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“What’d you end up doing?”
“I’m a writer.”
“Anything I would have read?”
“Oh, absolutely. I had this one blockbuster travel blog that was optioned for an online commercial and aired, like all over YouTube. I’m a really big deal.”
I snicker. “So no? I wouldn’t have read any of your stuff is what you’re saying.”
“Unless you like to travel to obscure locales on shoestring budgets, then no.” He grimaces, pressing his broad shoulders deeper into the cushions behind him. “Not exactly what my creative writing professors envisioned for me, but I’m making a living. Barely.”
“I know all about barely making a living. I mean, Trey earns a lot more than I do, as he tells me every chance he gets.”
“Excuse me for saying so, but he sounds like a real asshole who doesn’t deserve a classy lady like you.”
“How do you know I’m classy?”
“I actually don’t. Just what I came up with instead of something awkward like I think you’re one of the prettiest girls I’ve ever seen.” His steady, heated stare makes my face burn, and not for the first time, I thank God for melanin hiding blushing cheeks.
“Are you flirting with me at a swing party?”
“Is it working?”
I don’t tell him it definitely is working because that would make me as crazy as he is.
“Um . . .so are you and your brother close?” I ask, hoping to redirect the conversation somewhere other than me and the irrational, growing attraction I have for a total stranger who isn’t even here to swing, but I suspect . . .could get it.
“I thought so, but apparently he and Kelly have been running a den of debauchery all these years right under my nose.” He narrows his eyes into a pseudo-outraged glare. “And never invited me!”
I laugh, as he knew I would, and feel my own shoulders lower, sink into the softness of the cushions.
“I’m not sure I’ll be eating off any of their surfaces anytime soon,” he goes on, full lips spreading to show his teeth. “There’s no telling what’s happening on that kitchen table right now.”
He has a small gap between his two front teeth, and for some reason, my mind drifts to inserting my tongue right there in that tiny space in an otherwise perfect smile.
“You keep staring at my lips like that,” he says, his voice dipping darker, going rougher. “I’ll assume you want to kiss me.”
My eyes snap to his face, and I try to smile, but his expression has sobered. His gaze, flagrantly assessing, wanting, snatches my breath. My breasts rise and fall with the labor of pulling air in my lungs under the heat of his regard. I try to see myself through his eyes; to figure out what is provoking the quicksilver lust apparent in his stare.
“You have a thing for curvy women? For big girls?” I ask, flicking a brow up. “For Black girls? For teachers? For—”
“I apparently have a thing for you,” he murmurs, sitting up and resting his elbows on his knees. He drags his stare from the natural curls piled atop my head, over the red dress clinging to my body and down to my best pair of heels. I agonized over what to wear tonight. What message do you want to send at your first swing party? The fact that I’m here should have said it all, but it didn’t apparently because here I am in the office with a stranger I’m not having sex with, while Trey is God knows where fucking two.
And that strikes me as really unfair.
Maybe I misjudged this night. I thought it was for Trey. I was doing it to save my marriage. I was doing it to convince Trey somehow that we are worth fighting for. That there is hope. Well tonight has shown me there isn’t hope. At least not with him, but I did come prepared to fuck a stranger. I did come prepared to be open and available. But ever since we arrived, I filtered this night through my failure to make Trey happy. Through my inability to please him. Through my insecurity of not being enough for him, when honestly? He isn’t enough for me. Not by a long shot and not in a long time. He’s gotten everything his way our entire marriage. I relocated to Chicago because of his job. I turned down demanding responsibilities so we would have more time for each other. Only problem is he didn’t do the same, so he’s never available for me.
Who am I?
What have I allowed him to take from me these last five years?
And how do I get it back?
“Would you like to fuck me, Harper?”
As soon as the words leave my mouth, I want to Hoover them back down my throat. The audacity, the nerve, the unabashed confidence . . . .to vocalize what I want. Where has that been? I let that son of a bitch take my voice when it used to be my hallmark. It used to be clarion in my head and in the world. I made myself heard in my boisterous family of six. I spoke out in meetings at work, representing my colleague’s concerns to the teacher’s union. I protested, marched, organized in the streets whenever the need arose because that’s who I am. And Trey, somehow with his tight sweaters and his small mind and his UDE—Underwhelming Dick Energy— made me forget that inside the walls of my own home.
