21. Chapter Twenty-One #2
But this is the man I remember. I’m getting another glimpse of the commanding, controlled version of him from Vegas. He is the type who doesn't just exist in a space, but bends it to his will. He stands there radiating a confidence that says he is absolutely sure about me.
However, I know better than to trust a sudden surge of certainty. All men are confident and sure when their dicks are hard.
He takes a step closer, not a limp in sight, and I instinctively lick my lips, my gaze anchored to… the wow.
When I was fifteen years old, at Vacation Bible School, I once met my church boyfriend in the back of the playground, and we kissed.
It was the first time I’d kissed someone with tongue and the first time I’d seen an erection.
I said, “Wow,” then too. Let’s just say this ‘wow’ doesn’t do the word itself justice.
It’s…massive and everything I remember from the countless times this man has had me all over this place.
Damn you, Chillmonger!
I can see a dark bloom of moisture pooling in the fabric of his sweatpants and it actually makes me feel better knowing I’m getting to him just as much. I wonder how long it’s been for him. I wonder if he’s been as starved for me as I have been for him.
The pull is a raw and forbidden thrum in my blood that makes me want to close the distance and finish what he’s starting.
On my knees.
My phone rings, and I have never been more grateful for a distraction. I am entirely too close to losing my resolve, and my bet, and giving this man exactly what he wants. Who am I kidding? It’s exactly what I want. What I crave. But it isn't just the sex or the passion. It is him.
My husband.
I clear my throat, trying to find my professional voice as I press the phone to my ear. “Aspen and Oak. How can we heal you?”
“Oh, girl. You don’t have to be so formal with me,” my mother’s voice booms through the line. And my nerves.
“But I do, Mother,” I object with a sarcastic tone. “This is my business and I’m at a client’s house.” I leave out the part where he was about to get a happy ending.
My mother still refuses to take my business venture seriously. She seems to find a way to downplay what I’m building and the condescension is starting to grate on my nerves.
Luca steps closer, his blatant erection be damned. “Is that Mom? Splendid! I’ve been dying to meet her.”
I grab the vacuum hose and swat him with it. “Get you and your dick fifty feet away from me!” I whisper-command.
“I’m sorry,” my mom continues, oblivious. “My big girl with her little business and whatnot.”
See? Little business.
“Mom? Did you need something? I really need to get back to work.”
“Don’t you be rushing me off the phone like I’m nobody!”
“Bertha,” I warn, using her fake name to signal my dwindling patience.
She sucks her teeth. “Clarissa says you haven't RSVP’d for her shower yet. Is everything alright? Can you no longer afford to go since you started this business? Do you need money for a ticket?”
I squeeze my eyes shut, feeling the heat of Luca’s presence and the antagonistic persistence of my mom. “I can pay for a ticket, Mom!”
“Then what is it? We used to do the Vineyard every year when you were kids. It’s going to be just like old times.”
It will not be like old times because Clarissa is a first-class bitch who brags about her beautiful Black life and her beautiful Black love every chance she gets. My mother, however, salivates over it.
“Did you break up with your boyfriend, honey? No one is thinking about that promise you and Clarissa made to be married by thirty anymore. Even if she did win that bet.”
I can’t believe she’d even bring that up.
When you’re raised in a Black church, at least the ones in my neighborhood, you’re fed the idea that becoming someone’s wife is the only thing that matters.
They would hold shut-ins and prophecy lines where you literally paid for a husband or fasted for forty days and forty nights just to find one.
It was treated as the natural order of things to marry young and throw your entire life away just to be called somebody’s Mrs.
I fell right in line back then, praying to God that I’d be married by thirty. Clarissa and I even made a pact about it. Needless to say, she made good on hers. By the time I hit thirty, my prayers had changed. Matured.
I didn’t necessarily lose the desire for a husband, I just lost the urgency. I wanted to be more for myself before I was forced to share who I am with someone else, or several other someones. My mother, clearly, has never made peace with that.
But as she continues to poke and prod at my reason for not wanting to go to this gender reveal, the petty, competitive fire in my chest finally boils over.
“Hey, so, Mom? I am going to Martha’s Vineyard. I will be bringing a date, and by the way, I’m already married! See you in a few weeks, K? Bye!”
I hang up with dramatic flair and immediately want to burst into tears. But I save those for my Stand-Ins. This was not at all how I planned on telling my mother about my marriage. Or my impending divorce.
I turn back to the shirtless, smirking man standing in the center of the room. I let out a rough breath and offer a look that is half-delirious and half-deadly.
“So. About this marriage,” I say, cautiously.
Luca smiles. “Yeah. About that.”