Better Than Your Ex

by Jimi Gaillard-Jefferson

  “I got it right?” He stood in the doorway. Naked from the waist up. A plate of food in one hand and juice in the other.

  I closed my mouth for a second. Breathed through my nose. “Who helped you? Gran?”

  He shook his head and I knew he didn’t lie. Gran leaned towards monochrome looks. Things that billowed.

  “Junie didn’t help either,” he said.

  I knew that too even though I was going to ask. I had to lock onto a reason. I had to lock onto something that would explain what was happening in my stomach. Between my thighs.

  “Hurry up,” he said.

  “I’m still going to have to go home for-”

  “-makeup’s in the bathroom.”

  “And I can take myself to work since-”

  “I took your car back to your place. I’ll take you to work like I always do.”

  He did always take me to work when I spent the night at his house. Even when we were friends. To give us a little more time. And my makeup was in his bathroom. With my favorite shower gel and lotions. All of my skin care products.

  It didn’t matter. The night before. What he did that morning. How what he did that morning felt more intimate than anything he’d ever done to me at night.

  I showered. Dressed. Put on makeup. And smiled when he handed me breakfast. A wobbly smile that I straightened before he could see it or question it.

  He shared the paper with me. We traded and read the stories the other found interesting. He told me things that could probably be categorized as insider trading. We laughed over the comics together.

  He put on music I hadn’t heard before in the car and didn’t try to hold my hand. It was me that leaned toward him for a kiss that I shouldn’t have expected to come. It was me that checked my cell phone once the morning rush was over. Me that didn’t feel any surprise when there was a text from him. A recipe. And a question mark.

  As if he had to ask. As if I had the energy to try and identify how I felt.

  We made lunch together. No arms wrapped tight around my waist or kisses to my neck. No nimble, long fingers turned the stove down or off. They didn’t boost me up onto the counter and encourage my clothes to leave my body or find their way to the parts of me that existed for their touch.

  Just lunch. Just conversation.

  Just friendship.

  Cahir

  Success went to the one that recognized opportunity and grabbed it. It went to the person that looked beyond themselves and their ego and saw what was in front of them. That’s the hardest part-getting past your own ego. Getting out of your own way.

  It was the most difficult part when Cash came over that night. I didn’t want to get out of my own way. I wanted to fight with her. I wanted to throw my weight and my words around. I wanted to be loud too. I wanted to tell her that no one talked to me the way I let her.

  I stayed still instead. I watched her instead. I pushed my own feelings to the side to be dealt with later.

  Thank God.

  Beyond the anger was hurt, frustration, disappointment. Mixed in with the angry words was what I’d done to break us. Hand in hand with the frustration was longing for me. For me to fix it.

  I should have seen it. I should have known. In that elevator, I should have been different, better. Should have. But in that elevator all I wanted was a weapon. All I wanted was proof that I could tell her the worst and still have her tethered to me. Of course she would see that as manipulation. Of course she would see that as a betrayal of what we built, an abuse of feelings she’d run from. She was right.

  And for the first time since she told me our relationship was over I felt like I could breathe. I knew what I’d done. I knew that I could fix it. I knew that she wanted me to fix it.

  When I watched her take off her clothes…when she let me touch her…when she touched me back…I knew. There was no life without her. No life that would leave me fulfilled. I needed her.

  Ego said go get her. Ego said make love to her until she felt like she’d absorbed me into her skin. Until we were the same. Ego said she was mine again she just didn’t know it. Touch her. Touch her until she accepted the truth. But that wouldn’t work with Cash. My woman, my best friend, would need something different.

  She would need me to be her friend. She would need to see that the decision was hers.

  I kept my hands to myself. My thoughts to myself. My desire to myself. My amusement as she tried to figure out what the hell I was doing. My joy when after a week of texting her plans for us to hang out she text me about drinks with Junie.

  I wore her favorite suit. Her favorite cologne. I left my expectations at home. And tried not to jump out of my skin every time she touched me. Like she used to. Without conscious thought. Touch that lingered. Stroked. Caressed.

  I was patient. You didn’t amass the kind of money I had if you weren’t, but I almost lost it. Cash could always make me feel like I was about to lose it.

  I kept my eyes on her. Tried to show her what she was doing to me. She either didn’t see it or didn’t care. And I was positive that I wasn’t going to last another five minutes in that bar without dragging her into a bathroom or a corner and doing things that would probably get us arrested.

  “I’m going to go,” Junie said.

  I blinked. “What?”

  She twisted her teal braids up into a bun. “Cassidy doesn’t see it. I do. And I don’t want to be here when it happens.”

  I didn’t just laugh. I screamed with it. The desire that threatened to choke me abated just a bit.

  “Exactly.” Junie grinned and the men she’d ignored all night leaned in her direction. “There’s a hotel close by. And you’re supposed to be a patient man. That’s what I heard about you.”

  “God, stop,” I wheezed.

  “I want to laugh,” Cash said.

  “You should be laughing,” Junie said. “You’re the one that did it.”

  “So confused,” Cash said.

  “I’m leaving.” Junie slid her purse onto her shoulder. She rolled her eyes when I handed her the business cards she collected.

  “Stay,” Cash said in the voice she saved for the moments when she had to be polite but still sort of meant the words that came out of her mouth. “We don’t get to hang out the three of us. And you don’t even have a real reason to go.”

  “You’ve been touching him like you’re fucking him and want everyone in the room to know it since he got here.” Junie popped her gum and the old man beside us who didn’t have a shot in hell looked like he fell in love. “He’s ready to fuck you in a corner and bribe everyone in here to pretend they didn’t see anything.”

  “Scary.”

  “Yes, observant women are terrifying. Figure out if you want to fuck him, Cass. Then after you fuck him call me. I saw these shoes.” Junie left with a wiggle of her fingers and a pop of gum that left behind the scent of mango.

  “Was she right?” Cash’s hands, and her eyes, were on me.

  I swallowed and knew I wasn’t sure if I wanted to answer her question with words or action.

  Cassidy

  I didn’t think about it. I didn’t have to. He was my Cahir. Of course I would touch him, reach for him. No, I wouldn’t think about it. I didn’t think about breathing or blinking or any of the other things my body had to do in order to keep me alive. I just did them.

  He was beyond precious to me. He was necessary. I knew that when I got over my anger from that night. Knew that he was something that I needed to have around me. So I settled back into us, or the version of us that I could handle. I thought that was friendship. I thought it was just-But his body was a comfort to me. To know that it was there, that he was real, it soothed me. I didn’t know why I needed to be soothed.

  “I-I don’t want you to answer that.”

  He grinned. I didn’t realize how close my face was to his. My lips. “I know, Cash.”

  Of course. He knew everything about me. I shivered and knew he noticed. His body went still the
n tight. Eyes brighter. And there was that flush on his cheekbones. The one that told me to run if I wanted to have any choice in where he ripped my clothes off. And was I any better? Soft to his tight. Breathless in the face of his desire and what it would mean for me. What it would make me say and do. How I would debase myself. How much I wanted to be debased. Powerless.

  “Don’t.” His voice was rough. “You know I’ll do it.”

  “Yes.”

  “Cash.”

  “Cahir.”

  “You don’t want this. Not really.”

  “Don’t tell me what I want.” I trailed my fingers over his thigh and liked how I could feel the evidence of his workouts. Liked how I couldn’t help but remember in vivid detail what thighs that strong were capable of doing to me.

  “Ok.” He captured my fingers and put them on the bar. “Why don’t you tell me what you want.”

  “You.” I was proud of and surprised by my honesty. By how easy it was to cross back over the line I drew in spite of all the things that were between us.

  “And after that?” He was so close I could feel his lips move over mine.

  He did it on purpose. Clever man. Crafty man. Lips that made me think of sin and words that made me…think.

  “After that I-” I shrugged.

  “Maybe,” God, I could get high on his voice alone. Come from his voice alone. “Maybe before I drag you into corners and bathrooms and cars and your place and mine and alleys and brick walls-maybe before we do that you tell me what you want to have happen to us after.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m not going to be the friends with benefits guy while you keep dating around in the hopes that you find someone who can do for you what I do. All or nothing, Cash.” He dropped a soft kiss to my lips. Was it supposed to be my reminder that dating was futile? That nothing would be better than him? He stood and dropped money on the bar. “You had more to drink than me. Let me take you home.”

  Chapter Ten

  Cahir

  I wished for eternal sunshine and warm weather when I saw Cash. For a lifetime of whatever mood she was in when she decided that one of my t-shirts, a leather jacket, and thigh high boots was the best thing to wear to the farmer’s market.

  I stuffed my hands into my pockets. “You look great.”

  “You have great taste in t-shirts.” She kissed my cheek.

  “Are you-” I sniffed again. “Are you wearing my cologne?”

  “It smells better on me, right?”

  “You aren’t playing fair, Cash.”

  She laughed and looped her arm through mine. I took the basket I bought her on our first farmer’s market trip our of her hand. We wandered for a while. Just to get an idea of what was there, what we could make, what we had a taste for. Then we started shopping.

  “Would it be ridiculous if I got more succulents?” She ran her fingers over them.

  “I hope not. I bought a pallet of them for you before you got here.”

  “Cahir!”

  “That’s what happens when you’re late.” I shrugged and steered her away from the plants.

  “Is that criticism or encouragement?”

  I laughed. “Why don’t you tell me why you’re trying to kill me?”

  “What do you mean?” Her eyes were wide. Eyelashes fluttered.

  I loved her.

  I gestured to her outfit. “Come on. You’re dressed for war.”

  “I have questions.” She chewed on her bottom lip. “About Zion.”

  My hand tightened around hers. I stopped in a patch of sunlight that made her eyes more than miraculous. They were otherworldly. “It’s me, Cash. Me. You don’t have to do anything to get the truth from me but ask. I’m sorry I made you doubt that.”

  “Don’t be kind. It doesn’t make me feel like less of an asshole.”

  “Fine.” I rolled my shoulders. “How dare you have perfectly natural questions for me, you meddlesome bitch. What do you think we are? Friends? Best friends?”

  Her mouth fell open and for a second we stood in silence. A long second that made me wonder if this was the thing that would make her punch me in the face.

  She laughed. “Now I don’t feel like an asshole. Thanks.”

  “Anything for you.” Did she know how much I meant that? “Ask.”

  “Have you seen her? Been to appointments?”

  If there were any doubts in my mind that Zion wasn’t the one for me, that I was finished, the nausea that rose up in me would have laid them to rest.

  “You wanna know something interesting?”

  “Hmm?” She ran her fingers over produce. Selected the best ones.

  “You’re the first and only person in my life that asks the real questions. The ones that prove you’re paying attention to me, that you want to know.”

  She looked up. “No one’s asked you if you’ve gone to a doctor’s appointment? What kind of self-absorbed assholes do you have around you?”

  “We like talking about work and money.”

  “Kids don’t affect money?”

  “Touché”

  “So?”

  It was easier because she didn’t look at me. “I haven’t seen her. I-It’s kind of pathetic.”

  “No.” She threw more vegetables in the basket. Still didn’t look at me. “It’s not.”

  I loved her. My best friend. “I’m scared to see her.”

  “What brings the fear?”

  “Anger.” I felt heavier and lighter for admitting it to her. For the way she didn’t react, just waited.

  “Tell me about it.”

  I let out a shuddering breath and walked with her to the next stall. Let her drag me. “I was proud of myself for ending it, for staying away. Proud of myself for rebuilding my life, getting myself back. Falling in love with you.”

  She squeezed my hand.

  “I was thinking about my future. No. Past thinking about it. I was planning it. And it was good, Cash. Real fucking good.”

  “Of course it was. It’s what you deserve.”

  Didn’t she know I would fuck her in front of the squash if she said things like that?

  “She took my future from me. I didn’t know she could take anything else from me. I didn’t know I could feel…violated again. Once was enough. Dreaming it every night was enough. Scars on my knuckles. I thought I was over with it. Done. Then O’Shea tells me and I’m feeling it all over again. Every second.”

  “Cahir.”

  “Only this time I’m angry. Because she succeeded. She got pregnant. She got a way to pull me back into her life and make me fell like I’m the bottom of the fucking barrel again. How does she do that?”

  “I-”

  “And then the guilt hits. Because there’s a baby. An innocent life that has fuck-all to do with all this shit. Didn’t even ask to be in this shit. Just got thrown in it. That’s what I should be focused on. My child. Not her bullshit. I should be focused on becoming a father. And I can’t.”

  “You can do both.”

  “What?”

  “You can be excited about your child and have feelings about the mother.”

  “Zion’s not going to be my kid’s mother.” The words were sharper than I meant them to be. But Cash had to know.

  “Okay.” She rubbed my arm. “Okay. You can feel how you want about Zion and be excited about the baby. You can chew gum and walk.”

  I laughed. She could always make me laugh. And once I finished laughing, I always realized she was right.

  Cassidy

  I was love and light. I was the culmination of my ancestors’s hopes and dreams. The best of them. I was the best and worst of Black women. An individual not a monolith. I was a whole and healed person.

  That Cahir was angry with Zion, over her, wouldn’t go back to her to form a perfect family, shouldn’t have made me so happy.

  An ugly kind of happy. The kind that feels twisted from its inception because it takes pleasure in another’s loss. But I couldn’t help
it. I didn’t want to step away from it. I wallowed in it. And every second felt like going to the spa until I remembered that I was supposed to be better, that Cahir deserved better of his friends.

  I sat on my couch with my amethyst in my palms and closed my eyes. I opened my mind. It was still water. An endless expanse of still water that contained nothing that would hurt me. Only things that would welcome me. I breathed deep. In. Out. And dove beneath the surface to see what there was to be seen without judgment.

  Love. Bright and steady and unable to be ignored. For so many. And wasn’t that beautiful? That I had so many people in my life that I could share my love with? That I could love them in a way that spoke to them? And they loved me. In a way that resonated. Given and received. It was what gave me light.

  There was my love for Cahir. A bit brighter. A bit different in feel. I dove deeper into it and it lost its clean, its shine. Murky and gritty. And I knew that was my own fault. I could see it.

  I could see the anxiety and insecurity, the anger. Could see how they made what was once so beautiful less.

  I gathered them close in my mind and held them the way my physical body held the crystal and examined them. It would have been easier, my mind whispered to me, to leave them alone. Or to hand responsibility of them to him. Cahir could be the reason I felt the way he did. And I could let the anxiety and the insecurity turn to anger and bitterness because he didn’t see them and so didn’t fix them. It would be easier.

  It would make our love different. Loving Cahir was so unique, so special, so valuable because it was the first love that was wholly my own. I grew it. I tended it. I mended and amended it. I carried it. And he carried his own love. He made sure it was right for him and safe for me. I owed him the same.

  I owed myself honesty. The honest truth was there had always been something about Zion. I still didn’t know what she looked like. I avoided O’Shea’s paintings and photographs online. I stayed far away from her favorite spots after Junie told me what they were. And I didn’t look for her amongst Cahir’s things.