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Authors: Grace Octavia

BOOK: What He's Been Missing
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I'd forgotten about my stubbed toe and flashes of his hand in my panties in the elevator had me ready to tear off his underwear.
“What's that ringing?” Xavier asked as I pushed him into the bed, ready to show off my skills.
“It's just my phone.” I hopped onto his waist and started kissing his chest, moving my hands up and down the muscles in his stomach.
“Ohh,” he moaned, but I could feel that he was distracted. The phone was still ringing. “Maybe you should get it. Maybe it's your grandmother.”
“She wouldn't call me so late.” I flipped my hair forward over my face and ran it down the center of his chest.
“Maybe it's an emergency.”
“It's not!”
The phone finally stopped again. I tried to focus Xavier by placing his hands on my hips. I ground seductively on top of him and twisted my feet in between his legs.
“I guess your toe is feeling better,” he said playfully.
“Yes, Daddy. All better.” I went down to kiss him, but then the ringing started again.
“Maybe you should check it out.” Xavier moved his hands to my shoulders to stop me.
I climbed off of him and fumbled around in the bedroom to find my purse and get the phone. I was so frustrated that I didn't even look at the name on the screen.
“Hello?”
“What are you doing?” The voice on the other end of the phone sounded more frustrated than mine.
I looked at Xavier and he held up his hands.
“I'm—What do you want?”
“What do you mean, what do I want? I've texted you three times.” It was Ian.
“I was out. I didn't see the texts.”
“I wanted to know if you asked X about coming over for dinner tomorrow,” he said. “And then I got so scared when you didn't respond . . . I don't know . . . I just rushed over.”
“Rushed over?”
“Everything OK?” Xavier asked.
I covered the phone with my hand. “It's fine.” I backed out of the room and went to the window in the living room. “Rushed over where?” I looked outside into the lot and there, right beside my car, was Ian's.
“I'm outside,” he said.
“Why?”
“I was afraid. I thought something happened to you. I just wanted to make sure you were OK.”
“I'm fine.”
“Well, you didn't answer my texts. You always answer my texts. What did Xavier say about dinner at my place? I want to see you.”
“Ian,” I whispered, looking over my back to make sure Xavier hadn't come out of the bedroom and could hear me. “It's almost 1:00
AM
. Can't we discuss this in the morning? I'm going to bed.”
“What? You have a curfew now?” He laughed.
“No. I'm just busy,” I said.
“Well, are you busy or are you going to bed?” He laughed uneasily this time.
“That's none of your business.”
There was a long pause.
“Oh, is Xavier there or something?” Ian asked.
“Where else would he be?”
“I didn't know you two were like—you know—like that at 1:00
AM
and stuff,” Ian said. “Excuse me.”
“I didn't say we were any kind of way. I'm just saying it's late. I'll call you tomorrow.”
I hung up the phone and looked out the window for a minute. Ian just sat there.
“Rachel? I got the Band-Aids out of the medicine cabinet,” Xavier called from inside the bedroom.
“I'm coming,” I answered.
Ian was still sitting in his car when I turned from the window to go into the bedroom.
“Who was it?” Xavier asked.
“My grandmother,” I said.
“Everything OK?”
“Yeah. She was just checking in on me.”
“This late?” Xavier pointed at the clock.
“She's called me a few times today and I didn't answer. I think she was worried.”
9
What He's Been Missing
#Friendsandlovers . . . Xavier was all over me in the hallway outside Ian's place. Xavier couldn't keep his hands off me. I was wearing brand new Blahnik's and had been complaining about my toes hurting when we walked into the building. Xavier said he had a cure for my pain. Something to distract me. I was never one for sexual public displays, but there was something about his hand grabbing my whole left ass cheek in one tight grip that made me weak in every area of my body. I felt like I belonged to someone—like I belonged to him. I was giggling. Grinning. Blushing.
“Calm down, baby,” I said, giggling into Xavier's ear as he pushed me up against the wall beside Ian's door. I licked his ear and knocked on the door lazily.
“I can't help myself, baby. You got me all tied to you. Can't let you go,” Xavier said hungrily.
“Well, you're gonna have to let me go. If you don't stop, there won't be any of me left!”
“I doubt that!” Xavier squeezed both of my ass cheeks with both hands and we laughed before kissing harder and nearly forgetting we were waiting outside Ian's door.
“Um . . . you guys coming in?” I heard before we snapped our necks to see Ian standing in the doorway in a red apron.
“Is this dude wearing a fucking apron?” Xavier said to me with his eyes on Ian.
“I think so.”
“Fuck you. It was a wedding gift. We got a matching set and we're trying to make use of it,” Ian said, defending his outfit as Xavier and I struggled to keep our laughs in. “I'm secure enough in my manhood to wear an apron. Wait.” He paused. “Why am I explaining myself to you two? Get in here. You're letting out all my air-conditioning!”
I broke from Xavier's hold and eased into the apartment after kissing Ian on the cheek.
“And you're complaining about air-conditioning? Yeah, you're married now!” Xavier laughed and gave Ian a hug.
“What's that I smell?” I said. “I'm starving.”
“I don't know. Something Scarlet has going on in the kitchen,” Ian said.
“But you have an apron on,” I pointed out, standing in the foyer with Ian and Xavier.
“I only agreed to put on the apron. My job is to pour the wine.”
Ian's apartment was like a small house inside of an apartment building. Two floors, three bedrooms, a formal dining room, and library. A front and back balcony. To the left of the foyer was the living room, with leather couches and three flat screens Ian commonly kept on each major news station. To the right was the dramatic formal dining room Mrs. Dupree had decorated with her mother's china cabinet and eight-person dinner table. I'd spent so much time in the apartment when Ian had first moved in, the neighbors thought I was going to live there, too, and started calling me Mrs. Dupree. I laughed it off, but it was kind of cool helping him get settled in, pick out drapes, and paint. For the first time, I'd felt what it must be like to move in with a man—to find a place naked and make it a home.
“Welcome!” Scarlet called happily from the kitchen. “Come in! Make yourselves at home.”
Ian and Xavier went into the living room, joking as Xavier continued to give Ian a hard time about the red apron. I knew it would be off by the time I saw Ian again. No man could handle that amount of teasing—not even a newlywed.
Only because people always expect women to help other women in the kitchen, I decided to go see Scarlet. There were still gift boxes and moving boxes lining the walls in the hallway and dining room. A brand-new set of beautiful, gold-rimmed china sat in a formal layout on Grandma Dupree's dining-room table. The knife they'd cut their cake with was in the china cabinet.
“Hi, Scarlet,” I said, reaching out to hug Scarlet in the kitchen.
She was in her red apron, rushing around like she was hosting a dinner party for fifty. Flour. Sugar. Cooking books. Bags from the grocery store. Everything was everywhere.
“You need any help?”
“Rachel!” Scarlet leaned into my hug but kept her oven-mitten-clad hands to her sides. “I'm fine. Almost done. Just some final touches.”
A full soul-food spread was forming on the counter.
“Wow, girl! I see you're in here throwing down. I didn't know you could cook.”
“I can't. But there's nothing a cookbook can't handle. A man's got to eat. Right?” Scarlet reached into the oven and pulled out a tray of fresh biscuits. I leaned in to catch the scent and noticed that they were shaped into little hearts.
“Cute,” I said. “Heart-shaped biscuits.”
“I got the cutest cupcake-shape-maker kit with one of my wedding gifts,” she said. “I use them on everything: turn sandwich bread into stars, biscuits into hearts, cheese into rainbows.”
She smiled and slid the biscuits onto the counter with the rest of the spread—macaroni and cheese, fried chicken, collard greens, and sweet potatoes. Suddenly, I saw all of the “black Martha Stewart” changes in Scarlet that Ian had brought up at lunch. Listening to her move around the kitchen talking about recipes and what she was going to do with all those wedding gifts, I wondered where the woman with the black and purple fascinator was.
“Wow! You're very busy,” I said. “I wonder what Ian is going to do when you leave for Congo. Probably lose like fifteen pounds.”
“Oh, he'll be fine. I'm not going.”
“What?”
“I called it off,” Scarlet said passively. “A woman's place is at home with her husband.”
“But you were so excited,” I pushed. “What are you going to do?”
“Stay at home.”
“What?”
“Yeah. Stay at home. Do some modeling. Volunteer at the center downtown.”
“Does Ian know about this?” I asked.
“Well, we haven't talked about it just yet, but I know he'll be thrilled,” Scarlet gushed. “We're getting pregnant soon, too. I'll have to be at home for that. What? Do you think it will upset him?”
“Oh, no,” I said, helping Scarlet begin to carry the food trays into the dining room. “I just thought he assumed you'd stay in school—since that's what you'd talked about before. I'm sure you're right.”
Scarlet danced in and out of the kitchen like she'd just brokered the deal of a lifetime. I followed her lead in silence, wondering what exactly was going on in her head.
The night before the visit, for the first time ever, I'd lied to Journey about the reason I wasn't so sure I wanted to do the double dinner date at Ian's house. It wasn't because my love with Xavier was so new like I'd said to her. It was because a part of me was afraid to see Scarlet moving around Ian's house as “Scarlet the wife” who would be here forever and not “Scarlet the girlfriend” whose presence I simply had to tolerate. Mrs. Scarlet Dupree. The lady of the house I'd decorated. The house where I'd once been called Mrs. Dupree.
“Damn, Mrs. Dupree! You have a full spread up in here for your man,” Xavier said, standing in the dining room beside Ian, who was filling the formally set glasses with red wine.
“Stop cursing in these people's house,” I said.
“ ‘Damn' is not a curse,” Xavier said.
“Yes, it is.”
“No, it's not! Tell her, Ian.”
“I don't give a damn!” Ian joked and we all laughed.
“Well, I do,” I said. “As Grammy Annie-Lou always says—”
“If the baby Jesus wouldn't say it, you shouldn't either,” Ian cut in, trading a smile with me.
“Oh, I'm sorry, baby,” Xavier said, flinging me into his arms. “I'm sorry to you and the baby Jesus. And Grammy Grams. Can big daddy make it up to you?” He kissed me hard with his eyes closed, but I had mine open and on Ian, who seemed to be struggling with a lump in his throat. Scarlet whistled as she worked around the table, making everything perfect.
“Oh, I'm out of wine,” Ian said abruptly. “Rach, can you come with me into the kitchen to get some more?”
“I can get it, baby,” Scarlet offered.
“No, I can do it,” he said. “Rachel, come with me.” He nearly pulled me over, yanking me out of Xavier's hold, and I stumbled to catch up to him.
Once we got into the kitchen, Ian said, “I see you two are snuggly in there.” He peered into a cabinet that hardly looked like it was for storing red wine.
“Snuggly? Please. That's how you describe a blanket. We're sizzling!” I laughed and opened the cabinet where I'd started stashing Ian's wine months ago. I handed him a bottle of Malbec.
“Thank you.” He sounded annoyed. “Scarlet's been moving things around in here.”
“No, that's where the wine has always been.”
“Whatever.” Ian got the bottle opener from a drawer and wrestled with the cork a bit. “Sizzling, huh?” He pulled the cork out. “Guess you two are having sex then?”
“I hope so!” I laughed because the slight concern I heard in Ian's voice had to be a joke. “We're both grown and I ain't no virgin. Someone better be fucking.” I laughed again, but I was alone. “Damn, why are you so stone-faced?”
“I don't know. I'm concerned, I guess. You know how X can be. Hit and quit. That's his style,” Ian said. “I just don't want you to get hurt.”
“X won't hurt me,” I said. “He's different now. Trust me.”
“I trust you. And I trust X to be who he is.”
“Well, trust me when I say who he is now.”
“Hum.” Ian shrugged.
“What's wrong?” I said. “You make it seem like you're not happy for me.”
“I just didn't think you'd like someone like him.”
“Like what?”
“All over you,” Ian said. “You know how he was out there—grabbing on you. It's so unnecessary. Didn't think you were into that.”
“Every woman likes to be grabbed sometimes, Ian,” I said, turning to go back into the dining room.
Ian and Xavier went through every undergrad story over dinner. I playfully complained and pushed for them to stop. Scarlet looked like she was daydreaming the whole time, but kept a Stepford smile splashed on her face.
Xavier's hand was on my knee under the table. Ian's arm was draped over Scarlet's shoulders across from us. The scene was so interestingly adult it felt like we were on the set of the Cosby Show and Judith Jamison or Sammy Davis, Junior, would walk into the room at any time and get the party started. I pretended the hand on my knee had a wedding band on it that matched the one I pretended I had on my ring finger. All the gifts against the wall were mine and this was how I'd spent every Saturday night for the last year and how I'd spend them for the rest of my life. No more NyQuil or nights alone. I leaned over and kissed Xavier on the cheek as he teased Ian about being dropped from the pledge line for Kappa his sophomore year.
“This fool had the nerve to tell the big brothers that there were too many typos in the pledge book,” Xavier said, laughing and pushing a last bit of food around on his plate. “We're lined up against the wall in the middle of the night in some Kappa's room and Ian wants to talk about the proper use of a semicolon.”
I laughed. That was classic Ian. I didn't think he really wanted to pledge anyway. He'd just gone along with it because Xavier wanted both of them to be Kappa men. In the end, neither of them made it.
“Well, I'd rather get dropped for complaining about punctuation than getting caught smashing the chapter president's girlfriend,” Ian said.
“That was a rumor!” Xavier looked at me for approval.
“A rumor? The shit was on video,” Ian replied. “You and Missy Hoover going at it in her dorm room with our big brother's pledge jacket hanging over the bedpost!”
“What?!” I slapped Xavier's arm. “That's gross.”
“You really did that?” Scarlet asked.
“I was lost,” Xavier said with a mix of humor and solemnity in his voice. “I was confused. A young boy out there in the streets looking for love in the arms of any sweet lady he could find.”
“So it's not just because you were a womanizer?” Scarlet asked, and Ian and I laughed. “What? That's what you all say about him.”
“Maybe I was,” Xavier said. “But now I'm not. Now, I'm home. I found myself one sweet lady!” Xavier kissed me on the cheek and mimicked Ian's position across from us by placing his arm over my shoulders.
“Speaking of going home, when are you going back to Chicago?” Ian asked. “I'm sure you have a lot going on back there. People must miss you.”
“I have a lot going on here, too,” Xavier said. “In fact, I've been thinking about making this here thing permanent. Send home for my things and stay here for the rest of my life.” Xavier locked eyes with me, but I could see Ian staring with his mouth open on the other side of the table.

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