Page 20 of Top Shelf

I nod.

“Why would you do this for me?”

His dark eyes drop down to his coffee for a minute before he looks back up to me.

“Because you’re still my best friend, Sade.”

I swallow and nod.

I’m not sure what I thought he was going to say. A small part of me thought—hoped, even—that maybe he’d say something like what he said all those years back.

But that weekend feels like a fever dream.

And I have spent so much time over the last eight years wondering how much of it was real.

And to make things murkier, I’m about topretendto be his girlfriend.

“Thank you,” I say back. “Seriously. Thank you. I promise I won’t ask you for too much.”

He smiles.

“Well, actually, I think I’ll be the one asking you.”

I tilt my head.

“Levi mentioned last night that there is a board dinner coming up next week. He rented out a room at Kline’s downtown. It’s the night where I will meet the members of the board, and then the next week, they will vote on whether or not they ‘approve’ me as the commissioner. And I get a plus-one.” My eyes widen. “I think it would be pretty odd if you didn’t come with me, right?”

I swallow and nod.

“Yeah,” I agree. “Pretty odd.” I sigh and run my hand over my face. “Jesus, what the fuck have I done?”

“You didn’t do anything. He did.”

I look at him.

“Well, I married him,” I say. He chuckles, andGod, does it feel good to make him laugh.

“Yeah, can’t help ya there,” he says with a shrug. “Chock it up to being young and inexperienced.”

But my eyes flash back to his.

“I was plenty experienced by then,” I say, and the table grows quiet. I want him to know that I haven’t forgotten a single moment of that weekend we had. And neither has my vagina.

He clears his throat and smiles.

“Well, I gotta get back over to the school,” he says, “but I guess we should get together before next week? Ya know, to iron out the details and all that.”

I nod.

“Yeah,” I say. “To iron out the details.”

He stands up from the table and pushes his chair in, then kneels down and leaves a long, slow kiss on my cheek.

“Have a good day,baby,” he whispers, then winks, and I feel the butterflies move south. I stare after him, wide-eyed and jaw-dropped, until he walks out the door.

“Damn,” Livia says, her eyes still on the door as she’s biting her lip.

Damn is right.

---