EroticReverie

Lark Avery - Four Years Later

I stayed with Javier Santos for almost two years. He'd kept his promises. All of them. He didn't kill me, didn't fuck me, and I never went without anything I wanted or needed. 

His family became my family, and his friends...or...colleagues if you will, also became like family, because they were always there. 

After that two year mark, I'd saved my money, just like Javier said to when he first took me in, and I was ready to get my own shitty little apartment, and live my shitty little boring life on my own.  Javier had frowned when I told him where I was moving to. He told me to stay, but I couldn't, and we both knew why. 

Javier had done something good for me that day. Had meant every word he said to me. But his fiance was on her last straw with Javier. She was jealous, of me. He'd told me so. He laughed about it, but I never did. Because I was the one thrown eye daggers and treated like  Cinderella was by her ugly step sisters. Gabriella Martinez was a gorgeous woman, so the fact she had any jealousy over me, was insane, considering I lived in a separate part of the mansion, minding my own business for most of the two years. Yet, there was that one night I suppose, a few weeks before I decided it was time to move out. When she'd walked in on Javier standing near me, his hand on my face lightly, his thumb stroking my cheek. It'd looked romantic,....because it was. At least to me. 

"You're beautiful Lark Avery....he's an idiot." Javier had told me when I was being a big baby about some guy I'd went on two dates with that ghosted me. 

"If I were younger...." he'd said, and that's all he'd said before the huff of his fiance, and her heels clicking away, drew his hand and his attention from me. 

"Shit...I need to go handle that." he'd said and left me in the kitchen.

If he were younger.........yeah....I'd thought that myself several times...and I've thought about it everyday since I've moved out on my own.

I haven't seen him since. He would call everyday at first...then days turned to weeks....weeks turned to months....and my phone rings now in my apron as I sit outback of the restaurant on my smoke break.

"Hi." I answer the phone with a smile on my face, exhaling the cigarette smoke. 

"Hello Lark Avery" he says into the other line and I smile even more. 

"How are you?" I ask him, flicking the ash of his cigarette.

"I still miss your awful music blaring from the other end of my home." he says and I give a little laugh. 

"You loved it." I reply. 

"I did." he says with a sigh. "It meant you were still here...and safe." 

"I'm still safe." I say softly. 

"But you're not here." he says. I feel my heart do rapid fire beats and my stomach flutters. 

"No, i'm not." I say softly. 

"I miss you." he whispers.

"I miss you too." I say quietly and chew my lip. "A lot." I add. 

"Come see me." he says. 

"You know I can't." I say. 

"Gabriella moved out." he says and I pause, blinking to myself.

"She..what?" I ask. 

"Months ago. She moved out." he says.

"Why?" I ask.

"Because I'm not in love with her." he says and I swallow.

"Oh." I say. Shaking my head. 

"Come see me Lark. Come back home." he says.

"Javier..." I say already shaking my head. 

"Move back home little bird." he whispers and I close my eyes, tears stinging my eyes.

" I can't. I have...a life here...I have....a boyfriend." I say. There's a long pause.

"Is he good to you?" Javier asks.

I nod, then remember he cant see me. 

"yes, he is." I answer. 

"Have you..." he trails.

"Javier." I say, shaking my head. 

"I just want to know if he's respecting you." he says.

"Yes Javier. He's respecting me." I say, knowing he wants to know if I've given myself to him  yet. But that's not his business. And Im not sure why, but it feels like it is anyways.

"I'd like to see you." he says.

"Me too." I say and then push off the wall, and turn to flick my cigarette in the large can by the door and stop, the cigarette falling from my fingers, my phone dropping from my hand and my breath catches. 

Javier Santos stands there, a smirk on his lips.

"Hello Little Bird"