Were you in his arms? You must have been, because you smell like him… You smell like him. - "Smell Like Him", Picture This

Alex

Piper entered the bar with a fluster of apologies.

"Hey! Sorry I'm late!" She said as she approached me, wrapping an arm around my neck and placing a quick kiss on my lips.

This bar was the only place she ever kissed or showed any kind of real intimacy towards me at all. I think probably because she knew it was a spot I frequented regularly, because it was dimly lit and most importantly, because it was not the kind of place anyone she knew would go. It was highly unlikely anyone here would catch her kissing me and run to tell her boyfriend.

That didn't bother me. It was more exciting having those secret touches in public anyway. The subtle hand to leg brushes and gentle yet very purposeful pushes against one another bodies. It was hotter that way.

What bothered me was the whiff of men's cologne I got off of her as she leaned in. The kind of musky, woody scent that just didn't appeal to me.

I forced a smile as I passed over the drink I'd ordered for her. A genuine smile worming its way through it watching her face light up at the sight of the margarita.

"Ah, my favourite. Thank you."

She pulled off her jacket, revealing a dark blue cami top that plunged at her chest, and sat in the bar stool beside me.

"Have you been waiting long?" She asked, and it struck me then how the tables had turned. How once I had been the one keeping her waiting and now I was the one standing by the bar wondering when she would show up. I didn't like that change.

"No, not long," I said, forcing another smile to convince her I was okay with this when I most certainly wasn't.

It wasn't even that she was late. That I couldn't care less about. It's the fact that she smells like him that has me so bent out of shape, and in many ways that's so much worse.

I don't want to be bothered by this. Jealousy isn't a thing I'm used to feeling. It's a foreign object in my body. A thing not wanted.

A thing I'd felt all too often recently. Most notably when I'd caught him kissing her across the table at that restaurant just last week. My plan to have her wound up with jealousy at seeing me with Sylvie worked, but it backfired too and I hadn't expected that. I hadn't expected to feel that punch to the stomach when his lips dared to touch hers. There was nothing I could do about it, either, because this was a situation I'd gotten myself into.

It made me feel a little bad for how I'd been playing with her. Enough to tell Sylvie that the reason I'd brought her to dinner was to tell her our little 'thing' was over.

That wasn't part of the plan either.

I didn't enjoy being the other woman anymore, I realised that now. It was fun at first, but that only lasts until you start to care. Until there are real feelings involved.

Saying goodbye is harder knowing she's going to him. It's harder seeing her knowing she's been with him. It aches.

I tried to push it away. Tried not to think of all the reasons why that scent lingered there. Pushed away any images my mind conjured up of him kissing her there, on her neck and maybe lower, of him pressing his body to hers, wrapping his arms around her body, holding her close; of them in bed, naked, writhing and sweating and-

No. I had to stop. Piper was talking to me and I had no idea what she was saying. I wanted to ignore this feeling violently surging through my veins, but how do you even do that? Jealousy isn't a thing easily ignored. It creeps into everything. I couldn't even look at her now without picturing him. I couldn't smile without it being forced. I couldn't laugh without feeling sick.

I had no idea where Piper was before she came here, but she must have been with him at some point, and it was sending my imagination wild.

"Al, hello? Alex? Are you even listening to me?"

"Sorry. Yeah." I said by way of apology, but something in the way I said it must have seemed alien to her, because Piper looked at me funny. Curious and concerned. It melted me and those jealous feelings with it.

"You okay?"

"Yeah." I said again, because telling her the truth wasn't an option, and gave her a smile that didn't have to be forced this time. "Just got a lot on my mind, you know, with work and stuff."

We did have a shipment soon and Piper knew that. It made the lie easier to tell.

Her hand reached across the table to mine, sending those sparks through my entire body as soon as our fingertips touched.

It was a little disconcerting, actually - how easily she could switch my mood. Have me inwardly raging with jealousy and then melting into her touch.

I'm not an idiot. I know what this means. I've been here before.

What started out all those months ago as a bit of fun, a one night stand with a girl I'd met on a beach in Cancun, was now so much more than that and I had a choice to make.

This thing could go one of two ways. I could end it before it goes any further, leave her like I left the others, just before my feelings got too strong, and move on to the next one, or I could tell her.

Tell her that it bothers me that she still sleeps in the same bed as him some nights. Tell her that the thought of him kissing those lips of hers makes me feel a little sick. Tell her that I was falling for her, and that I was ready and willing to take our relationship to the next level if she was.

The trouble with that is I think she's still too scared to admit that being with me is what she wants. I think the idea of telling her family she has left her boyfriend to be with a woman is still too terrifying for her, and where would that leave me? It'd leave me exposed and vulnerable. I'd tell her how I felt and she'd freeze up and leave me there, chest cracked open and heart ripped out.

But as scary as that sounded, telling her was the only real option I had, because I couldn't leave her like I left the others.

Over these past few months I've been happier than I have been in a long time, and that was because of her. Piper made me feel things I haven't felt in a long time. She made me laugh in a way few people really could. Waking up with her beside me was a very specific kind of bliss that I just wasn't accustomed to.

No-one looked as good as she did first thing in the morning, that I was sure of. No-one could make me smile or make me laugh at that early hour quite like she could. Something in the slender shape of her face, the sparkle in the blue of her eye and the soft dimple in her cheek made those mornings an experience hard to top.

Leaving for the trips abroad, the trips which had become a huge perk of my line of work, had become decidedly more difficult. When I was away I missed her, more-so each time I went. To the point where sometimes coming home was the more exciting than leaving. Especially because I knew when I returned Piper would have some sort of special evening planed for us.

It's easy to see that I've fallen for her. It's a thing I just can't deny any more. Even Nicky can see it. In the way I smile at her messages and the way I talk about her. She can tell I've found in her someone I genuinely enjoy spending time with. Someone I can see a future with. I don't know what kind of future, but a future none-the-less.

When I'm in I'm in. When someone has me they have me fully. I've never been one to do things by halves and when I fall in love it's no different.

"You sure?"

The way she asked it, soft and concerned, brought a warmth to my heart. She could tell something was up and I liked that she could. It meant she knew me. It meant she was paying attention.

"Yeah," I replied, giving her a smile before leaning in to kiss her gently on the lips. She blushed when we pulled apart, when I looked into her eyes. Looked over her shoulder, making sure that no-one of importance saw what just happened and then squeezed my hand with hers.

My heart skipped at her touch, at the sweet way she smiled at me, and I couldn't believe how easy it was for her to make me feel like a lovesick teenager.

The next morning I woke before her. Watched her sleep for a little while like some idiot in a romance movie, before going to make some coffee.

"Pipes," I said when I returned and placed her cup on the nightstand beside her. She stirred a little as she woke, making groaning noises and rubbing her eyes before opening them.

"What time is it?" She mumbled, her eyes narrowed as they adjusted to the light.

"Almost nine. I made you coffee," Cup in hand, I slid carefully back under the covers, re-arranged the pillows at the headboard and settled myself against them.

"Aw, thanks." Piper said, her voice still adorably groggy from sleep as she sat up slowly and picked up her cup. "I have you so whipped."

I laughed and lifted my glasses up onto my head. "The only one who stands to be whipped around here is you."

"Ooh. Is that a promise?"

I flicked an eyebrow up at her and smirked, leaving her question unanswered as I took a sip of my coffee.

Only a slight blush struck her cheek. One far less pronounced than it would have been had we had this exact exchange a couple of months ago.

"Mmm," she hummed as she held the cup up with both hands and inhaled the aroma of it. "This smells so good."

I don't think she expected a response, saying it mostly to herself, so I just smiled and lifted my laptop up off the floor.

It didn't escape me how… normal this felt. How domesticated we would seem to anyone on the outside looking in. They probably wouldn't expect that I was an international drug dealer and Piper an adulterer. They'd never guess that I was about to book my flight to Cuba for a meeting with my gangster boss and Piper was probably on her phone texting her boyfriend pretending she was at her apartment, in her own bed and alone.

Things could be so simple, and yet they weren't.

"What's your plans for today?" Piper asked me, shuffling closer once she'd put her phone back on the nightstand.

"I don't have any," I clicked to confirm my flight purchase and then gave her a smile, "I'm all yours, babe."

The grin she shot back at me was wide. I felt it when she held my jaw and kissed me. "Did you just book a flight to Cuba?"

I nodded, "I did."

"Just like that?"

"Yup."

"Wow." She shook her head a little, "You have the best life."

"You can come with me if you want."

"Don't tease me like that." She replied, narrowing her eyes despite the smile threatening to curl at her lips.

"I'm not teasing," I told her with a laugh, closing up my laptop so I could turn to her, "I'm serious. Say the word and I'll buy you a ticket. Just like that."

She thought about it for a while. I could practically see the cogs turning in her head, and for a second, despite my better judgement, I thought she might say yes. The little smile her lips showed fooled me briefly into thinking she might go along with what she obviously wanted. With what I wanted, too.

"I couldn't." The smile that had been there she forced away. Pulling herself back to reality. Making my heart fall. I really would like to have her come.

"Why?"

I couldn't explain what made me force the issue. A strange sort of need to hear her actually say what we both knew.

"I just… I couldn't. How would I explain that to Larry?"

The whole of my insides fell at the sound of his name and I really had no-one to blame for that but myself.

"Right." I said. Deadpan. Without emotion. Turning to get out of the bed because suddenly all I wanted was to get away from her.

"Oh come on, don't be like that, Al." Piper pleaded, "What do you expect? I can't just up and go like that. What would I tell him?"

"Look, just forget I asked, okay?" I snapped back. Seeing the shock of the bite in her face. "Call it an error of judgement. I forgot that your priorities lie with him. With the normal life that Mommy wants you to have." I threw on my dressing gown that'd been crumpled on the floor and as I walked out the room said, "It's fine."

"Are you really getting pissy with me about this?" She asked, getting up and following me out of the bedroom.

"You know what?" I stopped dead in the stop and shot around to look at her, "Yeah. I am. Because I am so fucking sick of being second best to you. I'm sick of having to hide this."

"You think it's easy for me?"

"Oh of course it's easy for you! For fucks sake you're the one fucking two people at once! Don't even try and give me that sad face and act like this is hard for you just because you might have to lie to your stupid fucking boyfriend every now and then about where you are."

Everything I'd been feeling lately poured out of me at once. What might have seemed to Piper like an over the top reaction to something small, was really the result of holding everything I'd felt to myself. The culmination of everything that had been bubbling on the surface.

"That's not fair. You knew this when you got involved with me. You knew what you were getting into."

"Don't give me that 'it's not fair' shit, okay? I'm not going to fall for that. It is fair. It's exactly fair. And yeah, okay, I knew what I was getting into but that doesn't help much when you're leaving me to go to him. Knowing that I got myself into this mess doesn't make knowing you're fucking him when you're not with me any easier."

"I guess I never thought-"

"Never thought what? That I was a human being with real fucking feelings and I might not like smelling your boyfriend's cologne on your neck when I kiss you? That I might not have some sort of reaction to seeing the hickey's he's given you on your body? Are you so self fucking obsessed that you really never thought that kind of thing might affect me?"

In that heated moment we looked at each other, fire in our eyes, both feeling like we were right and the other was wrong and in some ways we both were. In that moment, I felt more open and exposed than I had during our whole relationship.

"You never gave me any reason to think that it should!" Piper threw back at me, "You told me that you found it hot knowing that I had a boyfriend and we were doing all this behind his back."

"Yeah, well, that's not how I feel anymore, okay? Things have changed."

"What's changed?"

"The way I feel about you, obviously. Yeah it was easy and fun at first being the one you messed around on your boyfriend with but now I fucking love you and every time you leave me to go to him it fucking hurts."

I didn't mean to say it and the surprise on Piper's face told me she hadn't expected it either.

"You what?"

The anger I'd felt was instantly replaced with something else. A kind of uncomfortable feeling that I tried to push away. I wasn't done being pissed at her yet. My face fell and I tried to harden it again. I fixed my glasses on my face - an unnecessary movement because they were perfectly in place - but it gave me something to do with my hands. I looked away and then back at her, her expression still stuck.

"I love you." I repeated and the room went quiet. Piper stared at me and I stared right back. Exposed but refusing to back down. Like I said, when I'm in I'm in. I've said it and there was no taking it back.

The ball was in her court now. She could tighten the grip around my heart and squeeze it till it broke, or she could release it and send it floating. Say she felt what I felt or tell me this had gone too far.

Things were going to change. They had to. They had to progress or they had to end, and the choice was hers to make.

What she done in the end, after what felt like hours of tortuous waiting, was neither of those.

She kissed me.