“Damn. That’s a lot.”
“Right. When we broke up, I gave them some raggedy excuse that made them leave me alone. Once they learned the truth, they were on the ‘down with Natika’ bandwagon. I know they’re going to go in about that wedding.”
“Speaking of which, what made you go live to talk about it?”
He sighed. “Honestly? It was you.”
“Me?”
“Yeah. Just kicking it with you this weekend and how we shared what we’d both gone through made me think about my actions. I wilded out this past year, Nyako. I was sleeping with women I had never met before and wouldn’t see again. I was drinking liquor like it was water. I was just doing dumb shit. We had a couple of drinks that night we were together, but nothing after that. It was the best that I had felt in a long while. It mademe realize that I didn’t want to keep doing my life like that. I wanted better for myself, and I also realized that I was really over Natika and me. It was my ego that was taking a bruising.”
“I’m glad that you were able to realize that and do something about it. Have you spoken to her?”
He nodded. “I called her right before I went live.”
A little flutter of jealousy reared up inside of me, and I hated that it did. I’d never been a jealous girl, and I wasn’t about to start. Besides, I had no right being jealous; we barely knew each other.
“What made you come on my live?” he asked, slicing into his toast.
He pulled it to his lips, and a little syrup dribbled down and into his beard. My fingers itched, wanting to reach out and touch him, but instead, I placed my hands under my thighs as I chewed my bacon.
“Curiosity. I happened to be on social media, and your live was trending. Someone had written hashtag special person. So, I decided to dip in to see what and who you were talking about.”
He grabbed a napkin and wiped his mouth and beard. “Be honest. Were you hoping I was talking about you?”
“Noooo.” I tried to fight the telling smirk that wanted to come out and shine, but I failed.
“Yes, you were,” he replied, teasing and laughing at me.
“Okay, maybe just a little.” I pinched my index finger and thumb together.
He grew serious as he stared at me. “I wouldn’t do that. My personal business is just that, personal. If we were in a relationship, I might share that, but we’re not. What we shared isn’t for the world to know. Thought we said we weren’t going to reach out to each other anyway.”
“I didn’t reach out. I was just being nosy. I had no plans on contacting you.”
“You posted a question in the chat.”
“I did, but that didn’t mean that anything would occur after that. This right here,” I stated, waving my hands around the condo, “it’s just a fluke.”
“Or fate.”
“Do you believe in fate?” My voice had dropped almost to a whisper, and my eyelids were heavy as I took him in.
He flicked a nail back and forth over his soul patch, and his eyes were dark, sexy, and alluring. “I believe that all things are possible. We don’t have control over the bigger picture. We can only control our actions to what happens. What about you?”
“Before this week, I would have said no . . . But how do you explain that we’re both friends of Adrian’s, we both scheduled the exact same dates at the exact same location with her, and she managed to put us both in the same suite? I mean, Adrian’s the most organized and meticulous person that I know.”
“Yeah, I agree.”
“I even wondered if she might have done it intentionally to set us up.”
We both stared at each other and then shook our heads replying, “Naah.”
“Yeah, she’s not that mischievous,” Navy stated.
“Aside from that, she would have no way of knowing that we would both be on the same flight and in the same terminal and both stuck together,” I professed.
We looked at each other again, him with his French toast halfway to his lips, and me with a forkful of omelet. Smirking, we stated together, “Fate.”
