His cocoa-brown orbs gobbled me up. It felt weird because I’d never seen him look that way before. And all I’d done was steal glances at him over the years. He’d just never noticed me. Not like he did at that moment, anyway. I knew he saw me as a grown woman and not as his kid sister’s sidekick. It lit something like a fire inside me, making my insides feel hot and crackling, like fireworks on the Fourth of July. The tiny scrap of thong material between my thighs grew wetter as his hand inched closer.
Slowly, he let his eyes travel back up to mine as he gently rubbed my pussy. “Do you know what you’re askin’ me?”
The feel of his hand against my pussy made me arch my chest forward as my thighs parted like the Red Sea. A moan slipped past my lips as I nodded, giving him all the answers he needed. It wasn’t just any man with his hand between my legs, making me drip like a faucet; it was Oakland Gray. It was like all my teenaged wet dreams had finally come to fruition. His mouth hungrily claimed mine before we climbed into the back seat of his black Honda Civic. I gulped when I saw the large, mushroom tip of his erection before it slowly disappeared into my airtight pussy and changed me forever.
“Lex? Earth to Lex. Hellloooooo?”
I zoned back into the present, shaking my head to see Liv snapping her fingers and waving her hand in the camera. “My bad, girl.”
She scrunched up her Nubian-shaped nose as if she smelled something foul. “What the hell just happened? Did you freeze?”
I huffed, grateful that she’d thrown me a bone. “Y-yeah. You know my connection gets spotty in this apartment sometimes,” I replied before my thoughts drifted off again.
It was one thing to sit across from Oak at the dinner table after all these years, but seeing him again after we . . . after he . . . It would be too much, wouldn’t it?
“I’ll let you go, girl. I’ll text you the dinner details before I start my shift at the hospital, okay?”
“Mm-hmm, okay,” I acknowledged, nodding absentmindedly before she ended the call.
I closed my eyes while leaning my head back against the couch and letting my thoughts run wild. How was it that over a decade had passed and I still managed to remember everything about him—from the way he used to smell to the first time he put his arm around me.I wonder if he still looks good. What will he say when he sees me? Will he think I look as good as I did the last time we saw each other?I mean, twelve years is a long time. Oh shit. What if he brings another woman with him?
“Damnit,” I hissed. “Pull it together, Lex. I’m the one getting married in three months. I shouldn’t even care.”
But just because I said the words out loud didn’t make them sound or feel true.
The hours passed, turning morning into early evening. I still hadn’t been able to untie all the knots in my stomach over the news of Oak coming back into the city after so long. Chicago was big, but knowing we’d be sharing the same air after over a decade had me feeling claustrophobic. But I knew Liv was counting on me to be there, so I had no choice but to show up and act as normal as possible.
My legs moved on autopilot, carrying me from my home office into the kitchen. No sooner than I put my hand on the refrigerator handle, my phone rang. By the ringtone alone, I knew it was my fiancé, Patrick.
“Hey, baby.” I greeted him with a forced smile after accepting his FaceTime call.
Patrick was the definition of handsome. He had soft, toffee-brown skin, jet-black hair, soft, neat curls on top of his head with a bald fade on the sides and back, and a gleaming white smile. A pair of thick, dark eyebrows sat over his chocolate-brown eyes, and a thick beard covered his squared jaw.
“There’s my beautiful fiancée. How are you?”
“I’m okay,” I lied.
“You sure? You look tired, baby.”
A huff slipped past my lips as I easily dropped my facade. “I didn’t sleep well again last night,” I admitted. “This wedding is stressing me the fuck out, baby. It’s literally turning from a dream to a nightmare right in front of my eyes.”
I decided not to go into too much detail, knowing it would only stress us both out.
“I’m sorry, baby. But we’re almost at the finish line. I know you’ll handle it.”
I scoffed. “Yeah, we’ll see about that. I still haven’t been able to convince your mother to stop adding guests at the last minute. I get your parents are paying for it, but I’d still like to have some sense of control overourwedding.”
“I’ll talk to her again, okay?”
“Thank you, baby. I hate feeling like I’m nagging all the time about every little thing. But the more people she invites from your side, the more I’m reminded that I don’t have any family that will be there aside from Liv and her parents.”
I was closer to Liv’s family than my own. Liv always had stability—the nice, two-parent, upper-middle-class household. Then there was me. My mom died when I was nine, and my dad worked long shifts, so I was on my own for dinner a lot of times. Soon enough, I was over to Liv’s house for dinner three to four nights a week.
My father passed away when I was nineteen, and I’d been alone in the world ever since. Losing a parent at any age was hard and traumatic, but it was even more difficult as a kid. Losing both of my parents left a void the size of a moon crater in my chest. Truthfully, I was scared to become a wife and, eventually, a mother. The only role model I had was Liv’s mom, Mama Gray.Marrying into Pat’s wealthy family was more than them footing the bill for our fairytale wedding. It was my chance to build a family of my own, adjacent to Patrick’s already successful bloodline.
“You’re not, baby. My family is about to be your family, so you’re not alone,” he assured me before setting the phone down so that all I could see was the ceiling.
“Where are you?”
