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My Baby, My Darling.

Back To This.

“You have two of these.” Gabe said, holding up two copies of The Great Gatsby.

“So what.”

“You do not need two copies of The Great Gatsby. That is insane. One of them needs to go.”

“No. I’m keeping both of them.” I muttered, shuffling through stacks of CD’s from my station beside the coffee table.

“Why? Why would you possibly need two copies of the same book?”

“Because one of them is mine and the other one Dexter bought for me.”

“They’re from two different publishers. My copy I’ve had since high school. There are annotations in there from like, five years ago. And the one Dexter bought me has a signed note from F. Scott Fitzgerald on the back. I’m not getting rid of that.”

“Again. Why do you need two copies? You two aren’t even together anymore. Don’t girls do that thing where they burn everything that even remotely reminds them of their ex.” He said, tossing both copies into the box on the couch.

“Okay, Gabe. We are not doing this.” I rolled my eyes and stood up. “I am more than happy to donate some stuff to this stupid fundraiser, but-“

“It is not just some stupid fundraiser.” He scoffed, feigning offense. “It is a fundraiser for everyone in my apartment building. We are holding a communal yard sale to raise money for the needy.”

“Oh, give me a break. You’re raising money for a new gym in your building.”

“Exactly. I am in needy of a new gym. This new gym is going to have a racquetball court.” He said matter-of-factly.

“You do not even play racquetball.”

“Exactly. Because we do not have a racquetball court.” He said and I scoffed.

“Okay. Okay, fine. But that does not give you permission to just barge into my apartment and pick and choose things to sell. I said I’d help you and I will.”

“A few CDs and a lamp with kittens on it will not get me the big bucks, Che-Che.”

I laughed, “How many times do I have to remind you to stop calling me that, Junior?”

“Donate some more of this crap and I will be out of your hair.” He smiled.

“Okay, not all of this is crap. Some of this stuff is very valuable.”

“That radio doesn’t even work anymore.” He pointed past me at a clock radio sitting on top of my TV. He was right, it didn’t work. It hasn’t worked in years. But Marc left that clock here before he moved out of this apartment after college. It had sentimental value. But Gabe was right, I needed to let go of some of the things that didn’t make sense to keep.

“Take it.”

“See. I knew there was a reason why you’re my favorite cousin.”

“You only say that when Marc’s not in the room.”

“That is true.” He smirked, pulling the radio down off of the TV stand.

There was a knocking at the door and I left Gabe rummaging through the CDs on the coffee table as I moved to answer it. Almost immediately after I pulled the door open, Dexter came rushing past me and into the living room with a wide grin on his face.

“Baby, you are never going to believe what…”

“Whoa.” Gabe looked up at Dexter, an Amy Winehouse CD falling from his hands. “Hey, Dexter.”

“Gabe.” Dexter stopped, his eyes moving to meet mine, silently asking me what he should do. I shook my head, not sure what to tell him. Dexter moved to look back at Gabe. “Hey, man. What are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same question.” Gabe said, an amused smile on his face. I could tell he was uncomfortable. As far as Gabe knew, I hadn’t talked to Dexter since before the holidays. And now, he was standing in my living room calling me baby. “Did I miss something?”

“Um, I was just…” Dexter trailed, his eyes moving to the box on the couch. “What’s this box for?”

“I’m selling some stuff for my apartment building’s fundraiser.” Gabe said, still confused.

“You’re selling my copy of The Great Gatsby.” Dexter looked at me, his eyebrows raised.

“No. That’s actually not supposed to be-“

“Can someone tell me what’s going on here?” Gabe smirked, putting his hands up in surrender. “Are you guys like back together or something? Because I need to know whether I’m supposed to kick you ass or not.” He looked at Dexter, who looked like he was fighting back laughter. We both knew Gabe would never fight Dexter in a million years. That wasn’t something Gabe did. He liked to laugh confrontation away.

“Um…” Dexter looked at me to answer the question and I furrowed my eyebrows. Why did he expect me to answer this question?

“Okay. Yeah, I guess.” I sputtered, looking between the both of them.

Gabe let out a breath of air. “Alright. Okay, good. I didn’t want to have to kick his ass anyway. How you doing, bro? Long time no see.” Gabe moved across the room to clasp Dexter’s hand and bump his shoulder the way guys do.

“Um, I’ve been good. Busy with work and stuff, you know.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I get what you mean. Saving lives and stuff. I feel you.”

“Gabe, you’re a fitness trainer.” I mumbled and Gabe scoffed.

“I am saving people’s health, alright, Che-Che?”

I let out a breath of air. “Get out of my apartment.”

“Whoa, whoa. Just take it easy there. I’ve got plenty of stuff here anyway, so…” Gabe moved to grab stacks of CDs and put it into the box. Dexter watched the scene in front of him, amused as ever. Gabe pulled the copy of The Great Gatsby out of the box and tossed it toward Dexter. “That’s for you man. Take care of it. I hear there’s some sort of note inside it or something from some Scott guy, I don’t know. But I’d watch out for that guy if I were you. He’s like writing letters on the back of your girl’s books, so that can’t be a good sign or anything.”

“Gabe.” I hissed, narrowing my eyes at him.

“I’m going. I’m going, alright.” Gabe put up his hands in surrender and nudged Dexter. “I guess I’ll see you around then, bro.”

“Yeah, I’ll see you.” Dexter laughed, following him to the door and closing it behind Gabe. Then he turned to me, a huge, shit-eating grin on his face.

“What?” I narrowed my eyes.

“So we’re together then, huh?” He smirked.

“Oh, my God. What’s this big news you came to tell me?”

“Oh, no. You want to sit down for this one.”

“Dexter.”

“Sit down.” He rolled his eyes and I laughed.

“Okay. Okay, fine.” I pushed a few CDs aside on the couch cushions and sat down. He moved to stand in front of me and I nodded, urging him to proceed. He took a deep breath and stared down at me, like he was going to tell me he solved world hunger or something.

“A few months back, I met this guy.”

“Now, see. How are we supposed to be together if you met some guy? Now it’ll never work. Call Gabe, tell him this whole thing is off.” I joked and he narrowed his eyes.

“Are you done?”

I laughed, “Yeah. Okay, sorry. Go ahead.”

“This guy I met, he’s like the father of one of my patients. He owns a studio in New Haven and we got to talking and I ended up showing him a few of your sketches that you gave me-“

“You did what?” He was referring to the stupid, silly doodles on notes that I left lying around for him. They were sketches of like dogs riding bicycles and old men walking horses. They weren’t the kinds of things that you show to curators.

“Just hear me out, okay?” He put his hands out as if to calm me down. Then he moved so that he was crouching in front of me, his eyes level with mine. “He liked your sketches. And I ran into him today and he said that he wants to put one of your pieces in his showcase on Saturday?”

“He what?” He wasn’t serious. Someone wanted my piece in an actual studio, to be showcased for people to see. My art was going to be in a gallery. An actual, serious gallery. “You’re joking. If this is some sort of thing where you’re playing with me it isn’t-“

“I’m not joking.” He said, his smile growing wider by the minute.

“Oh, my God.”

“You still want to call Gabe and tell him this whole thing is off.”

“Hell, no.” I couldn’t contain my excitement as I jumped and threw my arms around him. He tumbled backward in response to my force and we both fell to the ground. His laughter rumbled from below me and I couldn’t help but kiss him. I kissed his cheeks, his lips, his jaw, his forehead. I’m pretty sure there wasn’t a part of his face that I didn’t kiss.

“Okay. As much as I love what’s happening here. Your knees are kind of nudging a place that makes it hard to be as excited for you as I want to be.” He muttered and I laughed, moving off of him.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” I smirked, kissing his lips one last time. “I’m just. I’m so…I’m so excited. I’m going to be in a gallery. My work is going to be showcased in an actual gallery. This doesn’t happen everyday.”

“I’m happy for you.” He said, bringing himself to his feet. “We should celebrate.”

“Celebrate?”

“Yeah. Call everyone. We should celebrate this stage in your life. It’s kind of a big deal, you know? I’m surprised you haven’t called Nicole yet.”

“Oh. Oh, yeah. I’ll do that later.” I said, meeting his eyes. He furrowed his eyebrows in confusion and he opened his mouth to question me. “Um, where should we go? Should it just be a dinner thing or should we all go out or something? Or if you want, it could just be the two of us.”

“Why would I want it to be just the two of us?”

“I just assumed that-“

“Why haven’t you told anyone about us?” He said, not accusing. It was more like a statement. I cleared my throat, entirely thrown off by his question.

“What do you mean?”
“I mean. We’ve been doing this thing for two weeks now and Gabe didn’t even know that…”

“That what.”

“Nothing.”

I smirked, “You, see. That’s why. We don’t even know what this thing is yet. You haven’t called this thing anything either. And every time you come close to calling it something, you just, you don’t.”

“That’s not true.”

“Wow. Okay.”

“How did this become a fight?” He laughed incredulously. “This is supposed to be a good thing and all of a sudden we’re arguing.”

“You started it.”

“Oh, that’s what we’re doing then.” He shook his head. I cleared my throat and took a deep breath. If we were going to talk about this, it would be better to hash all of it out now rather than get into ten more fights later on because we could never resolve the issue.

“What do you want to call this?” I said calmly and his eyes snapped to meet mine. “Are we back together or not?”

“You and I both know that was never up to me to decide.” He rubbed the back of his neck.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“You know what it means,” He nodded. “We’re only together when you say we’re together. We broke up because you wanted to break up and we got back together when you wanted to get back together.”

I scoffed at his words. “Oh, so you’re not in this relationship at all. I’m sorry, I didn’t realize. Why don’t I just consult with myself and let you know what I decide.”

“That would be great.”

“Dexter.” I snapped. “Will you please just….will you please have a normal conversation with me about this?”

“Gabe had no idea. Does Nicole know?” He asked and I shook my head.

“No.”

He smirked. “Alright.”

“Okay. Why does it matter so much to you whether they know or not?”

“Because everyone in my life knows about us. Annie knows. Lydia sees you all the time. Fucking Monica knows about us. And you have not told one person that we’re back together. It’s like we aren’t even together or something. That’s why I don’t say anything to you about us being together. Because I’m not even sure if we are. How do I know you aren’t secretly fucking Travis behind my back?”

“Wow.” I breathed, narrowing my eyes at him. “It’s always going to come back to that, isn’t it? You are such an asshole.”

“Am I? Really. I’m an asshole.”

“Yeah.” I seethed, shaking my head. “Yeah, you are.”

“Alright. Prove it. Prove that I’m crazy. What happened that night? Really. The night I found you drunk. Did you fuck him?”

“No.” I snapped, backing away from him. “No. I didn’t fuck him. What the hell is wrong with you. You know what, I’m not having this conversation with you.”

“You can run away from this conversation all you want. But I am right.”

“No. You are far from being right.”

“Well then answer me.”

“Nicole cheated on Gabe, okay?” I spat and he narrowed his eyes at me.

“What?”

“Nicole cheated on Gabe. And I haven’t talked to Nicole in weeks. That’s why I haven’t told her. And I haven’t told Gabe because, I don’t know. I’ve been avoiding him. I didn’t know he was going to come over today, he just showed up. And I literally spent the last two hours trying not to tell him because I know that it will kill him if he finds out. And did it ever occur to you that I haven’t told anyone about us yet because I’ve spent every waking moment with you since we got back together? It didn’t. Because instead of noticing that, you’ve been so obsessed with whether or not I’m sneaking around with Travis. You of all people should know that I wouldn’t do that. You of all people, Dexter.”

“Nicole cheated on Gabe.” He said, not looking at me.

I nodded and he let out a heavy breath of air.

“That’s a real dick move.” He said and I looked at him. His lips curved into a smile and I couldn’t help but laugh. This wasn’t funny. But here we were, laughing.

“Yeah. It was a huge dick move.” I sputtered in between fits of laughter. “Oh, my God. I hate her so much for what she did.”

“I kind of do, too.” He laughed. “Wow. I wouldn’t tell her about us either.”

“So this celebration dinner.”

“Annie. We can invite Annie.” He nodded, grabbing my hand and pulling me closer to him. “She’ll be happy about the news. I don’t know if you know this, but she goes crazy over those dog sketches of yours. There’s something about dogs and bikes that just drive her crazy, I don’t know. Maybe it’s all the drugs.”

I smacked his arm. “She’s your sister.”

“I know.” He breathed. “That’s what makes it okay.”

“Asshole.”

—-

It was raining. Dexter had his car heater on full blast and the peppermint air freshener dangled in front of one of the vents, making the whole car smell like candy canes. The freshness was soothing.

“Are you sure you’re not cold?”

“Dexter. I’m fine.” I turned, watching the features on his face appear and disappear under passing street lights. “Where are we going again?”

“Some Thai restaurant. I don’t know, Annie picked it.”

“You hate thai food.” I said and he smirked.

“Yeah, but you love it, so…”

I rolled my eyes. “Not everything you do has to be some sacrifice for me. You know that, right?”

“I don’t really care about where we eat.” He said, glancing over at me. “This is your celebratory dinner.”

“Yeah, but we wouldn’t be celebrating if it weren’t for you.”

He shrugged. “If we’re going to go there, there wouldn’t be anything worthy of celebration if your paintings sucked. And there wouldn’t be any paintings if it weren’t for your mom giving birth to you. And, of course, you’re mom wouldn’t have given birth to you if…”

“Okay. Let’s not go there.” I winced and Dexter’s laughter filled the car. “How much longer?”

“We’re almost there.” He said as we approached a stop light. “Have I told you that you look really hot tonight?”

“Three times. But hey, who’s counting?” I muttered, narrowing my eyes at him. But really, I looked the same as every other night we’ve been out. The only thing that’s different is my darker shade of lipstick. I’ve been very into plum lately. I never wore the color because Nicole always condemned the color, claiming it was too dark for my pale face. But after little to no deliberation, I realized that I don’t give a fuck about what Nicole thinks.

The parking lot was small and all of the spots were full by the time we got there, so Dexter had to park a block away, forcing us to bear the chilling weather of Connecticut’s winter. After I slammed my car door shut, Dexter grabbed my hand and guided me toward the restaurant. After a while, my hand was the only part of me that wasn’t cold.

“You’re freezing.” He said, a concerned expression plastered onto his face as he scanned my shivering stature.

I shook my head, my teeth chattering against itself. “No. Okay, maybe a little. But we’re almost there so-“

He moved so that his arm was wrapped around my shoulder and he held me there against his torso. It made it a little harder to walk, but I had to admit that his warmth did settle my chattering teeth if only by a little. He smelled fresh, like shaving cream.

When we walked into the restaurant, Annie waved us over to a table in the middle, beside a huge fish tank. Dexter took my hand and guided me toward her. There are four place settings and I just assume that the waitress just hasn’t cleared the excess setting yet.

“Hey guys. I was beginning to wonder whether or not you two were going to show up. I’m like starving.”

Dexter pulled out my chair and I fought the urge to roll my eyes at him. “That isn’t my problem.” Dexter said and Annie pulled her lips into a thin line.

“Listen, Dexter-“

“Tell me you didn’t order already. You always do that. And I don’t want us to have to watch you eat while we wait for our food.” Dexter said, grabbing hold of the menu in front of him. Under the table, I squeezed his hand and he looked over at me. “What?”

“Dexter, can I talk to you for a minute.” Annie said from in front of him and Dexter’s eyes moved to meet hers.

“About what.”

“I just…Look, please don’t hate me okay.” She spoke quickly, biting her lip in hesitation after the words left her mouth.

He raised his eyebrows. “What did you do?”

Someone cleared their throat behind me and Annie’s eyes dropped to the table. Dexter clenched his jaw and turned to look at the source of Annie’s sudden submission.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Dexter spat and my eyes followed his spiteful stare to an empty-eyed man in a dark suit. Ben.