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"99! One hundred! We've reached a new world record folks!" Dexter shouted, dropping Cody from where he'd been holding him up. Immediately starting to tickle the six-year-old.
"Stop!" Cody giggled, squirming and writhing in ways that only a small child seemed to be able to.
"Can't stop! Must tickle!" Dexter responded, Cody shrieked with laughter. "I've gotta hear the magic word-!"
"I've got your magic word right here; chocolate chip!" Rita called, walking in with a plate of warm and delicious smelling cookies.
"Cookies!" Cody perked up, the tickle monster completely forgotten.
"Homemade," Astor said beaming with pride, Rita must've let her help make them.
"Alright, each of you gets two cookies and you get to eat them in your room!"
"But you never let us eat in our room," Astor responded, and Dexter had a feeling he knew what Rita had planned for this.
"I want some alone time with Dexter," Rita smiled at her daughter.
"Are you gonna kiss him?" Astor asked, curious as what Dexter assumed was the average for an eight-year-old.
"Ew!" Cody screamed, ever the believer in cooties.
"Actually, I am." Rita chuckled. And Dexter was starting to feel all the more trapped.
"Okay," Astor said, taking her cookies and marching off.
"That's icky!" Cody said before scrambling after his sister to enjoy his sweets.
Dexter found himself laughing with Rita. He liked kids.
Soon enough he was on his second choc-chip masterpiece. Rita was watching him.
"I wuv cookies!" he decided on, mouth still full of the evidence of his claim.
"You're snarfing them down like the cookie monster!" Rita giggled, her face full of that soft joy that Dexter liked so much about her. The way it was so honest and evident in her expressions, from the sweet close-lipped smile to the developing crow's feet around her eyes.
"This is not snarfing, this is eating with enthusiasm," he defended.
"Alright, how was your day?"
"Well, I had court, talking about blood, then a crime scene and more blood,"
"I don't know you do it..." Rita sighed, her face falling a little with sympathy. She was so caring.
"Blood is.." my life "-my job."
Lately, being with Rita surprisingly nice. Surprising because usually he preferred being alone, but now he finding that he liked to be with her more and more.
Too bad that whenever that happens with a woman, when Dexter felt comfortable with her, it goes wrong. They want more, and if he can't give it they leave. And if he tried, he would mess it up and they leave.
So far it always ends with sex. The "next level" that he just couldn't seem to provide.
"Dexter?" Rita asks, she looks worried. He must've zoned out for too long. Did she say something that he missed?
"Hmm?"
"Is something wrong?"
"What do you mean?" his throat is starting to feel dry. Could she tell? Tell how he felt about sex, the general confusion on why people would do it and the foreboding sense of doom it cast on all his relationships.
"You looked quite surprised the other day, when I called you over," she started.
"When you were wearing the lingerie?" he asked, she'd blindsided him then. He never expected sexual situations, he couldn't read the signals. What kind of man freezes up more when his girlfriend wears lace than when a severed head gets chucked at his car?
"Yea," she paused, and doomed-to-be-alone Dexter braced for the worst. "Was I going to fast for you?"
What? That was not where he thought this was going.
"You're not mad?" He asked, not verbally answering her question. She can already tell the answer, anyway.
"Why would I be mad?"
"I'm not the only decent man left in the world," he breathed, Rita was damaged. That was one of the reasons he liked her, she made him feel less broken, less alone. "Maybe I'm just as anxious about having sex as you are," Harry could forgive him for this, he didn't know what it was like to be so alone and empty.
"Are you?" she looks more upset now.
"All of my past relationships ended on the subject of sex, either I didn't want to have sex and it was the deal-breaker, or I went along and I couldn't be vulnerable enough for them,"
"Vulnerable?"
"I'm scared that if we have sex, either I won't be able to be open and you'll be upset or if I can be open you'll see how damaged I am and you want to be with me anymore," he hadn't talked to anyone so frankly since Harry Morgan died thirteen years prior. Was that his heart beating out of his chest? Why did he feel like such scum just by telling Rita the truth? Why did he feel like he was letting her down? "Either way I don't want you to leave me,"
"Leave you?" Rita asked, "I definitely can't do that now, that I've found the one man in the world who understands how I feel about sex,"
"I thought you wanted to have sex?" he asked.
"Yes, a little, but mostly I want to move on from my life, from Paul, to feel like my body doesn't belong to him after all he's done to it," there are tears in the corners of her eyes and Dexter wished, desperately, that he could be granted the knowledge of how to comfort her.
She starts talking again before he gets a chance, "I thought you were waiting for me, so I thought you might be getting impatient with the lack of sex," she laughed a little, "Dexter, I think we're perfectly matched for each other,"
"Perfectly broken for each other," he whispered, Rita nodded. Her gaze is boring through him but it's so gentle, so caring. (It's beautiful).
"Perfectly broken to help each other pick up the pieces and heal," she finishes. And it's the most beautiful thing she's said.
She can't fix him, and he can't fix her, but together they can be broken and cared for. Together they could heal, and Dexter thinks that healing is worth a shot. (And better than that, he wants it).
And it seems he won't be needing to get Deb to chaperone them after all.