Chapter 4
four
RYLEE
“Am I the asshole?” Rylee asked, lowering her mimosa to the table with a soft clink. “Because really hear me out on this.”
Rylee’s friend Parker pursed her lips while her other friend Nadia sipped her drink and focused in on Rylee.
“So, boom,” Rylee started, turning to face her friends in her chair. “I know I should be happy, right? This is what I wanted and what I thought I couldn’t have but got anyway, right?”
“Mmm-hmm,” Parker hummed with a nod.
“Right,” Rylee continued. “And I’m not trying to sound ungrateful or whatever, but he just keeps popping up. He popped up again last Saturday saying he wanted to take breakfast off my to-dos and make it himself...”
Nadia peeked over at Parker at the same time Parker looked to Nadia.
“And you know…” Rylee cleared her throat. “I know how it sounds, but really see it a different way.”
“Well, shit, friend, I hope where we’re going with this gets bad at some point,” Nadia started. “Because yes, you seeming like the asshole so far. Yes.”
Parker giggled.
“The kids,” Rylee began this time, tapping the table, rattling the glasses a little. “I’m worried about Nova and LJ.”
Her friends’ brows wrinkled.
“They get so damn excited when they see him and don’t ever want him to leave to go home. LJ done called the man Dad because he loves him so much.”
The quiet part to her rant was that Rylee wondered what that would mean for the man who should’ve had that place in LJ’s heart.
Her son had never met his father, so she feared Xander was slowly taking that place, erasing the memories Rylee had intentionally planted to fill Lennox’s absence.
Would those memories she worked so hard to make matter remain if she and Xander kept going?
Nadia kissed her teeth and raised her hand just as their waiter was walking past. “Can I please get another glass? And feel free to go light on the orange juice and heavy on the champagne because my friend here is getting on my damn nerves.”
Rylee gasped.
“I’ll take that same mix too,” Parker echoed. “And for the same reason.”
Their waiter chuckled. “Right away. I’ll be back in a few with your refills.”
“You hoes,” Rylee uttered low, making her friends burst into laughter.
It was Brunch Sunday for the ladies. A once-in-a-while occurrence that hadn’t happened since last summer.
Between their jobs and Rylee juggling her business and her grief support group with motherhood, the only way these ladies had managed to catch up had been in group chats and FaceTimes between appointments.
That Sunday, they promised they’d meet up, even if only for an hour. Now, three hours and nearly five mimosas later, Rylee finally felt comfortable enough to get off her chest what she’d been holding in for months…
That Xander was amazing, and his amazingness was starting to make her worry.
“He made pancakes… again,” Rylee added once they were alone. “With custom pancake shapes. And the syrup he brought… I didn’t even know they had that kind of syrup—”
“My love,” Nadia cut in, scooting to the edge of her seat.
Over her shoulder, and through the thick pane glass window, the New York City skyline beyond the East River reflected the winter sunlight off the several glass fixtures that shaped the landscape.
“Maybe you’ve forgotten what dating is like out here, and I feel it’s my obligation to give you a quick reminder. ”
“Hello!” Parker added.
“But before I do that, let’s recap what you’ve told us this afternoon.
” Nadia held up her hand and started using her fingers to count off.
“The man cooked for your kids and didn’t leave you with the dishes, cleaning them himself.
The children love him so much that they would prefer he stay instead of leave, every time. Is that correct so far?”
Rylee sighed, tossing her braids off her shoulder and reluctantly nodded.
“He loves you, caters to you, is mindful of your heart and your needs,” Nadia added. “And though you won’t confirm, I can tell by the way you are glowing, he’s taking care of you in bed.”
Rylee rolled her eyes. “Would you get to the damn point, please!”
“Sure. Rylee?” Nadia placed a hand on Rylee’s hand. “What you have given us are not problems. What you have explained to us is the answer to a gahdamn prayer.”
“Okay!” Parker shouted, tossing back the last of her mimosa as the server brought their refills. “A prayer I’d like written on paper, word for word, bar for bar, because my ass need some grace and guidance out here. Shit.”
“Thank you! And that brings me to my original point,” Nadia jumped back in.
“I’m a marketing exec and I had to make a burner account to find a halfway decent man on the damn app I work for.
Me! Girl, dating out here, at least for me, is awful.
Really, really awful, which I know you already know, Rylee. ”
“I do,” Rylee mumbled.
“I mean,” Parker chimed in. “And if it ever did slip your mind, you could always just remember that you were the same one who got dumped by email once upon a time.”
Rylee blinked hard. “Oh! So the mimosas got your lips loose now? Girl, you better find something safer to do, Parker, ‘cause this ain’t it.”
Parker laughed. “I’m not trying to trigger, just reminding you of something you may have forgotten.”
Rylee sucked her teeth. “Now how would I forget something like that, Parker?!”
Parker motioned to Rylee. “How could you be here complaining about an amazing man?”
Rylee sighed once more and sat back in her seat.
She couldn’t help but feel no one understood the position she was in… not even her close girlfriends.
Because yes, Xander was great. Amazing. But he challenged her norm.
A norm she worked really hard to get to.
The normal that had her best friend and father to her children’s memory locked in place, and his spot never to be filled.
But here was Xander, not only filling the spot but making her and her kids happy.
And it was becoming a new normal, one she feared she’d forget Lennox in.
Or worse, possibly leave him behind to truly be in.
The mimosa buzz was warm in her chest, but the ache underneath refused to lift.
She poked at her food, her appetite long gone.
“Sometimes…” Rylee shared low, pausing to twist her lips to one side, taking a breath. She mindlessly pushed around her leftover chicken and waffles with her fork. “Sometimes I can’t help but to think about what Lennox would say.”
Those wrinkled brows belonging to her friends suddenly relaxed.
“I just… I know he’s watching. He used to always tell me that tired ass line of when the clouds part and the sun’s rays rain down on me...”
She stopped to smile to herself, her chest aching just a little more with that memory.
“I wonder if he’d be okay with it. If he’d like Xander.”
The table was quiet, her friends listening.
It was the quietest they’d been since they arrived several hours ago.
“Like I know he’d like him.” She smiled to herself, lifting her attention and only realizing she was crying when a tear escaped her watering eyes.
“Xander would probably have been the first guy Lennox ever approved of.”
The ladies laughed softly.
“But I just…” She swiped a finger beneath her eyes, shrugged, and sat back in her seat. “Wonder. And that’s literally all I can do. You know?”
Nadia scooted her chair closer to Rylee and took her hand. “Lennox is probably up there silently thanking Xander for not letting you crumble… if we’re keeping it real, Rylee.”
Parker nodded, picking up the napkin to dab at Rylee’s eyes.
Rylee sniffed back her tears, gently taking the napkin from Parker to continue drying her eyes herself.
“And for real, Rylee,” Nadia continued. “You’re still honoring him. You’re raising your children to know who he is. Reminding them of how amazing their dad was. But babe, you have to understand that you are allowed to keep living.”
“Yes.” Parker nodded. “And you’re allowed to not feel guilty about that. Because that is the last thing Lennox would want. I don’t know too much, but I know that much.”
Rylee nodded too, really wanting to believe that.
Xander was exactly what she wanted but believed she wouldn’t have.
And because she believed she couldn’t have it, she stopped wanting it… only for it to show up to her with ease.
Maybe too easily?
The abundance of good things had made Rylee suspicious… and curious about finding out when the next shoe would drop.
The conversation didn’t resolve anything for Rylee, but it did make it clear that she had been pushing Xander away… and it had been hard for her to do.
Maybe I am making it harder than it has to be, she thought to herself.
“Okay, okay,” Nadia voiced, drying her eyes and sniffing back her tears. “We gotta lighten things back up. We can’t be ruining our mascara like this.”
Parker smiled, and Rylee laughed through her tears.
“Let’s make a toast to the man who won’t give up on our girl…” Nadia said, raising her glass, Rylee and Parker joining her. “Even when she makes it a damn Olympic sport with no damn medal to show for it.”
Rylee rolled her eyes but laughed along with Parker.
She met her glass with her friends in a toast, and she flashed her signature winning smile… but deep down, her warring feelings still chimed louder than the clink of their glasses.
Later that evening, just as Rylee was straightening up the brownstone’s living room, she heard her doorbell ring followed by a knock on the door.
It was a few minutes to 9 p.m. and she wasn’t expecting anyone.
But considering how things had been as of late, she knew who it was.
Xander.
She shut her eyes and inhaled a deep breath. Glanced at her children playing with their Legos on the living room’s area rug before making her way to the front door.
She’d planned to put the children to sleep after vacuuming, so a part of her was feeling some kind of way about Xander popping up… yet, again.