, as he fishes a small piece of pepper out of the pan. He holds it between two fingers and I watch his lips form a small o shape as he blows on it. Then he brings it to my mouth. "Taste it," He says as he feeds it to me.

I chew, barely even noticing the flavor because I am lost in him. He licks his fingers. The small smacking sound so loud in my ears.

“Good? Innit?” I hear him ask. I can only nod. A minimal response is all I am capable of. I have to focus. I cannot think of all the things I would like to do to him at this very moment. I cannot look at all the freckles on his neck and think of my lips touching each one, my tongue tracing them like a puzzle waiting to be solved.

I need to think of ordinary things. Salt. Pepper. Olive oil. Burners on the stove. The clock that is blinking on the oven.

I hear his laugh and it washes over me, low and warm, like the sound of a sunset or the flame on a candle. The same feelings that I was trying to push away, come rushing back.

I cannot think of all the things I have loved about this man. I can not. If I do, I will surely be lost forever, drowning in a sea of my own creation. Somehow I push them back down and the night carries on as if a battle has not just been fought.

Notes