Dante's boyfriend

“This is my boyfriend Rita.”


Rita.
He looked shy.
I took his offered hand and beneath mine his skin was enticingly delicate and soft and I let go while I still could.

Too long touching that gentle skin and I’d never be able to let go again.
He gave the sleeves of his poorly worn sweater a few tugs as he skittishly wiped the traces of my fingers from his hand on his baggy jeans.
A few pulls of the rough material and he jerked it over his slender hands and I met his eyes.
Under funeral black hair roaming to narrowed shoulders, ocean green eyes swam to meet mine, rising from beneath hooded black lashes and caramelized skin.

God, he was beautiful.

Exotic, like an extinct, imported animal; wild and shy.

Exotic eyes.
Alarmingly delicate and feminine face.
Soft skin and shallow breathing kissing moistened pink lips.



And he had a boyfriend.


Of course.



And it had to be Dante.



Of course.


Dante was always the one to get the cutest boys.
The cutest losers that the street had to offer.



Of course.



But a single glance at Rita and I could tell.

He wasn’t one of the losers.

One of the cutest boys I had ever seen, that was for sure and if he was given just a single glance, anyone could mistake him as a slight, thirteen year old girl.


But fifteen year old Rita was most definitly a boy, and not even from our street.
I had never seen him before.



He looked nervous.



More nervous than he really should be around his boyfriend.
And from what Dante had mentioned to me, they had been dating now for three months.
Dating and living together for three months.
There was no way he should be as shy as he was now.
And I could tell it wasn’t because of me.
He wasn’t even looking at me.
I turned back to Dante, whose casually wandering hands had softly found a resting place on the slighter boys slender hips and Rita seemed anxious to step away from the others touch.

But he didn’t move.


Only his eyes found an uneasy place on the wall to stare fixedly at with enormous jade eyes.
And this perked my curiosity.
He was nervous.


Perhaps even – scared?


His eyes had been soft and warm before.
Now they were frozen over.
The ocean of his eyes was frozen.

Freezing.

Cold by a gentle touch.


And I tried to smile.


It was better if I left now.





“I’ll see you two around then?”





Dante looked almost friendly.
He had the habit of doing that around me.
Trying to be friendly.


It was laughable.


He hated me.
I hated him.



End of story.



But he was still trying around his boyfriend.
Or maybe he was just trying.
He didn’t seem to care about Rita.




“Definitly.”




Yah, definitely.


But it wasn’t Dante I wanted to see again.
Rita said nothing.
Didn’t smile.
He hadn’t smiled yet.


Odd.


He hadn’t given me or Dante a single friendly glance yet.
Had Dante noticed?

All Rita did was turn.

Back into the apartment.



And Dante turned after him.



I watched them go, curious.


Rita shivered out of Dante’s touch as the door was shut behind them.




I waited.




Silence.




Not a sound.
Not a movement.
From behind the door.


I was disappointed.


Because a smile and a laugh from Rita would’ve reassured me that he was just shy of me, and not afraid of Dante.


But there was nothing.


And I turned.


Back down the narrow strip of light in the hall to my apartment room which was as silent as Dante’s.




Only, I was alone in mine.




Shutting the door behind me, I could only watch as a cloud of grey shifted through the sunlight splashed on my carpeted floor.




Dismal.




And I was exhausted.

I found the couch through a shifting ocean of clothes and books I had borrowed from Dante.


My relationship with Dante was strictly business.
He borrowed things from me and vice versa.

That was all.

And a polite conversation in between to impress the neighbours.
It didn’t take much to impress them.