She'd had just enough to drink at the movie's wrap party to put herself out there and text him. "You at rehearsal tonight? Want to hang after or do you need to get home?"
KSL: "I can chill for a bit, sure."
Then she got kidnapped by Super Director and Goldie to go out for tacos. The clock was ticking and she tried to hurry them along, ordering her tacos to go and them sitting down. She made the excuses, she had to work early in the morning and she wanted to pee in her own studio instead of the outside bathroom of the taco place. They finally left to go back home.
Upon getting to the elevator, she jumped in and punched their respective floors. The elevator groaned slightly and SD and Goldie jumped out like a hot potato. KSL was due to arrive any minute, and she couldn't waste any more time. She said goodbye to them and stayed in the elevator.
It went up to her floor just fine, and she unlocked her door and entered the studio, turning on her small lamp on the way to the kitchen. She was afraid her timing was horrible, but KSL arrived a few minutes later, long enough that he didn't share an elevator with SD and Goldie.
"I put 'Goldie Stop Being Nosy' in the guest book when I signed in." He said with a smirk. "Would you stop that?" she asked "They are going to kick me out or something! Just write your damn name."
After making drinks and sitting down, the open letter came up. She had written one for the blog, but at the last minute decided not to post it. She saved it to a Word doc and put it on her desktop. After some convincing, she opened it and let him read it.
She looked down as he did, trying to hide how red her neck must be. It felt hot, and she could feel her heart being squeezed. She prefaced the read with the fact that a lot had been cleared up due to finding out he was an ENFJ. After finishing he wordlessly handed her back her laptop, and she said "thoughts?"
What followed was a big D & M about almost everything they had been through. The physical stuff got brought up, he again pointed out that she initiated that one kiss. "You know, it's funny how the ONE time I iniated anything and you continue to throw it in my face. Look at what YOU started. I had no idea where I stood with you, and when you didn't kiss me back I was humiliated. Humiliated. I would NEVER try that again." He claimed she had just taken him by surprise, and he sincerely apologized for making her feel that way.
He said he had a pattern, and that after he breaks up with his girlfriend (his guess was they wouldn't make it another month) he will be destructive for awhile. He warned her that she would most likely not want to be around him when he got destructive, which would be around the 2 month mark of his being single. He said he'd start his own dating blog about dating in his 30's, and it stung on two levels.
She desperately wanted him to say that he cared about her, but couldn't do a relationship right now. She just wanted to know that there were feelings there. It appeared that the closest she would come is in him warning her to stay away.
She told him how much he had penetrated her...emotionally. The open letter, the blogs...she felt like an open wound. "I just want to know where I stand. It's just hard to keep my balance when I'm not sure if you regard me as a fuck buddy, a friendship, or a relationship. I don't know how to act around you, what is okay and what isn't...so I've been trying to keep my distance."
"Clearly," he said, motioning to the fact that she was on the far side of the couch from him. After a long silence, he said "I don't know. I just don't know."
She nodded, and fell silent. Many many thoughts were swirling in her mind, none she could really say out loud. It was a hard place to be. He glanced at her, saw the storm brewing in her mind. His face softened.
"Need a hug?"
She heistated, then finally joined him on the other side of the couch, curling up into his side. They joked and snuggled until long after he said he had to leave. They hugged again by the door for a long time. She was still on shaky ground with him, but she thought they'd done an okay job of drawing a line in the sand as to how far they would go again. She knew that she needed to make a promise to herself to not sleep with him for at least a year. It was a promise she needed to stick with.
She closed the door behind him, deciding not to walk out to the elevators with him.
