Baller: A Bad Boy Romance (22 page)

Quinn

We hadn’t been together that long but I thought, I
really
thought, that by now I had a pretty good idea of who Dante Rock
was
.

We’d had a few interviews where he had shocked me with his honesty.

He had told me things that a lot of other people had no idea about. Our relationship… the one which I really didn’t know what to classify as anymore wasn’t old, but I felt like I had uncovered most things about the mysterious Dante Rock. I hadn’t really uncovered anything. He had volunteered that information, trusted me with it, which I was extremely grateful to him for doing.

Why was he still surprising me at every turn?

I didn’t
really
know what I was expecting when we got to his house. Of course, I thought it would be nice, but it was a lot nicer than I had expected. He looked like he cared a little about things like interior design and layout and decorating. Maybe it was his sister or mom who had helped him with it, but it didn’t matter. The space was still remarkable. It wasn’t all hard edges, with lots of cold stainless steel and dark woods. It was warm. It looked like a home.

The thing that had really gotten me, though, was the way he talked to his staff. He had a
team
working for him. I didn’t know why that surprised me when I saw them, but it did. Of course, he had people working for him. I guess it just took away from how solitary I thought he was in this big house, alone in the Hollywood Hills.

Even though they worked for him, he didn’t seem to treat them that way. He treated them like… really
well
. I didn’t think he was a slave driver or anything, but it just surprised me. Seeing the way he acted with people who he could have been a complete dick towards was refreshing because he wasn’t.

He was a guy whom it was easy to make assumptions about. When they were made, he didn’t really do that much to deny them. He didn’t really care that much—and that—depending on how you looked at it was a bad and a good thing. It was good to care about the impression you made on others because it was important that you acted in a way that made people want to respect you.

It was bad, however, because fuck everyone else. How much time were you really going to spend worrying about other people's feelings? It was a double-edged sword. Dante didn’t give a shit about what people thought and he just did him.

The guy who was arrogant and banged a different girl every night was Dante. The one who was kind to his staff and loved his family was Dante, too. It was different—depending on who he was around.

I didn’t go and act in meetings at work the way I would act when I was with my girlfriends, having brunch. You had to modulate yourself and adjust to different settings and people. It made sense.

I
loved
the Dante that I saw when we were alone. When we were having dinner in Houston, before the big bust up, he had been so… so nice. I had loved being in his company. He was still a little abrasive, but that was just the way that he was.

After the pool, we had gotten back into the house and made our way up, leaving a watery trail to his master bathroom. He had given me a repeat performance, having sex in the tub while it filled with hot water and the jets were going. He had let me top him again. The way he had done on the plane. We had come to bed after.

The trip between LA and Houston wasn’t that dramatic of a time difference, but Dante had spent the night in a holding cell. I didn’t think he had gotten much rest. I understood that he was tired. I was a little tired too, but I was buzzing from being alone with him. I was excited by the thought of spending time with him. What would we do? What did he
want
to do when he asked me to stay with him? Sex, of course, I figured that much, but it wasn’t like we were going to be fucking day in day out. We would be doing
other
things too—and I couldn’t wait to see what they were.

I heard a knock on the door.

Who was at the door this early? What time was it? I stretched my arms out and hit something hard. It wasn’t hard like the wall; it was warm, a body. I opened my eyes quickly, seeing Dante beside me. I realized slowly where I was.

Dante’s house.

I was thirsty and that was what had woken me up. It dawned on me that we were back in LA after taking a flight back from Houston.

I had wriggled free and pulled a t-shirt over my head, one I pulled out of Dante’s open suitcase. When I went to the door, I saw it was Daniella. She didn’t look down at the t-shirt and the lack of pants. She just smiled at me.

“Is everything alright, ma'am?” she asked.

“Oh, yes. Everything is fine. I just wanted to go down to the kitchen for something to drink.”

“Stay here and I will get you something. What would you like?”

“Oh no, Daniella, please. I wanted to go downstairs anyway. It's fine.”

The woman put up a little more resistance before she finally led me downstairs. She pulled a bottle of Pellegrino out of the fridge and set it on the counter for me, asking whether I wanted anything to eat or had laundry I wanted her to put through the machine for me.

I thanked her for her hospitality and told her that it was fine. All I wanted was the water.

Daniella was a short, sort of stout woman. She looked like she had kids who might have even been as old as I was.

“Daniella?” I asked, feeling nosy.

“Yes, ma'am?”

“How long have you been working with Dante?”

“About six years.”

“Do you like it?” I asked.

“He’s a good man, ma'am. He’s understanding, gives us days off. He helped pay for my daughter's tuition to go to college.”

“You don’t have to call me
ma'am
, Daniella. Just call me Quinn.”

“You’re Mr. Rock’s guest. He told us you were an important friend,” she said, smiling.
Had he
? An important friend? What
else
had he said about me?

I thanked Daniella and went back upstairs to the room. Dante was still asleep. I didn’t bother taking the shirt off. I just climbed back under the covers and lay my head on the pillow.

I looked at the man sleeping beside me. I knew a lot of women had been in this position, but I was going to enjoy it. There was nothing wrong with it, and it was just a waste of my time being jealous—because regardless of who else he had had in his bed,
I
was there now.

His face was calm as he slept. His seriousness sometimes made him look older than he was when he was awake. With his eyes closed and his face still, he looked his age, even a little younger. Sometimes, the intensity of his eyes made you want to look away when he looked at you. I wanted to touch his face, but I was afraid that I would wake him and I wouldn’t be able to keep staring at him the way I was…like a creep.

The way he talked about his past and the things that he had been through made him seem like he was such an old, gnarled angry man. He acted publically like there was nothing to him, but what he showed us. I could see it while he lay there sleeping.

His innocence.

He still had
some
. Despite what had happened in his life, he was still good and pure, some parts of him at least.

I wanted to kiss him right then, but I stopped myself, afraid to wake him and break the spell. I moved slowly to my bag and pulled my camera out. I just wanted to capture it, the Dante he was when he was alone and no one was looking.

I looked at him through the camera.

His eyes were closed, but his body moved. He silently shifted, stretched and I watched him open his eyes.

His face seemed to transform as I watched.

"What the fuck!" he roared.

I leaned back on my heels and looked at him.

"What's the matter?"

"The fuck are you doing with that camera? Turn it off!"

He was suddenly on his feet.

My skin felt clammy suddenly and I felt insecure. What had I done? I put the camera back in my purse and showed him my empty palms.

"It's gone."

"Get out," he spat. I looked up at him.

"What?"

"Out! Get the fuck out of my house! Leave!"

What?

What was going on? What did he mean? Why was he talking to me like this?

"Dante? What is going on? What...what did I do?"

"I swear to God, Quinn. Get your shit and get out. Do it before I call the cops and they can help you," he bellowed.

I felt like a child as he yelled at me. I felt scared by his anger. He looked so angry. He was pacing the room like a caged tiger, and his stance was erect and defensive.

I went to my bag and silently started packing. There wasn't that much to pack, I mostly had to get clothes onto my own body. I kept the shirt I was wearing on and just pulled on panties and pants because I didn't want him getting even madder than he was at me.

He had just woke up.

I had watched, literally watched him go from zero to one hundred—and there was no apparent reason why he was so mad. He just was. I wanted so badly to talk to him. To ask him what it was that I fucking did because I did something. I fucking did something.

You didn't go from having sex with someone to kicking them out with that much anger unless something was wrong.

"Don't fucking come back," I heard him say.

I turned and faced him.

"Dante?"

"What?" he shouted. "What! Why are you still here? Get the fuck out of my house! How many times do I have to ask you to leave?"

I had to give it one last try. The way he was looking at me and talking to me was making no sense. Why was he so mad?

"Dante—?"

"You aren't welcome here! See yourself the fuck out."

He turned and walked into the master ensuite bathroom, where we had been having sex not that long ago.

I grabbed my suitcase and purse and quickly left the room.

I closed the door behind me, and I immediately felt sick.

I wanted to go back in there and kiss him. I wanted to hold him, and I wanted him to tell me what had made him so mad.

How could I when it was apparently me that had made him that mad?

He hadn't stuttered. He had been perfectly clear.

I couldn't imagine his ire if he came back out of the bathroom and I was still there. The house was so big that if I wanted I could have remained inside it and still be so far away from where he was that he wouldn't have noticed.

It wasn't time to be childish.

I was being kicked out.

I went down the stairs and found Daniella in the kitchen. Her face was concerned.

"Ma’am, what's going on?"

"I... I'm not sure," I said honestly. "I'm leaving."

"Do you have a ride home?"

"No," I said awkwardly. A cascade of shame washed over me. How many of Dante's hookups had she had this conversation with? I felt like just another one of his hoes as Daniella called a taxi service for me.