Page 24 of Double

“Do you really think we could make this marriage a . . . real thing? Like, with love and everything?”

“I don’t know.” His shoulders bounced up and down in a shrug. “I don’t think it’s a stretch.” He eyed me hungrily, and my cheeks burned again at the intensity. “I’m definitely attracted to you. I think you’re gorgeous.”

“Thank you. I think you’re very handsome.”

“Let’s keep getting to know each other and see where things go.”

“Okay.”

We made small talk until the food arrived. I took a bite of my smoked salmon and avocado toast. I hummed at the flavors as they burst pleasingly on my tongue. “So good.”

He grinned at me as he took in a forkful of his crab eggs Benedict.

“Next week, when you go back to work,” I began.

“Yeah?”

“Would I be able to go with you?”

His eyes widened momentarily before he schooled his expression.

“I would rather spend time hanging around you, watching you work. You know, seeing what you do for a living, rather than being at your house all by myself until you get home.”

“Our house.”

I gave him a pointed look. “It’s generous of you to say that, Double, but that’s your house. There is nothing in that house that reflects me or my taste.” I continued quickly before he thought I was complaining or something. “Not that there should be. It’s your house. I just happened to come along.”

He cocked his head to the side. “You wanna sell it and get something that we pick out together?”

My mouth fell open. “What?”

“We can get a new house, Sweetheart.”

“Why would we do that? Your house is perfectly fine. It’s a really nice house.”

“But like you said”—he chewed and swallowed his bite—“it’s not your house. You’re my wife, not my visitor or my property.”

I didn’t speak for a long minute. My life hadn’t been filled with instances where people were accommodating to me. It had actually been filled with the reverse. There were millions of situations where my father or others figured out what I wanted and strove to make sure I got the exact opposite. “We can circle back to that,” I said finally, even though the idea of selling the house was far-fetched in my opinion. “Next week.”

“Yeah, you can come with me. I have an office, but I do the majority of my work in the field.”

The fact that he said I could go to work with him released a lot of the anxiety I was feeling. I attacked the rest of my food with vigor.

After breakfast, I thought we would go back to the truck. Instead, we walked. The street the restaurant was on was quaint. There were several stores and businesses with inviting window displays and cute names. I didn’t even bother to ask where we were going, because it really didn’t matter. I enjoyed the shining of the sun, the crispness of the air, and the feel of my hand resting inside of his. A few businesses down from the restaurant, he stopped walking at a large wooden door with a few cutouts of beveled glass.

He rang a doorbell, and soon, a buzz alerted us that access had been granted. Double pulled the heavy door open for me. When I stepped inside, I was surprised to find that we were in a jewelry shop. I looked up at him, waiting for him to offer an explanation.

“I’m not a dude who likes loose ends. I realized that I left one glaring-ass loose end, and I ain’t like Compton being the one to point it out. If you’re gonna be going to work with me, you definitely can’t be showing up with a naked-ass finger.”

I grinned to myself. He wanted to make sure everybody knew that I was his wife. Maybe he really did want this marriage to work out.

A pretty, middle-aged, Black woman walked out from behind the counter and met us in the middle of the store. She smiled at him. “Double. Antonius said you were stopping by. It’s good to see you.”

He caught her up in a hug. “It’s good to see you, too.”

“Is this her?” she asked once they broke the hug, and she took me in.

“Yeah. Aunt Summer, this is my wife, Tinsley.”