“You’re right, Kole. You would be the most experienced between the two of us,” I muttered.
His eyes narrowed, and he nodded his head. “Low blow, Zymir.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, knowing it was wrong to invoke memories of his ex who broke his heart.
“Yeah, well, anyway, if you decide, she’s not the one for you, and she’s as fine as Bishop says...send her my way. I have no problem with being a sex toy for an older woman,” Kole said, lightning up and jumping out of my Jeep.
“Kole?”
“Yes?” he said, leaning back into the car.
“Don’t make me fuck you up,” I growled.
He jumped back again and slammed the door while grinning at me.
I pulled off with a loud squeal of tires. There was a lot that I needed to think about, and I knew I had some decisions to make.
CHAPTER 19 – KARINA
“This is great, Karina. You’ve been very busy these last couple of weeks, huh?” Russell said, scrolling through what I had sent to him of the cookbook I had been working on.
We were sitting at his office having lunch.
“I made quite a few videos and will have those edited and uploaded. I had nothing but time on my hands three days straight, so I cooked every dish that I could think of. Then I freed up some time to write.”
“Ohhh, that’s why Sabrina didn’t have to cook for a few days,” Russell said, laughing. “I’d been asking her, and she refused to share her secret with me.”
“What?” I laughed.
“I came home, and the house was perfectly clean. No messes in the kitchen, but all these wonderful meals waited for me every day. You know that’s not Brina,” Russell said affectionately.
Unfortunately, I did know that. When Sabrina cooked, if she didn’t burn the food, she tore up the kitchen and then complained about having to clean up her mess. She was not a cook, but she could follow step by step instructions.
“Yes, I know that’s not, Sabrina. But I do hope that the two of you enjoyed your meals,” I said.
“I’ve gained a few pounds, which means I have to hit the gym harder. But they were delicious,” Russell said, patting his belly.
“Thanks.”
“By the way, thanks for stopping by to see Sabrina. It meant a lot to her that you came to have lunch with her last week. She’s missed you,” Russell said.
“I know. I missed her, too,” I replied softly.
“So, what’s been going on with you lately?”
“I don’t know what you mean, Russ.”
“Oh, I think you do,” he said with an easy smile and a warm gaze. “You’ve been very mellow lately. And that’s not the KK I know. You’ve not been snapping about anything; you’re productive as hell, and meeting deadlines. I’d venture to say you’ve been downright pleasant and even agreeable.”
“What are you trying to say about me, Russ? I’m not normally this way?”
“Hell no,” he said with a grave expression.
I laughed. “There’s nothing up; I’ve just been trying to relax and take every day one day at a time.”
“Hmmph.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Just that Brina mentioned that she’d noticed a change in you, too. We’ve concluded that you’re seeing someone,” Russell said.
Instantly, I went on alert, and my body posture stiffened.
“Hey, calm down. Before you return to snap mode, just know that I think it’s a good look on you. I’m not trying to pry, and I have no questions to ask. I just want to make sure that you’re happy and safe. That’s all I care about, okay?”
I nodded and pursed my lips. My eyebrows dipped down, and I leveled a gaze at Russell.
“Russ, I’m not dating.”
“Are you sure about that?”
I sighed and closed my eyes. “Look, there’s this guy that I’ve met, and he’s just a friend. That’s all. But I’m not sure that I’m ready to open myself up like that, Russ. It’s scary.”
He reached across his desk and grabbed my hands. “What’s so scary, KK? Losing him?”
I nodded, squeezing my eyes closed, trying to repress the tears. When I opened my eyes, the tears fell anyway.
“Russ, I can’t take losing someone else after losing Luis. I lost myself in my husband and built my world around him. It took something from me when he died.”
“Honey, I know that. The depression you sunk into after his death, the pills, the...”
“Yes, I know,” I said when he broke off his sentence. Russell couldn’t bring himself to speak on something that had been painful for us all.
The first year after losing Luis had been the hardest. But it was the second year that took its toll on me. Whereas I had cried and been emotional the first year, the second year, I shut down. I quit feeling altogether. No more tears, no more conversations, just nothing.
I had dulled my pain with pills. Pills to wake up and pills to go to sleep. Pills to make it through the day. And then one day, pills to take it all away.
Sabrina and I were supposed to have a cooking lesson that day, something I had forgotten all about. She and Russell had keys to our home. Luis had made sure that they had a set so they could check on our house whenever we traveled.
When I hadn’t answered Sabrina’s calls that day, she decided to come to the house anyway. She had seen my car parked out back in the garage, but I wasn’t answering the door or my phone. When she’d become too worried, she called Russell, and he said he was on his way and asked her to wait for him.
Russell had returned early from work that day, and he was at home when he got the call. Their subdivision was across the street from mine, and he had come right over. They had entered the house, calling my name. Receiving no answer, they had climbed the stairs to the master suite.
I was lying in my bed, unaware of anything taking place around me. A nice little cocktail of three different types of pills, three each, and a bottle of wine to help wash them down had taken me out.
My overdose landed me in the hospital for three weeks. Not just for the physical treatment but the psychological evaluation and subsequent treatment. Afterward, my doctor ordered me to seek treatment for depression, and briefly, I had to move in with Rhonda.
My cousin kept a close eye on me for three months before I returned home. And even then, Lori and her husband, Jordan, had come to stay with me for two months until I could not take it anymore and sent them home.
For six months, my life was in turmoil, and for another seven, I had worked to climb out of the bottomless pit. This third year, I had been taking things one day at a time.
Now here was this man demanding things from me that I didn’t have to offer.
Looking up at Russell with tears streaming down my face, I said, “I cannot go there again.”
“Have you talked to your therapist about it?”
I shook my head.
“No. I haven’t.”
“You should. What did Lori and Rhonda have to say?”
I inhaled deeply and shook my head.
“You haven’t told them either?”
“No. They know about the kind things he’s done for me, like putting in a new starter, oil changes, tire rotation, detailing the car, and getting the soffit, fascia, and gutters repaired and replaced. All at no charge to me,” I said.
Russ turned his lips down, and his eyebrows hitched up. “Sounds like this guy’s pretty serious about you, KK.”
I smiled. “He does seem to be. But I don’t know if I’m ready.”
“Talk to your therapist. And know that Brina and I are always here for you.”
“I know you are.”
“I just want you to be happy, KK. And what I don’t want is for you to hide away from the world. Not loving. Not welcoming new opportunities. That’s not living, Karina. And the entire point of your therapy and getting a new lease on life was to live.”
“I know,” I whispered.
Last ye
ar I had been pretending to live. Refusing to open up kept me safe from devastation and destruction.
CHAPTER 20 – KARINA
“When you are with Zymir, what feelings arise within you? Focus on the positive,” Clair Paxton said.
“Excitement. Passion. Sensual. Young. Happy. Bold. Beautiful.”
“Which of those is the strongest?”
“I would have to say beautiful.”
“Why is that?”
I smiled as I thought about Zymir. “It’s like he sees beyond my scars, my shame, and my sorrow, and he sees the person I was and the person I could be. It’s like he sees my truth, although he doesn’t know my story. But he still wants me, you know? Despite my tragic journey, he still wants to be with me. Zymir wants to peel back the layers and get to know the person underneath.”
Closing my eyes, I dropped my head into the palm of my hand, my elbow resting on the arm of the tan leather couch I sat on.
“Think about why you won’t allow him to peel back the layers, Karina.”
My hands grew clammy, and my breathing shallow. Digging my nails into my palms, I recalled the last three years in vivid detail. Not just the moments I shared with others, but those moments when I was alone with my thoughts, my fears, and my doubts.
“Karina,” Dr. Paxton said in a soft voice.
“I worry about what he would see when he knows the truth. Right now, I enjoy someone seeing me as I want to be seen.”
“And what is that image, Karina?”
“Beautiful. Strong. Unmarred.”
I breathed in deeply a few times before going on.
“Normal.”
“Whose definition of normal are you ascribing to?” Dr. Paxton asked.
My laughter didn’t sound like my own.
“The world. I don’t want anyone’s empathy, judgment, or pity. I just want to live. To love and be loved.”
“And you don’t feel you could have that with Zymir if you truly let him in.”
A pronouncement, not a question.
“Of course, I wouldn’t.”
“But the reality you’re submerging yourself in is skewered when you don’t allow him to know the real you. Is he seeing a beautiful woman or a façade? And what about him. What if there are parts of him that he needs to share with you. Do you think you can handle it?”
I hadn’t thought much about that. Mostly I had been so busy trying to hide the scars that I had not looked beyond Zymir’s surface to determine if there was anything superficial that I was attracted to, or if there were scars that he was trying to hide.
“Okay. Let’s turn to the negative once more. What are the negative feelings Zymir brings up in you?”
“Fear.”
Dr. Paxton waited patiently, and I shook my head.
“Nothing other than fear.”
“That’s it,” I said softly, staring at the painting on the wall behind her desk.
The dusky hues of the sun setting in the desert were beautiful. Soft yellows, oranges, brilliant reds, and vibrant browns mixed in with muted greens.
Usually, the painting was soothing, but today it agitated me. The swirl of colors reminded me of the emotions battling within me for dominance.
“That fear is rooted in what?”
“That he won’t see me the way that I want him to. And when he sees the real me, finds out who I truly am, and what I’ve done that he will find I’m unlovable.”
“Are you?”
I lowered my eyes and had to think about that. I had lost my mother, my father, and my husband all within a year of one another. Somehow, I had convinced myself that God did not believe I was worthy of love.
He had taken everyone that mattered in my life away except Lori and Rhonda. He was punishing me for something. And while I knew that wasn’t true because Lori had suffered, too, I hadn’t been able to convince myself of that.
But now? I wasn’t so sure that was true anymore. Unfortunately, I didn’t know what was true.
“I don’t know, Claire. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not in that place of thinking that I am being punished or that everyone will be taken out of my life. But am I deserving of love? I don’t know.”
I turned to look at her, taking in her calm, collected appearance in her navy blue slacks and pearl-grey blouse. She wore her hair braided in cornrows with beads on the end, and her makeup was light.
She was an intelligent woman, someone who never made you feel as if she was judging you. But I often wondered what she truly thought of me.
I knew enough to know that she wouldn’t tell me.
“Claire, why are we discussing love.”
She smiled. “I think you know the answer to that, Karina. All relationships inevitably end up there. Do you love the person, or don’t you? If you do, then eventually, you find yourself defining those relationships and setting expectations. But if you don’t love that person, you tend to either cancel it out eventually or set barriers and boundaries in place to keep one another firmly in their place. There’s going to come a time when you have to make that decision with Zymir. One way or the other, you will have to make a choice. What the choice will be is up to you, but you must make it from a healthy place,” Dr. Claire advised.
I nodded.
“So, your homework for tonight?”
“Yes?”
“Invite him over for dinner.”
My eyes widened, and I jerked my head up, angling it to the side.
“Are you crazy?”
She laughed. “One might think I am. But no, I’m not. I want you to invite and have Zymir over for dinner at your place before you return next week. It doesn’t have to go beyond that. After dinner, send him home. Don’t allow him to remain for dessert. If you want dessert, have it at his place where you’re more comfortable.”
“What’s the purpose?” I asked, my heart beating fast and my nails digging holes into my palms.
“You’re starting to take steps to open yourself up to him. You need to know if you can trust him, and having him at your place is the first step in showing him that you’re trying to trust him. He doesn’t have to know about Luis just yet if you’re not ready. But this sets the path for you.”
What she was asking me to do would take a lot of strength and faith. I wasn’t sure that I could do it, but I wanted to believe I would at least try.
The scary part was putting myself out there again. I had pushed Zymir away after the day at his house when he took my halter top. He still had it.
Two weeks had passed since I had seen or spoken to Zymir. He had finally given up ringing my doorbell and knocking at my door.
Part of me couldn’t help but wonder if he had moved on with someone else. Just the thought of that brought sadness into my heart.
CHAPTER 21 – ZYMIR
As much as I wanted Karina and I didn’t want to give up on her, I was determined to teach her a lesson. My friends weren’t off the mark when they said that she was using me for sex. I had known it, too, but I didn’t want to let go.
I wasn’t a man that fell in love easily with any woman. I had never been in love before. My parents raised me to respect women and cherish and protect them. When I dated a woman, I truly dated a woman.
Spending time getting to know her and building something respectable was never a problem for me. To give my all to one woman, I couldn’t date multiple women at once. I had to give my best, and there was no way that I could give my best if I divided myself amongst many.
But for all I was willing to do, she was treating me like most guys treated women. I’d had so many of my friends treating women the way that Karina was treating me.
If there were any chance of us becoming more than just sex, I had to set some boundaries in place. Karina needed to understand that I was more than just a sex toy. Before she could do that, though, she needed to miss what I had to offer her.
Staying away from her and not going over to knock at her door was a challenge. I wanted to see her, taste her, and deal wi
th her bossiness.
But I refused to give in.
I had gone so far as to make sure that I wasn’t available for her. I left early in the morning rising before the sun came up and made sure that I didn’t return home until just before midnight. A couple of nights, I’d even stayed at a hotel just to get some uninterrupted sleep.
It had been two weeks since I’d placed some distance between us and two weeks since I’d last spoken to her.
On this sunny afternoon, I was out back working on my pet project, my 1969 Mustang Boss 429. This baby was a beaut, and I’d been working on her for the last year.
Duke Deuce’s Crunk Ain’t Dead was blaring from the sound system I installed in the garage earlier this year.
It was a surprise when I rolled from underneath my car to see Karina standing there with her hands on her hips.
My heart was beating rapidly in my chest because she startled me, but somehow I managed to school my face into an impassive expression. Grabbing a cloth, I wiped my hands on it and gave a brief nod of my head.
Grabbing the remote, I stopped the music and said, “Karina.”
“Hi, Zymir,” she greeted shyly with a smile.
“What can I do for you?” I asked.
The dip of her eyebrows, faltering smile, and slight “o” of surprise on her lips let me know my dismissive attitude caught her off guard.
Good.
“Uh...well, I cooked a meal. It’s a new dish, and I thought you might want to try it out. Come over to my place and have dinner this evening.”
Crossing my arms over my midsection, still clutching the towel, I shook my head.
“I grabbed a bite earlier with a friend, but thanks.”
Again that lift of her eyebrows before they dipped down again.
“A friend?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, okay.”
“Was that all that you wanted? I’ve got to get back to this project,” I said, pointing at the car.
“All right, Zymir. Have a good evening.”
“You, too, Karina.”
Turning back to the car, I struggled to not glance over my shoulder at her. Instead, I picked up my tools and walked to the cabinet at the rear of the garage and carefully began replacing the tools that I had worked with.
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