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“You should see your face.” She claps and cackles. “I love Jason, but shit, I’d drop him like a hot potato if Graham Davis was professing his love to me.”
“Don’t talk about him like he’s an object. He’s a person. I know he loves me. I know he cares. But what if the draw of that life is too hard for him to resist? I mean, why is Nanette here?” I throw my hands up in exasperation.
“Listen, I can’t convince you of anything you don’t want to believe. You can decide that you don’t want to give him the chance to break your heart and go on with your life. But, that won’t stop you from loving him. It will only deprive you of having all of the delicious sweet that he’ll give you along with the inevitable hurt.”
“Why does it have to be inevitable?” I ask miserably.
“Darling, you of all people … should know this,” she says gently, squeezing me to soften the blow of her words.
“I do.” I think of Artemis and my father dying. Of my mother’s retreat. I know all too well.
“But would you trade a minute of the time you had with them if it meant you could spend the rest of your life without the pain of missing them?”
I gaze at Reena’s face and marvel how this woman who pushed her way into my life has become such an essential part of it. She’s been more than a friend. She’s been my sister, my mother, my confessor.
“I love you,” I tell her.
“Me, too. But if you ruin the best chance I’ll ever have of meeting Omar Solomon, I’m going to fucking disown you.”
“I wouldn’t think of it,” I tell her. “Good girl. Now, let’s get back to shopping. That crone killed my vibe. I need to make sure I’m dressed to kill tomorrow.”
Decide
Graham
“Graham, hey. Glad I caught you,” Lucas, or Loser as I like to think of him, sticks his Gucci loafer clad foot into the door of the elevator right before it closed completely. The double chrome doors pop back open, and he steps in. The shit-eating grin on his face irritates me, but I smile and say, “Yeah, lucky chance.”
I just started to forget that he existed. Apollo never mentions him. We see each other several times a week, and there hadn’t been a night that I’d called that she wasn’t free to meet me for dinner or drinks. Then, tonight, I invited her to have drinks, and she responds that she has a headache. I decided to stop by and check on her. It hadn’t occurred to me that she wouldn’t be alone.
Did she invite him over?
“You know, I’ve been hoping I would bump into you. Did Apollo mention that I wanted to get on your calendar?” His smile is so self-satisfied.
“Is Apollo expecting you?” I ask him.
His smile falters when I ignore his question. “Uh, I live here.”
I feel a flash of ice cold dread in my gut and have to remember my media training to keep my mouth from falling open.
“Excuse me? You live with … Apollo?” I ask slowly.
He
laughs and shakes his head. “No, no … across the hall.” My knees nearly buckle with relief, and I feel a release of tension that I hadn’t realized was there. The elevator stops, and the doors open right away.
“She’s never mentioned it,” I say as we step off the elevator.
He sticks his hands in his pockets and rocks on his heels with that self-satisfied smirk still on his face.
“She’s a good girl, that one. Yeah, we did live together. But she ended things a couple months ago. It was her place first, so, I moved out.” Then he leans in, his smile lascivious. “I’m trying to get back in there. In the meantime, I’m right across the hall to scratch any itches that she may have.” He winks and throws his head back and laughs. It’s a high-pitched sound that sounds like a donkey dying that nearly drowns out the sudden rush of blood I hear in my ears.
When I grab him by the lapels of his jacket and shove him into the wall, it dies abruptly.
“What the fuck did you say?” I put my face close to his.
He holds his hands up, his eyes widen with alarm and dart from left to right before they finally meet mine. All the color has leeched out his already too pale face. His mouth opens and closes like a fish gasping for air.
“Well? Are you going to repeat it or pretend I misheard you?” I ask him, my anger growing with each second.
