Page 10 of Miles Apart
A replay of last night, her hand sliding down the swell of her amber breasts, drifts back to memory. Head in the spa isn’t enough of a distraction to erase the image of Emma’s fingers dancing over her inner thighs. I push the thought from my mind to focus on… “Mya, I have to go soon.”
She pouts but doesn’t correct me about her name. A win is a win.
I had no plans to fuck her, but I am a giver. The pad of my thumb grazes her nipple.That’s right, focus on her.Her back arches, and I lift her to a nearby table, where I lay her down, spread her legs, and bring her to orgasm with my fingers.
“Would you stop looking over your shoulder?” You’d think Terrence has a warrant out for his arrest the way he keeps scanning the room and eyeing the exits.
He peeks over his menu to give me the finger, a salute I’ll take as a good sign. Bro is in a dark place. My rundown on what happened to Justice at the ’90s party last night, and her thinking he started fucking on Madison, got to him. He’s been ducking not one but two exes at this retreat. It doesn’t make me envious, nor does it spark a desire for relationships beyond casual sex.
Justice stomped the shit out of his heart when she packed up and left him while he was out of the country on business. They hit more than a rough patch a couple years back and haven’t been able to fix it. T is my bro, but I’ll admit that throwinghimself into his job caused more problems than good. That doesn’t warrant radio silence and moving out in my book, but what the hell do I know about marriage?
I doubt Terrence anticipated that his other ex would be here also, but I’m sure he mentioned it to Madison in passing, given they run in similar circles. He’s a strength and conditioning specialist to celebs, and she’s a personal stylist.
He should be sweating that he pretended to lose our bet just to drag us here so he could see his wife. I’m many things, but Boo Boo the Fool ain’t one. My IQ is too high for that. With all the traveling we do, he randomly chooses a made-for-TV location in the dead of winter?
I don’t have proof, but I don’t need it.
I flip through the menu and resist the urge to call him on his bullshit. If he wants to fight for his wife and prevent a divorce on the sly, fine. But do it somewhere warm, where I’m not freezing my nuts off.
“You know what you want?” Terrence scrubs a hand over his goatee, his eyes focused, and his brows drawn at the mini binder of lunch options before him.
She’s not on the menu.
After I walked Mya out, I signed up for a deep tissue massage and ran into Emma. After all that shit-talking I did, I ate every word as I took in the wet ringlets swaying at the nape of her high bun. Her cheeks heated under my gaze, like she’d just come from the sauna. I’ve never been a jealous man, but my nostrils flared at the cotton fabric nestled between her breasts, the same way they did two years ago in the hallway. She hiked a brow, silently asking why I was staring her down. So I did us both a favor and left.
“Bro, you good?”
Shit, am I?“Can’t decide between steak or fish.”
Terrence stares at me for a beat before he goes back to his menu. I’m full of it. He knows it, but he won’t press me, just like I won’t press him about how he really feels about his wife. There’s no need to. Not when his actions speak louder than words in Aretha Franklin syllables. When we’re not out, he’s in his room. I dared him to sleep with Madison, or any other woman here. Seven months is a long time to jerk your dick. If it’s Justice he wants, go get her. If not, move on.
Regardless, I got his back. Terrence is my brother, my friend since we were small kids getting into all types of shit in Newark. I might give him hell for being whipped—what kind of friend would I be if I didn’t?—but I love him and Justice together, even if I want to fling her ass away from time to time.
Time passes amid chatter and forks scraping plates. Terrence is rehearsing the apology tour he’s contemplating once he gets the courage to actuallytalkto Justice. I’m running programming simulations in my head, trying not to think about his wife’s friend who’s living rent fucking free in my mind.
“You, uh…want to talk about anything?”
I’m a few years older that Terrence, and I have always shielded him from the bad shit I didn’t want to touch his life. But his anguish at being separated from Jay is beyond my control. Feelings are foreign to me. I have them, but I don’t sit around trying to process them. He does, and that’s probably why his constipated stare is stuck on confused. We don’t talk about shit like emotions.
He runs a hand through the black curls ruffling on top of his head. “I’m”—he frowns but recovers with a smile that’s more forced than natural—“good.”
“Cool.”
“Yup.”
“Okay then.”
We mirror each other in dark jeans and Henleys, his gray and mine black. We’re also dumbasses, unable to fess up about the important shit. Terrence and Justice will reconcile. It’s in the cards for them.
Me and Emma? We’re about to get into some shit.
Chapter 5
Emma
Only Justice would catch Miles with a woman on her knees at the spa. The Ravine is a white colonial revival mountain resort, the largest in the valley. The square footage alone should afford us the privacy to not run into her ex or his best friend. But fate works in mysterious ways, and apparently it wants to be a vindictive bitch on this trip. Miles’s exhibition is the running joke of our lunch. Justice is bewildered that public sex is a thing, and I’m pretending that his being in another woman’s mouth doesn’t bother me. Because it doesn’t.
I left him in Ravenous last night drooling and ready to burst. He didn’t know what to do once my fingers touched his lips with my essence. I slept with a smile and the satisfaction of knowing I had the upper hand in this game we’ve played for a decade strong. But Miles one-upped me, and I hate it. I don’t give up power, and his ability to make me feel is new territory I don’t want to visit.
