I smiled despite myself. “The performance was great.” I pointed to my top. “Some overly enthused buffoon knocked into my cup.” I shrugged my shoulders. “Kind of put a damper on my celebration, so I’m heading home.”
“What are you celebrating?”
I grinned, my excitement coming back. “I got a new job. I start right after graduation.”
“Wow! Congratulations! That’s a big deal.” His words seemed genuine. “Is it in your field?”
I nodded, biting my bottom lip to try to stop smiling as hard as I was. “Yes.”
“What?” His eyes lit up, beaming at me. “That’s rare! I don’t even know you and I’m proud of you.”
I felt my entire body flush. “Thank you.”
He shook his head and pointed up the street to an ice cream parlor. “Let me buy you a cone. You deserve to be celebrated. And I owe you for running into you.”
“You don’t have to do that.” My eyes traveled the length of him again. “You look like you’re busy.”
He shook his head. “I just got off work. I’m doing a paid internship over at the Rhode Building. I just was meeting some friends, but I can meet up with them later. I want to buy you a cone. I want to celebrate with you. I want to get to know you. Is that okay?”
I nodded. “Okay,” I breathed.
He grinned at me. “Tell me about the new job,” he asked.
I happily obliged.
I didn’t generally go with random strangers anywhere, not even extremely good-looking ones.
We strolled down the block, side by side. He stood on the outside of me, closest to the street. When a group headed our way, he’d place his hand on the small of my back protectively. Our two-block walk was the most romantic walk I’d ever taken with any man without holding hands.
“And you?” I asked as we slowed to a stop.
“I graduate in a few weeks and I turned my internship into a part-time job in my field. I have a couple of other things lined up, but nothing directly in my field.” He reached for the door to the ice cream parlor, opening it for me. “My goal is to try to turn my part-time position full-time.” He smirked as I walked through the door. “And when I set my mind to something, I make it happen.”
There were only a couple of people in there when we entered.
“Hi, how can I serve you?” The cheerful teenaged girl smiled at us as we walked up.
“You know what?” My handsome ice cream companion rubbed his hands over his chin and turned to me. “I think you should order what you think I’d like and I’ll order what I think you’d like.”
I laughed. “I’m game.”
“Ladies first.”
Grinning, I pushed him playfully. “Well you need to go away so I can order it. It’ll be a surprise.”
He lifted his hands in surrender and backed away. “Go for it, gorgeous.”
Turning toward the teenager who was bubbling with excitement, I lowered my voice. “I think I’m going to go for the waffle cone bowl with a brownie on the bottom with chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream. Caramel sauce drizzled on top and whipped cream.”
“Any cherries with that?”
“No, thank you. But do you have a couple of whole strawberries?”
She nodded.
“Hmm, but what if he’s allergic?” I mused under my breath. “Maybe…?”
“I could put them on the side. In our little taste tester cups!”
“Perfect!”
I looked over my shoulder at the handsome man who was staring back at me, grinning and tapping his watch. My eyes traveled down his baby blue button up and navy blue slacks. His dark brown belt and shoes complimented the band of the watch he was wearing.
He lifted his eyebrows as if to ask me if I were done.
I nodded and he immediately made his way toward me.
“You got something you think I’d like?”
I eyed him, biting my bottom lip. I have a whole lot that I think you’d like.
I let out a little humming sound. “I guess you’ll have to wait and see,” I flirted, turning to walk toward the pickup area. They already had my whole strawberries waiting. I slipped the container into my hand without being noticed.
I didn’t hear him order, but once he was done, he met me at the end of the counter.
“You two have to be the sweetest couple,” the ice cream sundae maker commented as she handed me my order.
“Thank you,” he answered before I had the chance. He slung an arm around my shoulders. “Baby girl and I are pretty sweet together. But she makes it easy. She’s an amazing woman.”
I laughed, shaking my head. “That’s the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me, Pumpkin.”
He held my gaze. “Get used to it.”
My heart thumped in my chest.
He winked at me before reaching out with his free hand and taking his order from the woman. “Thank you,” he told her as he silently led me to a table.
“I just realized that we never exchanged names,” I blurted out as soon as I sat down.
“I know. I thought about that. But then, I figure, we waited this long, might as well do it after the sundae taste test.” He peered at my cup and his eyes lit up. “I can already tell you won.”
I slid the dessert to him. “Taste it.”
He took a spoonful and broke a piece of the bowl to go along with his first bite. “Mmm,” he moaned. “Chocolate chip cookie dough is my favorite and I always get it in a waffle cone.”
“I ordered you what I always order for myself.” I smiled widely. “That was my litmus test to see if you had good taste,” I joked.
“Baby girl, I ditched my friends at Bar Noir to spend time with you. Clearly I have good taste and sound judgement.” He pushed his cup in front of me. “Your turn.”
I scooped the ice cream, making sure I got a little morsel of everything he’d put in it, and took a big bite.
I swallowed. “It’s not bad.” I stared at it. “There’s a lot of flavors in this. Is this what you usually order?”
“No. I made this specifically for you.”
My eyes met his and my stomach fluttered. “Oh,” I breathed.
“I went with a cake batter ice cream because we are celebrating your new job. And had I known you or that we were celebrating, I would’ve gotten you one and had it waiting for you when you got home.”
I felt a slow creep of heat climbing my neck, but I just silently stared at him.
“The chocolate sauce represents your skin.” He dragged his fingertip from my shoulder to my elbow. “Warm. Dark. Deliciously brown.”
My lips parted and a sigh eased out.
“Your eyes are big, brown, and expressive, so I had them throw in two Oreos.”
I giggled.
He smiled, seemingly amused by his creativity. But his smile slowly fell as he held my attention and my next breath with his stare. “Your lips…” He swallowed hard. “Your lips are so sexy. Only a big, puffy, soft marshmallow would work to represent them,” he whispered, moving his fingers back up my goose bump covered arm. “And your body…”
Ripping his eyes from my mouth, he cleared his throat and dropped his hand. “You’re cool and refreshing, so I added peppermint bark,” he told me slowly. “You were a little salty when you walked out of Bar Noir, and then I quickly found out that you were actually sweet…so I added salted caramel.”
I felt the smile playing on my lips.
“You are beautiful, determined, driven, and even though we were on the same campus, we never crossed paths. So, I added my favorites, waffle cone and cookie dough pieces, because I wanted you to know me and because I want to know you.”
I bit my bottom lip.
“The cherry, strawberry, and blueberry are because fruit is good for you…and I think you’d be good for me.”
“You are so smooth.” I shook my head slowly as I held his gaze. “You must do this kind of thing all the time,” I whispered, moving a little closer to him.
My heart tripled in speed as his lips were mere inches from mine.
“What’s your name, baby girl?”
“Desiree. And yours?”
“Troy.”
“And what are your intentions, Troy?”
“I intend to make you happy every single day.”
Our lips met and I could taste it—happiness.
The kiss was decadent. It tasted like a mixture of ice cream and all the sweet words he’d said.
The kiss was unhurried. It tasted like how I wanted to move through life with him.
The kiss was lengthy. It tasted like he was promising me forever.
And for the next ten years, Troy held up his end of the bargain. He made me happy. Even on days he made me mad, he made me happy. In exchange for the joy and fun he brought into my life, I made him better and stronger. We spent every day together. We did everything together. Because together we were unstoppable.
We considered the day we met our anniversary and every year, we’d get ice cream. No matter where we were in the world. So, after almost ten years together, he’d finally reached the pinnacle of his career. On our ten-year anniversary, he got down on one knee in the ice cream parlor where it all began and proposed to me.
It had already felt like we were married. We moved in together two months after we met. But feeling like we were married and being married were two different things. I accepted his proposal without hesitation. He even tracked down the teenage girl who took our order the day we met and flew her down for the weekend to recreate our first date.
The night was magical.
The next day, he went to run errands before our engagement trip to France. I went to get a manicure and pedicure, but what he didn’t know was that I was going to pick up a special gift for him. I planned to pick up all his favorite foods from his favorite restaurant growing up. It was a bit of a drive and was on the southside of the city. We didn’t go very often because it was small and the service was slow, but when time was on our side, it was worth it because it was delicious.
Strolling into restaurant, I stopped in my tracks as I saw my fiancé of less than twenty-four hours passionately kissing a woman who wasn’t me. It wasn’t a kiss of a first indiscretion, not that that would’ve made it any better. It was a kiss of familiarity. And as they pulled away from one another for a brief moment, I could see that it was his best friend’s twenty-five-year-old sister. And then they went back to kissing again.
My heart fell out of my chest and plummeted into my belly.
I stood, mouth agape as I watched my life, my future, die in front of me. It was bad enough that he was cheating, but with someone he told me was like a sister to him. He was cheating on me with someone I’d taken to my hair salon to get a blow out for her first college formal. He was cheating on me with someone I’d written letters of recommendations for. He was cheating with someone I grew to love and care about because he loved and cared about her—as a sister.
Or so I thought.
As I pulled out my phone to take photos, tears streamed down my face. I saved the photos to the cloud and emailed them to myself before bracing myself to storm over to them.
I wanted to cause a scene. I wanted to yell and scream. I wanted to fight him and her. I wanted it to not be true. But it was. And I realized that nothing I was going to say or do, scream or yell was going to make it untrue. My heart was in smithereens
I went home before they saw me and I packed up all his clothing. I told him he could take whatever he could carry, but the rest of his stuff would be shipped to his mother’s house and waiting for him when he returned from our engagement trip.
He had the audacity to be surprised and angry that I was blowing things out of proportion over nothing. I texted him the picture and he couldn’t deny it anymore. But he still tried, so we argued. I told him the next person I was sending it to was his best friend and that was when I finally got answers.
It had been going on since she turned eighteen and moved ten minutes away from our first apartment. Her brother asked Troy to stop by her place to help her set up her bed. Apparently, they ended up in it.
For seven years, he’d been fucking his best friend’s sister under my nose and giving her money and I had no clue.
He told me that I was the one he wanted to come home to every night, but I didn’t need him like she did. He blamed my passion and my drive. He blamed my career, but not his. He blamed everyone and everything, but himself. And the only reason he told me everything I wanted to know was because he didn’t want me to send the pictures I’d taken to his best friend.
After he said everything he needed to say, he came over to me as if he were going to hug me. He softened his tone and tilted his head to disarm me as he grabbed my phone. Once I realized what had happened, he ran to the window and chucked it out into the night from our sixth-floor apartment.
“My phone!” I screamed. “I need my phone!”
“I told you what you wanted to know. I’ll get you a new phone, but that picture had to go,” he explained as he shut the window. “I’ll go and get you a new phone now,” he promised.
I was still in shock as I stood, shaking. “Take your stuff with you,” I whispered. “You don’t live here anymore.”
It didn’t feel like that much time had passed, but he was back with a new upgraded phone. Almost as if that was a consolation prize for the agony he’d cost me.
“It’s an even better phone.” He offered me the bag and when I didn’t reach back, he shook it. “Here. Take it. It’s an upgrade.”
I stared at him speechless. He was almost cold in his dismissal of my pain.
Shrugging, he placed the bag on the coffee table. “I guess this is it then,” he remarked with an air of hostility and distance in his tone. “Set up the phone. And hopefully you didn’t have anything on the actual phone that you needed. I just needed that photo gone, Desiree. I just needed it gone. I’m sorry about that.”
Something in me snapped awake. “You’re sorry about that? That you’re sorry about? Not the betrayal, but my phone.”
Ignoring what I said, he continued, “You just needed to keep the photo to yourself and your mouth shut.” He grabbed his duffle bag and slung it across his body and pulled his two suitcases behind him. “You said if I told you, you’d keep it to yourself. And I bought you a new phone, so we’re even.”
With that, he walked out the door.
No apology for what he’d done. No remorse for the hurt he caused me. Nothing.
What the actual fuck just happened?
My day started like heaven and it ended in the pits of hell.
I replayed everything for a long time as I stood frozen in the living room we’d shared. I let anger fade into hurt, and then I took a deep breath. I knew it was going to take a long time to get over, but his attitude on his way out and his disregard for my property burned me up inside.
I sat down on the couch and opened my new phone. After programming it, I downloaded my backup for my phone. Once my phone was set up, I pulled the photo of Troy cheating from my email and attached it to a new text message. I hovered over Troy’s best friend’s name and added it.
For one second, I considered not sending it. I considered how it was going to blow up lives like it blew up mine.
And then I shrugged.
“Not my problem,” I muttered as I hit send.
SOS: Desiree
Name: Desiree
Age: 33
Relationship Status: Single
Looking For: A Relationship
Children: 0
Occupation: Life Coach
Bio: I’m confident, driven, passionate, intelligent, fun, and interested in dating the same. I’m all about authenticity and living life to the fullest. I don’t want to just meet someone, I want to connect with someone. Most dating profiles say the same things… and everyone seems to be the well-traveled, fun-loving, outdoorsy type :) But what I want to know is are you real? Are you passionate about your life? Do you know yourself? Are you a good person? Are you fun? If you can answer yes to all those questions, swipe right. I want to meet you.
Chapter 5
After spending ten years as the girlfriend of a lying, cheating bastard, one year healing from the breakup, and six months rediscovering myself, I was finally ready to date again. I wanted to be sure that I didn’t bring any baggage into my next relationship. I wanted to be sure I was ready. My core group of friends were all married or engaged, so I didn’t want to jump into a relationship because I was used to being in a relationship, or worse, because they were in a relationship.
My friends were amazing during and after my breakup. For the last year and a half, they supported my journey the best way they knew how. Nichelle, who had been married for ten years, more than anyone, understood where I was coming from. Carmen and Dyani gently pushed me to laugh or go on an adventure. And Anika was always there for me, but when I didn’t notice, she would give me the look.
The look was a combination of sadness, pity, shock, and weariness. For the first six months, I got the look from coworkers, neighbors, friends, associates, and other places I frequented with Troy. I didn’t show a lot of emotion to the outside world because that wasn’t my nature. I was strong, but that didn’t mean I didn’t cry. I was hurt, but that didn’t mean I needed to display my sensitivity. And the look almost felt like judgment.
I was sad, of course I was sad, but I didn’t need anyone’s pity. I was even more shocked than everyone else that the relationship was over. And as I struggled to grasp my new reality, people giving me the look was a constant reminder of what happened. But more than that, as I moved through my period of pain and mourning, the look almost felt like an indictment of my moving on and embracing singlehood. And I was too weary to entertain that, even if I wanted to.
Disasters in Dating Page 5