Escaping Reality

the project and I’ll do it his way. I won’t.
    Meeting with anyone else before he and I come to terms is a waste of
    everyone’s time.”
    I can’t help myself. I inch over to Liam and begin kissing his stomach.
    Liam glances down at me, his eyes simmering with heat and the sheet
    begins to lift. I laugh and lick the 3.14 numbers above the “pi” sign.
    “I’m staying and not because of him,” Liam tells Derek, or I assume
    it’s Derek. “Call me when he gets back. We’ll go from there.” He ends the
    call, tosses the phone, and drags me up his body before rolling me to my
    back.
    “Oh, the things I can do to you with a full day in bed.” It’s a wicked
    warning and a promise of punishment in the most pleasurable of ways. He
    proved this to me last night. He’ll torment me. He’ll take me to the edge
    and make me wait. He’ll make me ask for things I never thought I could ask
    for. But he will make me forget everything but him. And right now, I need
    that more than answers. I need him.

    ***
    Mid-afternoon finds Liam and me downtown at a high-rise building
    on the top floor, snuggled into the cozy chairs of a coffee shop that
    overlooks the site where the new shopping complex is supposed to be
    located. I’m dressed in a pair of black shorts and a pink tank Liam has
    forced me to buy by dragging me in a store, slapping down a card, and
    telling me to spend a ridiculous figure or he’d spend it for me. I still can’t
    believe he did it—or that I ultimately let him.
    I study him now, removing things from a sleek leather briefcase,
    dressed in a casual pair of dark blue jeans and a snug blue pullover that
    makes his eyes inhumanly blue. He begins to pull his drafting pad out of a

slim case, and in an act I’m finding familiar, he runs his fingers over his
    goatee. My gaze falls on a watch he’s wearing that I have not seen until
    today. It has a thick silver band and a brand that probably means it costs as
    much as some people’s houses.
    He glances up to catch me watching him, leaning in to give me a
    quick, hot brush of his lips against mine. He then offers me my computer
    from inside his bag. “Thank you,” I say, accepting it, wishing I didn’t have to
    think about the reason I have it.
    “What exactly are you working on?”
    “Property listings. Boring stuff.”
    “And what did you do in New York?”
    “Research and admin work. Boring.”
    “What kind of research?”
    I hate this. I hate it so much. I just want to tell him everything. “It
    really depended on what my boss had going on. Nothing as exciting as
    pyramids. I wish.”
    “You like history.”
    “History that is a mystery.”
    “Like the pyramids.”
    This is a connection to my past. I should change the subject. I don’t.
    “Yes. Like the pyramids.”
    “Why a history teacher and not an archeologist?”
    “I did what felt right at the time.”
    “After you lost your family.”
    “Yes. I went on to college, but…I just went through the motions. By
    the time I woke up it felt like I just needed my degree and a higher income.”
    I shake off what could turn into a flashback and more information than I
    should tell him. “Tell me about your plans for the building. What are you
    drafting today?”
    “I’m going to do the underground tunnels from the pyramid to the
    various other buildings.”
    “Like the real ones.”
    “Exactly. And glass blocks will create the actual pyramid.” He flips his
    design around for me to see. “I was thinking about a-hole’s argument that
    pyramids have been done, and he’s right.
    They have. But I have this idea to design two pyramids on top of the
    main structure. It’s never been done.”
    “I can’t picture it.”
    He quickly sketches a small drawing, simple, but enough for me to
    understand. “Like you’re stacking the pyramids. Can that actually work? It
    seems unstable.”
    “They won’t be stacked. They’ll be structures within structures.”
    “I’m intrigued. I can’t wait to see it. I hope you build it.”
    “If that doesn’t win over a-hole, then I’ll take it somewhere else and
    build it. Then you can see it. Maybe we can go see the real pyramids
    together.”
    Like I am going to be around no matter where he is, and when he
    builds it, and to travel with him. Maybe I should be worried that he is so
    invested in me in such a short window of time, but I am not. I feel the
    connection between us and I do not believe it is something anyone could
    fake.