Can't Let Go - A Contemporary BWWM Romance (12 page)

“She’s
just not a nice person,” he said. “I think she’s let her local celebrity status
go to her head. I was just trying to make conversation.”

It
made sense, though again, I wasn’t sure I was buying it. Kevin always had a
perfectly logical explanation for everything, but I didn’t know him well enough
to know if it was all a bunch of hot air. I had no choice but to file it away
for future reference and believe him for the time being.

As
we hurried to the parking garage, I heard some giggling behind us. I whirled
around to see Antoine and Ayla, walking hand in hand and laughing just a mere
ten or fifteen steps or so behind us. They must have left at the same time as
us. It was definitely a consensus between both sets of couples that no one
wanted to be there together.

Kevin
and I walked in silence until we reached the elevator to the parking garage. It
was only a matter of time before Antoine and Ayla caught up to us.

“Great,”
Kevin mumbled under his breath as they approached the elevator. “Going up?”

Ayla
shot him a dirty look, like he was some sort of idiot, and oblivious Antoine
nodded.

The
four of us crowded into the elevator and rode it to the top of the parking
garage in pure silence. As we filed out one by one, I couldn’t help but notice Antoine’s
car parked a few spots down from where we were parked.

Geez, we just can’t get away from
them, can we?
I huffed silently.

I
watched from the corner of my eye as they climbed into Antoine’s old Jeep and
listened as it refused to start. The engine turned over several times, but
nothing came of it.

Kevin
gripped his steering wheel and banged his head against it. I’d never seen him
act that way.

“What’s
wrong?” I asked.

“As
an officer of the law, I’m required to offer my assistance,” he said.

I
shrugged. “Okay, that’s nice, so do it.” It was the right thing to do
regardless of how we felt about them.

“I
know they won’t take it,” he said. “
She
won’t take it.”

“Offer
it anyway. They say no, and then we can be on our way,” I said. “Easy enough.”

Kevin
stepped out of his car and walked over to them. I watched from afar as Antoine
seemed a little flustered and embarrassed and Ayla looked annoyed.

“Can
I help you guys?” Kevin said as he approached Antoine’s window. “Need a jump?”

Antoine
climbed out and popped his hood. He’d had that Jeep since long before we ever
got together. It was easily ten years old, but he loved it to pieces. He had
always vowed never to get rid of it until it was absolutely dead.

“Antoine,”
Ayla whined. “I told you to get rid of this thing. We’re going car shopping
first thing next Saturday.”

Antoine
said nothing as he inspected random things under the hood and checked fluids
and who knows what else. He was a smart guy, but he was never that great with
mechanics. His talents were always best utilized for computers and video games.
The guy hated to get his hands dirty.

“Would
you like a jump?” I heard Kevin ask them once again.

“I
think Antoine’s got it under control,” Ayla said to Kevin. From far away, I
could hear the irritation in her voice. “Antoine, I’m calling triple A.”

She
raised her cell phone to her ear and waived her hand towards Kevin to leave.

He
turned back towards me, shrugged, and made his way back to his car.

“She’s
so freaking rude,” I snipped as he got back in. “What’s her problem?”

“No
clue,” Kevin said before reaching down and turning on the radio.

Exiting
the parking garage felt like some sort of maze, but several minutes later we
made it to the ground level and were back on the city streets of Harrisville.
Kevin was quiet, almost too quiet, as we drove back to our neck of the woods.

“Thanks
for coming with me tonight,” I said as I playfully rubbed his thigh. “I know it
wasn’t exciting. Or fun.”

Kevin
said nothing.

“I
appreciate it,” I continued. I just wanted him to say something. Anything.

I
glanced over at him and he shrugged his shoulders, still saying nothing.

“Can
I just say something?” I asked. I was growing more and more irritated at his
silence. I didn’t deserve it. I’d been nothing but sweet to him all night, at
least in my mind.

“What
the hell is going on between you and Ayla?” I asked. “Why does she seem so
annoyed with you? I’ve never known anyone to treat an acquaintance that way.”

“Beats
me,” he said as his eyes focused on the street and late night traffic. “Your
guess is as good as mine.”

“No,”
I said as I turned my whole body towards him. “I don’t buy that.”

We
came to a stop at a red light. Sitting
a good nine or ten
cars
back, we were probably going to have to sit through at least two
green lights.

“What
don’t you buy?” he asked with a nervous chuckled as he turned to me.

“The
way you two talk to each other,” I said. “There’s animosity there.”

He
shook his head.

“Did
you date her?” I asked him point blank. “I don’t care if you did. I just want
some of this to make an ounce of sense.”

“I
don’t talk about ex-girlfriends,” he said. “Not saying I dated her. I’m just
saying
,
my past is my past. I don’t talk about whom
I’ve dated or any of that.”

He
was really starting to piss me off, and in the heat of the moment, I could’ve
given two shits that I was wearing the most uncomfortable high heels in the
entire universe.

I
unbuckled my seatbelt and grabbed my clutch. The stoplight turned green.

“Hey,
where are you going?” he asked, bewildered.

“I
can walk from here,” I said as I opened the car door and climbed out.

The
look on his face was priceless, but I didn’t appreciate being lied to. I had
decided to look the other way at the banquet, but their performance at the
martini bar was where I drew the line.

“Come
on, Rashida,” he said through the rolled down passenger window as his car
crawled alongside me.

My
heels clicked on the pavement, each step growing more painful than the one
before. My heels were on fire, but I didn’t care.

“Get
back in the car,” he said. He leaned over and pushed the passenger door open,
but it promptly slammed back shut with the force of the moving car.

“No,”
I said. “Have a good night, Kevin.”

I
took a few steps further away from the curb and ignored anything else he was
yelling out the window. Eventually he gunned it and zoomed away.

Fortunately,
I was only a few blocks from home. By the time I’d reached my apartment, I
collapsed into a heap on the sofa. I couldn’t kick my heels off fast enough. A
perfect night had quickly gone to ruin, leaving me with nothing but burning
feet and a bruised ego.

Monday
morning finally rolled around after a long and depressing Sunday. I’d spent
most of the day in sweats, lying under my warm, downy duvet and watching sappy
Lifetime movies in bed.

“You’ve
got to be upset if you’re watching Lifetime movies. You hate movies,” LaLa said
as she walked in and sat on my bed mid-morning. “What the hell happened last
night?”

“I
don’t want to talk about it,” I sighed. I did but I didn’t. It was all I could
think about as my mind replayed each and every segment of the night before all
morning long. “I think Kevin and I are over.”

“Really?”
LaLa said as she inched closer to me. Her eyes were as big as saucers. “I
thought it was all going so well?”

“It
was going well,” I said. “Almost too well. Until last night.”

I
zipped my lips, not wanting to say a word more. I reached over almost
instinctively and checked my phone. Part of me hoped that Kevin would send me a
text or reach out to me, but he didn’t. He was silent the entire day.

By
the time I got to work Monday morning, I looked like a hot mess. I hadn’t even
bothered to put on an ounce of makeup that day, and my hair was pulled back
into a low ponytail.

I
trudged along with my head held low and made my way to my little cubicle. As
soon as I sat down, I was greeted with the biggest, most colorful flower
arrangement I’d ever seen.

Not
believing it was for me, I glanced around the office to see if anyone had seen
it being dropped off. I rifled through the exotic assorted flowers looking for
a card of some sort, finally finding it buried behind an iris.

“Kevin,”
I said as I read the card and clutched it close to my chest. It was an apology.

I
smiled for the first time in over a day and sank down happily in my seat as I
admired the gorgeous pretties in front of me. I leaned up and sniffed a few of
them, taking in their sweet, subtle fragrances.

“Flowers?”
It was Julianne. “From that guy you brought to the banquet?”

She
walked up and sniffed the bouquet, just as I’d done, and smiled bright.

“They’re
gorgeous,” she said. “I see some exotics in there. This bouquet is not cheap!”

I
smiled and ran my finger across the soft petal of some wildly yellow flower I’d
never seen in my life.

“So,
good morning,” Julianne said as she parked herself on the edge of my desk. “How
was the little double date thing I arranged on Saturday?”

Her
face was lit up like the Fourth of July and her eyebrows were wiggling. I’d
never seen her so excited. I couldn’t let her down.

“It
went well,” I said with a fake smile. “It was fun.”

“Great,
great,” she said as she slapped her knee with her hand. “I knew you four would
hit it off.”

I
nodded and smiled, not wanting to say anything more. The details were better
left unsaid at this point.

“You
know,” she said. “Ayla doesn’t have a lot of girlfriends. She never really has,
and I just don’t understand it.”

Ayla’s
bitchy face popped into my head, and it took everything I had not to tell
Julianne that I probably had a good idea as to why that was.

“Would
you ever want to hang out with her?” Julianne asked. “I know it’s weird. I’m
her stepmom and trying to make friends for her, but her wedding’s coming up and
I just know she could use someone to talk to.”

“Doesn’t
she have bridesmaids?” I asked.

“All
cousins,” Julianne said in a flat tone. “Every last one. Pretty sure they all
can’t stand her, too. They’ve always been jealous of her for some reason.”

“That’s
too bad,” I said, feigning sympathy.

“Anyway,
would you care if I set something up for you and Ayla? Coffee or something?”
she asked with wide, hopeful eyes.

“No,
not at all,” I said. How could I say no to my boss?

“Wonderful,”
she said. “I’m glad to hear that! I just really want her to have a good friend.
Especially since she’s getting married, you know?
Antoine’s
going
to be her entire world. That’s just not healthy.”

She
took a sip of her coffee before standing up to leave.

“Julianne,”
I said as I tried to catch her before she wandered off. “I have a weird
question for you.”

“Sure,”
she said with one hand on her hip. Her blue eyes stared into mine through her
thick-rimmed glasses.

“Do
you know Kevin?” I asked. “My date? You said at the banquet that he looked
familiar.”

She
pinched her face and looked up at the ceiling, deep in thought.

“You
know, he did look really familiar to me,” she said. “But it’s so hard to say.”

“Oh,
okay,” I replied. I tried to hide the disappointment in my voice. I was hoping
she’d be the key to unlock the secret. “You don’t think he dated Ayla, do you?”

Julianne
laughed. “There’s a very real chance. She’s dated a lot of men. I don’t think
I’ve met most of them. Some I’ve only met once or twice. I can’t keep track of
them all. Maybe that’s why he looked so familiar?”

If
Julianne
was
right, it would’ve made perfect sense.

“Antoine’s
the only guy that’s ever really stuck around,” Julianne said with a fond smile
at the mention of his name. “He’s been her longest relationship, if that says
anything.”

“How
long have they been dating?” I asked, playing dumb.

“Less
than a year,” Julianne laughed. “That’s all I know. I hope that whatever she
did to scare away all the other guys, she doesn’t do the same thing to
Antoine!”

Julianne
tapped the back of my chair. “I better get to work.” She turned on her heels
and walked down the hall.

Again,
a pang of jealousy coursed through my body. Antoine was marrying into that
family whether I liked it or not, and they loved him. They loved him more than
my parents ever loved him, and my parents were crazy about him. He was really
lucky, and given his current circumstances, it was no wonder he had no
intentions of ever having anything to do with me again.