9. AMAI #2
I repeated it to myself like a mantra as I walked upstairs to my bedroom.
This is the right move.
This is control.
This is logic.
I stripped off my shirt and tossed it in the hamper.
Checked my watch.
It was late, but I needed to shower, needed to clear my head, needed to?—
My phone buzzed.
I looked down.
A text from Truth.
Thank you again for last night. I’m okay. Dr. Chen was very professional.
I stared at the message.
Simple.
Grateful.
Professional.
Exactly what it should be.
My thumb hovered over the keyboard.
I wanted to ask how she was feeling.
I wanted to ask if the swelling had gone down.
I wanted to ask if she needed anything—groceries, medicine, someone to check on her tomorrow.
I wanted to text back immediately like I had last night when she called me panicking about the injection site.
I wanted to?—
I silenced my phone.
Set it face-down on the dresser.
Walked into the bathroom and turned the shower on as hot as it would go.
I stood under the spray and told myself I was doing the right thing.
Alexis was the answer.
Alexis was safe.
Alexis wouldn’t make me defend her to my father.
Alexis wouldn’t make me send my personal physician to the Seventh Ward at midnight.
Alexis wouldn’t make me feel like I was losing control of everything I’d spent years building.
But as I stood there, water pounding against my shoulders, all I could think about was Truth.
The way she’d looked at me in the car after I picked her up from the bus stop—humiliated, covered in Fanta, but still defiant.
The way she’d fought beside me in the street without hesitation.
The way her voice had shaken on the phone last night when she thought she’d done something wrong.
The way she’d signed the contract without flinching, even though she had to know what kind of man I was.
I turned the water off.
Dried off.
Got dressed in silence.
My phone was still face-down on the dresser.
Still silent.
I picked it up.
Stared at Truth’s message again.
Then I opened my closet and started pulling out clothes for tonight.
A suit. Expensive but not flashy. The kind of thing you wore to impress a woman like Alexis St. John.
I laid it out on the bed.
Told myself this was the right move.
Told myself I was choosing logic over feeling.
Told myself I could compartmentalize Truth back into her role and move forward with someone appropriate.
But deep down—in the part of me I didn’t want to acknowledge—I knew the truth.
I was lying to myself.
And this decision was going to cost me something I wasn’t ready to lose.
I pulled up to Alexis’s house at exactly 5:30.
Punctuality mattered. It showed respect, intention, and that you valued someone’s time.
Her place was in Gentilly—a renovated shotgun double with fresh paint and a small front garden that looked like someone actually cared for it. Not wealthy, but comfortable. Respectable. The kind of house a Loyola professor could afford on her salary.
I got out of the car and walked up the steps.
Before I could knock, the door opened.
And Alexis stepped out.
She was stunning.
All white—a fitted dress that hugged her curves without being obvious about it, stopping just above her knees.
The fabric looked expensive, something with a subtle texture that caught the light.
Her hair was pulled back in a low bun, elegant and simple.
Gold hoops in her ears. A delicate gold chain at her throat.
She smiled when she saw me.
“Right on time,” she said.
“Always.”
I opened the passenger door for her, and she slid into the seat with practiced grace. The scent of her perfume—something floral and warm, jasmine maybe—filled the car as I closed her door and walked around to the driver’s side.
When I got in, she was already looking at me.
“You clean up nice,” she said, her voice teasing but genuine.
“So do you.”
I started the engine and pulled away from the curb.
The silence that settled between us wasn’t awkward.
It was charged.
I could feel her eyes on me as I drove—not nervous or uncertain, but curious. Interested. The kind of attention that made the air feel heavier, made you aware of every breath, every movement.
“So, where are we going?” she asked after a few blocks.
“Cochon,” I said. “You been?”
“Once. For a colleague’s birthday.” She shifted slightly in her seat, angling toward me. “It’s good. I didn’t expect you to pick something so… casual.”
“You thought I’d take you somewhere stuffy?”
“Maybe.” She smiled. “You have that look.”
“What look?”
“The kind that says you’re used to getting exactly what you want.”
I glanced at her.
She was still smiling, but there was something sharp in her eyes. Something that said she wasn’t intimidated by me—and that she liked the challenge.
“And what if I am?” I asked.
“Then I guess we’ll see if you can handle someone who doesn’t give it to you easily.”
The heat in the car spiked.
I kept my eyes on the road, but I could feel the shift—the way the conversation had moved from polite to something else entirely.
This wasn’t the woman I’d met at my mother’s house.
That Alexis had been pleasant, polite, careful. The kind of woman who knew how to navigate a room full of people who were judging her.
This Alexis was different.
Confident. Direct. Unafraid.
And the chemistry between us—the pull I’d felt at dinner with my parents but dismissed as polite attraction—was suddenly undeniable.
“You always this bold?” I asked.
“Only when I’m interested.”
I didn’t respond to that.
Couldn’t.
Because the truth was, I hadn’t expected this.
I’d called Alexis because she was supposed to be safe. A boundary. A way to keep Truth at a professional distance and remind myself that I had options, that I wasn’t spiraling into something I couldn’t control.
But sitting here with Alexis—feeling the heat of her attention, the way she looked at me like she knew exactly what she wanted—I realized I’d miscalculated.
This wasn’t simple.
Nothing about this was simple.
Dinner was easy.
Too easy.
We sat at a corner table, the restaurant loud and warm around us, and talked about everything—her work at Loyola, the students she loved and the ones who drove her crazy, the book she was writing about Creole identity in post-Katrina New Orleans.
She was smart. Funny. The kind of woman who could hold a conversation without needing me to carry it, who challenged me without making it feel like a fight.
And she was beautiful.
God, she was beautiful.
The candlelight caught the gold in her skin, made her eyes look darker, warmer. She laughed at something I said—something I didn’t even remember saying—and the sound of it made something in my chest tighten.
I wanted her.
That was the problem.
I wanted her in a way that had nothing to do with logic or boundaries or keeping Truth at a distance.
I wanted her because she was here, present, real. Because she looked at me like I was a man worth knowing, not a contract or a transaction or a means to an end.
“You’re quiet,” she said, breaking into my thoughts.
I blinked. “Just thinking.”
“About?”
“How much I’m enjoying this.”
She smiled. “Good. I was starting to think I was boring you.”
“Not even close.”
The waiter came by to clear our plates, and Alexis ordered dessert—bread pudding with whiskey sauce. I ordered coffee.
When the waiter left, she leaned forward slightly, her elbows on the table.
“Can I ask you something?” she said.
“Go ahead.”
“Why now?”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Your mother’s been trying to set us up for months,” she said. “And you’ve been… polite. But distant. And then suddenly you call me out of nowhere and ask me to dinner.” She tilted her head. “So, what changed?”
I should have lied.
Should have said something easy, something that would keep the evening light and uncomplicated.
But I didn’t.
“I needed a reminder,” I said.
“Of what?”
“That there are other options.”
Her expression didn’t change, but something flickered in her eyes—understanding, maybe. Or recognition.
“Other options,” she repeated slowly. “For what?”
I didn’t answer.
She studied me for a long moment, then leaned back in her chair.
“You’re complicated, Amai Landry,” she said.
“Is that a problem?”
“No.” She smiled. “I like complicated.”
The gallery was in the Warehouse District—a converted industrial space with exposed brick and high ceilings, filled with abstract paintings that looked like controlled chaos.
Alexis moved through the space with ease, stopping in front of each piece, reading the plaques and asking questions I didn’t have answers to.
I stayed close.
Closer than I needed to.
At one point, she stopped in front of a massive canvas—reds and blacks swirling together like fire and smoke—and I stepped up behind her.
My chest brushed her back.
She didn’t move away.
I let my hands settle on her waist, light but deliberate, and felt her breath catch.
“What do you think?” she asked, her voice quieter.
“About the painting?”
“Yeah.”
I leaned in slightly, my mouth close to her ear.
“I think it’s angry,” I said. “And beautiful.”
She turned her head just enough that I could see her profile, the curve of her jaw, the way her lips parted slightly.
“Like you?” she asked.
I didn’t answer.
Just let my breath warm the nape of her neck, let the scent of her perfume—jasmine and something darker, richer—fill my lungs.
Her body relaxed against mine.
And for a moment, I let myself believe this could work.
That I could stand here with Alexis, hold her like this, and forget about Truth sitting in her mama’s kitchen with a contract that was supposed to keep everything clean.
But even as I thought it, I knew it was a lie.
Because Truth was there.
In the back of my mind.
In the tightness in my chest.
In the way I kept checking my phone even though I’d silenced it hours ago.
Then, Alexis turned in my arms.
Her eyes locked on mine—dark, intense, burning with something I hadn’t seen at dinner.
She grabbed my hand.
“Come with me,” she said.