Page 46 of Devanté
“I agree,” he smirked. My cheeks burned and my neck prickled.
“Listen, I’ll put college to the side while we’re working, Devanté but this isn’t an open invitation back into my life. That door is closed.” I had to say those words because they were the only ones that made sense. The dozen other words weighing down my tongue were too much. They were admissions of lust and hunger.
I chewed those words and swallowed them, sending them into the pit of my stomach where they were shrouded in blackness. They had no place out in the world where they could manifest.
Did I want them to manifest?
“I don’t want it to be closed, Blake. I’ve missed the hell out of you for eight years and I’m not letting go now that I’ve seen you again.”
“You already showed me all I needed to see back in college. What else is there?” The hurt and pain I spent years cutting back was growing again, sending thorny vines around my heart and crushing my chest with pressure.
“Everything else.” A frown disrupted his smooth midnight skin while his eyes searched mine. “I wanted to sit down with you privately but I figured this would be as close as I got.” His eyes flashed desperation. I wasn’t used to seeing him like that. Devanté was the most self-assured person I knew. Probably because he was so fine that he never met a shred of adversity. The world bent over backward for him.
Now, seeing him across from me, desperate and pleading, showed me a side of him I’d never seen. I was rendered silent by the raw sincerity. I smoothed my hands over my thighs and stared at the cobblestone ground beneath my feet.
The server brought my mimosa and his lemon water. We ordered breakfast and she still stood there, lingering long enough for it to feel uncomfortable. I fidgeted in my seat, taking a sip of mimosa. Devanté was comfortable but he usually was. He was at home in his skin and I’d always admired that about him.
“Hey, when I call for the check, I’ll snap some selfies with you or sign something if it’s cool,” he said, reclining in the chair. The waitress’s green eyes lit up and she nodded, bobbing her blonde ponytail.
When she left, I said, “You knew she wanted a picture with you, huh?”
“I’m used to it. I can always tell when someone wants a picture. They linger and grin. Sometimes they come right out and ask but most of the time they’re too nervous. I try to show them I’m normal. Shit, I get nervous taking pictures and stuff too,” he said with a shrug.
“You? Nervous? I’ve seen you model. You’re never nervous, Devanté.”
“I can perform under almost any circumstance but that doesn’t mean I don’t feel anxious. Like right now. You’re the person I’m most comfortable with but I’m a nervous wreck because I haven’t spent time with you in so long and because well…” His words trailed off. Silent whispers floating in the air. “I know what you think of me.”
“That you like to betray people to climb to the top and you have no issues with stepping on anyone…even your best friend?” The hurt I’d helped to heal was vibrating and shedding scars. The bruises felt new. The cuts felt fresh against my spirit.
Devanté tipped his head back and groaned at the sky. It was a tired groan like he’d been carrying around a boulder for years and it was finally starting to break his vertebrae. Did that boulder belong to me? Heat blanketed my back and constricted my breathing.
“Blake, that intervention was not my idea. I had nothing to do with it. I swear to god. I was sick when I found out what the fuck Gabi and her friends did. I tried to contact you but you shut me out of your life like I was nothing. Like we didn’t have eleven years of history for you to judge my character on. That hurt me to my fucking soul.” He reached across the table, still able to touch my hand softly like he hadn’t revealed his soul was crushed.
My stomach tipped on its side, heavy and lopsided. I never meant to hurt him but…he hurt me first. It was too much.
“It’s important to me that you hear what I’m saying. A week before Gabi’s fucked up intervention, I told her the only way I’d keep entertaining her was if she let you into her little exclusive club. I never agreed to be her man because that shit didn’t feel right.” His eyes dropped to our connected hands on the table. His fingers stroked the skin on my above my wrist reverently like he was ready to pour his soul out for an ounce of forgiveness.
God, my heart couldn’t handle it.
“You said you helped set it all up,” I stammered blindly through years of harbored regret and anger.
“Because I thought Gabi was having some kind of welcome ceremony for her club. I had no idea what she was actually doing. I went on record with Mrs. Carter and said the same thing. I stopped talking to Gabi after that.”
“But you’re signed to Imperial. You signed when you were in college.” Confusion warped my face.
“Because Miss Perez saw me when she visited the campus. Gabi tried her hardest to keep me away from her mother but she plucked me out of a crowd and my modeling career took off after that. It wasn’t because I was Gabi’s man.” He squeezed my hand and I thought I would pop. Nothing seemed right.
How the hell could everything he said be true? How could I have let eight years slip by without him? I shook my head and pulled my hand from his warm fingers.
“You could be making all that shit up, Devanté.”
“I could be but I’m not. You know what else wasn’t made up?” I braced myself for his words. “What I said to you that night you ran back to your apartment. I was in love with you, Blake.”
Was…
“Devanté…” I shook my head holding my hands up. “This is too much.”
“I know but how do you think I’ve felt for the past eight years knowing you believed I was some horrible motherfucker capable of hurting you like that? It’s a lot for me every day. You’re a tough girl, you can handle it.”
