My eyes narrowed. “Wait a minute, what? Kyle, what the hell are you talking about?!”
“I’m talking about the fact that when I asked you out, you went out of your goddamn way to make sure I knew you weren’t interested in that, but the sex? Oh yeah, we could keep that up, even while you let this other motherfucker wine and dine you.”
“Are you kidding me?” I asked, throwing my hands up. “Kyle, are you seriously comparing you wanting us to kick it in public to me saying yes to someone who is actually interested in me, like romantically?”
He huffed. “Nah, I’m talking about the fact that it didn’t even cross your mind that maybe I wasn’t asking you out as a fucking friend. That maybe I was romantically interested in you.”
“Why would it?!” I laughed, shaking my head. He was only barely past pining over Audrey, and that situation wasn’t even resolved. Sure, he probably was sick of her shit, and ready to move on, but he hadn’t given me any indication that he was ready for, or interested in, a traditional relationship or anything like it. And certainly not with me.
I met his eyes, waiting for him to laugh about this with me, because surely it had to be a joke. He was playing around, as usual.
But… he didn’t even crack a smile.
He just stared at me, with this deadpan look on his face that made me want to squirm.
“I don’t know,” he said finally, then pulled his gaze away from mine. “I guess it’s pretty ridiculous to think about.”
He pushed himself up from the couch, and it really hit me then that something, somewhere, had gone completely wrong with this conversation. I jumped up, following him to the door as he put his shoes back on. I stepped in front of him, blocking him.
“Where are you going?” I asked, trying to get him to look at me, but when he did, I almost wished he hadn’t. His expression was bland and dry, none of the Kyle I’d grown to see as a good friend.
“To my studio. Got some work I need to do.”
I frowned. “But… it’s already late, and you told me you were done for the day. We were going to order pizza, and–”
“Things change,” he said, shrugging. “I know that’s so hard for everybody to believe, but… yeah. Let me get by you.”
“Just hold on a second.” I pressed my back flat against the door. “What the hell just happened? You’re mad at me, and I don’t know why?”
He shook his head. “I’m not mad at you.”
“That’s not true, Kyle. I can tell you’re mad.”
“I’m not mad at you,” he shot back. “I’m mad at the fact that everybody, even my damn friends, seems to think I’m somebody that I’m not, and I don’t know how to get out of that box. It’s like I’m… I don’t know, a robot to y’all I guess. All I do is paint basketballs and fuck.”
I tipped my head, not believing he’d actually said that to me, after I’d defended him against exactly what he was accusing me of. Not that he knew that, but still.
“Seriously? Are you that used to women falling all over you that me not jumping to the default of wanting you to fall in love with me is a problem? All of this, because of that?”
He scoffed. “See? There it is, right there – that notion that I’m just some ego-driven playboy, feeding off of women’s attention. It must be that, instead of me being genuinely interested in you, and disappointed that the interest isn’t returned, most likely because of false assumptions.”
“What false assumptions, Kyle? You’re not a relationship guy. You like being single, and free to do what you want, and come and go from your ex on a whim. You said that to me when we started this thing – things between you and her might get complicated again. And you’re really going to stand here and get upset because I didn’t consider that you might “really” want me? You don’t. So… I don’t get the problem here.”
Instead of saying anything, Kyle pushed out a deep breath, and nodded. He didn’t even look at me when he finally said, “Aiight, B. You and Rob… y’all got it. Know me better than I know myself. Can I get past you now?”
I didn’t like how he sounded, and no, I didn’t want to let him through that door. I stepped right up to him, wrapping my arms around his waist, ignoring his stiffness because I knew he was pissed.
“Kyle, listen… I think you’re amazing. You’re smart, and funny, and sexy, and a great friend.” I pushed up on my toes to reach his chin, where I planted a kiss as my hands drifted up to his chest. “And… an amazing lover. Nothing has changed.”
“I have though,” he said, stepping away from my touch. “If you want to date other people, that’s fine. Do that, do what makes you happy. I’m all for it. But this maintenance man role… I’m not about to do it again.”
Before I could even process his words, let alone respond, he was out the door. I didn’t bother trying to stop him or go after him, because I had no idea what to say.
I wasn’t even sure what the hell had just happened.
&
“Wow. You are so dumb. You are really, really dumb, forreal.”
I scowled at Gia, and turned to Iris, who was sitting on the other couch quiet as hell, sipping slowly from her glass of wine. “Are you going to let her talk to me like that?”
Iris snorted. “Uh, yeah bitch. You brought up Rob’s dick pics to defend Kyle, and your silly ass turned around and messed it up? You’ve gotta take this slander today, sis. Sorry, not sorry.”
“So not only am I dumb, I’m silly too? Wow. If you two could help me figure this out instead of being mean, I would love that,” I said, earnestly. “Seriously y’all, what am I missing here?”
“The point.”
“A clue.”
“Common sense.”
“The obvious.”
“Guys!” I interjected, pouting as they snickered from their seats. “I’m serious. He hasn’t returned a call or responded to a text in two days, and I don’t understand what I did wrong!”
Iris reached for the grapes piled on the plate on the table, grabbing a handful before she sat back. “You gushed to a man who likes you about saying yes to a different man asking you out, after you friend-zoned said guy. And you don’t see the problem?”
“Kyle does not like me, though. He’s mad that I didn’t consider that he might like me, because he thinks it’s based on me judging him, when it’s not. From the beginning, our connection was one night stand, to fuck buddies, to friends with benefits. It was never about dating, or romance, so I don’t get why its suddenly a problem for me to not think he wants me like that. He’s never wanted me like that, so why would I abruptly think something different? He’s literally mad that I think he sees me as a friend.”
Gia groaned. “And I am literally mad that you’re being so obtuse.”
My eyes went wide. “How though? I swear, I’m not being purposely clueless, I really don’t get it.”
“Obviously,” Iris laughed. “Brandi, he likes you. That’s it. It’s just that simple.”
“I’m telling you guys, that is not what he was saying.”
“And we’re telling you that it is,” Gia said, pouring herself a fresh glass of wine. “What did you say he said, “he wasn’t going to play the maintenance man role again”? Swoon,” she said, putting a hand over her heart.
Iris leaned toward her. “Right though?!”
“Whose side are you guys on right now?” I exclaimed, and Gia laughed.
“Right now? His.”
“Same here,” Iris chimed. “Hashtag, Team Kyle.”
My mouth dropped open. “When the hell did that happen? I thought you were trying to protect me from him!”
“Yeah,” she nodded. “Before I knew he had feelings for you. When men are ready to settle down, they’re just ready. Now, you need to get with the winning team.”
I scoffed. “I cannot believe that from you, when I had to practically beg you not to let Rob slip through your little fingers while you were on your two-year dick-free sabbatical.”
“When
you know better, you do better. I recognized that my former hoe was special, and look at me now. Not letting a few old dick pics get me down.”
“Oh my God, you said you weren’t mad about that anymore.”
She shrugged. “I’m not mad, I’m just not going to let your ass forget it yet, especially since you tried to turn Kyle into your Splackavellie and it blew it up in your face.”
“I wasn’t though! What is so wrong with keeping my friend with benefits while I date to find someone who could potentially be the real deal?”
“Nothing, usually,” Gia explained. “But the problem in your situation is that Kyle actually likes you. He wants to be your potential real deal.”
I sighed. “When he asked me out to the comedy club, I went on this whole explanation about the message it would send for us to be seen together, and he just looked at me like I was a crazy person. It would have been the perfect opportunity to correct me if there was something there – he said nothing.”
“Because you’d just finished friend-zoning him!” Iris laughed.
“I wasn’t! I was reassuring him that I wasn’t trying to shift our arrangement into something else!”
“He wants to shift the arrangement into something else, my beautiful, talented, clueless friend,” Gia groaned. “Stop trying to prove your version of events, and take a minute to see it from his side. Whether or not you see him as a potential partner, the fact is that he likes you, point blank period. He was asking you on a date. You – inadvertently – friend-zoned him. So he says, okay, I’ll go with it. Because you’re having amazing sex, and cuddling, and talking, and laughing, and doing most of the relationship shit anyway. But then, here you come, telling him you’ve accepted a date with another man, after you wouldn’t accept one with him. If it was the other way around, how do you think that would feel?”
I pushed out a breath.
Shit.
“He… likes me?”
“Eureka,” Iris said dryly, reaching for the wine bottle. “Those gears are turning after all.”
“It’s not funny,” I whispered, putting my glass down before it spilled from my suddenly shaky hands as that possibility took root in my mind.
I’d gotten it so, so wrong.
The maintenance man comment, that I’d thought was just about not replicating the situation with Audrey… it was deeper than that if he had feelings for me. It wasn’t just about not wanting to be the “good dick” while I slept with someone else. It was about not wanting to be used for sex while someone else got the other parts of me – parts he wanted. Me saying he wasn’t a “relationship guy”… did he think I was saying he wasn’t good enough?
I could go on, and on, and on about all the ways I’d failed in that conversation, but I’d gotten one thing right after the fact – we definitely weren’t on the same page. We were in different books, different genres, hell, different languages.
“I messed that up so bad,” I said out loud, looking between my friends. “How am I supposed to fix it? He’s not even speaking to me right now.”
Iris whistled. “Start practicing your Baby Baby Please.”
“And make sure your phone is fully charged. I want video evidence,” Gia giggled.
I dropped my head into my hands, wishing I could simply go back in time, knowing what I did now.
“Hey, so… when is your date with Marshall?”
I looked up at Gia. “Tomorrow night.”
Iris whistled again. “Damn. I hope you actually like him, cause you know you can’t just cancel, right?”
I frowned. “Why the hell not?”
“Drama at work,” Gia sang. “And Iris would know all about that, from dealing with Julian.” She laughed when Iris flipped her off. “But seriously, you would have to come up with a heck of lie to get him off your back amicably if you don’t go. Postponing a date is one thing, getting him to leave you alone forever now that you’ve expressed interest… a whole other thing.”
Iris sighed. “She’s right. It’s probably better to just go, insist on paying for your own meal, and then be sad and boring so he loses interest. Which, shouldn’t be too hard, since you’ll have Kyle on the brain anyway.”
“That’s probably true,” I said, collapsing back into the cushions. My mood was already heading south.
“Y’all are nuts,” Gia said. “What I was to going to suggest was being honest with him. I agree that you should pay for your own meal, but… be an adult about it. Tell him that things have changed, you think he’s a good guy, but that you have too much going on to pursue anything new right now.”
“If a man did that to me I would stab him with salad fork, right there at the table.”
Iris and Gia laughed at my declaration, but I was serious. That was wack.
“I’m going to go on the date because I agreed to it, and I don’t want to be rude, and Marshall hasn’t done anything wrong, and I don’t want or need drama at my job. Which, that’s honestly been on my mind since I agreed, and will probably be the reason I give to not see him again.”
“I think that’s fair.” Gia put her empty glass down on the table. “But I don’t think you should just call it a wash with Kyle. You hurt his feelings. Maybe he just needs some time to process. Hell, it took you two days and two lifelines to figure out the man liked you.”
That made me burst into much-needed laughter, and I shook my head. “No. If nothing else, we really were friends, and I want to try to make it right.”
“Good,” Iris nodded, standing up. “Now come on. Let’s find you something really ugly to wear on this date.”
{eight} his lies
Ignoring her calls and texts was wack.
I knew that.
I just… needed a minute to cool off.
It wasn’t even like I was that pissed. This feeling was something harder to identify – or maybe I just didn’t want to identify it – something that was harder to get past. If she’d pissed me off, I’d be good by now. But instead… four days after that blow up, I found myself at Derrick’s spot, Ascension, sitting at the bar with a drink in my hand on a Saturday night.
“I’m telling you man…no way is your boy making it to the finals this year.” In the seat beside me, Derrick shook his head. “He can’t even stop his Twitter fingers long enough to get to practice most of the time, can’t stay out of trouble. It’s not looking good.”
I chuckled. “Yeah, yeah. Haters make the world go round. Don’t count the whole team out. I think they can pull it together.”
“You’re only optimistic because that was your team, bruh. You gotta face reality – those dudes are trash. No offense, no defense – they don’t have shit.”
“Aiight fam, square up,” I said, putting my drink down on the bar and pretending to get up as Derrick laughed. As we kept going back and forth, one of the servers approached Derrick with a worried look on her face.
“Mr. Mays, table 30 wants to speak to the owner. They are really upset.”
Derrick frowned. “Neither one of the managers have taken care of it? Where are Thomas and Angela?”
“They want to talk to you about Angela,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s bad.”
“Ah, shit. I’ll be there in a second, thank you.” Once she’d walked away, Derrick turned back in my direction to groan. “First the food critic, now this. Working for myself was supposed to be drama-free.”
I laughed. “Who told you that lie?”
“As soon as I remember, I’m kicking their ass,” Derrick said over his shoulder as he got up, heading toward whatever fire was in sudden need of being put out.
While he was doing that, I finished off my drink, then got the bartender’s attention for a refill. I hadn’t planned on being out tonight, but since KJ was with my parents, this was better than sitting around by myself, letting that misunderstanding with Brandi consume my thoughts. But honestly, it wasn’t even just her – it was everybody. I’d had my wild times in the past, for sure. The shit with Audrey was mess
y, I could admit that. But to have all these people I looked at as family, people I thought knew me better than that, all thinking the same thing about me?
Shit, where did I go wrong? I really wanted to figure it out, cause it was messing with my head.
I turned away from the bar, facing out into the restaurant trying to see where Derrick had gone. From the look the server had been wearing, the customer had to be pretty irate, and if there was going to be a show… I wasn’t trying miss it.
I scoured the crowed in the lowered ambient light, trying to spot him.
Instead… my eyes landed on Brandi.
On a date.
Damn.
So she’d gone anyway, even after what happened between us.
I wanted to be mad, but I shook my head, quickly putting that feeling in check. Just because I’d suddenly realized I was seeing her as a little more than a friend, didn’t mean the shit was mutual. And if we flipped this shit around, I’d be looking at a chick sideways for feeling a sense of ownership over me when we weren’t even close to making anything official. So I forced myself to chill.
I wasn’t sure why she was wearing a damn turtleneck on a date, but she still looked good. Maybe she called herself being modest, but there was no hiding that pretty face.
Shaking my head, I turned back to the bar. Just like that night at the club, it wouldn’t do anybody any good for me to be caught staring at her.
“Comped scallops and dessert saved the day,” Derrick said, dropping back into the seat next to me. “Just one of many reasons I love black folks. Free food covers a multitude of sins.”
“Damn right. Speaking of, I came through, dropped a few social media posts about your spot… where my lobster at, bruh?” I asked, then accepted my fresh – and free – drink from the bartender.
“Ay.” Derrick nudged me, then subtly pointed. “Isn’t that Brandi over there with the well-done version of your undercooked ass?”
I chuckled. “Don’t change the subject. I can’t get an appetizer or something nigga?”
“Will you get this hungry motherfucka a menu please?” Derrick asked the next server that passed. “Now, answer the question. Isn’t that Brandi?”
The Lies: The Lies We Tell About Love, Life, and Everything in Between Page 16
