“Mona, this is Demitri. Demi, this is Samona,” Elliot said.
I ran my tongue over my teeth, then looked at Elliot, then back at Demitri.
I extended my hand. “Hello, Demi. Nice to meet you,” I said.
I was lying, but I knew how to fake until I made it. I was surprised when he took my hand. The handshake was firm, but not to the point where it hurt. In fact, his soft yet calloused hand swallowed mine. Big hands, long and thick fingers. Everything that I had thought about Demitri as far as his looks were concerned went right out the window. There was nothing feminine about the man in front of me. In fact, in another setting, at another time, Demitri would have had everything needed to capture my attention. The brother was fine. I couldn’t deny that.
“Demitri. Call me Demitri. Hello, Samona,” he said back.
But he didn’t lie to me, as I’d done to him. It was abundantly clear that it wasn’t nice to meet me. It didn’t slip past me that he corrected me about using his sobriquet. He wanted me to know that he was being cordial, not friendly.
Demitri had a slight accent. New York mixed with something else. I removed my hand from his, then slid it into my back pocket. I could tell the day was going to be pretty awkward, but for Elliot, I’d suffer through it. So I tucked my emotions in my back pocket too.
I saw Demitri taking me in. Saw the way his eyes went from my feet up my legs and thighs, then to my breasts and face. He didn’t look impressed. It was comical. I chuckled. Never thought I’d see the day when a man like Demitri would be threatened by the likes of a woman like me.
Elliot looked from me to Demitri. “You okay?” he asked him.
Demitri gave a curt nod. “I’m cool.”
Elliot looked at me and asked me the same.
I nodded. “Yeah, I’m okay.”
Some time went by. Each of us made small talk. Well, Elliot talked to both of us, while we spoke only to Elliot. Demitri’s voice made my eye twitch. Only because it was so appealing, honeyed, and modulated. He pronounced every word like it was meant to rattle a woman’s nerves. Like his voice had been created specifically to make a woman—or a man, in his case—surrender. Fuck him.
The food truck festival started. Before any of us decided to try anything, we moved down the walkway to see what the offerings were. I made a note of each truck I wanted to try, from the fried Cajun alligator to the authentic Japanese sushi. I planned to try at least six of those trucks before I got too full.
Once we’d toured the offerings, Elliot grabbed a rice bowl. Demitri wanted some fried green tomatoes, and I grabbed that fried Cajun alligator. We found a table with a bench on either side nestled under some trees and took it before anyone else could. The park was crowded. You couldn’t go two inches without bumping into someone.
Just the day before it had rained off and on, but now the sun was hot and blazing, and so the ground was dry for the most part. There were some areas that were still too wet to be traversed, but the park had done a good job of cordoning off those areas.
I sat first, hoping Elliot would take the spot next to me. He didn’t. He left his rice bowl on the table then excused himself and went to purchase something else. What, I didn’t know. I really hadn’t heard what he said. I knew he’d walked away only so that Demitri and I would have to say something to one another. Demitri and I were left sitting at the table. Him on one side, me on the other. I tried my alligator in silence, dipped it in the sauce. To me, it tasted like a mixture of fresh fish and chicken.
I looked around at all the people in the park. Black, white, Asian, Mexican, mixed, Native American, and everything in between. A Black family with four small children settled near us, under some of the trees. I watched as the mother spread a big blanket while the father kept all four children occupied. They had a system. After the mom spread the blanket, she sat on it. Daddy passed the smallest baby to her. She popped out a big brown boob and plopped the nipple in the kid’s mouth. Daddy grabbed another kid, sat him on the mom’s lap as well. Then Daddy helped that toddler latch on to the mom’s other nipple. Kids three and four sat on their own, anxious for their father to hand them some food. Once Daddy had all the kids taken care of, he sat next to his wife. He fed her fries from his plate.
I smiled. Wondered if I would ever know what it was like to have a family like that. I didn’t know if I would. I started thinking about how far this thing I had with Elliot would go. He had mentioned me trying to get pregnant last night. That was the furthest thing from the truth. No way would I have a baby by him while he was devoted to and in love with someone else. Yeah, I loved him, and he sometimes could talk me into anything he wanted, but a baby wouldn’t be one of those things.
Never mind the fact that I didn’t want to bring a child into the world. Not when I had the DNA of a man who abandoned me and a woman who was a criminal, the lowest of the lowest kind.
I stopped gawking at the family and turned back to my food. I looked up to find Demitri staring at me. It made me uncomfortable. First off, I’d never before seen a black man that dark with gray eyes. Couple that with the way Demitri seemed to be stabbing me with his eyes, and my defenses were up.
“Why do you keep looking at me like that?” I asked.
He thumbed his nose as he chewed slowly. I expected him to answer, but he didn’t. He gazed at me for a few seconds more, then went back to his fried green tomatoes. I shook my head, more annoyed now than I had been before. I went back to eating my food. Turned to look to see where Elliot had gone. I saw no sign of him in the crowd.
I turned back to find Demitri watching me again.
“What?” I asked.
He took a white napkin and wiped his mouth. “You look like her.”
I frowned, confused. “Like who?”
“Like Nicole.”
“Who?”
“You don’t know who Nicole is?”
“No. Who is she?”
Demitri’s gaze was impassive. He shook his head and went back to his fried tomatoes. I was just about to ask him who Nicole was again when Elliot showed back up. In his hands were three mason jars filled with lemonade in which either blackberries, strawberries, or lemon slices were floating around. He handed Demitri the one with the lemon slices, me the one with the blackberries, and kept the one with the strawberries.
My mind was on this person named Nicole. Why would Demitri even bring her up? Was she someone of importance? Another woman Elliot had on the side? Did I really look like her? Who was this woman?
I was tempted to ask Elliot right then and there, but I didn’t want to risk having one of our famous fights in public. When we fought, things generally went from bad to worse in a matter of seconds. So I chilled for the time being. Elliot sat down next to me. Demitri bristled a bit. He was jealous. It was visible in the way he rolled his shoulders and sighed.
“You don’t have to sit next to me,” I told Elliot.
“I’m sitting where I want to,” was his response as he ate. He didn’t even look up from his food.
“Apparently, Demitri doesn’t want you to. Since I have no interest in him staring me down again like he wants to kill me, it may be best if you joined him on the other side of the table. I’ve no desire to tangle with an angry Grenadian,” I snapped.
I said that last part on purpose. I wanted Demitri to know that I knew something a little personal about him.
Demitri grunted and shook his head. “Fuck you,” he said, his stare stoic.
I was a bit taken aback by that. I couldn’t even hide the surprise that registered on my face. That surprise turned into a full-on scowl.
“You have no manners, I see. How endearing,” I quipped.
“You fucking my dude, but you want to talk about manners?” he spat back and then looked at me as if I was stupid.
“Demitri. Samona.”
Elliot called both of our names like we were his children and he didn’t want any shit out of us. It made me feel small, childish. The way Demitri scowled like he was off
ended told me he felt something similar. I was annoyed to the nth degree. Thinking back on how Elliot had got me to agree to meet Demitri had my mind wondering what he had done to Demitri to get him to meet me.
Had he fucked him until Demetri agreed to meet me too? At this point, it was silly of me to be jealous of the man who had been in Elliot’s life for many years before me. Like Elliot had said, he and Demitri had history. Demitri had left New York, had left everything behind, to follow Elliot. All I’d done was agree to be his woman on the side.
Demitri and I steered clear of one another for the rest of the festival. He stayed in his space, and I stayed in mine. Every now and again, his words about me looking like some woman named Nicole crept into my mind. That also reminded me that he knew more about Elliot than I did. He knew parts of Elliot’s life that I never would.
There were also a few times when I caught Demitri staring at me again. I felt as if he was doing it to annoy me. The last time I caught him in the act, I held his gaze. Stared him down like he was doing to me. If intimidation was his aim, he had another thing coming. I didn’t back down from anyone. Never had. Never would. I tilted my head to get my point across. He smirked, his smile a bit egocentric. One that said he was so cocksure of himself. He ran his tongue over his teeth, then turned his head, as if he was bored.
After a while, I was ready to go. I’d rather be back in my hotel room, writing. I had no mind to be near a man who didn’t like me. I told Elliot as much.
He tried to talk me into staying. “He’s just fucking with you, Mona,” Elliot said. “It’s what he does. Don’t let him get to you.”
I didn’t care what Elliot said. I was done for the day. More than ready to go. If Demitri wanted to be a dick, then we could have that battle another day.
“Who’s Nicole?” I asked Elliot as he walked me to my car.
His whole body language changed. Before the question, his hand was on the small of my back. Now he moved it. The light in his eyes dimmed.
“Why?” he asked.
I was a bit taken aback by the harshness in his tone. “Demitri said I look like her. Who is she?”
“Nobody you need to worry about,” was his answer.
I wanted to know more. “Is she an ex?” I asked.
I stopped beside my rental. People were walking in and out of the SAGE parking deck. A child was wailing at the top of his or her lungs. Carrie Underwood blared from someone’s car, singing about how her man would think before he cheated again. Engines revved. A car horn blew in the distance. And Elliot still hadn’t answered my question.
“She’s nobody, Mona. Leave it alone,” he warned. There was no life in his eyes. That told me Demitri shouldn’t have mentioned anything about whoever Nicole was to me.
“Whoever she is, do I look like her?”
Elliot just looked at me for a second, as if I was daft and hard of hearing. “Where are your keys?” he asked me.
I handed them to him. He popped the locks on the car with the key remote. He checked the inside of the car and the trunk, as he always did when I had to drive alone.
“Get in the car, Samona. I’ll come by later,” he said.
Clearly, I wasn’t going to get an answer from him. So I left well enough alone. I got in the car. Elliot buckled me in, then gave me a quick peck on the lips.
“Get to the hotel safely,” he said.
Before I could respond, he closed—more like slammed—the door and made a hasty retreat, to Demitri, I was sure.
Elliot
Conflict resided within the walls of my home. The day hadn’t gone as planned. Mona and Demi had met, but that was all they’d done. I probably could have lived with that, but the fact that Demi had mentioned Nicole put a damper on my high spirits.
He knew it would, but he didn’t care. He’d done it to piss me off and to antagonize Mona. We were his enemies. Mona because he felt she posed a threat, and me because he felt he couldn’t trust me. We’d argued about it as we left the park. That argument spilled over into our home.
Demi shrugged. “She does look like her. You finally found a replacement for the woman you loved,” he said, his sarcastic tone putting me in a vexatious state.
There was indifference in his tone. It was as if he didn’t care one way or the other what his words were doing to me. Nicole had been the one who got away. In his mind, Nicole would always be there, no matter what. Demi wanted me to forget Nicole, but he knew very well that would be impossible.
Nicole was the reason I’d had to leave New York. Now Nicole was the reason Demi and I were staring at one another like combatants and not lovers.
“I don’t know why you brought her up. It was feckless,” I said. “You did it only to get a rise out of Mona.”
Demi moved to the other side of the front room to sit down. He was barefoot. Had taken his shoes off by the couch and had left them there. It annoyed the shit out of me. But he knew that. That was why he had done it.
“No, I said it because Mona looks exactly like Nicole. She even has the braids. Let me guess whose idea that was. Yours, right?” he said, then chuckled. “She didn’t love you enough to stay and accept you, but you’re still holding on.”
It wasn’t lost on me that there was a resemblance between Nicole and Samona. I just chose to ignore it. Nicole was Nicole. Samona was Samona.
“She walked in on me while I was in bed with you. She had no idea who that part of me was.”
“Doesn’t matter. Look at what she did afterward. If there had been any real love there, she would have at least heard you out.”
Anytime we argued about Nicole, he always made sure to bring up the fact that she wouldn’t give me another chance. Wouldn’t even hear me out. It was as if he got a kick out of that shit.
“She was hurting.”
“She moved past hurt and pain. She and her family tried to destroy you.”
“That was all her father and brothers. Nikki wouldn’t have done that to me.”
“Oh, she’s back to being Nikki now,” he said sarcastically.
I felt my anger reaching a point that would be bad for me and Demi. He felt it too. He stood up from the couch, body tense. His hands were down by his sides, but I knew he could throw a jab that would back me up off of him if it came to that. We had been there and done that. He had the scars to show for it.
“Leave it alone, Demitri,” I said, though it was more like a warning.
“She’s never coming back.”
“I didn’t say she was.”
“She left you.”
“I cheated on her with you.”
“She tried to ruin you.”
“Her father—”
“No, Nicole did. Nicole did it all.”
“No, she did not,” I snapped, taking a step toward him, forcing him to take a defensive step back.
“It hurts your feelings to think that your perfect little darling Nikki could be the one who did all that damage, huh? So what do you do? You find a woman who looks like her.”
“I didn’t.”
“I bet when you fuck her, you imagine the woman who got away.”
“Shut up, Demi. Leave me be,” I warned.
“People would think she and Nicole were sisters if they stood side by side,” he continued on. “Samona is taller, and a little thicker and more toned, but she’s Nicole revisited.”
“You’re jealous.”
He scoffed. “Of what?”
He knew very well what I was talking about. Even when he was the one on the side, Demi had had a disdain for Nicole that sometimes rubbed me the wrong way. He would say little things about her that made me lash out at him. I’d tell him to shut up, or I’d threaten to put my foot in his ass.
“You were jealous of Nicole, and now you’re jealous of Mona. In the back of your mind, for some reason, you think I’m going to leave you for a woman. I don’t know why.”
“Oh, let’s see. Mona has been your side ho for how long now?”
I took a m
enacing step toward him. “Call her that again,” I dared him. “You can’t disrespect her. I don’t allow her to do it to you.”
Demi grunted, then folded his arms across his massive chest. “So now I’ve been relegated to the same level as a woman whom you met three years ago and whom you’ve been fucking for two years?”
“I didn’t say that. Just don’t call her out of her name.”
“I’ll call her what the fuck I feel like.”
“And you’ll suffer the consequences,” I replied.
He snarled. I bristled. I took a menacing step forward, daring him to do whatever it was he was thinking about doing.
I told him, “You’re so worried about me leaving you for a woman that it never occurred to you I could leave you for a man.”
It was his turn to take a threatening step toward me. I took a defensive step back. We’d been here before. We’d come to blows because our words pushed us over the edge. Because he’d lied to me. Demi was sly like a fox, conniving when he wanted to be.
While he knew he could never win a fight with me, I knew he could give me a run for my money. He could go blow for blow, giving me hits and bruises that I would feel for days to come. He also knew . . . I could do worse to him. Way worse.
He took a step back. I was quite sure it was because he knew not to push me. Angering me had never worked out well for the other person. However, this was Demi, and while he was being confrontational at the moment, I still loved him.
“You don’t have to be a dick about this,” I said. “I love you. Only you.”
“And Nicole. Your ghost of girlfriends past. You’re obsessed with her. Still.”
“I’m not,” I said, defending myself.
“You were brought up on charges for stalking her. There is still a standing restraining order against you.”
“But we all know I wasn’t the one stalking her.”
“She took a piece of you that she has no intentions of giving back, Elliot. Deal with it.”
His words stung. They felt as if someone was peeling flesh from my body, layer by layer. Nicole had taken something away from me. Something that I’d fought like hell to get back. But just as she’d walked away from me and taken my ability to love another woman with her, she’d also taken away my chance to be a father.
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