Chapter Ten

What Had Happened Was

“Jucee...” I interjected, hoping to get ahead of her rightful explosion.

She paused, and I know it was to give me the chance to speak, but the only words on my mind were different adjectives that described how fuckin’ fine she was. It had never escaped me that Jucee was bad, but now that I’d experienced her as a lover, it was impossible to look at her in any other way. Shit, the sun even seemed to hit her different, glistening on the skin left exposed by that clingy dress that had been sitting in my closet for six months. She stood in front of me looking edible and so damn pissed with her hands on her hips and her face pinched in anger, but all I wanted to do was have her for breakfast. I couldn’t say that shit to her right then though, not while she was mad, so I did the next best thing.

I closed the small space between us and wrapped my arms around her, resting them against her lower back as I pressed my face into her neck. Inhaling, I breathed her in, allowing her familiar scent to fill me up and settle me. And it did just that because, although she was pissed, the rhythm of her breathing was my internal metronome. She let me hug her, so it wasn’t as bad as it could be. I wanted this hug to be our reset. I needed it to make things make sense again, because it was our thing.

We hugged. We held hands. We kissed. We cuddled.

I’d never had any relationship that was this...intimate, this affectionate, without being sexual. Had never known it was something that I would be even down with, let alone come to look forward to. Even just describing it aloud sounded wild if you didn’t know the context. When Jucee and I first started kicking it, I thought she was tryna get at me because she was always touching me in some way. It was Trisha who told me that physical touch might be Jucee’s love language and suggested that I ask her about it instead of making assumptions. She was right.

I went from looking forward to it to needing it.

Like right now.

With Jucee in my arms, I pressed a kiss to her cheek and then to her neck because I couldn’t help myself. I had gone so long without being able to touch her that I had taken it overboard last night, and yet...I still couldn’t fucking help myself.

She didn’t make a sound, but I felt the way her breath stuttered in her chest, noticed the strain in her neck as she fought not to tilt her head to the side, the way she swallowed down whatever noise in her throat that my touch incited. The hug lasted all of ten seconds before she cleared her throat and stepped out of my embrace. Losing her warmth was like stepping out of the sun and into a walk-in freezer. It was a shock to my senses in a way that I couldn’t verbalize, and I was torn between giving her space to think and pulling her right back into my arms. It was my comfort versus her comfort, and though I could be called selfish by many, putting Jucee first had never been an issue until now. My main source of restraint came from that thick vein of hurt that she was trying so hard to mask beneath her anger. I heard them both loud and clear. “I repeat,” she gritted, her arms folded her across her chest to show me she meant business, “what, the, fuck? We spend the whole night fucking and you just dip without so much as a text message? That’s how we treat each other now? It’s gotta be me, ’cause I know damn well that’s not how you treat them women you run through—not the way they stay tryna spin the block. That’s what sex with you gets me?”

Shit.

She wasn’t pulling no punches with me this morning, and because I knew I’d fucked up, I had to eat every blow. I ran my hands down my face, pulling in a deep breath as I did so. As I released it, I stepped over to her car and leaned against the driver’s side door.

Dropping my head back against the car, I stared up at the canopy of trees. She was in my peripheral, but I couldn’t look her dead on while I said the shit on my mind. It was bad enough that I’d initiated last night. “I woke up this morning, looked over at you, and I panicked.”

She gasped. Just a single, sharp inhalation that managed to convey quite a bit.

“You regret it.”

The words were so soft they might’ve wanted to be a whisper when they grew up. Three little words that slid from her lips with unfettered conviction and quickly struck a chord inside of me. Pure, uncut bullshit that had me immediately twisting my head to face her. The only thing I regretted was the fact that I caused the hurt she was so poorly hiding.

“Hell no! Seeing you lay there, in my bed, where you’d been a million times, fucked with me. It was the same as always and also something I’d never experienced in my life. You were naked and sexy as fuck, looking and smelling delicious, and snoring like you always do and I’d wanted to spread you open and go again.” Closing my eyes, I shook my head at my admission. “And that’s when I realized how far gone I was. I’d forgotten who you were, and I had to reel that shit in.”

“Uh...excuse me?”

Her mouth gaped open and her eyes were rounded to saucers. My words had her in complete shock, and guilt crowded in on me. “I know! I’m sorry! I feel like shit about this and that’s why I’ve been MIA all morning. I’ve been trying to figure out a way to fix this. To fix us. I’m—”

She held up a hand to stop my rambling, and I reached for her. It was an instinct, but this time it backfired. Throwing her hands up in the air with a frustrated yell, she turned on her heel and stomped up the driveway and into the yard. Underneath the large oak tree in front of the house was a two-seat swing, and I watched her from the street, waiting until she sat down before following behind her. My parents had built that swing when me and my brothers were in elementary, back when the three of us could fit comfortably while they pushed us. Fifteen years later, it took a concentrated effort to fit all the hips me and Jucee possessed, but I was determined. Once seated, I scooted closer to her and dropped my forehead onto her shoulder, and it was cramped and maybe a little uncomfortable on my back, but I ate that shit because I was scared that I’d broken us irreparably and I needed to feel the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed. I needed my metronome. Needed to be settled. As our breaths synced, I pushed at the ground with my right foot, sending us gently rocking back and forth in the early-morning breeze on the quiet street of the neighborhood that would always be home to me.

I relished the couple of minutes of quiet, holding my breath when Jucee sighed and shook her head.

“Poppa. I need you to explain it for me like I’m five. Talk to me like I’m Amani.”

Confusion knit my brows as I lifted my head and stared at her. I didn’t know how else to apologize for going against the bounds of our friendship and promising never to do it again. As I racked my brain to think of something else to say, she blew out a frustrated breath and turned to me.

“What are you really worried about here? You said a lot of things, and I can’t keep up to figure out what I need to correct.”

Oh.That was easy enough to answer.

“I’m worried that I ruined our friendship.” I was also concerned that I’d tasted something I’d never be able to forget, but the status of what was me and Jucee’s bond was my greatest worry. The smile she gave me was small but earnest, and my eyes started to sting a little as hope and relief manifested as tears.

“Well, let me ease your mind,” she said in a warm, sure voice. “You did nothing of the sort. We’re still besties in my eyes. Nothing will change that.”

She never broke eye contact with me. She didn’t blink. She meant it. The relief was so overwhelming that my shoulders sank and I melted into the seat. Just a little bit, though. Nothing too dramatic. Jucee dropped her head back and laughed. It was wet and lightly stuttered, and it gave me immediate pause. There was something, I don’t know what, but it sounded...off.

“Are you sure?” I asked, unable and unwilling to hide the skepticism in my voice. “Because I’ve been kicking myself over whether or not I took advantage of you.”

I was trying to joke to lighten the moment, but the way her eyes ballooned made me think I’d maybe gone about it the wrong way.

Uh oh.

“You what?!” Two words full of pure disbelief.

“Man...calm down.” I placed my hand on her knee and squeezed, the urge to cup the back of the joint and pull her legs open startling me enough to pull my hand right back into my own lap. Clearing my throat, I shrugged as nonchalantly as I could feign and tried to clarify. “You just had a few drinks last night, and I should’ve taken that into consideration before letting things go as far as they did.”

“Damn,” she murmured. “So now I’m a drunk who’ll sleep with anybody after two lemon drops and a shot of tequila?”

Aww hell.

Jucee clearly wasn’t in a joking mood, so I stifled my laughter with a groan and tried to wrap my arms around her. She didn’t exactly snatch out of my grasp, but she did lean her body toward the opposite end of the swing and shoot me a mean side-eye. That shit almost made me burst into laughter, but I tried to hold it in. It was wild and outrageous, but her angry faces were so damn cute that as much as I hated to make her angry, I also loved to see her in that state.

Biting my lip, I vehemently shook my head. “No, man! That’s not what I’m saying.”

Rolling her eyes toward the sky, she pursed her lips. “That’s exactly what you just said, Poppa. Literally, verbatim.”

I couldn’t help it. I dropped my forehead to her shoulder as I laughed. She was acting like I really insinuated that she was a slutty drunk, when the reality was that the numbers barely would’ve moved if she’d had to take a breathalyzer.

“You’re so damn dramatic,” I mused, finally giving in to those thoughts and sliding my hand around the back of her knee and tugging her until she leaned back toward me. For all her bellyaching, she came easily, lips twisted into a pout, head still turned away from me as I looped an arm around her waist and pressed a kiss to her temple. I wasn’t trippin’. She didn’t have to be looking at me to hear what I had to say.

“Jucee, the relationship we have means so much more to me than a nut. And I’m not saying that’s all last night was, but that was a one-off when we’ve been tight for three years. I think we can both agree that last night was...” I stared at her, observing the way the sun fell upon her dusky brown skin as she looked off to her right to avoid looking at me “...unexpected.”

It took a second, but eventually she nodded, and that small move meant a lot to me. If we were on the same page, then we could work on the missteps we made in the last chapter. And by work on them, I meant strictly avoid putting ourselves in a similar situation.

“Right.” I continued wanting desperately to grab her chin and make her face me, because I suddenly had a mighty need to feel her eyes study my face. I wanted her to look at me and know how sincere I was in this. “And, while I won’t say it was a mistake, I think we should just—I think we should keep things in perspective.”

That pulled her eyes to me. I looked at her, waiting, knowing that I was right but needing her to outwardly agree. Because when we laid all of the facts out, it became hard to ignore the obvious. Fact number one, Jucee had been single since her and Samir split three years ago. She’d dated since then, but none of those encounters ever got off the ground because—despite us never talking about it—I knew that Juleesa Marie Jones was a serious-relationship woman. She was a lovergirl who longed to be boo’d up, and she deserved to have exactly what she wanted.

Fact number two, I was married to my career, and I was as faithful as a music producer could be. Women came into my life for orgasms and the experience and left soon after. I had the best example of what a loving relationship looked like and knew down to my core that I could never give that to someone. And because of how much I loved Jucee and needed her in my life, I would never ruin what we had—what was essentially the longest friendship I’d ever maintained with a woman I actually found attractive—for a night of sex. I refused.

So I stared at her, eyes pleading, mentally begging her to get it so that I didn’t have to say it out loud. My girl didn’t make me wait long, finally offering me a soft smile and a nod.

“Yeah, you’re right. Last night was...”

She trailed off, and my brain immediately filled in the space as if I were the one speaking. Amazing. Fantastic. Perfection. Not enough.

Blinking rapidly, I turned my head to the side and coughed over my shoulder to keep her from seeing any of that in my eyes, wishing that I could eliminate the words from my brain as easily as I could expel phlegm from my throat. Thankfully, Jucee continued as if uninterrupted.

“—something that happened that we won’t let change us, and that’s all that matters.”

Her smile was still soft and tentative, but it grew marginally as if she was forcing it at gunpoint. I wanted to protest, but I also understood more than I wanted to, and because of that, I had no choice but to return her smile. She allowed me to pull her into another hug and she didn’t even roll her eyes when I kissed her cheek. That had to count for something. And when I pulled back and our eyes met, I ignored the way my body seemed to heat with desire—with longing—and I dropped my eyes to the grass so that she wouldn’t be able to read how dissatisfied I was with the conclusion we’d come to—no matter how necessary I knew it to be.