Quarantales: The Complete Contemporary Romance Box Set, page 6
Everything he’s saying is technically true. I competed in beauty pageants all my life and my mom raised me to be what she referred to as all woman: beautiful and fun and charming when I wanted to be. And the opposite of all those things when I was done.
But this didn’t feel like truth. It felt like an insult. “So you’re judging me for having standards?” I asked him. “For being picky about who I see?”
“The thing is, I don’t believe you are picky,” he answered quietly. “I think you’re scared. Scared of getting close. Scared of intimacy.”
“So now you’re trying to analyze me? Get in my head?” For reasons I can’t fully explain, my voice sounds desperate and my chest is tight with dread.
“No, Cynda, I’m not trying to analyze you. I’m trying to figure out how to keep you,” he suddenly roared, surprising us both.
But before I can read him for yelling at me, he raises a hand and says, “I’m sorry for shouting. It’s just that I like you. A lot. I can’t stop thinking about you, if we’re telling the truth. And as I said, I don’t want to be the bloke you ghosted for some silly reason that can really be summed up as fear.”
“Or dislike!” I pointed out.
Rhys folded his lips. And there came a few frustrated beats before he asked, “Then why are you trying to get rid of me now?”
Why?
Why?
There was the answer I wanted to give. I don’t do boyfriends. I’m a rolling stone. Don’t try to hold on to me because I’m sand through your fingers. Cynda—not Cinderella. Because when I leave, I stay gone. Fuck you and that glass slipper you’re trying to put on my foot.
But suddenly, my mouth just took over. Performing the steps. Doing what it took to resuscitate our dying relationship.
“My mom died,” I confessed, looking down at the steering wheel. “She died right before the Queen America pageant. And my dad got remarried too soon afterward to this woman who isn’t remotely my mom and isn’t right for him. So what did that say about their marriage? Like, did he even love her as much as I thought he did, or would just anybody have done?”
I released a harsh breath. “Anyway, ever since he remarried, I’ve been I don’t know…cold. Like I don’t have relationships, I watch them play out.”
I breathed out, then in, then out again. Then I did what I’d never done with a guy since my mother died. I changed my mind.
I turned to face him still taking long breaths out and quick breaths in. Maybe that’s why I felt like I was fixed to faint as I said, “But I like you, too, at least for now. And that’s probably only going to last for an itty-bitty while—the truth is, I don’t really do boyfriends. But I do…I do like you. And that scares the shit out of me.”
We stared at each other in the aftermath of my outburst. Both of us stunned.
“So you like me too,” he repeated. A slow grin spread across his face as if that thing I said about liking him was the only part of my confession he’d heard.
And of course, I answered like any self-respecting Black girl from Missouri would. “I mean, you all right.”
“Cynda?” he said, his voice low and somber.
“What?” I asked back, my voice harsh and snide.
“Will you do me the honor of coming upstairs to my apartment? There’s something I’d like to show you there. It’s long and hard and dying to get inside of you.”
I stared at him, unable to believe his gall.
Then I let loose a smile anyway.
Because yeah…it was so on.
A few short minutes later we burst through the door of his studio apartment kissing. It was really nice by the way. Large and high up with a view overlooking Forest Park. The spacious, open concept layout made it feel more like a loft than a studio. And the furniture was spare but super modern and well made. No Ikea for The Fine Prince.
But these were all details I would clock later. My first sight of his apartment was a total blur on the way to the bed. We were so hot for each other that clothes went flying between kisses and we were both naked by the time my back hit the mattress.
And though I appreciated him reaching down for a little prime work after he got the condom on, I impatiently pushed his hand away from my core. “No foreplay. I’m ready.”
I’d been waiting so long, I was already plenty wet. And then he did that thing where he braces his hand on the bed’s backboard at the same time he thrust into me….
“Oh fuck!” I groaned, in that way women do, when the D turns out to be a long, thick surprise.
Then I got an even bigger surprise when he started taking me with rough, possessive strokes. As it turned out Rhys was a prince in the streets and a beast in the sheets. And the way he fucked left no room for anything but complete submission.
I was happy to succumb. Happy to receive his savage kisses as he pushed into me. Happy to wrap both my legs and arms around him when he dropped down and started claiming me even harder.
I would like to say I gave as good as I got. But the truth was I almost immediately lost all sense of orientation. There was no chance to be the hot nurse in bed with Rhys. No pulling out the tried and true moves or the husky, “You like that?” I gave guys when I could see they were clearly enjoying what I was doing.
No, sex with Rhys didn’t allow for sensual bon mots or even much breathing.
He invaded. And I submitted.
Yet it somehow felt like I was the one receiving all the treasure.
Especially when I came underneath him, my entire body trembling with an orgasm I could feel from the top of my head to the bottom of my toes.
“Rhys!” I cried out, scratching into his back.
My nails seem to do something to him.
“Christ, Cynda,” he bit out right before his body tightened, and he released into the condom.
He collapsed on top of me. And we stayed there like that for a while. Breathing air in and each other.
I weirdly wanted to stay there forever. Which is a new feeling for me.
Usually after sex, I was done. Thank you, sir. Turn the light off and go to sleep. Even more often, I left. And I had a perfect excuse since Rhys had a shift later that afternoon—hence the morning date.
But in this case….
My stomach hollowed when he finally pulled out. And a new feeling popped off in my chest when he disposed of the condom then came right back to pull me into his arms. Suddenly, I understood all the hype over this spooning business as we fell asleep.
Together.
However, it wasn’t just the two of us when I woke up.
I blinked, then rubbed my eyes when I saw Rhys dressed and talking to someone just inside the door…in what sounded like German.
A woman. He was talking to a woman.
I guess you could call her beautiful, but that felt like an understatement. I’m pretty in a girl next door way—like most Beauty Queen of America state princesses. But this woman looks like a real damn princess.
She was tall and willowy with perfect breasts. Her skin looked pretty much poreless, no makeup required. And her eyes sparkled clear, blue and bright, like they’ve never even considered having anything less than 20/20 vision. And as for her hair, it fell in cascades of blonde waves over her shoulders.
So girl next door? Only if you live next to a castle.
“Ingrid, what are you doing here?” Rhys’s voice, usually so droll and charming, had turned into cold stone.
“I came to visit you, of course. I became worried when you didn’t answer any of my texts. Also, I’ve never been to St. Louis. I wanted to see what drew you here.” She had an accent I couldn’t place. Not English like Rhys’s but just as pronounced.
My guess that she wasn’t from around here was confirmed when Rhys answered, “So you got on a plane all the way from Europe to come check on me?”
I sat up in bed, so confused. “Rhys? What’s going on?”
They both turned toward me, like I’d interrupted them in the middle of an important conversation.
“Cynda, I’m sorry for waking you,” Rhys said.
At the same time, the blonde princess smirked. “I see you really did decide to experiment with something new. How…interesting.”
I was pretty sure she was talking to Rhys, but her eyes were slitted on me.
“Ingrid…” Rhys said with a warning tone.
“Don’t be upset, darling. It was simply a joke,” she chided. “Perhaps your friend could show me around today since you have to go to work.”
As much as I loved being talked about like I wasn’t sitting right there, naked underneath Rhys’s covers, I had to ask her, “Okay, who are you again?”
“Oh, how rude of me. I’m sorry it took me so long to introduce myself,” she answered.
Then she held up a hand with an enormous engagement ring on her finger. “I’m Ingrid, Rhys’s fiancée.”
Chapter Six
Three years after meeting Rhys’s fiancée, I agree to let him rent out the back house my father built for his mother-in-law. On the very same day he fires me.
And later that night I find myself in bed, hunched over my laptop, researching one Reina Smith.
I think Mabel senses that I need some company. Instead of hanging out with E in her room, she meows into mine and hops on to the bed.
If petting me will help, go right on ahead, she seems to be saying as she settles against my thigh.
“Good idea, Mabe,” I say out loud.
Scratching her behind the ears, I watch the last video in some superfan’s Best of Enjenue Video collection. Despite her ubiquitous last name, Reina Smith had actually been really easy to find on the internet.
My earlier suspicion was right, she’d been a real beauty. She’d been born before it became common for Black girls to compete in the official Princess Missouri pageant. But I’m surprised grandma, who’d sewn my early gowns by hand, hadn’t put her up for Miss Black Missouri or something like that. She was the kind of girl-next-door stunner that beauty pageants love. And she was talented too.
I discovered that she used to be in a 90s girl group. The kind of act that never made it all the way to BET’s 106 and Park but opened before the opener for the acts that did.
The earliest performance clip I found of them after a few deep YouTube searches had been grainy as a big dog. But it had a camcorder date stamp that was just a few months after my birth. Which explained a few things.
Reina had been beautiful with a voice to match. A three-month-old baby probably hadn’t aligned with her dreams of stardom.
Suddenly, so many things were becoming clear. Like why my mom encouraged me to learn piano but then made me stop when I started composing music on my own. Supposedly because I needed to concentrate on “more productive things” like my nursing degree.
Her explanation for moving the piano to the back house had seemed practical enough. But I’d been confused by her unusually firm stance on this one and only matter. Prior to that, she’d let her little beauty queen do pretty much whatever she wanted.
However, now I could see what had really happened. My budding talent had frightened my mom. She’d been scared.
Scared I turn out just like her little sister. My biological mom.
That night, I ended up following Reina’s career all the way up into the 2000s. But somewhere around the late aughts, all mentions of her stopped. Enjenue’s Svengali-like manager replaced two out of three of the group’s singers with younger versions of Black Midwestern girls before disbanding just a couple of years later.
So if my highly guesstimated timeline is correct and everything she said in the letter was true, Reina stopped singing right around the time she got sober.
After the last YouTube clip is done, I scan my emotions.
But I guess that’s the upside of having a mother die too soon on you. I can’t bring myself to be mad at her, or even a little upset. Of course, she and my dad would have taken me in as their own after Reina bounced. They were good-hearted people who hadn’t been able to have children of their own.
And as for never telling me…yeah, I know the 90s sitcom reaction to such a discovery is usually to get all sorts of pissed. But what did I have to be angry about? Not only had they taken me in, they’d treated me like a true blessing. When it came right down to it, I had the best parents on Earth—at least until my dad remarried.
So no…there’s no resentment or confusion even. But I do find myself curious about Reina Smith.
What happened to her after she got sober? How did she end up in South Dakota of all places? And what had she been doing with herself all these years? Maybe I should try searching for her name with South Dakota behind it…
An out-of-nowhere tingling stops my hands typing just as I’m about to enter a new internet search. It’s the same feelings I had this afternoon when I opened the door to find Rhys standing on my step. A weird mix of both dread and anticipation lighting up all my nerves.
I put the laptop down beside a snoozing Mabel and go over to my window which faces the backyard.
Sure enough, Rhys appears, walking down the gravel driveway that extends all the way from the front to the back of the house. He’s dragging one single suitcase behind him. That’s weird. For a guy who just took over the practice, you’d think he would have brought more than one piece of luggage to his new venture.
I watch him open the door with the keys I gave him earlier, expecting him to go right in. But then he looks over his shoulder....
His eyes rise up to my window.
As if he senses my presence just as deeply as I do his.
Our eyes connect.
Even though there’s insulated glass and at least ten meters of space between us, I swear I can feel his gaze on my skin. And my body swells with heat in response.
I turn away from the window, refusing to let my mind go back down that road.
This situation is already complicated enough.
Did I say I wasn’t angry before? Because suddenly I am.
So angry, I snatch my aunt-mother’s letter from the pillow I laid it on while I was researching Reina Smith on my laptop.
Yeah, I’d been curious a few minutes ago, but the fact is she left. She made her decision before I was even three months old. So what good is doing all this research on her?
It won’t change the past.
Instead of doing yet another search on Reina Smith, I grab the box from the top shelf of my closet. The one where I keep things I should throw away. But haven’t. Like my participation Beauty Queen of America trophy, my father’s old stationary pad, the twin’s report cards, that one glittery purple Dansko shoe, and now….
The letter Reina Smith had sent me.
I have to get the twins through the rest of the school year. I also have to figure out how I’m going to qualify for an apartment in Pittsburgh without a regular paycheck. Plus, Rhys Prince is now living in my back house.
There’s enough going on in my life, I decide, shoving the box back up on the top shelf and turning off the closet light.
I don’t have room for anything or anyone else.
Chapter Seven
“Can I go to Janine’s house to study?” E asks me when she pads into the kitchen on the first Saturday of April.
Her head is down and she’s typing on her phone. But she stops short when she finally looks up and sees me. “Oh, my God! What happened to your hair?”
I run a hand over my new TWA, the teeny weeny afro I was left with after my spontaneous big chop the previous night.
“I finally got around to watching Nappily Ever After yesterday,” I answer.
“That one movie about the old desperate lady who cuts off her hair because she’s mad at some man?” E asks.
I love E, but sometimes teenagers can be complete trash.
“That’s not what it’s about?” I say to E. “It’s more about discovering your self-worth and realizing it’s not all about hair. Also with the governor having just issued that stay-at-home order for all of Missouri, I don’t think I’m going to be able to get into St. Louis for a new relaxer anytime soon. Plus, I’m trying to cut down on expenses. We’re not going to be able to afford to pay the rent on the apartment in Pittsburgh if I don’t save up. And I don’t know how long it will take to sell the house this summer.”
“Okay, whatever.” Not even pretending to be interested in the practical decisions that keep a roof over her head, E flips her red ombre box braids which she ordered from Amazon, and spent a whole day installing herself. “Can I go to Janine’s?”
“Nope.” I stand up from the kitchen table where I was reading the St. Louis Post Dispatch on my phone with a cup of coffee. “What do you want in your smoothie today?”
She huffs. “Nothing! I want to go over to Janine’s house.”
“Okay, I’ll decide then.” I open the refrigerator door. “How about kale and pineapple juice?”
“Eww no! Strawberries and bananas please.”
At least she said please. I pull some frozen fruit out of the freezer and walk it over to the blender. But of course, that’s not the end of the conversation.
“I don’t understand why I can’t go. It’s not against the law to go over somebody’s house until Monday.”
“And it’s also not a good idea. Just because something’s not against the law yet isn’t a good reason to put yourself at risk.”
E lets out a frustrated sound. “But I’m so bored!”
“Guess what? Same thing applies to boredom. My mother used to tell me only boring people get bored.”
E screws up her face. “That’s not true!”
I shake my head, wondering not for the first time how my mom got away with answering me with statistically impossible folk wisdom when I was E’s age. I had just accepted her sayings as immutable facts I couldn’t argue against. But clearly, E doesn’t accept that saying at easily as I did.
“I’m not like A,” she whines. “I can’t just play video games online with my stupid friends all day. I need people. And company.”
