Page 44 of Love Me Carefully
She wasn’t so sure, not anymore. “Because I don’t intend to play the game,” she quipped.
“Chicken.”
She frowned. “I’m not a chicken.”
“Then what do you call it? You’re afraid that if you commit to marriage it’ll one day end in divorce. So what? Then you pick up and start all over again, because evidently you picked the wrong person.”
The wrong person—that was an understatement. A few weeks ago she’d thought the wrong person was the one sitting across from her giving unsolicited advice. “Well, you asked me what I wanted and I told you. It’s not open for discussion.” She fidgeted, because she now saw the foolishness of her own thoughts, but she wasn’t about to admit that to him—not yet anyway.
He sensed her mood shifting and wasn’t quite ready for her to shut down completely, so he changed his line of questioning. “So what about that dude you went on a date with the other week? Does he know you don’t want to get married?” This was very important to him. How serious was her relationship with this guy? Maybe it was nothing at all. Maybe it was just like she’d said: You date, you have sex, then you get married. Maybe she was just omitting the marriage part. He doubted that. Leah wasn’t the type to take anything lightly—least of all sex. So was she just dating for the hell of it? That didn’t make too much sense to him, considering his dating scheme had a purpose.
“Who? Leon?” Rolling onto her back, she stared at the beamed ceiling. “Leon and I have been seeing each other for a couple of months now. He’s cool.” She wondered why it had been so easy for her to categorize Leon as just ‘cool’ when off the top of her head she could come up with at least ten adjectives to describe Terrell.
“Oh, he’scool, huh? Cool enough to sleep with?” The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. Then he realized he hadn’t wanted to stop them. He wanted to know if she planned on sleeping with Leon. He needed to know about his competition.
She’d rolled onto her back, and he’d watched her breasts flatten across her chest. Visions of stripping those clothes from her, marveling in her gloriously naked body, teased and tantalized his senses. At the same time, alarm about whether or not she was already sleeping with someone spoiled his fantasy. When her head snapped in his direction, he stared at her intently, clearly expecting an answer to his question.
“Not that it’s any of your business, but no, I haven’t slept with him.” Bringing her arms up to cradle her head, she went back to staring at the ceiling.
“Why not?” He prayed his sigh of relief hadn’t been audible and figured as long as she was answering questions, he might as well get them all in.
How much of the truth should she tell him? “Because I wasn’t ready.” Which was really weird because she’d known Leon for months, whereas she’d known Terrell for only a few weeks, and if he touched her right now she’d be ready to get naked and straddle him.
It wasn’t any of his business, still she felt the need to expound on her simple statement. “See, I have this system.”
“A system?” He thought of the piece of paper in his back pocket with his criteria for a wife. She couldn’t possibly have something as ludicrous as that in her pocket, too. As tight as those jeans were, it didn’t appear anything could fit in her pocket.
“Yeah, a system. Relationships have steps, just like I said before.” She used her fingers to count them off. “Step one is the first date. Step two, the second through fifth dates, which mean you really like this person. Step three is sex and step four is marriage. I try to stay on the first two steps as long as humanly possible.”
“And where’s the logic behind that?”
“No logic, just my system. I wasn’t ready for step three with him, so I…I ended it.”
“You what?” Terrell almost choked on his water.
“I explained that I just didn’t see any romantic involvement between us and he said something about waiting, taking things a little more slowly.”
Waiting wasn’t going to do him any good. Now that she’d admitted she had no romantic interest in Leon, it was on. Terrell was going to have Leah Graham, it was just a matter of time.Sorry, Leon, you snooze, you lose.
“Yeah, I think he’s a good guy.”He’s just not for me.
Chancing another glance at her chest moving rhythmically with each breath she took, he shook his head.But not nearly good enough.
* * *
Rosie sat in the Blue Wave Restaurant, waiting patiently for her date. Donald had left the cabin two hours earlier, telling her to meet him here at six. It was now six-fifteen and she was seated at the table he’d reserved for them, but he was nowhere to be found.
Finally, she admitted to herself what she’d been denying since yesterday morning when Donald had walked into her living room and told her of his plans to move to Jamaica—something strange was going on with Donald. He’d been distracted from the moment they boarded the ship. Last night, he’d suggested that they stay in the cabin, continuing to enjoy the amenities offered, but he’d spent most of his time closed up in the bathroom with his cell phone. When he’d finally come to bed, she’d been restless, wondering what was going on. She’d broached the subject, only to have him brush her off. Before she could bring it up again, he was kissing her. And then the kissing led to other things, which ultimately took her mind off the way he was acting. Which, she thought now, was probably his plan.
This morning she’d awakened to a wonderful breakfast on the balcony. They ate in silence as the waves slapped against the side of the ship. The sky was a pale blue backdrop with a few puffy white clouds. Rosie had enjoyed the scene while pretending there was nothing wrong with the present situation.
After staying in their cabin the better part of the day, Donald had decided he wanted to hit the casino for a while. Knowing that Rosie detested gambling, he opted to go alone and meet her later. Rosie had wondered if that hadn’t also been his plan all along, to get out of the cabin without her. But why?
A little voice in the back of her head had been yelling warnings from the moment Donald had waltzed into her house talking about Jamaica. She’d known when she met him how he’d started his business, how he’d once been a big time drug dealer. He’d sworn that part of his life was over. And when the police had investigated him, she’d watched him leave town and come back a totally different man. When they first started dating, he’d told her his past was behind him. And she’d believed him.
Then the strange cars started appearing in the shop’s lot. Donald began getting a lot of calls on his cell and their time together had become less frequent. The marriage proposal was a shock, especially since she hadn’t seen him at all that entire week—he’d been away visiting relatives. Relatives she now doubted existed.
Okay, it was now six-thirty and still no Donald. He was testing her patience and that was something she wouldn’t tolerate. Oh yeah, it was definitely time to find out what the hell was going on. She wasn’t about to marry a man who was so obviously hiding something from her. Pushing her chair back, she stood to look around the elegant room one more time. No Donald. Snatching up her purse, she walked out the door.
