Page 9 of F*ckin' With Me
Daylen Smith was going to be my fake boyfriend. I did a little shimmy where I stood in my bedroom with a wide smile. My movement stopped when I got a glimpse of myself in the mirror.I look a mess.As soon as he saw me, he would change his mind. My head snapped to my bedside clock.Okay, I have a few hours to wash my hair and cook something.
I pulled out my phone to order the groceries I needed. Relief settled in when I saw I had enough time to wash my hair before the food arrived.Let’s try to look presentable tonight.
Everything was done by six thirty. I made sure I wore a head wrap while I cooked so my hair didn’t smell like food.I probably should have cooked before I showered. Dummy!I ran to my room to jump into the shower again.
I’d just slipped into a pair of jeans when my doorbell rang.Shit!I threw on my alma mater sweatshirt. “Coming!” I yelled from my room at the back of my house like he would hear me.
I rushed to the door, straightened out my clothes, then opened the door. I gasped at Daylen’s appearance, not that there was anything wrong with it. Time had been extremely good to him. “Hey, Daylen.” I stepped to the side. “Please, come in.”
“What’s up, Simonette? You look nice,” he complimented as he walked past me. I couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic.
I closed the door. “We can sit in my dining room to talk. I’m not sure if you still like tacos as much as you did in college, but I made some.”
When we were in college, if we had tutoring four days a week, then he brought tacos with him for four days. His smile was still gorgeous. “Yeah, I’m still a taco eatin’ nigga.”
“Cool!” When he looked at me weirdly, I slightly recoiled. Yeah, I sounded out of my element. “We can sit here.”
While he sat, I grabbed the food to place in the center of the table. “Wow! I see you did the works. That’s what’s up.” He appreciated it.
Yeah, I remembered that he liked beef, chicken, and steak tacos, so I made all three. “Thank you. Do you mind if I say grace?”
After he said it was fine, I said grace. I was about to fix his plate, but he picked it up and started to make his own. My mother would have a conniption if she knew I let a man fix his own plate. That was simply not wife behavior.
We ate silently until he broke the silence after his second taco. “These shits are good as hell.” After I thanked him, he continued. “I see you became the forensic scientist that you always wanted to be.”
Pride overtook me. “Yeah, I did. I love it too. What do you do now? Did you continue with baseball?”
His eyes drew tight after his head angled slightly. “Are you serious? Like is that a serious question?”
I stared at him blankly as I asked myself the question in my head. I didn’t think there was anything wrong with the question. “Um, yeah. I know you played in college. From all the wins, I assumed you were amazing.”
He let out a short laugh, shook his head, then spoke. “Yeah, I play a lil’ baseball. Let’s get into the details of this wedding weekend.”
“My sister’s wedding is next weekend in the Maldives, so we leave Wednesday mid-morning to get there. The flight is like a full day because there are no direct flights without layovers.” I was scared he would tell me hell no. My hands went up quickly with my palms facing forward. “I’ll pay for everything.”
It felt like his eyelids didn’t blink for almost a full minute. “Simonette, I don’t need you to pay for my shit. I got it. What’s our story?”
“Oh, I hadn’t thought about that. Um . . . I told my mom and sister that you work a lot. Oh, we can say we’ve been together for like a year or two. You haven’t been around, because you playlike minor league baseball or something. You said you still play a little, right?”
He chuckled under his breath. “Yeah, we can go with two years. That sounds believable. How did we meet, Simonette?”
I lifted my shoulders to my ears. “I figured we could say that we met each other in college to establish a pre-existing awareness of each other. We ran into each other a few years ago, and voila.”
“Bet, we can wing the rest of it.” He took a bite of the third taco on his plate. “Are we in love or some shit?” he asked after he swallowed the food in his mouth.
That was something else that I didn’t think about. “I mean, I don’t know. I’ll let you decide if you want to be in love with me.”
“You want your fake boyfriend to make the decision if he fake loves you?” It seemed like more of a rhetorical question. After an intense stare, he said, “I can do that. What do you plan to wear for this weekend?”
I wasn’t expecting that question. He said he needed to know so we could coordinate our outfits.That makes sense.“Um, what I plan to bring is already packed in my room. I’m in the wedding, so I’ll have on a bridesmaid dress that day.”
He pushed back from the table then stood. He wiped his mouth with the napkin in his hand before it was thrown on his plate. “Well, let’s go see.”
I jumped out of my seat when he headed toward the back of my house. I rushed behind him. “Wait. It’s in my room.”
He looked over his broad shoulder after he looked into the first bedroom that was a home office. “You said that already. Babe, I’m your man now, so you have to be comfortable with me in your space.” When he found my room, he stopped before he crossed the threshold. “I mean, you do want this to be believable . . .”
I stood there frozen when he walked into my room and started to poke around.Daylen Smith is in my bedroom!I didn’t snap out of my daze until I noticed him taking things out of the garment bag that I had packed.
