Your Ex My Man

by Sharissa Coles

  I recalled Kevin’s story about helping Ayla move some furniture, and I thought for sure he was going to bring it up, but he stood there in silence. The cat had his tongue or something.

  “Anyway, you four should get out of here. Go get some drinks or something. Get to know each other,” she said. I could tell she’d had a few too many goblets of wine, and she was clearly still reeling from winning her big award.

  I looked at Antoine and we exchanged awkward looks. I could tell he didn’t think it was a good idea.

  “On me!” Julianne added. She could sense the hesitation. “Tonight’s a night to celebrate, and you don’t need to stick around with us old fogies.”

  She reached down into her sparkly lavender clutch and pulled out a crisp hundred dollar bill and handed it to Antoine.

  I looked over at Kevin, who was staring at Ayla. Ayla scrunched her nose at him, and I couldn’t help but wonder what the hell that meant.

  “Go, go,” Julianne said as she pushed Antoine and Ayla towards the door. “Get out of here. The night is young.”

  I grabbed Kevin’s wrist and pulled his sleeve up to look at his watch. It was only nine o’clock. It was going to be a long night.

  “There’s a bar next door,” Kevin said as we four made it outside. “Maybe just a drink and then we can call it good?”

  We all chuckled nervously. None of us wanted to get drinks together. Julianne had good intentions, but she was clearly from another generation.

  The bar next door was some sort of martini lounge, and we looked a little overdressed for it, but it wasn’t that bad. We stood around a tall table and perused the drink menus until a server came up to take our orders.

  We stayed mostly silent until the drinks arrived, and then it seemed like we all breathed a collective sigh of relief. The sooner we downed our drinks, the sooner we could split up and go our separate ways.

  Ayla ordered some sort of lemon drop martini, a sour drink for her sour puss expression. Her personality was flat, at least around me, and I hadn’t really seen her smile the entire night besides when she was congratulating Julianne for her award. I remembered hearing that Demarius thought Ayla was a great girlfriend. I couldn’t see it. She was painfully ordinary in the personality department.

  I watched as Antoine and Ayla whispered back and forth to each other. It couldn’t have been more juvenile, but I wished more than anything that Kevin and I were as close as Antoine and Ayla were. If I were to whisper anything into Kevin’s ear, he’d probably think I was a giant weirdo. We so weren’t there yet.

  “So Ayla,” Kevin said to her.

  “What?” she replied. She was so rude.

  “How are you liking the apartment?” he asked. His eyes seemed to pierce hers, and she seemed bothered by him.

  “It’s fine,” she said. “Antoine’s really made it feel like home for me.”

  “That’s good,” Kevin said as his eyes traveled to Antoine.

  Good old Antoine was oblivious to what was going on. He was hanging on Ayla with his arm around her waist and sipping his drink as he tried to avoid looking anywhere near me.

  There was something going on between Ayla and Kevin, but I hadn’t the slightest clue what it was about.

  “How’s the station?” Kevin asked.

  “Good,” she said. “Can’t complain about the early spring we’re having. Makes my job a lot easier.”

  She leaned over and whispered something again to Antoine. He nodded and whispered back.

  “Excuse me,” Antoine said. He sat his glass down and made his way towards the restrooms in the back of the bar.

  Against my better judgment, I decided to follow him. There was a line, and it was going to be the perfect opportunity to talk to him and see if he noticed the weird dynamic between Ayla and Kevin.

  “Hey,” I said as I got behind Antoine in line.

  He spun around, shocked to see me, and all but rolled his eyes. “Hi.”

  “Don’t act so excited to see me,” I teased as I swatted his arm. Then I bit my lip. “Um,

  have you noticed anything weird between Ayla and Kevin tonight?”

  Antoine guffawed and shook his head no, treating me like some sort of crazy lunatic.

  “Like she seems really annoyed by him, and I just don’t understand because he’s such a nice guy,” I explained.

  “I haven’t noticed a thing,” Antoine said as he refused to make eye contact with me. “Rashida, you’re being ridiculous.”

  The line moved forward. I was just a few minutes away from losing my one-on-one time with Antoine.

  “You’ve not been paying attention to anything,” I said. “It’s really obvious. Did they date before or something?”

  “I don’t know,” Antoine said in a staccato tone. “I don’t want to fight with you.”

  For a brief moment, it was like we were back together, arguing about something stupid and piddly. It was both oddly familiar and comforting. I wondered if he felt it too.

  The line moved forward again. Just a couple more minutes.

  I glanced over at the table to see Ayla and Kevin deep into a conversation. If I didn’t know any better, it looked like it was some sort of heated argument. I saw him slap his hand on the table and turn his face away from her. I’d never seen him lose his cool before. Ever.

  “Look, look!” I said as I tugged on Antoine’s arm and pointed to the table.

  By the time Antoine looked, Ayla and Kevin were just standing idly, sipping their drinks.

  “Oh, forget it,” I said as I walked away. I turned back to look at Antoine, but he was already walking into the restroom. He didn’t see what I saw. Not at all.

  Kevin turned towards me and took a step closer. It was so unlike him. Within minutes, Antoine returned and took his place by Ayla’s side.

  “Are you ready to go?” Kevin asked as he looked down at my drink. It was still half full.

  I placed the martini glass to my lips and downed that sucker.

  “Now I am,” I said with a buzzed smile.

  Kevin leaned over and kissed my cheek.

  “We’re going to take off now,” he said. “It was great meeting you Antoine. Ayla, nice seeing you.”

  He grabbed my hand and pulled me out of there before I even had a chance to process any of it. It had happened so quickly.

  “What the hell was that about?” I asked him the moment we stepped outside.

  The night had turned chilly, and I immediately began to shake and shiver despite donning a little black, satin shrug. We were a long walk from the parking garage yet.

  He yanked his jacket off and threw it around my shoulders.

  “Let’s walk,” he said.

  “Okay,” I replied. He was walking faster than usual, and I struggled to keep up with him in my high heels. “Are you going to explain why you were acting so weird back there?”

  He scrunched his face. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  I rolled my eyes, though I was a couple steps behind him so he couldn’t see me.

  “You and Ayla just had some kind of weird thing going on,” I said. “Like she acted annoyed with you or something.”

  “She’s just not a nice person,” he said. “I think she’s let her local celebrity status go to her head. I was just trying to make conversation.”

  It made sense, though again, I wasn’t sure I was buying it. Kevin always had a perfectly logical explanation for everything, but I didn’t know him well enough to know if it was all a bunch of hot air. I had no choice but to file it away for future reference and believe him for the time being.

  CHAPTER 10

  As we hurried to the parking garage, I heard some giggling behind us. I whirled around to see Antoine and Ayla, walking hand in hand and laughing just a mere ten or fifteen steps or so behind us. They must have left at the same time as us. It was definitely a consensus between both sets of couples that no one wanted to be there together.

  Kevin and I walked in silence until
we reached the elevator to the parking garage. It was only a matter of time before Antoine and Ayla caught up to us.

  “Great,” Kevin mumbled under his breath as they approached the elevator. “Going up?”

  Ayla shot him a dirty look, like he was some sort of idiot, and oblivious Antoine nodded.

  The four of us crowded into the elevator and rode it to the top of the parking garage in pure silence. As we filed out one by one, I couldn’t help but notice Antoine’s car parked a few spots down from where we were parked.

  Geez, we just can’t get away from them, can we? I huffed silently.

  I watched from the corner of my eye as they climbed into Antoine’s old Jeep and listened as it refused to start. The engine turned over several times, but nothing came of it.

  Kevin gripped his steering wheel and banged his head against it. I’d never seen him act that way.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “As an officer of the law, I’m required to offer my assistance,” he said.

  I shrugged. “Okay, that’s nice, so do it.” It was the right thing to do regardless of how we felt about them.

  “I know they won’t take it,” he said. “She won’t take it.”

  “Offer it anyway. They say no, and then we can be on our way,” I said. “Easy enough.”

  Kevin stepped out of his car and walked over to them. I watched from afar as Antoine seemed a little flustered and embarrassed and Ayla looked annoyed.

  “Can I help you guys?” Kevin said as he approached Antoine’s window. “Need a jump?”

  Antoine climbed out and popped his hood. He’d had that Jeep since long before we ever got together. It was easily ten years old, but he loved it to pieces. He had always vowed never to get rid of it until it was absolutely dead.

  “Antoine,” Ayla whined. “I told you to get rid of this thing. We’re going car shopping first thing next Saturday.”

  Antoine said nothing as he inspected random things under the hood and checked fluids and who knows what else. He was a smart guy, but he was never that great with mechanics. His talents were always best utilized for computers and video games. The guy hated to get his hands dirty.

  “Would you like a jump?” I heard Kevin ask them once again.

  “I think Antoine’s got it under control,” Ayla said to Kevin. From far away, I could hear the irritation in her voice. “Antoine, I’m calling triple A.”

  She raised her cell phone to her ear and waived her hand towards Kevin to leave.

  He turned back towards me, shrugged, and made his way back to his car.

  “She’s so freaking rude,” I snipped as he got back in. “What’s her problem?”

  “No clue,” Kevin said before reaching down and turning on the radio.

  Exiting the parking garage felt like some sort of maze, but several minutes later we made it to the ground level and were back on the city streets of Harrisville. Kevin was quiet, almost too quiet, as we drove back to our neck of the woods.

  “Thanks for coming with me tonight,” I said as I playfully rubbed his thigh. “I know it wasn’t exciting. Or fun.”

  Kevin said nothing.

  “I appreciate it,” I continued. I just wanted him to say something. Anything.

  I glanced over at him and he shrugged his shoulders, still saying nothing.

  “Can I just say something?” I asked. I was growing more and more irritated at his silence. I didn’t deserve it. I’d been nothing but sweet to him all night, at least in my mind.

  “What the hell is going on between you and Ayla?” I asked. “Why does she seem so annoyed with you? I’ve never known anyone to treat an acquaintance that way.”

  “Beats me,” he said as his eyes focused on the street and late night traffic. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  “No,” I said as I turned my whole body towards him. “I don’t buy that.”

  We came to a stop at a red light. Sitting a good nine or ten cars back, we were probably going to have to sit through at least two green lights.

  “What don’t you buy?” he asked with a nervous chuckled as he turned to me.

  “The way you two talk to each other,” I said. “There’s animosity there.”

  He shook his head.

  “Did you date her?” I asked him point blank. “I don’t care if you did. I just want some of this to make an ounce of sense.”

  “I don’t talk about ex-girlfriends,” he said. “Not saying I dated her. I’m just saying, my past is my past. I don’t talk about whom I’ve dated or any of that.”

  He was really starting to piss me off, and in the heat of the moment, I could’ve given two shits that I was wearing the most uncomfortable high heels in the entire universe.

  I unbuckled my seatbelt and grabbed my clutch. The stoplight turned green.

  “Hey, where are you going?” he asked, bewildered.

  “I can walk from here,” I said as I opened the car door and climbed out.

  The look on his face was priceless, but I didn’t appreciate being lied to. I had decided to look the other way at the banquet, but their performance at the martini bar was where I drew the line.

  “Come on, Rashida,” he said through the rolled down passenger window as his car crawled alongside me.

  My heels clicked on the pavement, each step growing more painful than the one before. My heels[r10] were on fire, but I didn’t care.

  “Get back in the car,” he said. He leaned over and pushed the passenger door open, but it promptly slammed back shut with the force of the moving car.

  “No,” I said. “Have a good night, Kevin.”

  I took a few steps further away from the curb and ignored anything else he was yelling out the window. Eventually he gunned it and zoomed away.

  Fortunately, I was only a few blocks from home. By the time I’d reached my apartment, I collapsed into a heap on the sofa. I couldn’t kick my heels off fast enough. A perfect night had quickly gone to ruin, leaving me with nothing but burning feet and a bruised ego.

  CHAPTER 11

  Monday morning finally rolled around after a long and depressing Sunday. I’d spent most of the day in sweats, lying under my warm, downy duvet and watching sappy Lifetime movies in bed.

  “You’ve got to be upset if you’re watching Lifetime movies. You hate movies,” LaLa said as she walked in and sat on my bed mid-morning. “What the hell happened last night?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” I sighed. I did but I didn’t. It was all I could think about as my mind replayed each and every segment of the night before all morning long. “I think Kevin and I are over.”

  “Really?” LaLa said as she inched closer to me. Her eyes were as big as saucers. “I thought it was all going so well?”

  “It was going well,” I said. “Almost too well. Until last night.”

  I zipped my lips, not wanting to say a word more. I reached over almost instinctively and checked my phone. Part of me hoped that Kevin would send me a text or reach out to me, but he didn’t. He was silent the entire day.

  By the time I got to work Monday morning, I looked like a hot mess. I hadn’t even bothered to put on an ounce of makeup that day, and my hair was pulled back into a low ponytail.

  I trudged along with my head held low and made my way to my little cubicle. As soon as I sat down, I was greeted with the biggest, most colorful flower arrangement I’d ever seen.

  Not believing it was for me, I glanced around the office to see if anyone had seen it being dropped off. I rifled through the exotic assorted flowers looking for a card of some sort, finally finding it buried behind an iris.

  “Kevin,” I said as I read the card and clutched it close to my chest. It was an apology.

  I smiled for the first time in over a day and sank down happily in my seat as I admired the gorgeous pretties in front of me. I leaned up and sniffed a few of them, taking in their sweet, subtle fragrances.

  “Flowers?” It was Julianne. “From that guy you brough
t to the banquet?”

  She walked up and sniffed the bouquet, just as I’d done, and smiled bright.

  “They’re gorgeous,” she said. “I see some exotics in there. This bouquet is not cheap!”

  I smiled and ran my finger across the soft petal of some wildly yellow flower I’d never seen in my life.