When I woke up in the mornings now, I still kept my eyes closed, but it wasn’t to think about other places I could be, it was to let my mind think about Mila completely unadulterated. I would picture her smile, the bright happy look in her eyes, the way she plays with her hair when she’s nervous. I would think about the way she smells, like roses on a dewy day, fresh, crisp, clean, fragrant. I would imagine her touching my arm or chest, imagine her holding me close, pressing her head against my chest and holding me tightly. I would see myself pulling her into my arms and kissing her forehead and then we would just be there, bound together by some emotion I didn’t want to acknowledge. And then as my anxiety crept in, and the doubts started to come, I would find my eyes opening slowly, ready to face the day, to forget the fantasy that I didn’t think I really wanted. And then I would focus on the task at hand and on why there will never be a moment like that in my daydreams again.

This morning, I awoke, but I didn’t just lie there. I didn’t focus on anything. My eyes flew open and I looked over to the right to look at Mila, to see that she was okay. It was weird having her share my bed now. It was weird that sometimes I woke up and thought of her and kissed her and caressed her in my mind, yet in person—in real life—I just lay there, not able to express the feelings within, in person.

“Morning,” I said softly when I saw her eyelashes fluttering as I faced her. I knew she was awake and was just trying to pretend she was sleeping. She didn’t answer me and I smiled to myself as I felt a surge of happiness trailing through my body for no real reason. It always surprised me how happy I felt just being in her company. Unfortunately, I also felt surges of anger and jealousy when around her. If she looked at another guy and smiled in her sweet, friendly way, it enraged me. Didn’t she realize that other men might read something into her smile? What annoyed me even more was wondering if she was interested in them as well? What really did she see in me? What did she want from me? Would she be happy to be with another man?

I knew these thoughts were irrational, but they always came and I absolutely hated them. I hated feeling like she was taking over my brain; making me think and feel things I didn’t want to feel. She opened up doubts, pains, hurts I didn’t want to think about. The happiness was a high, but the flipside of that, well, the flipside was dark.

“I said, good morning, Mila,” I said again and reached over to tickler her under the arm.

“No, you didn’t.” Her eyes popped open as her body reacted and she pushed my hand away. “You said ‘morning,’ not good morning.” She smiled at me sweetly as she yawned gently. I watched as she pushed her hair away from her face and wondered at how beautiful she was. How could her brown eyes do so much to me when she looked at me?

“So you were awake?” I grinned at her and leaned forward to give her a quick and soft kiss on the lips. Her eyes widened slightly and she just lay there and stared back at me as I moved back.

“I never said that.” She bit her lower lip, her eyes sparkling. “My subconscious must have heard.”

“Uh huh.” I nodded, rolling my eyes. “That must be it.”

“Yeah, it is.” She laughed and then reached over and touched my hair gingerly, running her fingers through my unkempt, short, dark locks before leaving my hair and touching my face. Her fingers ran along my jawline, touching my stubble, touching me lightly as they made their way to my chin. Her fingers were dainty, light as she touched me, and I felt my body freezing uncomfortably. Her touch was like magic, but I didn’t like it. I didn’t like the way she looked at me adoringly as she caressed my face. It made me feel . . . well, I can’t describe the emotion. It turned my stomach into knots and I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I felt out of control.

“So are you feeling better this morning?” I asked her, pulling back and looking away from her. Sometimes gazing into her eyes was too unnerving for my equilibrium.

“Yeah, I suppose.” Her voice was uncertain and I gazed at her again. This time it was her eyes that fell to the side uncertainly as she fiddled with her fingers. An awkward silence befell us and I stretched out in the bed and closed my eyes. I could feel Mila curling up and hugging herself next to me. I wanted to reach over and hold her tight. I wanted to tell her that we didn’t have to be uncomfortable with each other. I wanted to hold her close and tell her to let her worries go. But I couldn’t. Instead I pulled the sheet off of my body and turned to her with a wicked grin.

“Pleasure me, woman.”

“What?” She gave me a funny look, her eyes narrowing as she looked down at my boxer shorts and then back to my eyes.

“I said, pleasure me, woman.” I grinned at her as I joked, trying to break the awkward tension in the air. I wasn’t really sure where it had emanated from, but I didn’t like it. I was a lot more comfortable when the focus was on sex.

“Yeah, okay.” Mila shook her head. “Give me a minute.”

“I don’t want to give you a minute.” I grabbed her hands and pulled her towards me. “I want to feel those lips on my cock right now.”

“You’re so crude.” She looked at me, annoyed, and my stomach flipped. “I’m not some toy or plaything, just here to pleasure you when you want.”

“You’re not?” I growled, my brain starting to feel panicked as I kept on joking.

“Touch me, woman.”

“TJ.” She shook her head, disappointment in her eyes, sadness in the tilt of her lips.

“Fine, don’t,” I said, laughing awkwardly, not really knowing what to say.

“Is this all I am to you?” she said softly, long drawn-out sighs leaving her mouth as her body moved away from me.

“No,” I said abruptly, almost harshly. I sounded angry and that made me mad at myself. Why did I sound angry? And why was my stomach churning and my forehead heating up? I wanted to jump out of the bed. I wanted to go have a shower and a long run. I needed distance from her.

“All you want is sex.” She looked disgusted and I wasn’t sure if it was with me or herself.

“That’s not all that I want.”

“You don’t want love and marriage, though, do you?” I could hear the hope in her voice. How could I tell her that in some sort of alternate reality, I wanted just that? In my deepest dreams I wanted that—the white-picket fence, the wife, three kids, a loud yappy dog and moody cat. But that was just a fantasy, not real life. My real life wouldn’t go anything like that.

“You want a family and kids?” I asked, though I knew the answer.

“Yes,” she said lightly. “Two boys, a girl. A Labrador Retriever.”

“You’ll have it,” I said, though it killed me to say that. I didn’t want to think of her with another man, married, giving birth to his kids. In fact it infuriated me. It made me want to kill the other man, even though he didn’t really exist.

“I guess not in the next four weeks,” she tried to joke, her words shaky.

“Yeah, not in the next four weeks.” I smiled back at her, trying to forget that this arrangement was temporary. She wouldn’t be here with me every morning. I didn’t have to worry that she’d take over my life. She’d only be here for a few more weeks and then everything would be back to normal.

“So what exactly do you feel for me, TJ?” she asked again, and I froze. I didn’t want to get into this conversation with her. After I’d seen her crying, I had wanted to punch something or someone. A part of me had been scared. I’d never seen her like that before. It had opened up something in me and I had let her into a part of my soul that had been closed off before.

“I don’t know how to answer that question, Mila.” I sighed, “I really don’t.”

“Do you love me?” she asked me again hopefully, and my heart lurched at her question. I didn’t know why she kept torturing the both of us.