All She Ever Wanted Was a Real One

Chapter 1

Three months before the big day.

I paced the living room of my two-bedroom apartment, ready to pull out all my hair as I argued with the caterer.

Catering prices in today’s economy were already high as the good Lord’s balls, and she insisted on being difficult with food allergies for a fraction of my wedding guests.

I’d given her a headcount of two hundred guests, and I couldn’t believe how much she was trying to overcharge us at the last minute for a few vegetarian and vegan options.

“Are you telling me that in these current times, when millions of people have food allergies, you’re deciding to be difficult by raising the price after we’ve already gone to contract?

” I probed, hand gripping the phone. “All I’m asking is for a handful of options without meat or dairy. This is literally ridiculous.”

With all the stress of planning my dream wedding, I already felt as baldheaded as Angelica’s Cynthia doll after putting out these sorts of fires. The caterer yapped her bullshit response, and I groaned while massaging my temple.

“Yes, I understand that, but I—if you would just—you know what, can I call you back? I’m getting another call,” I stated before clicking over to answer for Olivia, my best friend since . . . well, forever. I huffed loudly into the receiver. “Hey, Liv. Wassup?”

“Bad time?”

“The worst time. You caught me right in the middle of a deathmatch with the caterer on the other line.”

“Oooh, no bueno. Want me to call you back?”

I huffed before folding my body onto the couch. “No. It’s fine, girl. Fuck her. I need a break from all this wedding shit anyway.”

“Good, that means I can FaceTime you.”

Before I could object, I saw my reflection pop up on my screen and accepted her FaceTime call. Once it connected, Liv’s face filled the screen. She had smooth, milk chocolate skin, a round face, almond-shaped cocoa-brown eyes, and full lush lips.

“Hey,” I greeted her with a soft smile.

She flashed her gleaming white teeth into the camera, cheesing hard before she downturned her thick, plucked brows. “I say this out of love, but you look like the Dollar Tree version of my friend. Where is the real Lex, and what time will she be back?”

I huffed before flinging my head back against the couch and pushing out a frustrated sigh.

“Ugh, girl. This wedding shit is dog walking my ass all up and down the street. I hate the fact that our wedding planner was forced to quit because of my bridezilla of a mother-in-law, and now I’m stuck doing all this shit by myself. ”

“What’s going on?”

My eyes rolled skyward. “The better question is what’s not going on.

For one, the caterer is trying to overcharge us for a few vegetarian and vegan options.

His mom, God bless her ridged little heart, keeps adding last-minute people to the fucking guest list like she’s trying to sell out a goddamn baseball stadium, which is making my ass itch.

But I guess I can’t complain too much. She and his stepfather are the ones footing the bill,” I admitted.

Liv frowned. “Damn, girl. Sounds like you’re in need of a Gray family dinner,” she suggested.

The sound of it alone made a nostalgic smile come to my face. I hadn’t sat down for a traditional Gray family dinner in years. “That would be so clutch right about now.”

“Then I’m here to grant your wish because that’s what I called about, to invite you to dinner tomorrow at my parents’ house.”

“What’s the occasion?” I quizzed as my arched brows turned inward. “I literally can’t remember the last time we all sat down together.”

She flipped her long, thick jet-black hair over her shoulder before looking into the camera. “Oak’s coming home.”

My brows lurched up my forehead. Oakland Gray—her older brother, who was in the Navy and once had the power to twist my insides like a pretzel—was coming home?

I hadn’t spoken his name in over a decade and hadn’t laid eyes on him since I rode with his family to drop him off at the airport for basic training.

As far as I knew, he’d spent the majority of his time out at sea and was unable to call home too often.

My head snapped up immediately as I swallowed the lump in my throat, willing myself to speak, but only one word spilled out. “What?”

“Yeah. He’s finally getting out of the Navy and coming back home to Chicago.”

“W-wow. How long has it been since he left?”

“Twelve years,” she answered while setting the phone down on her dresser to slip her blue work scrubs over her petite, hourglass frame.

“Yeah, wow. Time really does fly, huh?”

“Sure does.” She agreed with a nod.

Liv had been my best friend for twenty years, ever since our first day of kindergarten.

She dragged me home after school one day, and I’d been an unofficial member of the Gray family ever since.

Over the years, she’d become my free therapist, my sidekick, my partner in crime, my shoulder to cry on, my unofficial healthcare provider, and the keeper of most of my secrets.

Because I’d known her for over half my life, that meant I knew Oak, too, who was five years our senior.

There weren’t sparks the first time I saw Oakland.

In fact, that didn’t happen until the summer before high school.

I fell hard and fast like a plane falling out of the sky.

I was fourteen, and he was nineteen, and he’d become the main character in all my naughty fantasies.

I kept my crush a secret, never saying anything to anyone, not even Liv, who knew me like the back of her hand.

But I was ashamed to say that my secretiveness ran much deeper than a teenage crush.

So much time had passed, so why was I so nervous to see him again?

Maybe it was because of the secret I’d been holding onto since the night I graduated high school.

Liv always thought I snuck off to go to my boyfriend Vernon’s graduation party.

I did. Only, I didn’t stay there. Oak pulled up on me walking out after a fight and forced me to get in his car, or he’d call and tell my father where I was.

He should’ve taken me home. He even threatened to.

Then I told him the reason behind my fight with Vernon.

That I couldn’t give myself to him the way he wanted because there was only one man I wanted to take my virginity.

Then I put his hand on my bare thigh and told him I wanted it to be him.

The world stopped, and so did his car. Neither of us moved for a second.

I don’t even think I breathed. Then his hand started to snake up the warmth of my thigh, and I didn’t stop him.

His cocoa-brown orbs gobbled me up. It felt weird because I’d never seen him look that way before.

And all I’d done was steal glances at him over the years.

He’d just never noticed me. Not like he did at that moment, anyway.

I knew he saw me as a grown woman and not as his kid sister’s sidekick.

It lit something like a fire inside me, making my insides feel hot and crackling, like fireworks on the Fourth of July.

The tiny scrap of thong material between my thighs grew wetter as his hand inched closer.

Slowly, he let his eyes travel back up to mine as he gently rubbed my pussy. “Do you know what you’re askin’ me?”

The feel of his hand against my pussy made me arch my chest forward as my thighs parted like the Red Sea.

A moan slipped past my lips as I nodded, giving him all the answers he needed.

It wasn’t just any man with his hand between my legs, making me drip like a faucet; it was Oakland Gray.

It was like all my teenaged wet dreams had finally come to fruition.

His mouth hungrily claimed mine before we climbed into the back seat of his black Honda Civic.

I gulped when I saw the large, mushroom tip of his erection before it slowly disappeared into my airtight pussy and changed me forever.

“Lex? Earth to Lex. Hellloooooo?”

I zoned back into the present, shaking my head to see Liv snapping her fingers and waving her hand in the camera. “My bad, girl.”

She scrunched up her Nubian-shaped nose as if she smelled something foul. “What the hell just happened? Did you freeze?”

I huffed, grateful that she’d thrown me a bone. “Y-yeah. You know my connection gets spotty in this apartment sometimes,” I replied before my thoughts drifted off again.

It was one thing to sit across from Oak at the dinner table after all these years, but seeing him again after we . . . after he . . . It would be too much, wouldn’t it?

“I’ll let you go, girl. I’ll text you the dinner details before I start my shift at the hospital, okay?”

“Mm-hmm, okay,” I acknowledged, nodding absentmindedly before she ended the call.

I closed my eyes while leaning my head back against the couch and letting my thoughts run wild.

How was it that over a decade had passed and I still managed to remember everything about him—from the way he used to smell to the first time he put his arm around me.

I wonder if he still looks good. What will he say when he sees me?

Will he think I look as good as I did the last time we saw each other?

I mean, twelve years is a long time. Oh shit.

What if he brings another woman with him?

“Damnit,” I hissed. “Pull it together, Lex. I’m the one getting married in three months. I shouldn’t even care.”

But just because I said the words out loud didn’t make them sound or feel true.

The hours passed, turning morning into early evening.

I still hadn’t been able to untie all the knots in my stomach over the news of Oak coming back into the city after so long.

Chicago was big, but knowing we’d be sharing the same air after over a decade had me feeling claustrophobic.

But I knew Liv was counting on me to be there, so I had no choice but to show up and act as normal as possible.