Mine

Chapter 1

I love you.

We need to talk.

It’s not you; it’s me.

Those common phrases were known to evoke emotion and increase anxiety. I now knew another three word phrase that had the power to make a man speechless as he squirmed in his seat— What are we ?

Normally, I would go with the flow of time spent with a man, but things with Houston were…

different. He treated me like I was his and he was mine, but we hadn’t committed to each other yet.

That would have been the typical situation-ship except for one thing—Houston didn’t want me dating anyone else.

In my younger, na?ve days, I would have confused his possession for love.

Now, I knew that wasn’t the case. I knew a man could want to possess you simply because he didn’t want anyone else to have you, and it would have nothing to do with love. So what was it?

What were we?

How did he truly feel about me?

What did he want from me?

Instead of driving myself crazy trying to figure it out, I decided to ask Houston his intentions with me.

As I stared at him, waiting for an answer, I realized his silence said it all.

A quiet chuckle escaped me as I checked the time on my timepiece. The Ferragamo watch was a gift from my ex. He said it was to remind me that we had all the time in the world. Our expiration date came quicker than he expected when I found him on a date with another man.

“I’m gonna go,” I announced, standing.

When he didn’t stand to leave as well, I stared down at him as my head tilted.

We were sitting on the side of my bed talking after I finished getting ready for tonight.

My sister wanted to do a double date with her fiancé, and initially, Houston agreed.

Now that he’d heard one other couple was coming, he had reservations.

I realized he wasn’t going to bother to come after I got out the shower and found him still in my bed.

Me asking him why he was no longer coming led to that dreaded question of our relationship status, and now, I regretted asking.

Not because I no longer wanted the answer, but because trying to get it had ruined my mood.

“Get out,” I demanded softly. “I don’t want you here when I get back.”

Sucking his teeth, Houston wrapped his hand around my wrist and used it to tug me down onto his lap.

“Presly…”

“I want you to leave, Houston.”

“Why?”

“There’s no reason for you to be here.”

With a scoff, Houston looked around my room, as if the space was foreign to him. “Why not? It wouldn’t be the first time I was here without you.”

“Yeah, but I’m still confused as to why you aren’t coming with me. We’re supposed to be going on a date.”

“A double date,” he clarified. “Oh, wait. A triple date.”

“And what’s the problem with that? It’s not like we haven’t hung out with my sister and her man before.”

“Yeah but, I just don’t want to, so I’m not going to.” Gently, Houston pushed me off his lap and grabbed his clothes off the bench in front of the bed.

“So the reason you are making me go and be the fifth wheel after you agreed to coming with me is because you just don’t want to?”

Houston released a long sigh and ran his hand down his face. “Yeah. You shouldn’t want me to do something I don’t want to do. My energy gon’ be off, then I’ma have to hear your mouth about that.”

“Or, you could just have good energy seeing as you’re spending time with your girl. Or whoever the hell I am to you. This means a lot to me. My sister is about to marry this man and leave the city with him. I need to spend as much time with them as possible.”

“I’m not stopping you from doing that. I’m just saying I’m not going to do it with you.”

“Fine.”

I was over the conversation and him, so I went into the bathroom and covered myself with my YSL perfume in preparation to head out. By the time I was done, Houston was fully dressed and slipping into his shoes. I waited until he was done to leave my room with him following behind.

I tried to tell myself I was overreacting.

That this wasn’t a sign of him not being a good partner.

That this didn’t mean I couldn’t depend on him.

That this didn’t prove he was inconsiderate.

Incapable of doing something for me even if he didn’t want to.

That this didn’t prove I wasn’t a priority to him.

I tried to tell myself none of those things were true, but as I pulled my BMW out of my assigned parking space, I realized how hard I was working to turn those red flags pink.

When Houston called me, I sent it to voicemail.

At this point, I wasn’t sure there was anything else for us to discuss.

Principle was important to me. For him, he was simply skipping out on a group date.

For me, his absence showed me I couldn’t depend on him, and right now… I didn’t like how that felt.

For the entire drive to Fleming’s, I questioned if now was the time for me to cut Houston off.

Since we weren’t in a committed relationship, there was no reason for me to tolerate things that made me unhappy or uncomfortable.

In no rush to get out, I called my only consistent friend Autumn.

We never really talked on the phone unless we were making plans to go out, and I liked it that way.

I was a loner by nature, and Autumn was the same way.

Though we may not have talked and texted, we enjoyed each other’s presence and caught up on life when we did get together once or twice a month.

“Hey, girl,” she answered, slightly out of breath.

“Hey. Did I catch you at a bad time?”

“I’m on the treadmill. What’s up?”

“I’m at this dinner with Paisley and I was gonna see if you could come but—”

The other line beeped, causing me to pull the phone away from my ear to look and see who was calling me. I was fifteen minutes early, so it couldn’t have been my sister. At the sight of the picture of me and Houston that I had saved for his contact, my eyes rolled.

“Let me call you back, Autumn.”

“Okay.”

After switching over to Houston, I greeted him with, “Yes?”

“I’m here.”

My heart dropped. “Where?”

“The restaurant, Presly. Where did you park?”

“Oh. You didn’t have to come. It’s clear you didn’t want to.”

“Yeah, well… I don’t want you mad at me. Plus I’m hungry so…”

Gritting my teeth didn’t stop my smile from spreading. Somehow, just when I was ready to cut Houston loose, he seemed to always have a way to tether himself to me even tighter.

After Dinner

When Houston asked me to follow him to the store after dinner, I wasn’t sure what he was up to.

He came to my car holding red roses and my favorite snack—grapes and lemonade.

After giving me the items, he kissed me and said, “I’m sorry I made you mad earlier.

You know I’m an only child and I’m spoiled.

I ain’t used to putting somebody other than my mama first. I’m working on it though. ”

A hard exhale escaped me. I was tired of that being his excuse for the past ten months.

True, he was a spoiled mama’s boy. However, he was thirty-two years old.

I knew he was two years younger than me, but I wasn’t expecting the age difference to make him seem so immature at times.

Or maybe it wasn’t immaturity. Maybe it was just…

a man acting out who was used to having his way.

Either way, I didn’t like that shit—at all .

I gave him credit for making amends with changed behavior though.

Problem was, the changed behavior didn’t always last.

“You forgive me?” Houston confirmed before kissing me again.

“Yes.”

“Good. Let’s go back to your place.”

We did, and he continued his efforts to get back on my good side by eating my pussy until all my energy and cum were drained. Then, he made his way to the opposite side of my bed, head buried in his phone, while I watched a couple of movies until I fell asleep.