with the beast inside there's nowhere we can hide

I noticed Lila as soon as I walked into Starbucks, she was sitting alone at a table, her gorgeous eyes staring at the untouched muffin in front of her. She looked really deep into her own thoughts but somehow she lifted her head as I made my way towards the counter only to look away a second later. Maybe I wasn't going crazy and she felt the pull I felt too. I ordered my coffee and headed to her table. "Hey eleven, what are you doing here all alone." I asked with a smile as I nodded at the empty chair opposite from hers, "Do you mind?"
She shook her head, "No, of course not." She said simply, the tone of her voice not as cheerful as usual and it was too bad. I liked how she always seemed so happy, mostly because her good mood was contagious and it was really easy to be around her.
"Is it bad?" I glanced at the muffin as I sipped my coffee, wondering what was going on in that pretty head of hers.

She blinked her gorgeous green eyes at me, it taking her a few seconds to understand what I was talking about. "Oh. No...I'm not that hungry anymore, that's all." She explained quietly.
"Uh." I said unintelligently as I leaned into her from across the table, studying her expression and noticing how really young she looked whenever she was upset. "What's wrong?"
She shrugged nonchalantly, "I'm thinking about quitting, I haven't made up my mind yet."
"You'll do great no matter what you decide." I said seriously since if there was something I was sure about was how good she was at both her job and her art.
"Are you still coming over for dinner?" Lila grinned and I winced even though it was forced.
"Are you still cooking it?" I asked, acting as if the thought alone was enough to make me sick. There were good chances that her food wouldn't be great, but I was actually surprised that she was willing to try anyway.
She nodded. "Yes, but I promise I'll eat it first to make sure it's not poisonous."
I laughed, always liking how she was able to make jokes out of nowhere and make me laugh a lot. "Then I'll be there." I smiled, finding myself actually looking forward to that. "Will you wear an apron?"
She nodded. "And heels." She winked.
I groaned as I pictured that in my head and what would come after dinner too. "Lil." I shook my head.
"Good visual?" She smirked.
"You're obsessed with visuals." I commented, taking a sip of my coffee as she nodded.
"Occupational hazzard." She winked and I laughed again. "Though when I picture you in the apron you're not wearing heels." She smirked wider.
I gave her an amused look. "Keep that image in your head, becacuse it'll never happen."
She gave me a dramatic sigh. "You always ruin my best ideas." She teased, finally breaking off a piece of her muffin and offering some to me.
I took a part off and set it in my mouth, both of us silent as we stared at each other for a few moments. I was enjoying that, it was really easy to be with her. It was hard enough to find a girl to have a conversation with but silence? It was even harder.
"I don't think you should quit." I said finally, changing the subject even if it was only in my head.
"Because you want to be able to see me at work?" She asked, joking.
I shrugged. It wasn't like I hadn't thought about it, but not having her around so much it could even be better. "You're great at your job. And you told me you never wanted your paintings to become work." I explained, remembering what she'd told me.
She nodded, "That's true."
I leaned my back against my chair, studying the serious expression on her face that didn't really fit her. "You don't have to decide now anyway, no one is kicking you out of Apple."
She looked at me through her lashed, her lips turning upwards into a small smile, "Since when you're so wise Trav?" She asked in a soft voice.
"You seem to forget how old I am an awful lot." I answered with a shrug, a smirk appearing on my own lips.
"This joke is getting old." She said and broke into a laugh, amused by her own words. F.uck she was too cute for her own good...for my own good.
"Hilarious Lil." I commented nonchalantly, shaking my head but I could still feel the smirk on my face.
She nodded and bit her lip before turning all serious again. What was with all the swings of mood today?! "My family's on my case though. They're pushing me to quit and it stresses me out." She admitted in a sigh, her honesty surprising me and sounding refreshing.
I raised one eyebrow slolwy. She was young, no doubts about that, sometimes naive even, but she was old enough to take her decisions on her own, it was her life and she had any right to live it however she wanted. "Your family sounds controlling." I said slowly, picking the words carefully even though I knew I Was right. I could still remember his brother giving me that awful show to scare me away. Ridiculous.
She shrugged, running a hand through her soft hair, "They want what's the best for me...I can't really blame them." She said back though she didn't sound too convincing, it was like she was trying to defend them because she had to.
"Because you can't tell what's the best for you on your own?" I asked, curious about what her answer would be.
"Apparently not. You know Reese ran a background check on you."
I choked on my coffee, setting it down and glaring. "What?!"
She nodded. "He and half the family came over for some kind of Travis Cole intervention." She shook her head. "Like I'm in over my head with you or something."
"He ran a background check on me?"
"Yeah, you know, basic financials, criminal record, college grades,....jobs."
"Is that even legal?"
She shrugged. "I don't know. What it is is ridiculous. Though I'm impressed you aced your art history class Sophmore year." She teased me.
I felt my lips twitch into a smile slightly before I went back to all buisness. "I don't like this Lila." I said seriously.
"I don't either. I don't know why I can't just live my life. If I want to be with you I'll be with you."
I blinked. She couldn't be with me because that option wasn't an option really. "We're not together." I stated.
She waved away that comment. "You know what I mean."
"Do I?" I pushed and watched her swallow before she took a moment to eat another bite of muffin.
"I know we're not together. I know what we are Trav."
I raised one eyebrow at her, trying not to overthink her words or the whole subject. Since we had started sleeping together I had never thought we would have ever gotten to the point where we would've needed to talk about it because for me we were just sleeping together. "What we're not." I pointed out.
She rolled her eyes, either because she was annoyed by what I was saying or because I even saying something on the matter. I wasn't crazy about that but I liked to keep things clear. "Same difference." She retorted flatly, even sighing. "Anyway, do you remember the painting of hands? The one you saw the sketch of?"
I blinked at her, taken aback not only because she was randomly changing the subject but she was bringing up one I wasn't comfortable with. I couldn't win in this conversation apparently. "Barely." I lied, since I had that one in my house and knew it by memory. It was a really powerful one.
"Oh okay." She paused, pouting a moment before cheering herself up again, "I'm thinking about making more of that type."
I listened to her, because I liked to, I liked to see how excited she got about her own art, I actually cared about what she said. It still didn't change a thing about us and for the first time I had the feeling that I was doing something wrong. I didn't want her to think this could be more than it was. "Lila." I cut her off, staring into her green eyes as I suddenly felt the urge of asking her a fundamental question. If she answered no, then I'd be in trouble. "Are you sleeping with someone other than me?"
Lila gave me a questioning look as if I was asking her how many heads I had. "My sex life isn't any of your business except when you're part of it Trav." She said instead, not in a rude way but with a note of finality in her tone. What the fuck?
"Lila." I narrowed my eyes on her, not liking her answer either her tone.
She folded her arms over her chest, leaning back against the booth and re-crossing her legs. "You made a point to correct me when I told you I knew what we are. We're not anything. So you don't get to ask me personal questions."
I considered arguing, but then again it'd be useless. She was just too stubborn and I didn't want to argue, after all her answer had been enough for me to know what to do. I ran my hand through my hair. "I think we should take a break." I said finally, swallowing as I ran my hand over his face, hating myself for many reasons.
She just blinked at me. "You can't break nothing Trav." She pointed out with a straight face."I'm serious Lila."
"If you don't want to fuck me anymore just man up and say it." She snapped. "Don't hide behind breaks because you think I need to be coddled."
"I don't want to fuck you anymore." I said back immediately, without even thinking twice. I couldn't think about that twice or I'd regret it. Truth was, f.ucking her was so great it was really too bad that I had to stop...but I had to. No matter how straight her face was or how her words didn't show any emotion, I knew better.
She blinked at me, looking actually taken aback, but then shook her head. "That's bulls.hit Travis." She said simply yet seriously, showing me a side of her personality that attracted me to her in first place.
I leaned back against my chair, looking at her, but the more I looked at her the more I knew I couldn't keep f.ucking her or I'd eventually get f.ucked myself and not in a good way. "I mean it. It's just pointless."
"So what if it's pointless? Isn't that what you wanted? Pointless meaningless sex?" She asked back, raising one eyebrow at me and looking like a block of ice which was about to break into pieces too. "You have it Trav, so stop overthinking this and worrying that I might want more because I don't."
I listened to her words and didn't cut her off, but only because I was trying to be polite. "I'm not going to change my mind." I said in monotone, never being good at talking. I usually didn't even bother to break things...I usually had nothing to break. "You don't even know what you're talking about Lila, your brothers are right...you better stay away from me."
"God you're worse than them." She retorted bitterly, her face finally showing some trace of emotion. She was looking at me like she hated me.
I shrugged nonchalantly, acting unaffected while I was beating myself over getting in this situation in first place. "If you say so."
"Well that sucks." Lila replied after what felt forever, smirking a little as she shrugged it off. "You could have at least threw me a goodbye fuck." She teased me, crossing her legs as she finished off the rest of her muffin like it was nothing. I was...I didn't even know how to explain it. This was a reaction I wasn't expecting at all.
"I'm sorry." I replied, beyond taken aback. It just didn't seem genuine, it was as if she was forcing it, like self-defense. Or I was just lucky and she meant everything.
She just shrugged. "I'll get over it." She winked and gathered her things, now looking like she was in a hurry and couldn't wait to go away. "But you're no longer invited to dinner. I'm not cooking for someone who's not going to at least go down on me afterwords."
I was tempted to smirk and tell her that I'd go down on her one last time, already kind of missing her delicious taste on my tongue but after all it wasn't a good idea. It was an awful one and I'd better stick to my original idea. "Lila." My voice had a hard edge to it, because I wasn't really liking how this was going. It was too weird and she didn't even seem the Lila I knew.
"That's my name." She smiled, but when she looked into my eyes something changed into her owns. On the bottom of those green gorgeous eyes I could see the real Lila and for a brief moment it was as if there was a connection between us, one made of unspoken words and emotions. I really had to push her away.
"You forgot your sketch book." I said, handing it off to her even if I was tempted to keep it to myself. I liked her sketches.
She swallowed, keeping her smile as she took it from me and set it in her bag. "Thanks." She stood up, slinging her bag on my shoulder and walking up to me, leaning down to kiss my cheek softly. "It's been good." She winked at me before standing up straight, taking a minute to check me out shamelessly.
That innocent kiss and the short distance had caused a whiff of her sweet scent to fill my nostrils and it kind of got to my head. "More than good." I said in a low tone, standing up myself and throwing a few bills on the table.
She opened her mouth then reclosed it. Then open it and reclosed it again, looking at me as if she wanted to say something but didn't have the heart to. "Where are you going?" She asked quietly.
I walked to the door with her by my side, knowing she'd follow me anywhere no matter what. Unfortunately, I didn't want to be followed anymore. "I have to go back to work too." I answered as we stepped out on the sidewalk.
"Right." She nodded and bit down on her lip, her smile fading no matter how hard she was trying to keep it in place. I just could see that it was forced.
I lifted her chin with one finger, forcing her to look at me before I pressed my lips against her forehead, "Have a nice day Lil." And with that, I walked away.