Can't Let Go - A Contemporary BWWM Romance (7 page)

BOOK: Can't Let Go - A Contemporary BWWM Romance
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From
across the room I saw him glance at
me and then Demarius,
and then back to me. From far away, it probably looked like we were on a date.
My heart sunk. I didn’t want Kevin to think of me that way. I wasn’t someone
who dated a lot of people. I’d never dated more than one guy at the same time.

 

I
still had yet to hear from him since our date the weekend before, and the fact
that it now looked like I was on a date with another guy was definitely not
helping my case.

 

My
mouth went dry as I watched him walk out of the restaurant. He seemed to be in
a hurry and he didn’t look back. Not even once.

 

“What’s
going on?” LaLa asked as she came back to the table. Talk about shitty timing.

 

“Nothing,”
I said. “Thought I saw someone I knew.”

 

The
urge to run after him and explain that it wasn’t what it looked like flushed
over me. My legs began to jump a little, and I scooted a good couple of inches
out of the booth before changing my mind.

 

We
weren’t dating. I didn’t owe him an explanation. If I did chase after him and
tell him what the deal was, he’d probably think I was crazy for assuming we
were exclusive. We’d just met a couple weeks ago. We had one date. I knew
better than to jump the gun with someone as dashing as him.

 

LaLa
stared hard at me as I talked myself down from the ledge. I could tell she was
trying to read me. She hadn’t even touched her food since she’d been back. I
smiled at her and shook my head as if to tell her it was nothing, but I knew
she didn’t buy it.

 
CHAPTER 6
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

I
was completely useless Monday morning at work. My head was not in the game. I
had started up my email, but an hour into my day I still hadn’t opened a single
one. My coffee was slowly growing cooler by the minute, and I found myself
unable to even function. All I could think about was Saturday night, seeing
Kevin, and the fact that he still hadn’t contacted me.

 

Certain
I’d royally screwed up any chance I had with gorgeous Kevin Harris, I whipped
out my phone and began composing a text. I wanted to test him.

 
 
 

HEY!
WERE YOU AT HAIKU SATURDAY NIGHT?

 
 
 

I
figured if I pretended I’d seen him, it would be like acknowledging that he did
see me there with another guy, which would make me look innocent. It would open
up the gateway for that conversation to happen without me seeming like a crazy
weirdo and bringing it up out of the blue.

 

My
finger hovered over the send button. I was this close to sending it. Impulsive,
after all, was my middle name. Then I set the phone down and thought about it.
I had to be strategic. I didn’t want to blow this with him.

 

“Hey,
Rashida,” I heard a man’s voice say. It was Michael.
Of
course.

 

“Hey,
Michael,” I replied. I was groaning on the inside.

 

“Have
a good weekend?” he asked, lingering at my desk like he always did.

 

“You
could say that,” I replied, avoiding eye contact. “You?”

 

“Not
bad, not bad,” he said. He never did get the hint. Ever.

 

“Oh,
wow, look at all these emails,” I said as I fixed my gaze on my computer
screen. “Oh, there’s one from Julianne. I better get working on that.”

 

By
the grace of God, he took the hint and walked off, coffee in hand. I heard him
bugging someone else down the way, talking about some movie that had just come
out. I wished they’d just make him work from home all the time. I didn’t
understand why he needed to have a cubicle or come into the office. He did
nothing but distract other people all day long.

 

I
picked up my phone and re-read my text message. I deleted the entire thing.

 
 
 

WANT
TO GET TOGETHER THIS WEEKEND?

 
 
 

I
sent it without thinking twice. That seemed more appropriate and more
cut-to-the-chase. LaLa would’ve been proud of me in that moment.

 

I
sat my phone back down and waited. And waited. And waited. Five minutes went
by, and then ten and then twenty, and still no response.

 

“Rashida.”
I looked up. Julianne was standing over my cube. She totally caught me messing
around on my phone. I was busted.

 

“I
just wanted to make sure you got the submission for my stepdaughter’s wedding,”
she said as her eyes traveled down to my phone and back to me. I could tell she
was annoyed, but she was too nice to say anything. Her look said it all,
though.

 

“Let
me check,” I said as I pulled up the submission folder on my desktop. “What’s
her name?”

 

“Ayla
Giovanni,” she said. “She’s marrying Antoine Jackson. Maybe it’s under
Jackson?”

 

My
heart sunk and the hardest lump formed in my throat. I could feel paleness
washing over my face as the blood quickly drained.

 

“I-I
didn’t know Ayla Giovanni was your stepdaughter,” I stammered. I forced a
natural smile on my face.

 

“You
know her?” she replied.

 

“No,”
I said. “I mean, I just watch her on the news and everything. She’s kind of a
local celebrity.”

 

“Oh,
ha,” Julianna laughed. “Well, when you’ve known her since she was a little
girl, I guess you just don’t realize she has that effect on people. Some folks
just get a little star struck by her.”

 

“So,
who’s this guy she’s marrying?” I asked, playing dumb. “You approve?”

 

“Oh,
God, yes!” Julianne exclaimed. “We love him to death. Seriously. If she doesn’t
marry him, I think her dad is going to have a heart attack. He’s been such a
breath of fresh air compared to all the other guys she’s brought around. And
she’s stayed with him longer than anyone else too, so I think it’s a pretty
tight thing they have going on.”

 

“That’s
nice,” I said, forcing another smile as a little bit of me died inside. I
didn’t understand why it hurt so bad to hear how happy Antoine was. I should’ve
been happy for him, happy that he met someone who wanted to marry him and happy
that he was marrying into a nice family who appreciated him. “Good men are hard
to find these days.”

 

“You’re
telling me,” she said as she took a sip of coffee.

 

“So
is it going to be a pretty lavish affair or something small and intimate?” I
asked.

 

Julianne
seemed shocked by my question until she remembered that I wrote about weddings
for a living. The question was only natural.

 

“Oh,
you don’t know Ayla,” she chuckled. “Lavish. Lavish. Lavish. Chi chi. Fancy
pants.”

 

“Really?”
I replied with one eyebrow raised. That didn’t sound like Antoine at all. We
had talked about getting married several times over the course of our
relationship. He hated being in front of large groups of people. He wanted to
elope, just the two of us, and marry on some tropical island in the South
Pacific. He must have really loved her if he was doing that for her.

 

“You
don’t even want to know what the flowers are costing us,” she said as she
rolled her eyes. “Well, costing her dad, actually. He’s footing the bill. I’m
staying out of everything.”

 

“When’s
the wedding again?” I asked as I rifled through my folder looking for the
submission again.

 

“April
eleventh,” she said. “Only a couple more months.”

 

Antoine
and I had broken up the previous May. He and Ayla had been together less than a
year. I had to wonder if maybe she was pregnant, but I doubted that. I’d seen
her on the news. I’d watched her day in and day out. Her waist was whittled,
cinched tight and narrow. There was no way she was knocked up.

 

“Where’s
the wedding going to be?” I asked. I hoped she didn’t think I was being too
nosy, but I felt like I might not get another opportunity to bring any of this
up again without it being too obvious.

 

“First
Presbyterian Church,” she said. “Reception at the Starmont Hotel downtown.”

 

Prime wedding locations in Harrisville.
She was definitely going to have a
beautiful
wedding, that
was for sure. Most people only
dreamt of those locations, but for people like Ayla Giovanni, they were no
problem to secure. They probably loved the publicity they were going to get
from her. Heck, she probably got to use the reception hall at the Starmont
Hotel for free.

 

“Nice,”
I said. “Sounds like a lovely celebration.”

 

“It’s
going to be the talk of the town,” Julianne gushed. “You should see the dress
she picked out. It’s incredible. The most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

 

“I’d
love to,” I said, quickly realizing she didn’t literally mean I should see the
dress. “I mean
,
I bet she looks stunning in it. She’s
so tall. She can probably wear a potato sack and look gorgeous.”

 

“You’re
telling me,” Julianne laughed. “I’d love to steal a couple inches off her
height.”

 

Julianne
stood maybe no higher than 5’2’’, but she was a firecracker. She packed a
punch. Whenever anyone saw her tiny little frame making its way down the halls,
the seas parted. People got out of her way. She may have been small, but she
was mighty. It probably helped that she had a blaze of short, fiery red hair to
match her personality. No one messed with her.

 

“All
right, well, I just wanted to make sure you’d received their submission,” she
said. “It’s February now, so we’ll probably want to run the announcement soon.
We need to make sure the whole city knows she’s officially taken. Ward off
those suitors so she doesn’t run away from Antoine!”

 

Julianne
chuckled as she walked away, her heels shuffling on the thin carpet. I couldn’t
believe Julianne was Ayla’s stepmother. What a small world.

 

I
sat back as I took it all in. And then my phone vibrated. It was a text from
Kevin.

 
 
 

YES.
FRIDAY AT 8?

 
 
 

And
suddenly, all was right in the world again.

 
BOOK: Can't Let Go - A Contemporary BWWM Romance
8.86Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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