“It is not!” I hissed.
“Yeah? Let me feel, then, shorty,” he taunted.
We both knew I couldn’t.
We both knew I was lying.
So, I rolled my eyes at him and grabbed the plate.
He smiled.
I didn’t speak again until I was almost done. The food wastoogood. “This is… decent,” I admitted.
“I know,” he said.
I kissed my teeth. “You’re arrogant.”
He shrugged. “I’m accurate.”
A laugh slipped out of me before I could stop it. He heard it and visibly relaxed. He knew he was wearing me down.
“Where were you?” I asked.
He set down his fork, lifted his napkin and wiped his mouth. “When?”
It dawned on me that he thought I meant the last year. I’d get to that. “You disappeared after we got back Thursday. You were gone Friday. You came to bed like a ghost. No explanation.”
A minute passed. I waited expectantly.
“Thursday, I was handling things,” he said.
“What things?” I pressed.
His eyes went cold, but his voice stayed calm. “Things you don’t need to worry about,” he said.
“That’s not an answer,” I said.
His gaze held mine. “It’s my answer.”
I scoffed. “Just make sure those things I don’t need to worry about don’t include no bitch. I refuse to be out here looking like a fool with a cheating ass husband,” I said.
His hand balled in the napkin. “Don’t insult me, Theory. I haven’t been with another woman since I met you. I keep telling you that. I have no intention of being with another woman ever.”
My heart swelled. I tamped down the warmth, the hopefulness his words brought me. “Mm-hmm,” was all I said.
“And you know now where I went Friday. I went to see your family.”
“You did that after I told you not to,” I said, my voice tight.
“I did,” he admitted.
“That’s not romantic. That’s you not listening to me, just doing what you want,” I accused.
He shook his head. “I know it looks like that, but it wasn’t about me getting my way. It was about you not walking down the aisle thinking you were alone.”
I stared at him, my brain struggling to hold anger and something else at the same time.
“I wondered if you’d left again,” I said quietly.
