The man who keeps coming back met me at LPM Dubai
I walked into LPM Dubai wearing a shade of red he’d once said reminded him of every forbidden thing in life he never dared to touch and the moment our eyes met from across the room I felt it again that pull that isn’t love and isn’t lust but lives somewhere in between and is only ever understood by those who meet behind curtains of candlelight and reservation codes and the waiter who greeted me with a nod knew he was always here before I arrived as if the anticipation was a quiet gift he wrapped for me each time and this evening the city outside was louder than usual but inside the restaurant it was as if nothing existed beyond the table where he sat with his watch undone and his jaw resting on the back of one hand just watching me the way only a man who never really stopped thinking about you does.
He didn’t speak at first and I didn’t ask why because silence between us had always said more than conversation ever could and while menus were passed and the scent of truffle butter and rosemary floated between us I knew he had come to feel something again something he only ever felt around me and never dared to ask for in the daylight of his other world and we talked about art and politics and my new book and his old regrets and I laughed in that half-whispered way I do when I’m trying to hide something and he watched my mouth as if it told a truth my words never could and while the wine disappeared slowly like time does when you want it to stay I kept noticing how his hand never moved far from mine and how he didn’t care who saw because at that moment nothing else really existed for either of us but the feel of familiarity and the scent of something still unfinished.
He told me about his business trip to Milan and how his wife had taken up yoga again and how none of it felt real until he saw my email pop up in his inbox with nothing but a one-word subject that said “Tonight?” and I smiled without apology because I knew what that word did to him and the look on his face told me that he had rehearsed this dinner in his mind a hundred times since the last one and each time it ended exactly like this with my legs crossed toward him and his jacket on the back of my chair and a world outside that neither of us cared to return to yet and he leaned in once between starters and told me quietly that he sometimes listens to the voice notes I sent him months ago just to remember what it feels like to be missed and I bit my lip not because I was nervous but because I wanted to say something soft and dangerous at the same time and didn’t want to say it too loud.
By the time dessert came he was no longer hungry and neither was I because the hunger wasn’t for food it was for the way his fingers brushed the inside of my wrist when he asked if I’d walk with him to the valet and for the way I already knew the answer but let him ask anyway because that was the ritual of us and I held his gaze while sipping the last of the rosé letting the moment stretch like silk before I nodded and rose and when he took my hand outside it was instinct not intention that made me follow and the cool breeze off the marina felt like a second skin wrapping around me as he opened the car door and waited for me to step inside and there was a silence again but this one was louder than before and sweeter too and it said everything we didn’t want to say about how this wasn’t goodbye and it never really had been.
He drove without saying where and I didn’t ask because part of me already knew and he parked somewhere quiet along Jumeirah where the skyline couldn’t see us and we sat in the car like two people who had just met but already knew how it would end and he asked me if I ever think about stopping and I said yes but never on nights like this because some stories don’t need endings just chapters and kisses and the promise that the next time will come when neither of us is ready but both of us want it and he reached over with that familiar gentleness and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear and whispered that I hadn’t changed at all and I let him believe it because sometimes men need to believe that the past hasn’t moved even when the rest of the world has and we stayed like that with the city glowing outside and the warmth of his breath near my neck until the moment passed and the spell broke but it would always return again.
When he dropped me back to the lobby I didn’t ask if he’d write I didn’t ask if I’d see him soon because some truths are better left unsaid and the way he looked at me as I walked away told me everything I needed to know and I knew I’d write about this night in the softness of memory with the clink of glass and the taste of figs still on my lips and I knew that this story wasn’t for anyone else not really but still I’d find myself sitting one day in a café somewhere in the city smiling quietly to myself when my phone lights up again with one word from him and I’ll know exactly what it means and what he wants and I’ll know that I will go.