Your Ex My Man

by Sharissa Coles

  I sat on the couch and waited for Kevin. It was 7:10 now and no sign of him. I checked my phone to make sure it was on. No missed calls.

  By 7:20, I started to worry a little, but turned on the TV to keep myself from going insane. I started getting into a documentary on the History Channel when I realized it was already 8:15. It had been over an entire hour.

  I felt crushed. I had never been stood up before—and he was the one who had pursued me! I started to replace my self-pity with anger. I convinced myself that I would ignore him if he tried calling, but I knew better.

  By 8:30, I decided to change into my pajamas, which consisted of a pale yellow jersey tank top and some gray yoga pants. I pulled back my lovely waves into a low chignon.

  What a waste of time, I thought.

  At exactly 8:39, my phone rang, and of course it was Kevin. I let it ring a few times and debated letting it go to voicemail, but I was too curious and too impatient to play that game.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Rashida, I’m on my way,” he said.

  “On your way? Isn’t it a little late now?” I wanted him to know his behavior was unacceptable.

  “I am so sorry. I really am. Do you not want me to come over?” he asked.

  I was quiet for a moment. I really wanted to see him, but I didn’t want him thinking he could walk all over me this early on.

  “You still there?” he asked.

  “Yeah, I guess you can come over,” I said. I didn’t feel like spending the evening alone.

  “Good. I’m on my way,” he said.

  As promised, he arrived shortly thereafter, pizza box and movie in hand. It was nearly 9:00.

  “We’re going low-key tonight,” he said. “I hope you like pepperoni.”

  “Actually, I’m a vegetarian,” I said.

  “Are you serious? I had no idea. I will personally pick each and every little pepperoni off this pizza for you,” he said as he sat the box on the kitchen counter. I could tell he genuinely felt bad. “Or I’ll go and pick up a cheese pizza just for you.”

  “I’m totally kidding. Although when you said Zestos, I assumed we were eating there.”

  “That was the original plan,” he said. “Then I got called into work. Is this not okay?”

  Actually, it had been a long time since I’d had a low-key night in with a guy. I kind of liked it. It felt sort of like the old days, sort of like a cozy relationship.

  “You’re just lucky my roommate is out tonight,” I said. “What movie did you get?”

  “Sunset at Rose Manor,” he said. “The movie store clerk said it’s the best chick flick out right now. I hope you haven’t seen it.”

  “Nope, sure haven’t,” I said. How considerate of him to rent a chick flick for me. I didn’t dare tell him I wasn’t into movies.

  I began getting out plates for the pizza and grabbed a couple of beers from the refrigerator.

  “A girl after my own heart,” Kevin said, smiling.

  “These are actually LaLa’s. She won’t mind though,” I said.

  I popped in the movie and finally sat down to eat. I turned around to figure out where I was going to sit, and he patted the sofa cushion next to him. He looked so cute sitting there, noshing on pizza in jeans and a t-shirt. He was a far cry from the suit and tie guy I’d met earlier in the week. I was relieved to know he wasn’t so buttoned up all the time. I felt really comfortable around him already.

  As we finished the last of the pizza, we both leaned back onto the couch. The movie was a little boring, and I could tell he wasn’t even into it. Still, it was nice to just sit there with a guy. It made me realize how much I missed being in a relationship.

  Then, as if we were in junior high, he slowly slipped his arm around me and pulled me closer to him. As soon as he touched me, a little part of me melted. My legs felt rubbery, and somehow I felt brave enough to lean into him. He smelled familiar, and I was pretty sure he was wearing the same cologne Antoine used to wear.

  My eyelids started to feel heavy, and I decided to rest them just for a little while. I took a deep breath and for a moment forgot where I was. It must have been Kevin’s cologne, but I felt like I was with Antoine for a split second. It felt like old times. It just felt comfortable.

  I must have dozed off. I was startled awake by rather annoying sound of Kevin’s cell phone ringing. He gently slid me off his arm and stood up to take the call. I could barely make out his form by the glow of the blank, blue TV screen. The movie must’ve ended long ago, and we’d both fallen asleep.

  “Yes, sir,” I heard Kevin say. “We got Hoover? Really? That’s great. I’m on my way.”

  “Leaving?” I asked.

  “Yeah, I got called into work again. We’d been chasing this guy for a while and he finally decided to turn himself in. I’ve got to go down to the station for questioning. I’ve been dying to hear his confession,” Kevin said. There was a bit of a twinkle in his eye. His face lit up when he talked about his job, and I loved that about him. If only passion for work was contagious.

  “What time is it?” I was still trying to wake up.

  “Two thirty,” Kevin said, slipping his shoes on.

  “Ugh,” I groaned. “I have to get up for work in four hours.”

  “Must be nice having a set schedule,” Kevin replied. He gave me a kiss on the forehead, and with that he was gone.

  CHAPTER 5

  Almost a week went by, and I hadn’t heard from Kevin since our little date. I decided to keep my distance and play it cool. I was going to let him chase me.

  Once a month, we were required to put in a Saturday at the office. It wasn’t so bad. It usually only lasted about four hours or so, and with less staff there and no management, it was the perfect opportunity to screw around.

  I swiped my keycard at the front entrance and trudged up the stairs to the second floor. I threw my purse down in my cubicle and fired up my trusty computer.

  The office was always eerily quiet on Saturdays. I peeked around, seeing no one except a couple staff writers clear across the room. I pulled up an internet radio station on my browser and set it to a nineties pop station. I was feeling a bit nostalgic.

  My work inbox was almost empty except for a handful of spam emails and two wedding announcement submissions. It was going to be a long four hours, but nothing I wasn’t used to.

  I rested my head in my hands on my desk and spaced out for a bit. I replayed our Sunday night date from the weekend before in my head over and over. It was so nice having Kevin there. It was so nice of him to rent a chick flick and bring pizza. I couldn’t understand what went wrong and why he hadn’t contacted me all week.

  His chocolate eyes flashed in my mind. They contrasted perfectly with this thick, lush head of ebony hair and his tan skin. The more I thought about it, the more I realized he was probably one of the best looking guys I’d dated in my entire life. If Antoine was about a seven, Kevin would’ve been a ten. Maybe even an eleven.

  I suddenly felt insecure. What did a guy like him want with a girl like me, anyway? I was average build and not stick thin. I had big, round, saucer-like brown eyes, and I was pretty sure I dressed nicely. Yet Kevin was clearly out of my league. That had to be why he hadn’t called.

  I pulled out my compact and stared at my reflection while a cheesy Boyz II Men song played softly from my speakers. I glanced at my eyes. They had major bags under them. My lips were looking a little chapped. I’d been seriously neglecting the little things lately. If I wanted to keep Kevin, I needed to step up my game.

  “Rashida, I think you have something in your teeth.” I heard a man say.

  “Hi, Michael,” I replied without looking up. I could recognize his nasally voice anywhere. He was trying to be funny but it just wasn’t.

  “So, slim pickings today, huh?” he said as he hung his arm over the edge of my cubicle wall.

  “Just like any other Saturday in the office,” I replied, still not looking up. I knew I was being rude,
but I wasn’t in the mood for casual conversation.

  “So, seen any good movies lately?” he asked. Now he was just purposely biding his time.

  “I don’t like movies, remember?” I replied. I looked up at him, and I was sure he could read the irritation all over my face. I just wanted him to leave me alone. He bothered me every single day at least once or twice a day. “No movies to review today?”

  “I’ve got some,” he said.

  Michael probably had the cushiest job in the whole office. He was only here maybe twenty hours per week. The rest of the time he could either work from home or spend endless afternoons at the movies. Popcorn oil seemed to ooze from his pores.

  “I’ve got some submissions I need to go over,” I said as I pointed to my watch. “Might take me a while. Catch you later?”

  There I went giving him false hope again. And I always wondered why he kept coming back to bother me all the time. I just didn’t have it in me to be mean to him no matter how much he annoyed the ever-loving crap out of me.

  His face lit up. “Yeah, catch you later.”

  I hoped he’d leave me alone the remainder of my short day. I just wanted to get my work done and then horse around and spend the rest of my time fantasizing about Kevin and his dreamy chocolate eyes. And his broad shoulders. And his cleft, Superman chin. And his soft, full lips. And his long, dark eyelashes.

  I drummed my fingers on my desk as I leaned back in my chair, thinking about nothing but Kevin. I remembered how he had kissed my forehead before leaving that morning, and nothing but butterflies and giddiness filled up my entire being. He kissed me. He has to think fondly of me, right?

  I wrapped up work a few hours later and headed home, trying my hardest to get out of there before Michael saw me. He always liked to walk out with me, and sometimes it turned into a twenty-minute conversation when all I wanted to do was go home.

  The moment I walked into the apartment, LaLa was lounged out across the sofa with a gossip magazine in one hand and the remote control in the other. She had some reality show paused on the screen.

  “Hey,” I said as I kicked off my painfully beautiful heels and sunk into one of the arm chairs.

  “So,” she said as she sat up. “Tell me about your date last weekend.”

  I’d realized between our ridiculously opposite work schedules and the insane amount of time she’d been spending with Demarius, I hadn’t even had a chance yet to tell her about my night with Kevin.

  “Well, he didn’t show up until way past eight,” I said with an eye roll. “But he redeemed himself.”

  “How so?” LaLa asked.

  “He brought pizza and a chick flick,” I said. “It was sweet.”

  “Does he know you don’t like movies?” she laughed.

  “No, I didn’t tell him that,” I said. “We had fun though. He fell asleep here.”

  “Really?” LaLa’s eyes widened. “Did anything… happen?”

  “No, no, no,” I said, waving my hands in front of my face. “It wasn’t like that. It was completely innocent. He ended up leaving around two thirty. Got called into work.”

  LaLa pursed her lips. “Seems rather odd to me.”

  “Not given his line of work,” I said, defending my new Prince Charming. “They captured some guy he’d been after for a long time. He went in to question him. It’s his weekend on call.”

  “Okay,” LaLa said. “Fair enough. I just know how you get sometimes. You see what you want to see in people, especially guys. I just like to be the voice of reason for you.”

  “Noted and appreciated,” I said. I stood up, stretched and headed back to my room to slip on some comfortable lounge clothes.

  I sauntered back out and hit up the freezer for a salty frozen dinner. They’d become a staple meal for me lately. Ever since Antoine and I broke up, I’d stopped cooking. Occasionally LaLa and I would whip up something together, but that was rare. We often had such different schedules and such different tastes in food. God forbid she found a tomato chunk or a mushroom piece in anything. I’d never met anyone so picky before.

  “How was your date with Demarius?” I asked as the microwave hummed behind me. “Or your week with him, I should say.”

  “Good,” she replied. “So far, anyway. He seems interesting. Nice enough. I think my mom would like him.”

  “Does he still talk about Ayla all the time?” I asked.

  “Actually, no,” she said with a smile. “I think he only did it that one night because he was trying to impress me or something. He’s never brought it up since. Can’t say I blame him. If I dated a local celebrity, I’d probably embrace those bragging rights too.”

  “Hm,” I said. “Makes sense.”

  LaLa flipped her show back on as the microwave beeped. I pulled my piping hot plastic container of salty mush out and let it cool on the stove for a bit. I grabbed a bottle of water from the refrigerator and took a few swigs.

  “We’re getting low on everything,” I said as I noticed the lack of milk and general food in the refrigerator.

  “Yeah, we should go to the store soon,” LaLa said. “We’ve both just been so busy this week.”

  I grabbed my food and went back out to the living room, plopping down in the chair once again.

  “You know,” I said. “I just realized that I haven’t even thought about Antoine once today.”

  “Ha,” LaLa laughed. “That’s, um, good.”

  “Ever since I found out about his engagement, I’ve been obsessed,” I said. “He’s all I’ve thought about.”

  “You only want what you can’t have,” LaLa said, rolling her eyes at me and pulling her throw blanket up to her neck. “Typical you.”

  “Whatever,” I said between forkfuls of unevenly heated food. “I just think maybe meeting Kevin was a sign that it’s time for me to move on. Maybe he’s the one for me?”

  “Aren’t you kind of jumping the gun?” LaLa asked. “You’ve only known this Kevin guy for—what, a week or two? Slow down, little filly.”

  “I’m not saying anything definitive,” I said. “I’m just saying maybe it’s a sign. That’s all.”

  “So are you officially back to being over Antoine?” she asked. “Like no more stalking him? No more stalking Ayla? No more obsessing over why you shouldn’t have dumped him and how much happier he is without you? No more—”

  “All right, all right,” I said. “Enough. I get your point. And my answer is I don’t know, but I’m certainly trying to be. Kevin is a good distraction for me right now.”

  “That’s good,” LaLa said. “Because you know Antoine’s going to marry Ayla and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.”

  I knew LaLa was right, but her words still stung. As excited as I was about the prospect of dating Kevin, deep down it didn’t fully change the way I felt about Antoine. On the inside, I was a complex, emotional, hot mess of a woman.

  “Your phone just went off,” LaLa said as she pointed to my purse on the ledge by the door.

  My big leather purse was so thick I could hardly hear my phone when it was in there, but LaLa had impeccable hearing. I usually just relied on her to let me know when it was going off.

  “Text or call?” I sprung up and ran to grab it.

  “Text, I think,” she replied. Her eyes glazed over and fixated on the T.V. screen.

  I couldn’t whip my phone out fast enough, and the moment I saw who the message was from, my heart skipped a beat or two.

  “It’s from Kevin,” I said in a sing-song voice. I could feel my grin growing wider by the millisecond.

  “And?”

  “He said sorry about last night. Sorry about this morning[r5] . And can he take me on a real date next Friday,” I said. I did a little happy dance and hoped to God LaLa didn’t see me.

  “You’re such a dork,” she laughed. She totally saw me. “Don’t reply too soon. Make him wait a little bit. You don’t want to seem desperate.”

  I could feel my palms sweat a lit
tle as I clutched my phone, my fingers aching to type back a message right away. But I had to listen to LaLa. She was so much smarter than me when it came to dealing with people. I was much more impulsive and naïve. I believed everyone and rarely tried to read between the lines.

  “Hey, Demarius and I are going to grab dinner tonight,” LaLa said. “You want to join us?”

  “Oh,” I said. “You’re going out with him again?”

  “Yeah,” she replied with a half-smile. “Is that okay with you?”

  “Of course,” I said. “Just surprised. It’s not like you. Usually you play coy for a bit and make them chase after you.”