Before I Let Go, page 32
“I know he’s not. I mean…Si has never…he wouldn’t—”
“Of course not when you were married,” Hendrix says. “But ain’t no ring on your finger or his. What’s stopping him from smashing somebody else? And is that a deal-breaker for you?”
Absolutely. The thought of him with someone else…I drop the hunk of Gouda to my plate. Feeling sick, I take a gulp of wine.
“It didn’t take superb investigative skills to figure out you two had unfinished business. The man can’t keep his eyes off you, and vice versa,” Hendrix says. “I know he cares about you; I just don’t want you to get hurt.”
“I don’t believe he would sleep with anyone else while we…”
While we…what? What are we doing? Conducting an affair with no strings and no guarantees. Meanwhile, I’m in love with him.
Did I ever really get over the Josiah who, down on his knees, set fire to caution and asked me to marry him? The Josiah who pushed aside his reserve to hop on a shopping cart and laugh with me, riding through the grocery store? The one who rubbed my feet when I was pregnant, held my hand through labor, matched his breaths to mine as I gave birth to our children?
No, I probably never got over that man, but I’ve fallen in love all over again with the Josiah who shepherds our children through hard times, always checking their hearts to make sure they’re okay. I’m in love with the man who, despite his misgivings, ventured into therapy for our son, but then learned to use it to heal himself. I’m enamored with the passion that burns even brighter between us than it did before. When we make love, the past and present collide in a scorching intimacy that consumes us. The man he was, the man he is, the way he’ll mature and evolve as the years go on—I’m in love with every version of Josiah I’ve ever known, and I’m certain the man he’ll become will also hold my heart.
“I’ll talk to him,” I finally say. “Just to be clear. We did lay out guidelines, but other people never occurred to me. I don’t think it occurred to him either, but you’re right. I should make sure we’re on the same page.”
From the couch, I reach down and grab one of Sol’s hands and one of Hen’s. “I’m sorry I kept it from you guys, but it was just ours, ya know? I’m glad I told you, though. You’re the closest thing I’ve ever had to sisters, and I don’t want to keep anything from you.”
“I think Edward’s having an affair,” Soledad blurts.
Hendrix and I exchange wide-eyed stares, and I slip off the couch, landing between the two of them on the floor.
“What makes you say that?” I ask.
Her laugh is the most caustic, biting thing I’ve ever heard from Soledad. “Him saying her name in his sleep every night?”
“What’s that heifer’s name?” Hendrix asks.
“Amber.” Soledad blinks at tears. “I told him he said her name in his sleep, and he said Amber’s his new assistant, and that things are so stressful at work, he’s probably just taking it into his subconscious.”
“Does that man think you were born yesterday at two o’clock?” Hendrix rolls her eyes. “Don’t gimme that bullshit.”
“What are you gonna do, Sol?” I ask.
“I’m not sure yet.” She shrugs. “It hasn’t happened again for the last week, but I can’t just turn a blind eye.”
“No, you cannot,” I agree. “What can we do?”
“Right now?” Soledad begins and sighs. “Nothing. I’ll figure it out. I’m watching him to see if there’s actually a devil behind this bush. After I just forced your secret out, Yas, I didn’t want to keep this from you.”
“Speaking of keeping things from you,” Hendrix pauses, splitting a look between Sol and me. “There’s some shit with Mama I haven’t told you.”
“Hen, what’s going on?” I ask, squeezing her hand.
“Remember Mama’s famous German chocolate cake we had on New Year’s Eve?” she asks. “I made it. Mama tried, but the eggs were still kind of raw and there were clumps of flour in it. She just…she can’t remember her recipes. She’s forgetting more and more, and now seems to be having delusions about someone breaking into the house. She’s called the cops several times. They…”
She stops, swallows, blinks furiously.
“They called me and said we can’t leave things as they are, and that I may need to consider finding a place for her.”
“Oh, gosh, Hen,” Soledad says. “I’m so sorry.”
“I think it’s just starting to sink in that there’s no going back, ya know?” Hendrix offers a watery smile, and it’s the closest I’ve seen her to tears. “It’s a debilitating disease, and things will only get worse. I’m not sure which part is harder. Losing her or watching her lose me.”
Hendrix hiccups, letting out a shoulder-shaking sob. We gather her into our arms, the three of us huddled together, unique in our challenges, but twined in our love, our support for one another. Maybe if I’d had this when everything fell apart, I could have held it together, but I want to stop what-iffing my life. Little by little I’m learning to do the best I can and live with the consequences. To love fiercely and to forgive myself when that’s not enough.
It’s not the lighthearted girls’ night we anticipated, but a night when we confide our deepest fears and shine light on the things we’ve kept hidden in the dark.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Yasmen
Slumping in the cushioned seat, I force myself to watch the presentation on the large screen. The lights in Harrington’s auditorium are down, and Dr. Morgan, the headmistress, is saying something about a new wing for the library. Just when my eyes start crossing and I’m on the verge of nodding off, a large hand grips my thigh, squeezes. I straighten in my seat, an indrawn breath loud to my own ears. In the dark, I cast a sideways glance at Josiah, seated beside me, watching the screen with narrowed eyes and a furrowed brow like it has his full attention. Slowly, he lifts the jacket from his lap and places it over mine. Beneath the jacket, his hand inches up my thigh and comes to rest between my legs, his touch burning a hole through my jeans.
I clutch his wrist, stopping his progress. He looks over at me in the dim light, one eyebrow cocked. He leans over to whisper in my ear.
“Are you telling me no?” he asks, his breath on my neck eliciting a shiver.
I lean up to his ear. “I’m telling you not now.”
“Why not?” His smile is devilish. “I’d love everyone to hear how you sound when you scream my name.”
I don’t remember being a loud lover during our marriage, but every time we have sex, it feels like a three-alarm fire and I scream like a siren. I can’t help it. This time around, I feel freer than I ever have. We always had extraordinary chemistry, now it feels even hotter. Every touch, every time, like walking across the sun. When I think it cannot possibly get any better, we reach some new level, climbing clouds to reach the next high.
I gasp when his palm presses hard between my legs, moving beneath the cover of darkness and his jacket to rub me through the denim. My breath shortens and, involuntarily, my legs spread wider, making room for him. I give in to it, lying back in the seat. I turn my head to look at him, and he’s watching me. Our gazes lock and wrestle in the barely there light of the auditorium. I want to beg him to stop and I want to jerk my jeans down so I can feel his fingers. He licks his lips, his eyes dropping to my lap, where, beneath his jacket, my hips roll into his touch. I swallow a moan, bite my lip, and squeeze my eyes shut as I release breath in short, tight gasps. I grip the armrest and press my heels into the cement floor, silently begging my body for control, but unwilling to ask him to stop.
Just when I think I’ll go full Harry Met Sally orgasm wail, the lights come up. The jacket and Josiah’s hand are abruptly removed from my lap. I was so close. I would have bitten my lip in half to come quietly. Now my body rebels, a throb between my thighs, the pulse insistent at my throat and wrists, perspiration boiling at my temples, and the blood racing through my veins at autobahn speed.
“And that concludes our budget plans for next year,” Dr. Morgan says, smiling out over the crowd of parents assembled in the auditorium. “We couldn’t do any of this without you. We raised enough money last year for a new Olympic-sized pool and to offer more scholarships to qualified students unable to afford tuition.”
Exchanging discreetly heated glances, Josiah and I join in the smattering of applause. When you pay as much as these parents do for your child’s tuition, sometimes raising money for swimming pools and other kids to attend doesn’t inspire much enthusiasm. Fundraising rarely does, but Dr. Morgan’s great at it. I’ll give her that, and helping students who can’t afford the outrageous price tag—I’m all for it.
“We’re a little over halfway through this year,” Dr. Morgan continues, pushing her glasses up with one finger. “It’s been amazing so far. Let’s make this second half the best yet.”
She clasps her hands under her chin, signaling a shift in the agenda.
“Now our teachers are eager to discuss your students’ progress,” she says. “Some of you met with them over the last few weeks, but if you have not, they’ll be in their classrooms for the next hour. Thank you again for coming to parents’ night. Have a good evening.”
I want to drag Josiah through the parking lot, find a secluded spot in the woods, and fuck him against a tree, but several people make a beeline for us. I suppress my frustration, even out my breathing, and try to focus on each conversation, profoundly aware of the tall man beside me smiling easily like he didn’t just have his hand shoved between my legs. Some of the parents own businesses and ask about the Skyland Association. A few are basketball moms I’ve seen at practices and games. Josiah is at every game and spends a lot of time working with Kassim on fundamentals. We’ve kind of found a new group of parents to socialize and commiserate with. They usually watch us with varying degrees of fascination and curiosity. They know we’re divorced, but we’re always together at parents’ nights and games and any of Kassim’s or Deja’s activities. It feels like basic good parenting to me. Set your shit aside so you can put your kids first…101.
While we’re laughing with the parent of one of Kassim’s teammates, Josiah’s hand creeps to the small of my back. It’s a casual touch, innocent to anyone watching, but it may as well be a poker, blazing through the cotton of my blouse.
While one of the PTA committee heads drones on about some fundraising idea to a few of us, I hazard a glance at Josiah. He grins, leaning down to whisper in my ear.
“You really want to fuck me right now, don’t you?” he asks, the words singeing the sensitive skin of my neck.
My smile stays fixed, plastered on my face, but I barely hear the conversations going on around me for the next fifteen minutes, and couldn’t tell you a thing anyone said. I grin and nod, but have trouble focusing on anything other than this fire Josiah started and won’t get to extinguish.
“That’s really generous of you, Yasmen,” the PTA committee head says. “I appreciate it.”
“Huh?” I’m jarred by the sound of my name. “What?”
“I was just saying we really appreciate you volunteering to take the lead on the spring dance.”
What the…
That’s what I get for checking out and fantasizing about forest sex.
“Um, oh.” My startled gaze pings from her smiling face to Josiah’s knowing smirk. “Of course. Of course. Anything for the kids.”
“I’ll email you this week,” she says, glancing at her watch, “but I really need to go.”
I look around, surprised to find that we’re the last ones in the auditorium. Other parents have left to see their kids’ teachers, or maybe have already spoken to the teachers like we have, and headed home.
“You ready?” I ask Josiah, breathless and still turned on, but resigned to a date with my vibrator tonight.
“Not quite.” He casts a look around the empty auditorium and grabs my hand, walking me up the aisle and toward the stage.
I snicker, looking over my shoulder to check for any bystanders. “Where are we going, Si?”
“My tongue would like some quality time with you, and my dick requests the honor of your presence.”
He pulls me up the steps and backstage. We venture deeper into the shadows, past costumes and props and stage lights and finally into a dressing room nestled at the very end of the corridor. He closes the door behind us and flattens me against it, muscled forearms on either side of my head.
“I’m still mad at you,” I whisper, biting into an irrepressible smile. “For doing me like that during the budget presentation.”
He slips his hand into the waistband of my jeans, plunging his fingers into my panties and rubbing my clit.
“You feel mad.” He laughs, pulling wet fingers up to his mouth and licking them clean. “You taste mad too.”
Our laughter dies, and he lowers his nose to my neck, inhaling and kissing his way down, nudging the collar of my blouse aside to suck the top curve of my breast.
He palms the indent from my waist to my hip and grinds his erection into my stomach. My body autoresponds, melting into the unyielding line of his tall frame. I grab his neck and draw him down to me. When I suck his tongue, he groans and sends his hand back into my pants, into my panties. Without prelude, he fingers me, rubbing his thumb over my clit, pulling back to watch desire splash across my face. It’s so erotic, looking into his eyes while he plunges into me over and over.
My arms fall to hang loosely at my sides. I’m addicted to his touch. Nonsensical sounds spill from my lips. He palms my throat, his fingers tightening until I can barely sip air, somehow the struggle to breathe and the sensations taking hold of my body intensifying the pleasure. The heat of his hands, his eyes, burns rational thought to the ground. I grind against him mindlessly, no shame, all hunger.
“That’s right.” His gaze is riveted on my face. “Ride my hand. Come all over my fingers.”
A sob explodes from me, and he clamps his hand over my mouth, shaking his head.
“Quiet.”
I’m falling apart, and spilling onto his fingers, tears leaking through my lashes. I bite his hand covering my mouth.
He laughs and dips his head to the curve of my neck. “You’re vicious. Don’t stop.”
He drops his hand from my mouth and kisses me instead, swallowing my cries. He thrusts and rubs, strokes until my body weeps for him. The release quakes through me with core-racking shudders. I slump against him, overtaken by sensation, spent. He lifts my chin to kiss one corner of my mouth and then the other, dotting more kisses over my wet cheeks. I rouse myself to reach for his zipper, but he stays my hand.
“You don’t have to,” he says. “I wasn’t gonna leave you hanging like that. Plus, I just wanted to kiss you.”
He has always loved kissing for the sake of kissing. My heart constricts. This is how he won me all those years ago, and this is what still holds me. On the surface, he’s often hard edges and curt cynicism, but with me, those layers dissolve and I’m left with a romantic. A man who pulls me into the shadows to kiss me and wants nothing in return. It means so much that he shares those parts of himself with me, and something withers inside at the thought of him divulging these vulnerabilities to anyone else.
“Si, do you…” I falter, not wanting to squash the tenderness that has sprung up between us, but needing to know. “Are you…seeing anyone else?”
The granite line of his body stiffens.
“Are you asking if I’m seeing anyone else, or if I’m sleeping with anyone else?”
I let my head fall back to rest on the wall, considering him with clear eyes and rapidly cooling passion.
“Both.” I hold his stare. “I mean, if you are…well, we said no strings. And if we find someone else, then it’s fine. That it’s quits so—”
“Have you found someone else?” His expression darkens, brows dipping into a deeper vee.
“No. I’m messing this up.” I let out a sigh of frustration. “Hen and Sol saw some of our texts. They found out about us, but they won’t tell anyone.”
“Okay.” He shrugs. “It’s fine.”
“Well, they…they asked if we’re exclusive, and I—”
“Do you want to be?”
I force myself to look at him, jaw tensed, teeth clenched. It’s a risk, confessing even this secret of my heart when I’m holding so much else in reserve, but if this is my second chance, if it can become our second chance, then I’ll take a chance.
“Yes,” I breathe the word out, braced for whatever he says in response.
“I do too.” He lifts my chin, holds my gaze. “I don’t want anyone else, Yas.”
This thing between us is a living organism that keeps twisting, evolving, remaking itself. It has since the day we met. There was no iteration I ever envisioned where he was not in my life, and I was not in his, but I thought that had, admittedly by my own hand, been damaged irreparably. But it surprises me again, regenerating, starting as something that has no strings, but sprouting strings and wrapping them around my heart.
And his?
I’m not brave enough yet to ask, but I pray he’s as tangled in this as I am.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Josiah
I never thought I would have this again, waking up with one arm flung across Yasmen’s hip, our naked bodies spooned together in bed. Early morning sun glares through the blinds we forgot to close in our haste to have each other. The worst part is that I could get used to this…again. Not just the sex, though damn. It’s gotta be said. The sex is better than it’s ever been, and that’s saying something because it used to be fantastic. Is it the illicit nature of this that makes it feel so incredible?
Or is it just that good?
That addictive thing that used to draw us together is back with a vengeance and making up for lost time. There’s a hook in every kiss and I’ve stopped trying to get loose.
But last night was the best so far. Kassim is camping with Jamal’s family. Deja slept over at Lupe’s. On that stealth tip, I parked in the garage and spent the night. We weren’t rushed and could take our time, not just with the buck-wild sex. We made a meal together. Broke open a bottle of wine. Talked over dinner lit by candles. It felt like a date, and that is treacherous behavior I need to check.
