by Sunniva Dee
“You’re blushing. It must be a sensitive subject for you. It is too early, isn’t it?”
Flecks of gold has surfaced in his irises, and I wonder if it’s from interest or excitement. My abdomen heats again as my gaze draws to his neck, the dip at the center of his collarbone and the expanse of golden skin where a button remains open.
“Of course not. After all, we’re on a second date. Isn’t it time we talk about sex?” I roll my eyes.
He bites his lip, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything sexier. Oh wait, he adds a tilt of his head, causing his bed-do to lend stray locks to gravity. They shine in the low light.
“I think she’s mocking me.”
“Maybe.” I suck in more air. “How about you give it ten dates? I mean, if you’d like ten dates or whatever with me.”
“I’d like twenty. Forty. A hundred. But I’d like more than that. I’m not into just dates.”
I don’t even know what to say to that. Except, “Who says that? You don’t even know me!”
“I know enough to know I want to be with you. So this is about you, Savannah. You’re not sure yet.”
“And you find that strange? We’ve hung out for a total of five hours.”
“Six and a half if you count Mintrer’s,” he calmly corrects.
“Exactly.”
“Savannah.” He squeezes my hand. Gets up and pulls me to my feet. His eyes are on me, and I’m probably displaying all my thoughts in rapid succession: incomprehension, insecurity, heat, anger, confusion, and some misunderstood form for exhilaration.
“Come here.”
Everyone knows this isn’t normal boy behavior. Not normal means abnormal means girl cut into pieces and stuffed in shoe boxes under his bed. Or it just means that he has issues. Hardcore issues, like drugs, alcohol, mental institutions, rehabs, and jails.
And here’s Savannah, all elated. My heart flies up there with deep red, feathered wings, flapping like a mother, and all because of a man professing that he wants “more” with me.
The music sieves out from small, hidden speakers. It surrounds us softly, and if a guy were to break a girl’s determination, it’s in a setting like this. Mintrer’s is romantic, sure, but this is gleaming city lights, the scent of sage, the shimmer of flickering candles, and absolute privacy. The only set of eyes here are bright, gentle, and don’t look away while you consider pushing him away.
He glides his hands up my back and pulls me close to the calm sway of the music. His leg presses between mine, joining us. He sighs against my ear when I start to move with him.
“It’s nice to dance with you. I’ve wanted to feel you in my arms since the first time I saw you.”
I shake my head a little. “Why do you like me? I don’t get it.”
“Because you’re not like everyone else. You’re beautiful, genuine, kind—you moved to a place not of your choosing for someone you love. You’re an open book, telling me everything I want to know about you, but then you clam up on details I couldn’t have predicted. I like it all—you’re anxious. I bet you overthink your moves until you miss out on opportunities too.”
“I don’t do that.”
“You don’t?” The words are a tender against my ear. We dance, bodies aligned like we’ve done this before. I close my eyes and let him rock me, his breath moving in and out of his chest, flowing with and complementing my own.
“And you’re sexy. So, so sexy. Oh I could do things to you.” Ciro leans his forehead against mine, and I can’t move away. “It’s that timid, knotted-up side of you. You’re different to my regular girls.”
“How are they?”
“Most have been from work. There are no misunderstandings when you date a colleague. Same schedules, same expectations.”
“Actresses?” It’s my first mention of his job. “And makeup artists, maybe?”
“Mostly talents.”
“Like, movie stars?”
“I guess you could say that. But I blow through girlfriends.” He kisses my cheek gently.
“Why? You’re that hard to be with?”
“I guess. It’s why I don’t waste time dating. I want to start my relationships as full-on relationships. I want to be your boyfriend, and we’ll move from there.”
We’re not swaying anymore. I’m in his arms, and I’m not sure who stopped first. He pulls me closer, so close his heart meets mine through the fabric of our shirts, and for the first time I notice his scent. Pine, musk, pheromones. But it’s the undertones of warm skin that unravels me.
“Did you just ask me to be your girlfriend?” I croak.
“I did.”
“I don’t have time for—”
“I’m a busy man too, Savannah. We make time. That’s what people do.”
“Do I even know your name? Is your name really Ciro Silveira?”
He’s kissing my neck. Oh god. Oversized butterflies taking flight!
“Yes, Ciro Anthony Silveira is my name. Portuguese father. American mother. Now you know all you need to know about me.” There’s humor in his voice.
“That’s not enough.”
“Really, it’s the best part.”
“You’re not exactly selling yourself as a boyfriend.”
“I can make you come so hard you can’t stop screaming.”
4. CONVICTION
People date first, Ciro.
I don’t.
I smile, because he’s making me heady. I bring the phone closer to my face as I sink into my pillows. Lavender and grey flannel, homy and eternal in the midst of the sudden upheaval of Status Quo.
What’s the purpose of dating anyway?
Get to know each other.
I know you.
I don’t know YOU, I type fast and hit send.
I see dots swimming at the bottom of my phone screen. They swim for so long I have time to get up and close the door to my room. It’s late. I came home hours ago, after leaving Ciro’s house in a rush, after passing by the restaurant and being swatted off by Il Signore, because, I didn’t expect you back.
When I plop down on my bed, the dots have stopped swimming. There’s just a heart, a red one, in place of an explanation or excuse or dismissal.
You want to know me? he types next.
Yes...
Then be my girlfriend.
Heat flashes over my skin. Charlotte sees my open door and pops her head in on her way to bed. “Still awake?”
I shrug. Show her the screen.
“Wow. He’s a man on a mission. A Latin lover who isn’t going to stop until he gets his woman. That’s pretty romantic, Savannah,” she says in her low, deep-water voice. “You should live a little. If I were you, I’d give him a try. What’s the worst that could happen?”
I swallow. When I told Frieda about the night’s adventures and how he brushed a kiss along my neck on that makeshift dancefloor, she said, “I was worried that he was just some stunning creeper. But that’s freaking hot, and how horrifying if you turn, like, seventy, and have to look back thinking, ‘What if?’”
But the thing is, what happens if I say no? Nothing. I’ll be me. My moments will remain mine with only the slightest bleep on my monitor.
I text Mom, hoping she doesn’t text back. She doesn’t. Such a good sign.
My phone falls asleep. I don’t.
It’s eleven in the morning the day after I never gave an answer, and I keep being jolted by how much I liked being pursued. I wonder if I’ll hear from him today.
For one: it’s early. Second off: no, never mind. I mean, I could go into how I don’t deserve being drooled over by someone like Ciro Anthony Silveira, but I’m already sick of that girl. He was thinking about me, period. He paid off my restaurant to have me be his dinner companion, and he did it for a reason. He freaking asked me to be his girlfriend. I
even have that in writing.
I take a screenshot of his message and show it to Frieda. Samuel wonders what we’re looking at and ducks between us in the living room. I turn my phone away so he can’t see, but when he starts muttering about the general wussiness of chicks, I whip the screen toward him anyway.
“Is he for real? Yeah, it’s Savannah—I’d do you any day, my friend—but guess what? You’d have to work hard to get me tied up.”
“I’m not trying to tie anyone up.”
“Sam, you’re not helping,” Charlotte says calmly and tips her chin up so she can squint down at him.
“So what’s his deal?”
“Savannah hinted at maybe she’d say no to him.”
There’s a knock on the door. It’s light and unassuming. Lin, our Chinese exchange student roommate is the closest and opens it.
“Delivery for...” A fairy-sized girl hides behind a floral delivery. The girl might be small, but that package is ginormous.
“Savannah...?” She cranes her neck to keep the bow out of her nose. Then she bends her knees so she can wobble it safely into a standing position on the doormat. Once she’s done, she stares between us trying to find a potential Savannah.
This Savannah isn’t used to claiming floral arrangements, so I’m frozen behind Frieda. Who’s behind Charlotte. Who’s next to Sam and behind Lin.
“Is her!” Lin exclaims, eyes narrowed into happy slits for me. “Is flour for you, Savannah.”
Frieda steps forward, taking the delivery girl’s pen. “You want me to sign for you?”
“Flowers, huh?” Sam says belatedly.
“Uh-huh, please,” I say.
Charlotte and Frieda unwrap it in the kitchen. It stretches leaves and branches all over the counter next to the stovetop. Besides the green, there’s tons and tons of deep red.
“Flamingo lilies and Hibiscus. So many of them,” Frieda gushes. “They’re so beautiful, I don’t even care about the roses. Open the card.” She tosses me a small envelope, and I open it, heart knocking against my ribs.
My fingers aren’t shaking—that would be pathetic—but it takes longer than it should to open a measly envelope.
Bold black writing. With a Sharpie? Square cap letters, like he doesn’t give a shit about cursive. Just three words.
BE MY GIRLFRIEND
“Oh he’s swoony,” Charlotte whispers, slowly covering her mouth.
“Jesus.” Frieda brushes my hair away so she can see past it to the card I’ve dropped to the counter. My brain warns, Don’t-don’t. Life will never be the same. But my heart’s doing a woot-woot-look-at-me-biatch dance, leaping all over the place, and if it had hands it’d be clapping—the way Lin does.
“So swoony,” he agrees. “Hot man?”
“Hell yeah, he’s hot,” Frieda tells him, and Lin brings steepled hands up in front of his face, covering the middle of his lips and nose.
“Yasss! He Savannah’s?”
“She hasn’t decided yet.” Frieda jumps with excitement, her toes never leaving the floor.
“Oh.” Lin nods. “He Savannah’s.” He thrusts a narrow finger at me. “Savannah, you get him or Lin will have him.” He winks sweetly.
Thank you for the flowers, I text later.
Ciro replies with a red heart.
What are you up to?
He doesn’t answer.
Sunday at ten a.m., Lin’s knocks on my bedroom door in a feverish flurry. I fell asleep late due to my mind and its cartwheels. Sunday is my only day off this week, but I manage to pry my eyes open enough to find Lin’s skinny frame squirming with delight in my doorway. “Excuze, Savannah. You have flour again, on door!”
I do. This arrangement makes my heart bang at my chest, wanting out to look for itself. Ciro likes flamingo lilies, it seems. The red hibiscus are here this time too, and so are the roses. Just, if yesterday’s bouquet was large, this one is obscene. As a whole, our place doesn’t even have a vase big enough for it.
Sam watches me struggle with the flowers. I separate and rejoin them, because they’re so well arranged I feel sacrilegious messing with the composition.
He scratches the back of his head making brown coils of hair bop. Then he lifts an index finger in the air, Einstein-style, says, “Hold on. I’ve got just the thing for that,” and disappears into his room.
BE MY GIRLFRIEND
Sweet lord. The same three words on this card too.
Metal drags and scratches across wooden floors, adding muffled squeaks as it comes closer to the kitchen. I frown. “Sam, what’re you doing?”
My friend appears in the doorway and lets out a poof, attention rising from the medieval replica cannon on the floor between his legs. Don’t get me started on his room. The man lives for the olden times.
“Okay, what’re you doing?” I repeat.
He tips the cannon’s mouth upward so it faces the ceiling. “Just put the flowers in a bag with some water, and we’ll shove it in here. ’Cause I think this is the only three-foot tall flower holder in the house.”
“Vase.”
“Uh-huh, whatever.”
Five minutes later, we’re done stuffing the arrangement in there. We push it into the living room and situate it in front of a window. It covers it. Sam angles the mouth of the cannon down so it points at the love couch.
“Pow!”” He sounds like he means it, which makes me laugh.
“Boys,” I say.
“You get his message, right?” Sam asks.
“Yeah. It’s clear as day.” My heart does a shimmy. I’m infatuated and flattered, feeling much too shallow for myself. It’s like living on the cover of a fairytale, partaking in the beaming eyes between the prince and the princess. “He wants me to be his girlfriend.”
Sam grins. “Okay, he also sent you a bunch of dicks.”
“What?”
Lin snorts into a laugh from the doorway. “Dicks.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” My gaze goes to the beautiful flamingo lilies... with their long, yellow tails at the center. The hibiscus. Also with long yellow thingies erect and proud at their core.
“No, you ass.” I point out the few red roses in between all the phallic symbols.
“Oh right. My bad.” Sam’s a terrible actor. “Your dude doesn’t want to bang your brains out, and also I didn’t just help him shoot.”
As he backs out of my stunned company, Sam lifts an imaginary gun—cannon?—and points it at me. “Pow.”
Flowers. Every day flowers of the same kind. I don’t know what to do with them anymore, except texting him different variations of Thank you for the flowers again, lol. Can we talk?
I feel like my blood pressure goes up, and when my mom calls because I miss our Wednesday breakfast, I reschedule by text—work, you know—for Sunday. She grumbles but mentions a retreat for a new religious sect she’s learned about. I reschedule again for Friday.
On day eight of filling our house with plastic buckets of flamingo lilies and hibiscus, my roommates have had it, and Ciro has yet to call me. Whenever I text, he sends me a heart the color of his flowers, and I’m at the point where I laugh and groan at the same time.
It’s five in the afternoon. Outside, the sun loses force, leaving our desert garden in an orange glow. I’m done with my sales calls and have some time before my shift at Mintrer’s. This is as good a moment as any to swallow my pride and call him.
He doesn’t take long to pick up. “Savannah?”
“Hey, Ciro.”
“Are you okay?”
“Of course, I am. You?” He’s kept my thoughts hostage. I haven’t seen him in over a week, but his flowers make sure I don’t forget him. I wonder if he does it on purpose. I wonder if he’s that savvy.
“Yeah, I’m at work.”
“Oh sorry, I
shouldn’t have called. When are you off?”
Soft music plays in the background. Someone yells an order.
“Hold on. You caught me at a good time. We’ve wrapped my part in this scene, and I need a break. Martin!” he shouts, phone away from me. “I’m taking five.”
“Make it thirty. Clean up. Donnella’ll be here at six.”
I hear his sigh. I remember that name. That was the actress he’d rather not work with again. She must be this moody bitch that just wants everything her way. Or maybe she’s evil.
“All right. Savannah, are you there?”
“Yeah. Are you in the Valley?” I suddenly get the feeling he’s not.
“No, I’m in Canada this week. I’m back on Saturday. Have you thought any more about my question?”
“Which question?” I tease, because not-special girls get bigheaded when they’re showered in flowers. “You really need to make clear what you want from me.”
“Cute.” His laughter is quiet, of the kind that breezes over your ear and makes you shiver with anticipation. “Okay, I’ll try something new: be. My girlfriend.”
“But dating is such a good way of getting to know each other.”
“Been there, done that,” he clips. “Hmm, I have a slight déjà vu over this conversation.”
“So no more dates with you?” I only had two, and one was in my work outfit.
“Oh once you’re my girlfriend, I’ll take you on so many dates you’ll get sick of them. But we’re skipping the childish stages where we scour each other for flaws and do the whole base one, base two thing.”
My stomach surges with anxious excitement.
“Once you’re mine, there won’t be just food and flowers and dates and trips. I spoil the shit out of my girlfriends, and sex is a big part of that. Think about it. I want to undress you every day and make you tremble.”
“Ciro, are you ready? Donnella’s here, excited and waiting.”
“Be right there,” he calls away from my ear. That sigh again.
“You don’t like starring with that woman,” I say. There’s some nugget in me that doesn’t like that she’s excited and waiting. Excited. And waiting. What does that even mean? How is she waiting for him?