“Ivan, call from Dmitri Markhoff.” He clears his throat. “Are you available?”
Oh fuck, he did. I bury my face deep in Ivan’s throat. It kills me dead when he laughs for way too long before telling Tim he’ll call Markhoff back. I don’t see it, but I hear Ivan hit a button on his phone.
“No more open line it is.”
“I quit,” I mumble into his neck, then ruin it my licking his hot, silky skin.
“No, you won’t. It will be fine. After shopping you’ll go home. We’ll be gone for two weeks. By the time we’re back you both can pretend it never happened.”
I want to tell him he’s nuts, there is no way I can ever look Tim in the eye, only he’s still got a smug grin on his face. Maybe I’m imagining things, but I’m pretty sure he’s never smiled as often as he has this week. I know for a fact his laughter is new. There were times it still came out of him rusty from disuse.
Ivan smiling and happy is a thousand times more stunning than the sun. I can deny him nothing when he smiles at me, so instead I run a finger along his swollen lips.
“I love it when you forget and talk like a regular person. The whole British accent is intimidating enough, but when you never break for a single contraction, I wonder if you’re a robot or something.”
Catching my hand, he sucks on my finger before nipping at the tip. “You grow up on a council estate with dark skin, you make it a mission to learn to cut glass.”
Huh?
“It’s a class thing, while we’re there, you’ll hear the differences more clearly. Kind of like how people here in the States assume people with a Southern accent are less intelligent or wealthy. A cut-glass accent is more posh. You are treated differently, instantly, the moment someone hears you speak. Your upper-class status is declared without it needing to be said.”
He shrugs. “I did what I had to do. I worked for a woman doing odd jobs, and she had the most cut accent I had ever heard. I spent a lot of time with her, listening to her go on and on about her children and grandchildren and the war. Before long it became rote—I didn’t even have to think about it. It made for less issues with schoolmates and the teachers were much more helpful as well. Old habits die hard, unless I’m around you. You make it so I can’t even remember my name sometimes.”
I blush. He has no idea what the admission means to me.
“Which is why I felt so bad about Rebecca saying shit about you. I know what it’s like to try and hide who you are, the guilt, but knowing it’s what you need to do to get through the day.”
“But I don’t try and hide it.” Woah, no need to yell. I take a deep breath. “How am I hiding something when I’m not black? Because my father was Irish and pale as snow, my skin is nothing more than tan. My skin color isn’t even dark enough for most people to think I’m the Latina I am. Which is what Cuba falls under.”
“A part of me feels guilty sometimes, like I’m denying the label because I don’t want to be considered black but that’s not it. I understand there are people in America who proudly embraced the identity as black, but the way I was raised, how my grandparents were raised it wasn’t about the color of their skin, it was the country they came from.” I sigh as I remember past arguments with other minority friends I’ve had.
“My mom was Cuban. Her parents are Cuban and proud of that label. They never thought of themselves as black until they came to this country because it wasn’t a part of how people think in Cuba. Why is it such a big fucking deal to be defined by our skin color when it has nothing do with who we are?”
Ivan catches my hand and presses a kiss to my palm. His eyes are softer than I’ve ever seen them.
“I love Abuelo, but the man is insanely racist because he’s been so beaten down by being treated like crap for so many years for the color of his skin. He wasn’t always as bad as he is now, it got way worse when Abuela died and she wasn’t there to—I don’t know, reassure him. It’s so sad how hate keeps breeding hate.”
Sagging against him, it all comes out. “Then there’s the other guilt. I don’t have to deal with all the things my mom had to. It’s one of the reasons Abuelo was so demanding. For me and my mom and her brother, we all had to be better just to be called good for a black person.”
Ivan nods in understanding.
“Then there were times I think he resented me for not having to go through it, how easily I was accepted and liked. The difference between a white little girl and a black girl were playing out right in front of him and it hurt him. It’s one of the reasons I tried so hard to please him, so he would love me even though a part of him resented the color of my skin.”
Ivan hugs me close. “I want to talk to the man, and yet it’s the last thing I want to do.”
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“I don’t know, everything. Just thank you.”
Pulling back, his hand catches the back of my neck. “If you really want to thank me, you can climb on my cock and show me how grateful you are.”
The glitter in his black eyes hints at the laughter he’s holding in.
“I swear you are insatiable. Not happening.” I push off his lap. “Fine, at noon we go shopping. With Lydia?”
“Yes, with Lydia, since you liked her so much.”