The Sweetest Charade

by Jadesola James

  “What?” Delysia said, sitting bold upright in her chair.

  Alexander was watching her, carefully. “Yes. He was caught making contact with his dealer. He managed to avoid jail time, but he’s got a mother lode of community service, and his account’s gone dark...how did you not hear this?”

  Delysia sagged back in her chair. “I don’t follow him.” Her mind was racing—and she felt a sudden stab of guilt. She’d hardly been better than Nicky, but she had gotten away scot-free.

  Alexander’s lips compressed. “Delysia.”

  “Hmm?” She tried to clear her expression before meeting his eyes again.

  “Don’t. He had it coming.”

  “I know.” And Faye had had it in for him, too, she thought, remembering the look of anger in her manager’s eyes the night she’d come back to the Gilded Express so sick. She’d have to ask Faye one of these days if she knew how a man who was as good as covering his tracks as Nicky had been caught so easily.

  Or maybe not.

  Now they were back home, the light was growing dim, and she and Alexander were outside on deck chairs, drowsy and over-full in the heat, nursing glass bottles of Coke that grew warm and slippery in the heat. It suited Alexander. He’d rolled up his sleeves, unbuttoned his shirt to reveal a sliver of skin that had tanned to a deeper hue since she’d left New York—his new life on social media had him outside way more, she supposed. It made his eyes more vivid than ever, almost catlike.

  She could not stop looking at him.

  “Do you like the city?” Delysia finally asked, just for the sake of something to say. She was twisting her curls nervously round her fingers, one by one.

  “It’s early yet, but I think so. The land might be old, but the city is young, shiny, and optimistic. Like you.” Alexander’s voice was low and possessed a husk that made her shiver; she remembered when she’d last heard it sound like that. She didn’t even think he was doing it deliberately. There had been a palpable connection between the two of them for the longest time, since that night he’d kissed her in the doorway of that grimy club.

  God. That had seemed a lifetime ago—and almost as if she had been a completely different person. But she wasn’t. She was still Delysia Daniels, and her insides still turned to jelly when Alexander looked at her that way. It was funny; it was hard to predict the future, but she knew she’d spend a life without him wondering what could have been—and quite possibly, longing for it. She’d longed for him in those past weeks, hadn’t she? As her mother had gotten stronger and the panic faded, she had time to remember. The memories weren’t only tied to the way he kissed, or the rasp of his warm skin on hers—there was plenty of that, but that wasn’t what stood out in her mind.

  Love is a gift. It shouldn’t matter if it was returned or not. After Nicky she’d reached the point where she was too emotionally tired to try to make her heart happy anymore. Love had become secondary to survival, and became less important as the years progressed.

  Alexander Abbott-Hill had upended all that.

  Her cheeks warmed. She looked up and his expression had changed subtly; she could see it reflected in his eyes, see that what he’d said to her in New York was still true.

  “Alexander.”

  “Yes?”

  “How would this even work?” she found herself murmuring, and he smiled.

  “Well, I’d exercise my right as an American to do visa runs every two months,” he said dryly. “I’d work on my book, and perhaps call a couple of colleagues at NYU Abu Dhabi, see what the lay of the academic land is, and eat copious amounts of your mother’s injera, and bask in this glorious heat, and film whatever videos Faye dreams up, as I’m as shameless an influencer as the rest of you now.” His mouth tipped up, peered over his tortoiseshells. “I’m writing on the history of luxury. What better place to do that than Dubai?”

  Delysia managed to smile. “It is pretty opulent. But—” She hesitated.

  He raised his eyebrows.

  “I’m not,” she confessed, and laughed a little at her own foolishness. “Opulent, I mean.” The words sounded ridiculous even in her head, but she said them anyway. She’d already resolved to never keep anything back from the man she’d grown to feel so strongly for in so short a time. “I don’t want you to be too disillusioned with the real me.”

  He smiled at that, though he did not laugh, and his hand crept out to grip hers. He did not speak for a long moment and when he did his voice was gentle.

  “The real you is perfect,” he said, “and the best days are yet to come. We’ll build our brand, eat too much, travel...” He trailed off. “The possibilities are endless. And I miss you very much.”

  Delysia had to lower her lashes. She had never been able to hide her emotions from Alexander. Not well, anyway.

  He continued in low, unhurried tones. “Delysia.”

  She looked up.

  “Don’t worry about me,” he said. “It’s fine if it’s a no. I’m just glad to be with you today.”

  Delysia cleared her throat, then tucked a stray lock of dark hair behind her ear. “Is it okay,” she said, “if I can’t...say it, right away?”

  “You don’t have to say anything,” he answered simply. “That changes nothing.”

  Delysia took a deep and shaky breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding, then got up from her deck chair, bent over Alexander’s, kissed him. Not hard, but sweet, slow, and intense. It was muggier now that the sun was setting, and she felt light-headed when she pulled away, drawing deep breaths of soggy air into her lungs.

  The look he gave her was both soft and serious. “Come here,” he said quietly, and drew her down into his lap.

  Tonight, she knew, they’d make love with all the tension, the sweet urgency that was their hallmark; she ached for him already. She knew that she would say those words to Alexander, not tonight, but probably soon. Her heart had been in competition with her head since she’d met him in that ridiculous SoHo Lounge, and it finally was gaining ground.

  Her fingers traveled upward, tangling in his curls. She closed her eyes.

  “Thank you, Alexander,” was all she said, and she felt a gentle squeeze around her waist as his lips met hers.

  Chapter Fifteen

  It was easier than Alexander thought to adjust to Dubai, although he suspected his relatives and his students would barely recognize him. He certainly didn’t recognize the man who faced him in the mirror each day when he woke and pried the sticky window in his room open to the blazing day. His hair had grown out, and the curls rioted, dark and full, over his head; his already tan skin had deepened; a pair of aviator sunglasses dangled from his collar at all times, and he’d started wearing proper cologne. He attended pool parties. He went dune bashing, and loved it. He found himself having to designate strict time for study, something that hadn’t happened ever, really.

  It had been the first vacation that Alexander had taken since Cambridge, and the fact that it had an open-ended return date made things seem all the more leisurely. Delysia’s uncle Abraham had laughed at the idea of Alexander’s staying in a hotel or renting an apartment for his time in Dubai, and he had a ready-made answer for all of Alexander’s polite excuses. Hotels were outrageously expensive, unless you wanted to be on the outskirts of Ajman and take two hours to get anywhere. Renting an apartment would be difficult for a non-visa holder; they’d rip him off. Any friend of Delysia’s was family to him. It didn’t take long for him to wear Alexander down, and he soon found himself enjoying his new role as a de facto member of Abraham’s sprawling brood.

  Delysia’s twin cousins were absolutely star-struck, and he found himself escorted around Dubai in fine style by two very chatty girls, who were thrilled to have someone to pick up the tab everywhere. They’d followed his and Delysia’s online love story and could recall it with encyclopedic detail, much to his embarrassment.

&n
bsp; Delysia was different here, and yet exactly the same; almost an enhanced, richer, Technicolor version of the girl he’d met and fallen in love with in New York. Delysia Ephrem had none of the guardedness that made Delysia Daniels such an enigma. She laughed, and swore, and cried every single time they watched Sabrina together, and kissed Alexander at night with a heat that he felt long after she’d gone, with only the faint impression of her perfume on his pillows. He’d fallen in love with her in New York, but he was absolutely besotted here. He knew it would hurt like hell eventually, but it was worth it.

  The two quickly fell into a routine, lulled into compliance by the easy rhythm of the Gulf. Alexander woke with the sun to study and write while Delysia took her mother to therapy. After, they either ate breakfast in Abraham’s empty home after he and the twins had gone to work and school, feeling delightfully domestic, or went to one of the many beach hotels that littered Jumeirah Road for lavish spreads. They spent time with her mother, taking her to her favorite shops for slow promenades in air-conditioned comfort as she got stronger. He even spoke to Delysia’s father on two occasions via videoconference; he was a thin, mustached man with a wicked sense of humor who even on camera had Delysia’s extraordinarily large eyes.

  Delysia did not attempt to document any of their time together for social media, though she technically was “back.” This was for them, and it was deliciously private. He did not have to think of a narrative when he held her or kissed her or spoke gentle words in her ears, or breathed them on her skin. He could bask in the enjoyment of loving her, and doing little else.

  That evening they’d agreed to meet at Reem al Bawadi, one of the tony restaurants on Jumeirah that the twins had dragged him to in the early days of his trip. The girls were rather snobbish about it, thinking it very typical of Arab dining establishments (“but we have to bring you here, you’re a tourist”).

  However gauche it seemed to his teenage travel guides, Alexander quite liked the old-fashioned opulence of the dining room, with its twinkling lights and lanterns and shades of deep red. Delysia sweet-talked the hostess into a table by the window overlooking the skyscrapers of the city in all its brilliance, and they talked and laughed until the server brought their salads and hummus. They engaged in a bit of where-are-you-from (Alexander got Somalia, Sudan, and Egypt until he let the man off the hook good-naturedly) and then were finally left alone.

  He watched Delysia look out the window, a dreamy, abstracted look on her face. Her mother returning to health had lifted much of the worry that had strained it in those early days he’d known her. She was makeup-free, her hair styled in long braids with wavy ends that fell past her waist. Her slim bronze arms emerged from the folds of a filmy dress that just touched the floor at her feet. She looked more beautiful to him than she ever had.

  When she asked him what he was thinking about he told her frankly, and she flushed, but laughed. She’d grown used to Alexander’s odd ways of speaking, and he’d grown used to being able to say what he was thinking.

  It had, he thought, worked out quite nicely. Actually, this time in Dubai with her had been perfect in the way only films had been for him, before this. These were no carefully curated moments of perfection, but even failures felt wonderful with Delysia there. He raked his fingers through his hair, feeling them catch. He still wasn’t used to having hair so long. He hadn’t since he was a toddler, and his mother had tended his Afro jealously. Dubai seemed to be teasing out a part of him that had been dormant for a long time.

  New York had never seemed farther away—not until an email from Dean McDermott landed in his inbox.

  We’ve had, he said, an unprecedented amount of students requesting the History of Luxury class you taught in the fall. Might you consider coming back in September? We can revisit the tenure conversation as well, in light of the professional and creative pursuits you’ve engaged with over the past few months. We would very much like to ensure that your progress in these areas is both highlighted and rewarded.

  Alexander read the rest of the letter once, twice, three times. Then he walked across the cool tiled floor in his little room in Abraham’s house to take a shower, and go to meet Delysia.

  The letter hadn’t been wholly unexpected. His course evaluations from last semester read like glowing movie reviews, and he could remember each one: “Wholly unexpected.”

  “Exciting and fast-paced.”

  “Professor Hill is really chill and knows his stuff. Makes it interesting.”

  He’d basked in the glow of those compliments, more than he’d ever be able to admit to anyone but Delysia. It was really all he’d ever wanted, to be able to share what he loved with the next generation, and let them interact meaningfully with it. His students weren’t apathetic, not really. Since beginning to engage in their spaces, he’d come to realize how sensitive and intelligent they really were. Even though he still didn’t quite speak their language, he knew how to communicate with them, and that made all the difference in the world.

  For the first time since he’d embarked on this career, Alexander felt as if he’d found his way, his voice. He wasn’t trying to live up to his father’s legacy, not anymore—instead, he was paying homage to the past, while creating his own future. Sometimes when all was quiet and still and he was alone with the pile of dusty books he’d brought to Dubai with him he thought, a little foolishly he supposed, that he felt the older man’s presence, felt the warmth of his approval.

  Seeing the letter was a bit of a jolt. It reminded him that despite what he’d told Delysia, he still had a life in New York. His job waited for him, as did the enormous house on Long Island, with its tours of the grounds and the wine harvest and other unpleasant things he had to sign forms for in person, if not supervise.

  Dubai’s golden warmth was as seductive as Delysia was—he’d fallen in love with it, too. Still, he had to make a decision, and make it soon.

  When Delysia spoke, he blinked—he’d been completely lost in thought. “Sorry?”

  “I was asking if you wanted to see Aida. It’s at the Dubai Opera, starting next month.” Her mouth dimpled. “I know that it may not be quite the standards of your aunt Sylvia, but it’s a gorgeous production.”

  “Ah,” Alexander said inelegantly. “I—when—?”

  She said a date, but it was lost as he blurted out at the same time, “Delysia, they want me to come back. Southampton, I mean. To teach my luxury course again. I got some fantastic feedback, semester before this, and—”

  She sat, staring at him, her mouth open a bit.

  “I know I said...” He took in a frustrated breath, raked his hand through his hair. “I—”

  Delysia was already shaking her head. “No, don’t, Alexander. You have a job, and you’ve been here—what, the entire semester, just hanging out with me and my mother. Of course you need to go back. It’d be stupid not to.”

  “Delysia, I am in no way saying—”

  “Alexander,” Delysia cut in, and her smile was genuine, if a little sad. “You wouldn’t have told me about it if you didn’t want to go back.”

  They finished their meal in silence.

  * * *

  When they left the restaurant, Delysia gripped his hand in hers. She could not kiss him where they were, out on the open street, but she stood on tiptoe and let her lips hover over his ear. “Can we go to the Palm?”

  Alexander’s face bloomed with heat. He’d kept his studio at the hotel apartment he’d rented before her uncle Abraham had forcibly moved him in, mostly because he wanted a place to write that did not involve fourteen-year-old twins having access to him, and because his grant was paying for it anyway. He and Delysia used it whenever they needed to be alone. There was a soft urgency in her voice that he recognized immediately, and his body recognized even faster.

  She said little until they arrived, rode the elevator up to his apartment on the seventh floor. They were
barely through the narrow door before Delysia’s arms were snaking round his neck. There was something about the way her body moved against his that night that reminded him of that last, dark night on the Gilded Express, before she’d left. He shucked the yards of soft fabric up her thighs to her waist, thumbed lace underwear aside to trace soft downy skin with his fingertips. Her thighs quivered with the effort of holding still.

  “I want you inside,” she whispered, and her fingers began to fumble with the button of the trousers hanging low on his hips. Most of his senses were beginning to be reduced to the feeling of her hand on him, stroking and thumbing him firmly, but there was enough left for him to grit out words, on the tail of a breath.

  “I’m not leaving tonight,” he said firmly, pulling half away and bending his head to ensure he was looking directly into her eyes. “Delysia—”

  She would not meet them, not even when he was between her thighs, thrusting slow and sure, watching the light play soft across her face.

  * * *

  Afterward they curled round each other like cats in his narrow bed, both naked, covered with a thin sheen of perspiration, and she told him that she loved him. She said it quickly, as if the words would somehow be snatched back into her mouth if she didn’t speak them quickly enough. Alexander’s eyes were closed, and he didn’t open them. He groped instead for the remote and flicked on the air-conditioning unit; they sighed as a waft of cool air covered them.

  “Alexander?” Her voice was quiet, subdued.

  He turned his head so that he faced her completely, but she rolled over and pressed her back against his chest instead. There was a dull ache in the center, similar to the one he’d had the night Delysia accused him of coercing her into a relationship. What they’d had since then had been the best experience of his life, but he’d been careful since then, careful to ensure she never felt cornered again.