Denise
Itook a seat in the closest chair I could find once we made it to the hotel lobby.
My feet were killing me. I blamed my mom for why I wasn’t a sneakers kind of girl.
Heels and cute sandals were the only shoes she deemed feminine enough for my sister and me to wear.
At the moment, I was saying to hell with femininity.
I quickly removed my sandals and rubbed the bottoms of my feet.
“Give me.” Quincy motioned for my foot.
I propped my legs in his lap as his strong hands worked over both feet, making my eyes roll back in relief.
“I told you to pack some comfortable shoes, my baby.”
“These are my comfortable shoes,” I protested.
He shook his head and gave me that million-dollar smile I fell in love with the minute he tried to soften the blow of telling me the repairs on my car would cost more than my rent payment.
He was a mechanic when we first met, and had he not been such a fine one, he would’ve gotten the middle finger after telling me the price of the repairs.
Lucky for me, he found me just as attractive, so after the hottest, riskiest sex I’d ever had in the garage of that mechanic shop, my car was fixed for free.
I didn’t fuck him for the favor; I was just that attracted to him.
The offer to fix it for free didn’t even come until I was about to drive away and look for a more affordable option.
He swears up and down the only reason he offered to do it was because he wanted to see me again.
Though I suspected he felt the need to pay me back for the “bomb pussy” I put on him. His words, not mine.
Either way, that’s how our love story began.
At the time, I was a struggling writer, working random gigs just to pay the bills.
He was in the process of opening his own shop.
Now, five years later, he had a chain of auto body shops across Detroit and had retired me from those random jobs so I could write full time.
Sometimes I missed him coming home in his coveralls, his body painted with random streaks of oil, but he traded those coveralls in for suits, which were just as sexy.
I’d always be grateful for him. He was the reason my biggest dream came true.
He pushed me to publish my first novel, which ended up becoming a New York Times bestseller.
He was everything I could’ve hoped for in a husband.
Was our marriage perfect? No. No marriage is.
But we loved and supported each other, and we had so much fun together.
“Heyyy girl!”
The voice came from the group of women walking toward us after exiting the elevator. I recognized a couple of their faces from the conversations we’d had while standing in line earlier that day.
“Heyyyyy!” I responded, not really knowing which one of them I was responding to.
“That’s a good man, Savannah.” The closest one to us praised as she pointed toward Q, who was still massaging my feet.
“Don’t I know it.” I smiled lovingly at my husband.
Q smiled back as the three women took advantage of the empty seats across from us.
Two of them had stood in Jahquel J’s line with me.
We’d spent the whole time discussing which of the men from the Delgato Inferno Caselli universe was the most suitable to be a husband versus which one just put it down the best. Quincy had heard my perspective on this topic one too many times, so he had tuned us out.
He was probably extremely grateful I had people to discuss it with—mutuals who actually cared and could compare and contrast with me.
The third woman sitting with them was a new face. A gorgeous one, but she only looked up from her phone long enough to give us both a half smile. Whatever, or whoever, was on her phone clearly had her mind elsewhere.
“I’m so sorry. I’m terrible with names. Remind me again.”
“Raina,” the one who called Q a good man said.
“Gina,” the other one replied.
Everyone waited for the third woman’s name, but she hadn’t been tuned into the conversation enough to catch her cue. After a moment of silence, she looked up and realized all eyes were on her.
“I’m sorry. Nikki. I’m Nikki.”
Her voice was quite possibly the sexiest voice I’d ever heard. Smooth and sultry, it matched her eyes that were now locked onto mine. I almost wanted to ask if she did narration or modeling.
“I’m Denise, but please call me Niecy. This is my husband, Quincy.”
“Ladies.” He nodded, acknowledging them collectively.
“So how does everyone know each other?” I asked.
“Best friends since middle school,” Gina said proudly.
“Aww, cute! I wish I had a group of girlfriends. It seems fun. It’s just been me and my sister.”
“Well, come join us tonight! I know a bunch of people from the event are going to Blue Flame later.”
“Oh, I can’t…” I began, looking over at Quincy.
“You should go.” He cut me off.
“Really?”
I asked, trying not to sound too surprised.
My husband didn’t have me on a leash or anything, but we rarely hung out with people.
We both preferred each other’s company over anyone we knew, and we definitely didn’t separate while traveling.
But for some reason, I did feel like going out tonight.
These women seemed like they would be a really good time.
“Yeah, I brought my laptop so I could catch up on some work. Go have fun, baby.” He encouraged me.
“We’re not leaving for another couple of hours. We were heading back to our hotel to change and grab something to eat first,” Raina said.
“Perfect. I’d need to do the same. Where are you staying?” I asked.
“Just across the street at the Glenn Hotel.”
“Oh, us too!” I replied excitedly. It felt like it was meant to be.
We all made the short trek back to our hotel together, coordinating a time to meet back in the lobby. When we stepped onto the elevator, Q pushed the button for the third floor before asking everyone what floor they were on.
“Top floor for Gina and me,” Raina replied.
“I’m actually on three as well,” Nikki said.
“Nik doesn’t do heights,” Gina chimed in.
“Neither does Niecy. How funny.” Q smiled.
“I’m a big fan of gravity. I like my feet on the ground,” Nikki said.
“Same.” I agreed.
Then it happened again. Our eyes met, and I couldn’t make sense of why I was so mesmerized by her stare.
There was something ethereal about Nikki’s presence.
She was beautiful, with freshly twisted locs, velvet-brown skin, and an hourglass figure.
But more than her looks, she carried a beautiful aura—even if she had been visibly troubled by whatever was pulling at her attention through her phone.
The three of us stepped off on the third floor and made our way to our rooms, which just so happened to be right next to each other.
“I’ll knock on your door at 8:30?” she asked, sliding her key card into the door.
“Sounds good.” I responded, taking a second longer than I should have to watch her disappear into her room.