Something Like Love (Serendipitous Love Book 6)

by Christina C Jones

  The first session of the tattoo was supposed to have been me getting the outline and laying the groundwork, but Eddie was fast, and skilled, and had managed to get an amazing amount of the piece done. If I hadn’t seen the sketch, it would look finished to my eyes, but a lot of the depth and fine detail was missing.

  He’d already warned me the second session would hurt worse.

  But again, the pain was something I could handle. What made me not want to do another session was knowing that I would have to endure another several days of the incessant itching that made me want to take a hairbrush to my side.

  It would make all that time and effort worthless though, so instead of doing that… I carefully applied a thin layer of the aftercare butter Eddie had given me, then washed my hands.

  The best thing I could do for myself was hit my mat.

  “You weren’t back there scratching, were you?” Eddie asked from my couch, not taking his gaze away from ESPN.

  I rolled my eyes. “No, just considering pulling my toenails off instead.”

  “Probably be a good distraction from your tat peeling. Go for one of the pinky toes. Nobody will miss it anyway,” he teased, first turning the TV down, and then off when he saw I was heading for my mat.

  “You don’t have to do that on account of me. I can tune it out.”

  He shook his head as he stood. “Nah, I need to be heading out anyway. Supposed to meet the homies to watch the game.”

  “Oooh. Game four, right?”

  He grinned. “Look at you, keeping up.”

  “Barely,” I laughed. “I didn’t even know my TV had ESPN before you came over here, so that should tell you something.”

  “Nothing I didn’t already expect.” He hooked an arm around the side of my waist that wasn’t inked, and pulled me into him. “I’ll catch up with you later okay?”

  I nodded as I looked up into his handsome face, somehow enhanced even more by the fresh haircut he’d gotten the day before. “Actually,” I started, as an idea came to mind, “Can I have like… ten or fifteen more minutes of your time? I want to try something.”

  “You already used up all your dick miles today Asteroid.”

  I laughed, and shook my head. “No, it’s not for that. Just… come here for a second?” I asked, not waiting for an answer before I led him over to the mat. “Lay flat on your back, arms down at your sides,” I directed, and he followed.

  I laid down on top of him, aligning my hips with his, and lowering my head to his chest. He started to speak, but I gave a slight shake of my head as I reached for his hands, interlacing his fingers with mine. We stayed like that, until we came to a point where we were breathing in tandem. After a few more moments like that, I stood.

  “Raise your feet, legs straight up. Point your toes toward your heart,” I said, and his eyebrow lifted, but he did it. Once he positioned himself, I adjust where I was standing at his head, backing up to give myself room before bent I forward, placed my hands just above his shoulders, and pushed myself up into a handstand.

  “What the fuck is happening right now?” he asked, and I did a slow inhale-exhale to center my balance before I spoke.

  “Just relax, bend your knees some, and pull your feet toward your heart. You’re looking for your feet to be at a forty-five degree angle. You got it?” I asked him after a moment, just as my arms were starting to burn. When he nodded, I allowed my body to lean backward, until I felt his feet press into my back. “Now lift me up.”

  “Lift you up?” he asked, dubious. “With my feet?”

  “Not with your feet, with your legs, and your core,” I explained, trying not to laugh. “I’m testing something out. Just thinking about it as straightening your legs, aligning the bottoms of your feet with the ceiling.”

  He pushed out a sigh, but he did it, and I raised my hands away from the ground, straightening and shifting to help him balance. Instead, he must have thought I was falling, because his hands came up, gripping my shoulders to keep me in the air.

  “Are you crazy?!” he asked, and I grinned up at the ceiling.

  “Maybe a little,” I said, as I grabbed his ankles, using the leverage to push my lower half back into the air, then lifting my feet over my head. I spread my legs out wide, like a split, then angled my head so that I could see Eddie’s face, even though I was, literally, upside down. “This isn’t fun to you?”

  He grimaced. “I’m not the one about to get dropped on the head.”

  “You won’t drop me,” I said confidently as I lowered myself back to his feet. From there, I pushed up, until I was balanced just on his feet. “I can feel the strength in your legs, your shoulders, your arms. You’re perfect for this.” To highlight my point, I bent backward again, grabbing his hands. “Take me by the hands, lower your elbows to the floor, and then push me up.”

  “Astrid, I—”

  “Just try.”

  “But,--”

  “Just try.”

  His answer was another hard sigh, but then he held my hands. I could tell he was steeling himself for several moments, and then he pushed up. Again, I stretched my legs into a split to distribute my weight for balance. Once we stopped wobbling, I grinned down at him.

  “See?” I breathed, but I could see the strain in his face as he nodded. This was a lot for a first time, with no preparation, but already he’d done amazing. I carefully lowered myself back to his feet, and talked him through bending his knees to lower me back down. He held my shoulders again as my body came back to the floor. Once my hands touched the ground, I slipped to sit between his legs, then laid back, right on top of him.

  His arms came up around me, hands against my stomach. I lowered my hands to meet his, and together we relaxed into the mat until I couldn’t stand it anymore. I turned over, straddling his legs to grin at him.

  “So…” I started, feeling a little nervous about the indecipherable expression he wore. “How was that for you?”

  “Fuckin’ crazy,” he answered immediately, shaking his head. “I don’t… what the hell kind of yoga was that?”

  “Acro Yoga. Did you like it?”

  He scoffed. “I… I don’t know.” He looked away for a second, but then his gaze came back to me. “Maybe if I had some warning next time…”

  “Sorry about that,” I said, chewing on my lip a bit. “There’s this black couple on social media that I love, and they’re always posting videos together. Made me miss doing partnered yoga, and since you were here…”

  Eddie’s hands came up to my hips. “Since I was here, you thought you’d include me in your lil’ wannabe Cirque Du Soleil today?”

  “Maybe a little bit.”

  “Uh huh,” he said, accompanied by a playful squeeze of my ass. “But… nah, that was… intense. Dope, but intense.”

  I nodded. “Yep. And… insanely hard, even when people have been doing it for years. I didn’t even have to show you a video or anything, you just got it. And that like… doesn’t happen. But it did. You did that.”

  “I was just the base,” he chuckled. “You’re the one up there doing upside down splits and shit.”

  I leaned in, speaking with my lips right near his as I met his eyes. “But the base is vital. Impossible, and dangerous, without a good one.”

  “Is that right?”

  I grinned, then brushed my mouth over his mouth. “That’s right.”

  “Mmmm,” he groaned as I pressed into him for a kiss. “I think you’re just saying whatever you need to say to earn some more dick miles.”

  “Is it working? I mean… you were about to rush out of here to see the game, so…”

  “Fuck that game,” he growled, making me giggle as he squeezed my ass again. “I’m trying to find out what else you can do with a split.”

  &

  “So when do you think you’ll start showing?” I asked, plopping down on the bed in Aurielle’s hotel room to watch her finish getting ready. “How many more weeks?”

  “Just a few,”
she mused, running her hand over what, in a few months, would be a real baby bump. “Hopefully this little peanut stays tucked away as long as possible though. The sooner I start showing, the sooner the questions start, and… I’m not ready for those. I already have people looking at me crazy for being tucked away in the mornings. I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to hide it, but until then…” she turned around, letting the layers of the flowy black floral minidress she wore swirl around here. “I’ll just be glad that it’s summer, and I can get away with dresses like this for a few months.”

  “It fits the vibe of the new album,” I told her, standing up to fix the dress so that it hung off of her shoulders like it was supposed to. “So I think you’re golden. Kev still being super protective?”

  “Always,” she grinned. “I saved him the trouble of figuring out how to talk his way into coming with us and just invited him, if that’s cool?”

  “Girl, bye.” I returned to my seat at the end of the bed, and crossed my legs. “We’re going to Urban Grind, and will inevitably end up with a group of my friends anyway, so… nothing to be bothered about.”

  I’d been surprised, in a good way, when I’d learned that Aurielle was coming to the city to hang out for a night before she hit the northeast for the last dates of her tour. I hadn’t seen her in person in the few weeks since that trip to California, so I was glad to have some time with my sister.

  “Perfect. You ready?”

  “Yep.”

  “Is your new boyfriennnnd gonna be there,” she teased, grabbing me around the middle for a vulgar little pelvic thrust that made me scream with laughter.

  “I do not have a boyfriend, and can you keep your horny pregnancy hormones to yourself please?”

  “Whatever you say.” She grinned. “I know you way too well not to recognize the look of consistent dick when I see it. You’re not getting scissored, you’re getting that thang hammered.”

  “Of course you recognize it, you see it in the mirror every day,” I laughed, then watched as she put on her shoes. “But what I said remains – no boyfriend. We haven’t put a title on it, we’re just… enjoying each other’s energy.”

  “Oh is that what the kids call it these days?”

  “Shut up, okay?”

  Aurielle laughed, then stood up. “Mmmhmm. Hot tat by the way. Is the mystery man the one who did that for you?”

  “Eddie did my tattoo, Auri, you know that – I livestreamed part of the process to you.”

  She sucked her teeth. “So you really aren’t going to tell me, your sister, who it is?!”

  “I’m telling no one. Not yet, at least. I still don’t even know what it is myself.”

  “But I see how…. Floaty, and glowy you are,” Auri gushed, cupping my face in her hands. “You practically levitated in here today – why wouldn’t you want to share that? I’m ready to declare my love for Kev to the world, and you’re in here being secretive and stuff.”

  “And I am thrilled for you little sister,” I told her, wrapping my arms around her to pull her in. “But… I’m not there yet. I don’t even really know how I feel. For all I know, this could all blow up in my face, and if that happens, I want to be able to deal privately. Very privately. Take it to my grave privately. Can’t have y’all knowing I’m not that gangster.”

  She frowned. “But I already know you aren’t that gangster.”

  “Lies.”

  “Whatever,” she laughed. “Let’s go. A great night out awaits… and besides… you’re forgetting you brought him to the show in LA. I already know you’ve been overdosing on that organic chocolate.”

  &

  An hour later, we were squeezed into a booth at Urban Grind, with Sydnee, Harlan, Quinn, Cason, and Jamar. The lights were low, the music was pumping, and we were having a great time. Fun, sexy vibe, lots of laughter. The kind of night that always restored my energy.

  Jamar was flirting hard, as usual, but I was even less interested than usual.

  There was only one man occupying my thoughts.

  I hadn’t grown even remotely bored with him yet, and we were coming up on three months of… whatever it was we were doing. Usually for me, two weeks of the same person’s company was about my normal threshold, and a month was pushing it. Three? Unheard of.

  Something about this thing with Eddie was… different.

  I couldn’t pinpoint how I knew that, or what exactly it was, but it was clear for me, and not a passing fancy.

  Beside me, Auri cleared her throat one too many times.

  “Are you okay?” I asked, leaning in to speak into her ear.

  She nodded, but then coughed again, which got Kev’s attention too, but she waved us off. “I’m fine,” she insisted. “Just adjusting to the humidity here, and the weather. I’m good.”

  “At least let me get you some water or something,” I said, then maneuvered my way out of the booth. I danced my way to the bar, laughing as one of the baristas stopped for a second to dance with me before we moved on.

  I was halfway there when my eyes were assaulted by the image of Eddie in one of the smaller booths, with some girl practically in his lap as she spoke into his ear.

  I wanted to stab her.

  But Eddie was not mine, and violence against innocent people was really far outside of my preferred psychological aesthetic. So I took a moment to just breathe, and when I was focused again, I realized Eddie’s eyes were on me. He lifted his chin in a brief of acknowledgement, and then his eyes were right back on the perfect, sleek-haired, cocoa-skinned, designer-shoe wearing slu—woman who was all over him.

  Definitely not mine.

  I moved on to get Auri’s water.

  I was on autopilot by the time I got back to the booth, absently handing Auri the bottle of LifeWater I’d gotten from the bar. My mind was reeling – how in the hell was I internally giddy about him being the only person really on my mind at one moment, and then in the next moment… he was hugged up with someone else.

  Which is probably how it had always been.

  I didn’t peg him as a liar, so no, he probably wasn’t sleeping with anybody else. But he was certainly intimate with her – and in public, no less, which was an allowance I’d never been given. Not that I’d ever asked, or tried, but still. They were in plain view, for anybody, including me, to see a clear familiarity between them. And he didn’t even care that I saw. A fucking chin raise?!

  Seriously?!

  Even as all of that ran through my head, I was having trouble with one little thing – why the hell did I even care? Thinking back to the California trip, seeing him with Campbell hadn’t even made me blink, because that wasn’t how I got down – I didn’t do jealousy.

  Only… apparently I did.

  And I didn’t like it.

  “What do you think Astrid?” Aurielle asked, nudging my shoulder, and I shook my head as I turned to her.

  “I’m sorry – what do I think about what? I was spaced out,” I told her truthfully, and she laughed.

  “She wants to get up on the mic,” Kevin chimed in from the other side of her.

  Auri sucked her teeth. “And he doesn’t want me to. Thinks it’s going to cause too much of a commotion.”

  I shook my head. “Not here. Especially not with Garrett on security. People are typically pretty chill when celebs get on the mic – that’s the only reason people come back to the mic. Roman is pretty serious about keeping the vibe right around here. But… with that said, if Kev isn’t comfortable with it, maybe that’s something to consider, dear sister,” I told her, and she rolled her eyes, but still smiled.

  “I trust you Astrid,” Kev told me, then looked at Auri. “You know it’s just me wanting you comfortable, and safe right? I don’t want you all stressed, and bothered. This is supposed to be a fun night.”

  She grinned at him, then leaned in to press a kiss to his lips. “Which is exactly why I want to get on the mic. Blow off some steam, sing something that doesn’t have to be perfect f
or the people who paid to see me.”

  He nodded. “I get it babe. If you’re good… I’m good. You go do your thing.”

  Ugh.

  They were so syrupy sweet to watch that it was giving me a headache.

  Normally I wouldn’t have even been bothered, but after seeing Eddie with that other girl, my attitude wasn’t right. If I didn’t have Auri and Kev out, I would go and get on my mat. But… since I did have them out, I put a smile on my face and played along like a good sport.

  Sydnee and I took Auri to the booth to put her name on the list, and then waited with her until it was her turn. Roman was the emcee again tonight, and I was grateful that he inherently knew not to make a big deal about my sister going up, and made a point of not referring to her as “Pixie”, calling her instead by her real name.

  I sat next to Kev as we cheered for her on the mic, and her face formed into a shy smile that was unlike the Aurielle I knew.

  “Um… I’m in love, y’all,” she started, an intro that got a round of applause and whistles, and made Kev blush. “It’s really this… intense, amazing feeling that I thought I’d experienced before, but really hadn’t. I always want to be around him, always want to be close, always want to be in his arms, you know? He’s strong, and sexy, and smart, and… I don’t even know how to put it into words. Luckily somebody else did, so I’m going to sing her song,” she laughed, and the audience laughed with her. “Um… because really, it’s not even just that I am in love, it’s that the feeling is… reciprocated. That’s important, and I didn’t realize how much, until him. He protects me. Makes me feel safe. Makes me feel valued. Never makes me feel less than, or unimportant to him. Puts nobody but God before me. He loves me. And… this song is for him.”

  I don’t think I exhaled until she started singing the opening lines of Jill Scott’s He Loves Me. And even then, I found it a little hard to catch my breath. Beside me, Kevin was completely enraptured by Auri’s gorgeous voice and presence as she sang that soulful, sexy song to him. Across the room, Eddie was back in my line of sight, with some man in his face, talking close as hell, with his hand on Eddie’s bicep.