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I shrugged. “We might have been. If she hadn’t turned me down.”
Xi’s demeanor transitioned from playful to deadly as the severity of my situation set in.
“She did what?”
Snorting, I replied. “Don’t act like you care. You’ve been against this shit from day one.”
Xi viciously pointed her index finger at me. “Don’t do that. I may not have thought Kinsley was right for you, but I would never be happy about you being hurt. Why did she say no?”
“It doesn’t matter,” I avoided the subject in lieu of reliving what happened. “It’s a wrap.”
“Well,” Xi released a heavy sigh. “Look on the bright side. At least you two didn’t live together. You get to avoid the awkward moment of one of you having to move out.”
Swirling the liquid in my glass, I hesitated for a moment before murmuring, “Yeah.”
It didn’t register until Xi pointed it out, but Kinsley’s and my reluctance to move in together should have been another red flag that things between us weren’t where they were supposed to be.
“Jamie,” Xi gazed at me sympathetically. “I—”
Thankfully, whatever she was about to say was interrupted by chaos breaking out at the opposite end of the bar. I couldn’t make out what was happening due to the screaming back and forth, but from the look of the terrified woman standing between two men who looked ready to tear each other’s heads off, someone had gotten caught up in some bullshit.
“I knew the night was going too damn smoothly,” Xi huffed. “I’ll be back.”
“Welp,” I muttered. “At least I’m not the only one having a fucked-up night. Happy Valentine’s Day.”
Chapter Three
NYX
“You’re lying,” Raelynn snickered, sipping from her wine glass.
Typically, we didn’t get together so early in the week, or in the day, to drink and catch up, but it was much needed after the night I’d had. I’d just finished filling her in on how my work shift morphed into an episode of Cheaters when one of the patrons got caught creeping.
“Bitch, I wish,” Rolling my eyes, shifting the sausage in the skillet. “Between the date and work, it was like I went from Monday Night Raw to Friday Night Smackdown.”
“How did her boyfriend even find her?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea. Maybe she had her location on. Either way, Dumb Dumb was not where she said she would be, and her man damn near tore up the entire bar over her and ole boy she was creeping with. It was too much. Once we got everything calmed down, I called it a night and brought my ass home.”
“I told you, you shouldn’t have bothered going in anyway. And I hope you cussed your little co-worker friend out too.”
“Cuss her out for what? She said she didn’t know he was seeing anyone.”
“And you believe her?” Rae asked as I tossed a colorful pepper blend into the pan.
Swiftly stirring, I replied, “I don’t have a reason not to.”
“See,” she kissed her teeth. “That’s the problem. You always want to give someone the benefit of the doubt. How the hell could she not know what her homeboy has going on?”
“Friends don’t always tell each other everything,” I pointed out. “And from what I gathered when Darien and Timberly were tussling, they were in a situationship that she wanted more out of.”
“It’s that always the case?”
“Well, the police pulled up last night while I was leaving, so I know she’s regretting acting a damn fool,” I muttered, all too familiar with that particular regret.
“Let’s just be thankful that all of this happened before you invested any time into him or started to build a relati—”
“Don’t you even speak that word in this house,” I cut across Rae, reaching for the cutting board full of sliced cabbage, the final ingredient in one of my favorite quick meals. “Whatever message God has been trying to send me was received. I’m done with men, dating, and relationships.” Dumping the cabbage into the pan, I released a deep sigh. “Had I listened to my first mind, I wouldn’t be in this position anyway.”
