“Nothing,” she breathes — at least, she tries to. “Just…” she mutters, using her thumb to wipe frosting from my mustache. When she swipes the rest from the tip of my nose, I catch her by her wrist, taking her finger in my mouth. Her pulse flutters under my grip, and her scent intoxicates me.
“Err,” Kendra interrupts, “you guys know we’re still right here?”
Krys’ face dips, her bronze skin reddening as she giggles to herself.
“This is acouple’sretreat, Kendra. You can kiss your girl, but I can’t kiss mine?” I debate.
“Wait,” Rita chimes in, waving her spatula. “You guys are a couple?”
I look down at Krystal, shocked to find her blinking curiously up at me. I smile down at her, raise an inquisitive brow. I know what I want my answer to be, but the ball is in her court. Not wanting this to end is not enough for me to state my desired response.
She trades the frosted cookie for a naked one, the shadow of a smile on her lips.
Kendra and Rita are back to focusing on themselves, but I’m still waiting for an answer.
I pick up another one of the cookies and bite into it as I watch her.
“Is that what you want, Nicholas?” She asks.
My skin heats. “I want whatever you want, Krystal.”
Krystal
The last time I went to a Christmas party, my life changed. I wasn’t supposed to go; we’d been fighting more and more, and I couldn’t imagine fighting on Christmas Eve, so I accepted an invitation to the party of one of my clients. At the last minute, I changed my mind. I couldn’t be away from my baby on the day before Christmas. Even if he was making me feel like shit lately, even if we were constantly screaming at each other, even if he said he was considering taking a break. He didn’t mean that…he couldn’t. Our ten-year anniversary was coming up soon, and he would not throw that away over a rough patch.
The sequined, red dress stuck to me like a second skin. My silk press was fresh from the salon chair, my makeup expertly applied. There was a sick feeling in my stomach on the way up to the sixteenth floor of the Morrison & Thomas law offices.
It wouldn’t be weird, right? Showing up alone?
We could play it up, though. He was always good at spinning a story into something that sounded true.
I’ll never forget the feeling of seeing her on his arm that night. Her olive skin was radiant under the dull Christmas lights of the office. Her face was bright when she looked at him, andwhen he looked at her…when he looked at her, it was like the universe converged in the lines of her smile. He was captivated. His hand skated along her back, inching down until he could squeeze a bit of her curvy body in the palm of his hand.
I was going to be sick, watching them…But I couldn’t stop. It was like someone had fixed my eyes only to see them. I walked the perimeter of the room, watching. Eventually, people began to notice me. Then, someone tapped him on the shoulder and pointed in my direction. I was fully clothed — dressed to impress everyone in the room, but I had no idea I had gotten all dressed up to attend the wake of my relationship. When his eyes made four with mine, I felt nude.
All the marvel fell from his face when he realized I had caught him. Is this why he’d been distant? Why we’d been fighting? Why he’d been spending nights away from home? Wasshethe reason?
“Krystal, please,” Jeremy gritted through clenched teeth. I didn’t even realize I was hurling these questions at him from the other side of the room. He grabbed my elbow, and I flinched away, hating how unfamiliar his touch felt on my skin.
“Come,” he motioned, his hand hovering over my back as he ushered me into the hallway.
“So what,” I stop just outside the glass doors of the office, “now you’re cheating on me?”
He stepped into my space, his nostrils flaring as he spoke down to me in a measured voice that held none of the emotions I was feeling, and none of the guilt I thought he would. “I’m not cheating on you, Krystal,” he said, wrapping his fingers around my forearm and pulling me.
I scoffed. “You don’t look at coworkers the way you were looking at her, Jeremy. You don’ttouchwomen you’re not with like that.”
“She’s not my coworker,” he said, lowering his chin and regarding me carefully.
Confusion raced through me. “What the fuck are you saying to me right now?”
“You’re right,” he tucked his hands into his pockets. “I don’t look at or touch women I’m not with the way I did her.” The sounds of the party faded to nothing. Silence spread through the corridor, seemingly suffocating all the air in the room.
“That’s why I don’t look at you like that, ortouchyou like that anymore,” he said, his gentle voice like a bomb in my body. He was always so good at saying just the right thing to hurt me the most. This one was especially painful. My head reared back like he hit me — and he might as well have.
He walked back towards me. Every fiber in my being rejected what was happening. In my heart, I begged for him to tell me he would see me at home, that we would finish this later…that he would come home at two in the morning so we could bicker, and fuck, and go to sleep.
“We’re done, Krystal,” he said, stopping next to me.
