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“I’d rather you just not be one.”
Bakari shook his head vehemently. “What if the truth is so fucking crazy that it changes how you see me? Hell, how anyone would see me.”
“You’re the first and only person I’ve ever told I had cancer. My family, best friend, nor does the man I promised to love forever knows. You even guessed that I’m still in love with my ex. That I’ve given you liberties with my body. Bakari, I let you fuck me like an animal outside, have sex with me the same night I thought you were already with another woman. And the other night, I openly rode you in a club where other people watched us. Bakari, trust me, nothing you will say will make me judge you harshly. Isn’t that the point of this experience anyway? To just be. To not give a damn about what others think.”
His jaw clenched tight, and his eyes flashed before he suddenly fell back on the bed, pulling me down with him. He covered his eyes with his forearm, and I propped my head on my elbow, waiting for him to speak.
“What I said about my brother is true. Our relationship has been complicated for years, even before Kameron. Then he had to bring her home for the family to meet her. As if I needed another reason to dislike Aaron.” Bakari crossed both arms over his eyes and took several deep breaths. “I fell in love with her from the moment we met the weekend I graduated from high school. I was only eighteen, and I often wonder if we never kissed, would I have fallen so hard. How was I supposed to know that one woman could steal my heart that young? And I haven’t been able to retrieve my heart after ten years. God knows I’ve tried.”
“In love with who?” Then realization dawned, and I popped up and looked down at him. He kept his eyes hidden from me. “Did your brother steal your woman?”
“She was never my woman. Always Aaron’s.” He sighed, “We’ve only kissed twice, and I haven’t seen her in almost ten years because she married my brother shortly after we met. Yet, I know.”
“Know what?” I whisper.
He removed his arms and sought my gaze. “That she’s the one.”
“Is that why despite how much we gel and that you haven’t bothered to talk to your woman at home, you won’t even consider us?”
He didn’t blink. “Yeah. Maybe if I never met Kameron, you and I could be good together. You’ve been through way too much to be with a man who can only offer some of himself.”
My heart literally ached at the certainty in his voice that he would never be able to love me or any woman completely. “How can you be so sure she’s the one for you when you’ve never dated or haven’t seen her in years? Or sure she even feels the same way?”
Bakari placed his hand on his chest. “I feel it here. I’ve dated many other women, and no one makes me feel like she still does. It’s like space and time don’t matter whenever I think of her. And I believe she does feel the same, or at least at one point she did, which is why she’s purposely avoided me too. We’re both protecting my brother.”
“So what? You never give yourself a chance to have real love? If it’s been ten years, she must be happy with him. Do they have children?”
“No. I see that as a sign that things aren’t as they seem because Kameron’s the kind of woman that would want children.”
“Unless she can’t have them. Fertility is an issue with a lot of black women.”
“Naw...she can have children if she wanted.”
“Do you know that to be a fact?”
He sighed deeply. “No. I guess I always pictured her with a baby or two.”
I looked down at him, and a slight smile he probably wasn’t even aware of crossed his features, and I accused, “You picture her with your baby. Bakari, she’s married and to your brother. It’s impossible.”
His smile erased so fast I almost believed I had imagined it. “This is why I’ve never told anyone about my feelings for Kameron. I hear the judgment, the censure in your whole being.”
I hit my palm with the back of my other hand. “Because you never cross those lines. I thought a couple of my friends’ men were handsome, but I stopped thinking of them in any other way because they were with my friends. I won’t allow attraction or feelings to grow. You allowed it.”
“I couldn’t help it.”
I bit out. “Bullshit. We always have a choice. We always have free will to make a choice even when we feel we don’t. You don’t have to love your brother’s wife.”
Bakari sat up and implored, “Listen to me, Nikki. Love captured my heart and won’t let go. I’ve accepted it, and I did make a choice. I haven’t seen her in years, although I’ve seen my brother quite a few times. I’m not trying to disrupt their lives or hurt myself by being around the two of them. I haven’t crossed the lines since they married. You’re only angry because you think my love for her keeps us apart.”
I reminded, “You just said it did.”
He curved his hands to my face. “Nikki, this time with you has been amazing. I let my guard down with you purposefully to see how it would feel to be with someone freely. To see if love was possible with a woman who seemed a perfect fit for me. Ironically, you and Kameron are the same age, and you’re serious like she is. This was my experience, too, and if we had more time, I would fall in love. But that phone call and hearing her voice reminded me that the heart wants what it wants. I can’t pretend otherwise.”
I couldn’t deny the truth, or at least the truth, as he perceived and believed it in his earnestness. He was in love with another woman, and I could do nothing about it. “Why did I meet you, go through this, if, in the end, we go our separate ways? I’m sorry I thought I could handle being this intimate and not be caught up.”
His thumb wiped a tear off my cheek that escaped. “We learn from every experience. Can you honestly say you’re going back to Ohio the same woman you were when you arrived?”
I leaned into his palm, gazing into his handsome face. “No.”
