Chapter 12 #4
“You don’t know. Don’t presume to know,” he replied seriously. She could see his deep thoughts like he was writing them down on the lines of his creased forehead.
“If we fall in love, I want it to be because you’re happy.
I want it to be because you’ve tried your hardest not to, and you just can’t resist it.
I want you to not be able to exist without your thoughts wandering over to me.
I don’t want it to be out of desperation, Lauren.
Love out of desperation won’t last. It’s mean and aggressive and possessive. ”
Her face was in his hands again, and she decided then and there that he might as well cut them off and leave them with her because it was her favorite place to be.
Staring in his eyes felt like security. “I want you to love me because God places you here, not because grief forces you. And this…” Nyair blew out a breath of exasperation.
“I’d have to step down from so many things to do this. ”
She shut her eyes as her chest rose because he was rejecting her. He was about to take away her one source of relief.
“Why can’t we have both?” she asked, opening her eyes again.
“Because this is lust, Lauren. The way I want this again, this isn’t…”
“So, fall in love with me. It can’t be lust if it’s love,” Lauren reasoned. Or was she unreasonable? She couldn’t tell. All she knew was if she lost one more thing, she would lose it.
Nyair was lost in her stare. If only it was that easy. “You’re beautiful,” he complimented. He sighed. “So damn beautiful.”
“Let’s fall in love, Nyair,” Lauren said.
He pulled her close, holding her like she was a baby. She needed his heartbeat to calm her. Neither knew what they were getting themselves into, but it was too late to turn back. They would have to figure it out along the road to wherever they were going.
Lauren’s landline rang, and she frowned because only a few people had the number. Her mother. Demi and her son’s school. Whenever it rang, she knew it was an emergency.
“I’m sorry. I need to get that,” she said, regretfully breaking up a moment that she could have lived in forever.
She rushed to the nightstand and picked up the phone.
“Hello?”
“You have a call from the Genesee County Jail. To accept this call…”
She pressed pound before the automated voice could even finish because she knew it was Demi. It was the only person it could be. The worst-case scenario ran through her mind.
“Lo, I need you,” he said as the line connected.
“What the hell are you doing in jail?” she asked.
“I just need you to come get me, man. Day ain’t answering and…”
“I’m on my way,” she said. “Is there a bond?”
“Twenty-five hundred, and I can walk out tonight. Bring cash,” Demi said.
“Fine, hold tight.”
She hung up and turned to Nyair, who had begun to dress.
“I need to go. I have an emergency that I have to take care of…”
“Your husband, right?” Nyair asked.
“Yeah,” she said, then shook her head. “I mean, no. He’s my ex-husband, but it’s complicated. With what happened to DJ, it’s all so complicated.”
Nyair nodded. “I’ll see myself out and let you get to it.”
Lauren was moving around the room, pulling open drawers, throwing on sweats and a t-shirt as quickly as she could. Just the mention of him leaving froze her.
“Demi is not an issue for me, but he’s family, so I do have to go. You could stay?” she proposed.
“Picture that. Me laying up in your crib, Lo,” he chuckled. “I ain’t that type of man. I also ain’t worried about what a man before me did, cuz it ain’t gon’ compare to what I’m trying to do with you now. So go ahead and handle your business with your family.”
The worry lines faded from her forehead.
There was nothing like a confident man. Nyair didn’t form assumptions or insecurities about her dealings with Demi and she appreciated that.
Every exchange with this man was so refined.
He was just a grown-ass man, and she couldn’t handle anything less right now.
She didn’t want to go. She didn’t want to tap back into reality and remember her grief. Coming down off this sexual high would do that. Seeing Demi’s face would do that.
Nyair recognized the dilemma in her, and he pulled her into his space.
The kiss to her forehead was intimate. The one to her lips left no confusion.
He kissed her like it was his only form of communication, and he was dying to be understood.
Lauren wasn’t really into swapping spit with humans.
Demi had trained her not to even expect to.
For years, they just didn’t kiss at all, besides, the occasional peck of the lips.
Nyair kissed like he was born and bred in France, like it wasn’t just the precursor to fucking, but was a form of it all by itself.
He was seducing her, and it was working.
She couldn’t believe she was wet for him again.
“Good night,” he said, before walking out.
Lauren was so bothered that she had to freshen up again before she could leave. She rushed out the door and hopped in her car, headed to pick up her bothersome-ass baby daddy.
“On my motherfucking nerves,” she complained, battling the snow as she pulled out of her driveway.
She would have to brave the elements for 60 miles to get to him, but she couldn’t leave him on stuck.
It wasn’t a coincidence that he had been arrested the day of their son’s funeral.
She knew he was in emotional turmoil, and whatever he had done was a result of that.