Exposed (Free Falling) (15 page)

I smiled at her.  “What you been doing?”

She wiped the sheen of sweat from her face b
efore answering, “I just got done running the last box down.  You didn’t see Lamar on your way in?”

I shook my head. 
“Nope.”

“You must’ve just missed him then.”

“Last box?  I thought you weren’t leaving until this weekend,” I inquired.

She nodded and took another deep breath.  “I wasn’t, but Lamar’s buddy who was supposed to l
et us use his truck this Friday and Saturday has to go out of town for his wife’s grandmother’s funeral.  It was either get it all out today, or pay an arm and a leg to rent a truck from a moving company.  Lamar called about an hour after I got to work, and we both had to cut out early.”

I nodded and then looked around at my now half empty apartment.  Most of the decorations were gone because they belonged to Angel.  Trying not to let it show that I
was a little emotional, I set my purse down on the table and sat.

“So…you’re leaving for good…
tonight?”
I asked.

She nodded and
aimlessly scratched her arm.  “Yeah…all my stuff is with him now.  I’mma have to take off a few days from work so I can get organized; I don’t have much of a choice.  Otherwise, I’ll be living out of boxes for weeks and I’m not about that life.”

I smiled again, but felt my good mood slipping away.  Angel noticed the look
on my face and turned toward me while she continued to lie there on the couch.

“Aww…I’m
gonna miss you too, Sammy!”

I shook my head at her and swiped away a tear.  When she realized that I was crying, she got up and came to sit on the arm of the chair.  Cradling my head, she kissed the top of my hair and
I heard her sniffing too.

“Now you’re making
me
cry!” She said, chuckling as she fought it.

I rubbed her arm.  “I’m happy for you. 
For real.  I’mma miss you, though,” I admitted.

She leaned away and looked
me in my eyes.  “We have to start having dinner and drinks together at least once a week.  And I’m still gonna be coming by.”

I nodded and felt embarrassed that she felt like she had to baby me.  “I’m fine. 
Seriously.”

She searched my face until she believed me.  As soon as she nodded, she stood and straightened her shirt.  She looked like s
he felt so guilty for leaving.

“I have to go meet them at Lamar’s,” she said, motioning over her shoulder toward the door.

I nodded.  “Yeah, of course.”  I stood from the chair and tried to look a little less pathetic.  “I’ll shoot you a text or something later.”

Angel hesitated for a second before grabbing her purse and keys and closing the door behind her for the last time as a tenant here.  I stood there, looking around at the
empty space that was now mine alone, and wondered how long it would take to get used to that feeling.

*****

“Whassup, punk,” Terrell said loudly into the phone.

I set aside the book I was re
ading and lay my head against the pillow.  “Don’t you have some honeymooning you should be doing,” I replied with a laugh. 

“Hey, Sam!”
  Maisha said in the background.

“Hey, girl!”
I smiled, realizing I was on speakerphone.  “How’s the vay-cay so far?”

“A blast,” Maisha replied.  “We’re actua
lly just in the room changing before we go have drinks on the beach.  It’s supposed to be some moonlit serenade something-or-other the resort has going on.  There’s gonna be a band and everything.”

“That so
unds amazing!  Drink some for me too,” I added.

Maisha laughed.

“Quit hijacking my phone call,” Terrell interjected, talking to Maisha.  The sound of him getting smacked on the back of his head followed, but he kept going like nothing happened.  “So…guess who I talked to today.”

I stared at my book, wanting to get back to it to see how the next scene played out.  “
Spill it.”

“
Ya’ boy!”

W
aiting for further explanation, I cocked my head to the side.

“AJ,”
Terrell clarified as if I didn’t know who he meant. 

“I figured as much, but why are you taking the time out of your night to tell
me
that?” I asked.

It sounded like he
was smiling.  “Because…I called to check on him because I hadn’t heard from him since the night of the wedding, and him and ol’ girl didn’t show up for breakfast Sunday, so…”

“Terrell!”
Maisha and I yelled in unison when his answer dragged on.

“
Dang!  If you’d let me finish, I was getting to my point.  I was just thinking that you should give him a call to set something up.”

Here he goes with this again.
  “Terrell, I told you I am
not
about to start calling that man.  He has a life.  I have a life.  There’s no point”

“Not even to give him a tour of the city?” He asked.

Wait…what?
  “He’s visiting here?”

“
Nope!  Next guess?” Terrell answered, sounding full of himself.

My brain short circuited.

“Oh my gosh!” Maisha interjected when she became annoyed by Terrell’s antics as usual.  “He’s moving there, Sam.”

Now I was sweating, had to toss my sheet back and everything.  “
What?  When?”

“This
weeeeekennnnnd,” Terrell sang into the receiver.

But that didn’t make sens
e!

“I – I don’t…” My sentences slipped
away and my thoughts went blank.  “Why?” was the only word that would come out.

“Got a promotion and the new job’s there.”
  After waiting for me to say something, Terrell chuckled at my silence.  “Well, on that note, I’mma leave you to a sleepless night, ‘cause that’s what next on your agenda. Me? I got drinks and a mariachi band waiting down on the beach.”

“We are not in Mexico,
fool,” Maisha said to him under her breath.

Terrell ignored her correction and went on.  “So…tell my boy I said
‘
WHADDUP’
when you see him.”

I didn’t even say anything after that, just hung up.

AJ was coming
here
?  To
live
?  I sat there staring at nothing in particular, unable to determine why this news had me all up in arms, but then I recalled the chemistry, the
fire
I felt between us just being in the same room that past weekend. 
How would it be knowing that we were going to be residing in the same city?  Would we speak again?  If we did, would we ever acknowledge what we felt, thinking we’d left that experience and the last of those feelings out there on the dance floor in Boston? 
However, now, fate was basically getting ready to drop all that had resurfaced that night off at my doorstep.
 

What the hell?

C
hapte
r
E
ight

AJ

Something was definitely wrong, something more than just knowing that I’d be leaving in the morning.  I came back into the bedroom from the closet and hung my ties in the garment bag.  Kira’s face was completely void of expression.  The last thing I wanted to do was leave D.C. on a bad note.  She’d have to own up to whatever was eating away at her. 

Her eyes lifted to meet mine when I walked around to the other side of the bed, wrapping my arms around her waist when I got there.  She managed to smile a little when my lips touched the side of her neck.

“This distance isn’t gonna be easy for either one of us, which is why keeping the lines of communication open is so important,” I said, lips still pressed against her skin. 

She relaxed in my arms and let her fingers trail down my hand while I held her.

“Tell me what’s on your mind,” I beckoned softly.

There were a few seconds of silence before Kira worked her way out of my grasp and sat on the edge of the bed to face me.  She kep
t her eyes trained on the floor.

“I’ve been holding this in because I don’t want it to lead to an argument.  That’s the
last
thing I’d want to happen before you leave.”

Taking a deep breath, I sat in the armchair beneath the window
.  “If I promise that it won’t go the way you’re thinking, will you tell me what’s on your mind?”

She looked skeptical, but eventually I saw some of the tension leave her posture.  Her foot tapped anxiously on the floor, though. 
She sighed and looked up with sadness showing in her eyes.  “The close proximity….it’s a bit much for me,” was all she said. 

At first I didn’t understand, but then that same look of insecurity returned to her face – that look that she wore basically the entire time we were in Boston – and I put two and two together. 
Sam
…

I should’ve guessed that would be an issue for Kira.  Honestly, knowing that Sam would be so close was a bit much for
even
me
to digest, so I could only imagine what was going through Kira’s mind. 

“I’m listening,” I replied.

She shrugged.  “That’s it really.  I’m just…having a hard time imagining living that close to the one girl you’d be with if you and I weren’t together.  I mean…I know the history you two have – the insta-chemistry, losing the baby, all of it.”

One of the downsides of Kira and I being friends for so long before we hooked up was that, in the beginning, I confided in her
as a friend
, not knowing that one day she’d be more to me than that.  Now, she knew all the nitty-gritty details of my feelings and attraction to Sam.  I even recalled a conversation that we had early on about me and Sam’s sex life – how often, how good it was, and what I missed about it.  Just thinking about that now, I lowered my head in embarrassment.  How could I expect Kira
not
to be uncomfortable?

“How will you handle it if she tr
ies to start coming around again?  Like, calling and stuff.”

I didn’t answer right away because I wasn’t expecting the question.  “Well, I – I don’t really think she’d –“

“But if she
did
, what would be your response?  Would you tell me about it?”

I frowned.  “I’d put the situation to rest before she could even get any ideas,” was the response that I gave
Kira, but in my mind, I had a hard time imagining that I’d be able to be that cold toward Sam even if I wanted to.

“Would you tell me?” Kira repeated.

Where the hell was all this coming from?
  “If you’d like me to tell you things like that, even if I handle it and it goes absolutely nowhere…I’ll tell you.”

I could practically smell the fear in the air. 
She was literally petrified, thinking that this move would undoubtedly lead to Sam and me hooking up again.  When I placed my hand on hers, she looked away, tears streaming down her cheeks. 

She’s never this emotional.

“Why’re you crying?” I asked softly, going to sit beside her.

She shook her head and wouldn’t answer right away.  I pulled her
to me and the tears became a full-blown sob.  She practically fell apart in my arms.

“I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you,” she whispered.

I frowned, but didn’t let her go.  She was wearing my ring.  How could she think she’d lose me?  Clearly, I was in this for the long haul. 

“What’re you talking about?  I’m not going anywhere, Kira.”

She swiped a few more tears and backed away a bit, clearly feeling embarrassed by her breakdown.  “I’m sorry.  I don’t know what’s wrong with me.  I think it’s just because there’s so much going on all at once.  I’m overwhelmed with this move, the news from my job,
everything!”

That was another issue
that had Kira overly emotional.  For her job to go from one that required her to be onsite daily, to being one that she’d be able to work remotely from a home office in New York, wasn’t as easy a transition as we imagined it would be.  There were big projects that she’d have to see through first before she could even think about coming to New York with me.  Three weeks from now, I’d be back home, though, working at the Fairfax facility for a day.  Then after that I’d be leaving her behind again until she moved to the city permanently in six weeks.

It wasn’t lost on me that Sam and I would now be sharing a zip code for the first time in five years, but in my head I wasn’t imagining that things would be much different than they are between us right now.  Granted, there was a moment over the past weekend when I questioned whether or not I still felt something for her, but coming back to DC with Kira, returning to the home that we shared, brought things back into
perspective.  I had a life now that didn’t include Sam.  Living in the same city wouldn’t change that.