He nodded, processing what she said. Then after a moment of self-reflection, he shrugged and smirked. “I’ll take what I can get. What kinda food are ya in the mood for?”
……
Emily and Ollie sat in a booth eating Thai food at the place Ayanna always recommended. Perhaps it was selfish of her, but Emily was really missing Mike and this place made her feel closer to him.
“This place has great food,” Ollie said in between bites, his tall lanky form slouched slightly on the bench seat.
“Yeah, my cousin’s girlfriend loves this place. You met her at the art showing, remember? Her name’s Ayanna and she was wearing a really pretty sari. She was the one you helped me with.”
He nodded. “I remember. She’s hot,” he smiled.
“Yup,” Emily smiled back. “That’s our Yan. Definitely a hottie.”
“She was the reason I got that date with you,” he chuckled.
Emily laughed. “Yeah, I guess you can say that.”
He looked like he was thinking back to that night and narrowed his eyes. “She was a chef, right? Writes the food blog. That’s where that harassing message went to.”
“Yeah,” Emily said before taking another bit of food. After swallowing, she said, “She and another girlfriend of mine run a catering business, The Local Yokel.” Emily tried not to think too long about Janie, which inevitably led her to thinking of Mike.
“That’s cool.”
The bells attached to the restaurant door jingled as a laugh sounded and someone walked in. Emily looked up and swallowed hard.
Shit. It was Ayanna and Jonathan. They all saw each other at the same time.
Both Yan and Jonathan couldn’t hold back their look in Ollie’s direction, both of them looking at Emily with interest and raised eyebrows.
Double Shit.
Of course they walked over.
“Well hello over here,” Ayanna said, giving Emily a big squeeze, followed by her cousin.
“Hey,” Emily said amidst the hugs. When they were done, she said, “You both remember Ollie? Yan, Ollie was the guy who -”
“Of course I remember Ollie. It’s good to see you again,” Ayanna said with sincerity.
They all shook hands and there was a beat of awkward silence before Ayanna continued speaking, “So glad you took my recommendation to heart. This place is great, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Emily answered. “Ollie popped by my office as I was leaving and we decided to grab a bite to eat,” Emily explained. Her cousin gave her a look. It spoke volumes.
The first volume said, Is this the kinda guy you’re looking at for a serious relationship?
Emily ignored his look and spoke to Ayanna. “So I’ll see you guys for brunch tomorrow, right?”
“That’s the plan,” she smiled. “It’ll be nice for the girls to get together.” Ayanna gave her a pointed look. “We have so much to talk about.”
Emily’s eyes skittered away. “Yeah,” she said with an overly bright smile. “It’ll be fun.” She looked at Jon, willing them to move along. “So you two are obviously here to pick up dinner?”
“Yeah. Actually let me go grab that,” Jon said and walked up to the counter.
“So, Ollie,” Ayanna beamed. “Have you saved any more women from cyber stalkers lately?”
“Nope. Just you,” he smiled awkwardly.
“Well, I’m eternally grateful to you.”
“He’s our go-to IT guy,” Emily said.
“How’s your cooking business?” Ollie asked.
“Things are wonderful, thanks for asking.”
“Ollie’s thinking about being one of the guy mentors for the program,” Emily said.
“Yeah? You should talk to Jon!”
Jonathan was on his way back to them when he heard Ayanna’s words.
“Talk to me about what?”
“Ollie is thinking about joining the mentoring group.”
“Maybe for next semester,” Ollie said quickly. “I wanna see how it looks first.”
“Cool,” Jon said. “You should come check it out this fall sometime. We’re meeting with students starting in the beginning of October.”
“I’ll do that.”
“Alright, babe. Let’s leave these two to their dinner,” Jon said, putting his arm around Ayanna’s waist and pulling her close. “Have a good night tonight, guys.” He leaned down to kiss Em on the cheek then whispered in her ear dryly, “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
Emily cleared her throat to cover her desire to growl at him. “See you tomorrow, Yan.”
“Can’t wait,” she said with exuberance.
As they left, Emily mentally groaned. She knew when they got her alone, they were gonna be all over this.
……
Saturday morning came quickly. After she got home from dinner with Ollie, Emily had worked out a bit in her apartment, then spent time spinning ideas about a mentoring program for girls. Rene had left her a message saying that she’d called Kevin’s mom, but unfortunately had to leave a voicemail since there’d been no answer.
The irony wasn’t lost on her that if she’d had something like a girls’ mentoring program growing up like the one she was thinking about, she might not have let her own insecurities get in the way of this relationship with Mike. Every time his face slipped into her psyche, which was about every other minute, her stomach twisted. It didn’t make for a very comfortable existence.
She was depressed and it was digging its ugly claws into her, but she was determined to fight it off. A little extra cover up under the eyes would do the trick.
At 10:30am, she headed over to the restaurant that the girls had chosen and found them already sipping mimosas at a back table. A genuine smile appeared on her lips for the first time in nearly two weeks. It was good to see them. They were a great group of women and she knew she could talk to them if she needed to.
Maybe I should just ask them for some feedback.
“Wow, hon,” Ayanna said, giving her a critical once over. “It’s not even 11 in the morning and you already look like you could use a drink. What time did Ollie keep you out ’til last night?”
Emily sat down in the empty chair between Ayanna and Ryann.
“Alright,” she scolded. “It wasn’t like that and you know it. And I thought I looked pretty good this morning,” she said dryly and accepted the flute filled with champagne and orange juice that was being handed to her.
“We wanna hear more about Ollie,” Ryann said with a gleam in her eye.
“Trust me, girls, there is absolutely nothing to tell. He knows I don’t think of him that way. We just went to grab some dinner. That’s it.” Her stomach twisted. Just thinking of her with a man other than Mike made her feel sick.
They all looked at her and looked vaguely disgruntled they weren’t getting any more dirt. Once they were all seated, Ryann raised her glass indicating a toast.
“To love,” she said.
Janie, Tiffany and Emily groaned while Yan barked out a laugh.
Ryann grumbled good-naturedly. “Oh alright,” she said with a roll of the eyes. “But we’re determined to snag you guys into the fold one of these days. Okay. How about to friendship? To a bunch of incredible women who love each other dearly.”
“Hear, hear,” Tiffany said and they all took gulps of their drinks.
They talked about fashion, politics, exercise, food cravings.
Ayanna announced she would be starting another 40 day fast, this time ‘fasting’ from saying the F word. Everyone laughed and wished her luck.
Emily and Tiffany discussed the potential girls’ mentoring program.
And once they were finally digging into their food, the conversation inevitably turned toward men. Emily inwardly sighed. It was bound to happen when a bunch of straight women were together.
Janie declared that she and Detective Fernandez had decided to give it a rest. When pushed on the subject, she just said there hadn’t been a love connection.<
br />
All eyes then pointed in Tiffany’s direction.
“Don’t look at me,” she said. “There’s nothing goin’ on here.”
“There could be if you wanted,” Emily interjected.
Tiffany sighed. “I’m thinking about it.”
When all of the girls asked for the dirt, Tiffany told them what had happened at the barbeque with Drew and her cancellation of the date.
“Call him!” Ayanna practically screeched.
Tiffany laughed. “Like I said, I’m thinking about it.”
“So, I’d like to know what happened after the barbeque on Labor Day from another woman sitting at this table,” Janie said turning her eyes on Emily. “I believe my brother was to take you home, Miss Emily.” Janie looked innocently at her.
“Yeah. Spill it, Em,” Ayanna said. “If you’re not giving us any dirty details on Ollie, then there’s gotta be something about Mike you can share.”
“Nothing to see here, girls. Move along,” she joked trying to hide her nerves by twisting her napkin to shreds in her lap.
“You know, I talked to him a couple of days ago,” Janie said in a serious tone. “He nearly took my head off when I told him how miserably depressed he sounded.” Janie gave Emily a pointed look. “It worried me, actually. I’ve never heard him so down. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”
“He was working on a case. I’m sure he was just worried about it. You know, he has a really tough job. We shouldn’t expect that he’s always gonna be happy when he’s gotta look at the underbelly of the world all of the time. He has a huge responsibility as a detective.” She knew she sounded defensive, but everyone should cut him some slack.
“He left Jeremy a voicemail early this morning,” Ryann said. “Jeremy said he sounded really quiet and kinda sad, which seemed strange since he was calling to say they’d found some guy they’d been looking for for the last two weeks and they were interrogating him. He said he might be running late for the training this morning, but that he’d be there.”
Emily nodded. “I guess that means he won’t have gotten much sleep. If it’s the guy he told me about a couple of weeks ago then it was a husband they’d suspected of stabbing and killing his wife.” She wondered how he was. She wanted to give him a hug. Kiss him. Hold him.
Snap out of it, Em.
They all stared at her.
“You talked to him? When?”
“A couple of Mondays ago.” She took another sip of her mimosa then became engrossed with the omelet on her plate.
“So nothing’s been going on with you two?” Janie persisted.
Emily cleared her throat and didn’t answer, but rather took a bite of food.
“You know, it’s interesting,” Ayanna mused while looking at Emily. “Jon mentioned to me that Mike told him he was planning on pursuing you. I believe his exact words were he was gonna ‘wear you down’,” Ayanna said taking a sip of her drink and giving an innocent look over to Emily. “I’m sure Jon’ll follow up with him today about it. You know, being the ‘big brother’ and you being out with another guy last night and all.”
Emily snapped her head to Ayanna. “Oh, God. He better not say anything.”
Ayanna shrugged. “I’m pretty sure he’s gonna say something, if at least to see his reaction.” Ayanna watched for Emily’s own reaction to her words. “So. Has Mike managed to wear you down yet? Or is it the other way around?”
Emily put her fork down and dropped her head in her hands. Shit. She’d told him she didn’t want to see anyone else. Now he was going to think… She continued looking at her plate and swallowed.
“From the look of you, and how he sounded on the phone, I’d say you’ve both worn each other down,” Janie said quietly. “What’s going on?”
Crickets.
“Em,” Janie said sincerely.
Emily finally looked up. They all reached toward her in one way or another. Some physically, some just with their eyes and expressions.
“You can trust us if you need to talk,” Janie began. “Yes, he’s my brother, but I promise I can be objective. I can go to the restroom and leave you all to talk if that makes you feel more comfortable. But you need to know that all of us love you. We can keep things confidential. We just want you to know that you can talk if you want to.”
Emily looked around the table at these beautiful women who looked at her with such love and concern. In that moment she made a decision. She took a breath and began talking while blinking back her tears.
“When I was in high school,” she began, “I lost a lot of friends.” She paused. “Well, let me clarify. They were people I thought were my friends, but when a girl claims a popular football player rapes her, people take sides. And in Taylor’s case, pretty much everyone took his. In some ways, I lost Taylor too. She never did anything wrong, but if I was ever feeling upset about something, I never really felt like I could tell her. I mean, how were my insignificant stupid problems anywhere near what she went through, right?”
She got a faraway look on her face. “I felt guilty going to her when she had so much on her plate. It wasn’t the best way to handle it. I realize now that it further victimized her by not thinking she was strong enough to be a friend anymore. In actuality, she is so much stronger than I am. We eventually worked through that, but I still struggle with sharing my problems with her. I always feel like I need to have it all together –”
She took another breath and continued. “I dated a guy for a short time my junior year, just puppy love really, and when he turned out to be someone who thought Taylor had made up the rape as well, I kind of gave up on relationships for a while, romantic and otherwise.”
She looked up at the women. “Suffice it to say trust doesn’t come easily to me. And I know I talk a good game at being strong and fight better than most men,” she said with her mouth quirking up in wry humor, “but I’m just really good at acting. In reality,” she paused, “I’m just a scared woman who isn’t truthful about how scared she really is.”
Ayanna reached over and put her hand on Emily’s arm while Ryann touched her other one.
“It’s not easy for me to share my feelings,” she said looking down at her lap. “To men or women. I know how to give opinions, argue, talk politics. I’m even pretty good at telling other people what to do,” she chuckled and so did Ayanna. “But I think I might need some help with something and if you guys would be willing to listen,” she said quietly, “I could use some advice because it’s absolutely beyond me.”
“We’ll do whatever you need, Em. Just tell us,” Tiffany said.
Emily told them about Scott, how he’d been her first and only back in law school and that his insensitive comments to her when they’d been dating, along with his cheating ways had put her off men for good. She shared that she never felt understood by people, especially men, since she’d felt like men thought she was too strong and standoffish because she never needed to be saved. She was beginning to realize that she was partly to blame for that by not giving anyone a chance to know her. Until Mike, she’d never felt so connected to a man, other than the men in her family.
She got even quieter but shared the fact that she and Mike finally gave in to their attraction after the barbeque. She looked up at Janie, who looked like she was going to burst into happy tears. Emily smiled and explained she was still completely flummoxed by the fact that he actually liked how she fought and argued. She told them with humor how the last few weeks had unfolded with the handcuffs, the singing telegram, and then turned serious when talking about the club and bumping into Scott, as well as her foggy memory of how the night unfolded.
When she finally got around to how that Monday night two weeks ago ended and then what she’d said to Mike before asking him to leave, the table seemed to get even quieter.
“He confuses me. I mean, he turned into this guy who is so good. So nice.” She looked at Janie apologetically. “Sorry. I don’t mean to say –”
Janie put up her hand. “Trust me. I know he’s a knuckle draggin’ ass most of the time, but he really is a good guy.”
“He’s fun, infuriating, wonderful and sensitive, brutally honest, makes me laugh, likes to fight with me, and the sex,” she stuttered, “the sex is like nothing I thought ever even existed.”
Janie made a face and winced, putting her fingers in her ears.
Then Emily got serious. They all waited for her to continue.
“I think,” she began and then blinked back more tears. She covered her mouth then leaned her chin on her hand and said, “Cone of silence here, okay?” Once they all nodded, she finished with, “I think I’m in love with him. And I’m scared to death. He’s not one who does relationships. And I don’t think I can just sleep with him. I’m not built that way. I thought I could do it, but I don’t think I can.”
“Why do you think he’s not one for relationships?” Ayanna asked quietly. “Just because he hasn’t had a serious one doesn’t mean he’s not for one.”
“Guys, come on. Janie, forgive me, here, but everyone, look at his personality. He’s a babe magnet. He flirts like there’s no tomorrow. How many women has he been with that have probably fallen for him? He has a knack for charming the women he’s with and making them feel like they’re the only ones in the room. I don’t wanna be another one of those women. Ry, you even told me he said to you once that he would never fall in love.”
“So what?” Ryann asked. “You don’t think people can change their minds? Jeremy did.” Ryann looked her in the eye and continued. “Mike said that because he hadn’t found a woman he could fall in love with yet, Em. Did you see how he was when you took down that guy who was robbing that lady in front of the brownstone on Labor Day? How he kept saying you were magnificent? He loves that about you, watching you in your element, arguing with you. You’re a great match for him, verbally and physically.”
“He’s made a few comments,” Emily murmured.
“What kinds of comments?” Janie asked.
“Just things. Complimentary things about how,” she swallowed, “how no one can compare to me. That he wouldn’t want anyone else. Nice things that make a woman feel special.” She covered her mouth to stop the sob from coming out.
Revelation: A Contemporary Erotic Romance (Iris Series) Page 24