There was a long silence, then he cleared his throat. “He sent something with me.” I could hear him shift. “Your mother's engagement ring. He wants Simone to have it. And he sent a message. Said to tell her he loves her. That she's her mother's daughter. That she got her grace from Niecy, and that he's proud of her.”
I didn’t respond.
“He wants you to be the one to say that to her, since you’re walking her down the aisle,” he said. “Or me. But he thought it would mean more?—“
“Coming from someonenothim?” I kept my voice even.
Reggie didn't answer. I thought about Simone at the altar, marrying a man who showed up for her every single day. And I thought about what it would cost her to receive a secondhand message from a man who stopped doing the same. A message delivered by proxy on the day she was supposed to feel only joy.
No.
“I’ll take the ring,” I said. “I’ll give it to her. At the right time, in the right way. But his message? No.”
“But Julian…”
“No. If he has something to say to his daughter, he can pick up the phone. Or better yet, he can stop being a recluse andshowup. If he won't say it with hisownmouth, Unc? It doesn’t get said.”
The silence on the other end was the kind that meant Reggie had a different opinion, but had learned when not to offer it.
“All right, nephew,” he conceded. “I’ll bring you the ring.”
“Thank you.”
We hung up and I sat there for a minute, clearing my mind, then I went back to evaluating the mixed-use property.
It wasa little after nine at night, and I was packing up to leave the office when my phone buzzed:
SABRINA
It's been a while, Julian. You've made your point. You free this weekend? Maybe dinner?
Once a woman started asking for dinner, I knew the shape of what came next. Dinner becamemeet my friends,becamewhere is this going,became everything I didn’t have to give. Two, three months typically, and then the terms we’d agreed to stopped being enough for them.
To be clear, I didn’t move through rooms looking for my next conquest like my brother Tre. I wasn't driven by need. Months could pass without a woman in my bed and I’d be fine. When I did entertain, it was on my terms. A clear conversation that made expectations and intentions known from the start. Despite that, they almost always seemed to think that somehow, I’d eventually change my mind and want to establish something serious with them.
Sabrina had outlasted that because she presented herself as a female version of me. She was articulate and accomplished and understood arrangements because her world ran on them. She ran her own business as a lifestyle coach,Bree the Brand, selling courses, booking speaking engagements, hosting podcasts, and building a following of thousands of women who wanted to “move through the world with intention.” She was sharp, self-made and self-possessed. I respected that.
We’d met at a private dinner three years back and the conversation had run efficient. It ended clean the first time. Then she called six months later and I answered, which in hindsight was a mistake. You don’t reopen what you’ve closed. After that there was a rhythm to it. A few months, other women in between, always clear. And, every year at our charity fundraiser she’d outbid the whole room to win me at the bachelor auction, like a line item she’d budgeted for. I didn't look too hard at a woman who'd paid to put herself back in my orbit on a schedule.
I’d thought we were on the same page, but she’d just been running a longer play. Performing ease with terms she’d never really accepted, waiting for time and proximity to do what she wouldn’t ask for out loud, because she knew I’d end it. She thought she’d become the exception.
There was no exception. Never had been and never would be.
The last time we were together was months ago. She'd been on the edge of my bed, fastening an earring, when I came out of the bathroom at my condo. She caught my eyes, then her stare traveled from my face, down my body, then back up.
“You know,” she said as the second earring went in, “it’s genuinely inconsiderate to look like that when you're trying to get someone to leave your bed.”
I grabbed a t-shirt out of a drawer and slipped it on. “Sabrina.”
“I mean it.” She leaned back on my bed with a slow smile. “Come back to bed.”
“I have an early morning.”
“You always have an early morning.” She stood up, still wearing very little. She crossed to me, set one hand on my chest, and looked up. “Do you know how rare this actually is? A man whoknowswhat he’s doing.” Her hand traced the side of my face. “You ruin a woman for ordinary, Julian. You know that?”
I did know. Not with vanity but as a matter of fact, the same way I knew I was good at business or at reading a room. I was precise in bed for the same reason I was precise everywhere. I paid attention. I read what was needed before it was asked for. Made sure she got there first.
“I'm glad we worked well together,” I said.
