Page 20 of Smoke N' Stroke

NALA

“It’s so nice to see so many professionals in the field of psychology coming together to learn more about advancements in treatments to assist our patients in ways we’ve never been able to phantom. However, we’ll do the learning tomorrow—tonight is about mixing and mingling. It's time to get to know someone new.”

Several groans were heard along with a few chuckles.

“I know I know. It can be tough to do that in such a large group, so we thought we’d help you out with that. On the back of your name tags is a number. That number corresponds with the tables in the back of the room.”

I flipped my hanging name tagover and saw the number 2. Then, I turned around and saw ten stations lining the wall in the back of the elegantly decorated room. Easily finding my table, I dug into my purse and grabbed a mint. Not that my breath was kicking. I’d been kissing Zaire all afternoon and he hadn’t complained one bit but sucking tongues didn’t count. First impressions mattered and fresh breath was important in those impressions. From where we stood, I could see about one hundred men and women, different ages of adults, but mostly older white men and women. Only a couple of handfuls of people of color and even less, of people who looked like me scattered throughout. Now I could understand why Dr. Patton thought it so important to send clinicians to this event every year. It was necessary.

If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought this was some kind of dating mixer with the way the lights made Zaire’s skin glow when I looked up at him. He seemed to be listening to Dr. Henderson, the facilitator of the week’s conference, intently because he didn’t look down at me until she finished and asked us to find our tables.

“You alright?”

His concern warmed me and if we’d been alone, I would show him just how much but that would needto come later. I’d already gotten a healthy dose of him earlier after I took my shower and knocked on his door. He answered with a white towel wrapped around his trim waist. If I wasn’t worried about the guests across the hall seeing him, I would have stared longer but instead, I pushed him inside to devour him.

“Yeah. I’m going to go find my table.”

“Cool, I’ll find you when this part is over.”

I took a deep breath and headed in the direction of the second table where a tall bald man with blue eyes and a kind smile and a diminutive Eastern Asian woman with deep brown skin and large brown eyes already stood with similar awkward expressions that mimicked how I felt. That was what finally relaxed me. I wasn’t in this situation alone.

Introductions were made and I found out Geoffrey was a Cognitive and Behavioral therapist like I was. He ran a private practice in Minnesota. Mira was in Child Psychology with an emphasis on the adolescent population. She lived in Philadelphia. I asked if either of them had come with another coworker and they looked at me oddly while shaking their heads, no.

“I’m surprised they allowed both of you to attend.”

I told them I had come with my colleague but didn’t mention that my colleague had just finished screwing me on the sink in the bathroom while I was trying to apply some eyeliner and lip gloss. They didn’t need to know that.

“Why is that?”

“My director mentioned wanting to send me and another clinician who put up a stink about not attending last year and she was told they only allow one per facility due to limited space. I wonder how you lucked out.”

She kept talking while my mind buzzed with the possibilities over why Dr. Patton was granted two spots this year. I looked for Zaire to see what he was up to and to my surprise or maybe not, the woman who’d been eyeing him for lunch in the lobby was at his table mixing and mingling her ass off. She cut her eyes at me as if feeling my stare and before I could put my finger up at her, at least mentally, she was back to focusing on Zaire while ignoring the few others at her table.

“You doing okay, Nala?”

I turned and Mira was watching me with curiosity.

“Yeah, I was just looking to see how my co-worker was doing.” I swallowed over my disappointment.

Mycoworkerwas just fine. Just fine. Smiling smoothly while a brown hand continued to land on his biceps during joint laughter.

Others joined our table, but I scarcely paid attention when those introductions were made. My stomach was turning upside down, while I tried to reason with myself to hold it together. I didn’t want to sour the mood with him because, from a rational perspective, he’d done nothing wrong. If we were in a committed relationship and not trying to keep it simple, I could fuss about why he didn’t move away from her touch. But we weren’t that. We were learning each other and I wasn’t supposed to be tripping.

After what seemed like an endless amount of time, a few exercises later, we were finally told we could break off and do what we wanted, including leave for the evening. While I hated these types of forced gatherings, it did turn out to be valuable. I met some new people and had some contacts in other parts of the country I would have otherwise not had if I’d played dead and missed my flight to come here.

The next day the conference started with a bang. The facilitator asked for volunteers to consume a mild edible and experience the effects of cannabis.

“We’re going to pretend more than half of us in the room never smoked pot or had edibles.” Laughter filled the room, and I looked over at Zaire at the end of the row ahead of me. His cheek lifted in a smile. When he turned his head and leaned down, I saw the woman who’d been around during check out yesterday whispering in his ear. Steam started to blow from my ears and not for the first time I wondered if whatever the heck we got started between us would blow up for the whole world to see.

This is why you don’t date your coworkers, Nala. Especially smooth, talking, big dick having, ones.

Determined to be professional and act like I wasn’t hurt more than yesterday or maybe feeling like I should have spoken up yesterday about how I felt, I turned away from them chattering. Which they shouldn’t have been doing anyway, since we were here to learn important information to help ourpatients, according to him when he chastised me for wanting to skip out on the cannabis session.

Now I was grateful I made it just in time to grab a seat so that I could see him canoodling with Ms. Thing.

Calm down, Nala. You’re only friends, or fuck buddies, or whatever. The man can talk to whoever he so pleases.

Because of my snooping, I had missed what the facilitator was speaking about until I heard more laughter.

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