“When is she leaving again?” I can hear the irritation in his voice.
It mirrors my own sentiments regarding my mother. “Soon.”
The sounds of Celia Cruz’s “Quimbara”begins to play loudly.
“I hope you’ve been practicing your salsa,” Emanuel says, his countenance changing as he peers down at me.
I don’t miss a beat as I begin swaying in time with the rhythm of the song. Emanuel falls in line and we dance together, our bodies not falling in time with the music and each other, to the queen of salsa herself.
The song quickly moves into another pop song, and Emanuel and I don’t stop dancing to that one either. I can hear a few cheers around the bar, urging us on, but it’s the gleam in Emanuel’s eyes that keeps me going. When I stare into those pupils of his, I can’t even fathom what it’s like to doubt myself. The world around us stops being important. All that makes sense is the feeling of our bodies as we move. Not until I danced with Emanuel, had I ever known why people often refer to it as making love on the dance floor.
“I love you,” I say against his lips after he pulls me into his arms.
“You better, ’cause you’re sure as fuck stuck with me.”
“For how long?”
“As long as you’ll have me, baby.”
My heart practically starts beating out of my chest. “I’m starting to think forever sounds like long enough.”
His grin is so wide that I can see just about all of his teeth. “Now you’re catching up, butterfly.”
Any retort I might have is caught in my throat at the promise I see in his eyes.
“Janine?”
I blink, realizing it wasn’t Emanuel who just called my name.
“What the hell are you doing?”
My heart beats faster for an entirely different reason as I glance over my shoulder to see Matthew standing in the middle of Angela’s bar. There’s a flash of anger in his blue eyes.
“Matthew?” I ask, confused, as if seeing him for the first time. I pull away from Emanuel. “What are you doing here?”
“Trying to find you. And I see you’ve been busy.” He looks behind me, and I don’t need to turn to see what he’s staring at. I can feel the heat radiating off of Emanuel’s body from behind me.
“We need to ta—” He started reaching for my arm, I assume to pull me away, but Emanuel’s larger hand covers his first.
“You’re going to have to keep your hands to your fucking self,” Emanuel barks.
I glance around to see a few patrons staring. My stomach drops. The last thing I want to do is cause a scene.
“Don’t touch me,” Matthew insists, snatching his hand away from Emanuel.
“Don’t touch my woman.”
“Yourwoman? She’s m—”
“Matthew, what are you doing here?” I ask again, stepping in between both men, trying to calm the situation down before it escalates to something uglier.
“I came to talk to you. To talk some senseintoyou.”
My shoulders slump. I see the fact that I’ve had his number blocked for the last two months, thereby not taking any of his calls, hasn’t resonated with my ex just yet. I turn back to Emanuel who appears as if he’s ready to knock his head off. That would not be good.
“I just need to talk to him,” I say.
Emanuel starts shaking his head.
