EIGHT
I have already come…
Chad laughed.
Hard.
I could, however, tell his laugh had nothing to do with my question. I knew that urge one got after mind-blowing sex—the urge to laugh without reason; the after-feeling was something to smile about. A dawdling bout of feel-good-ness. All the stress and tension held at bay while euphoria swirled and twirled.
Warm and infectious, his laugh was everything I remembered it to be. Albeit a bit deeper now, his voice was virtually the same with its smooth, unhitched flow. And he still had that one premature dimple which popped in on his left cheek when he laughed. The mirthful, boyish laugh kicked open the gates for memories from the past—the happy past—to come flooding in.
My smile died painfully on my lips at the abrupt memories. Memories I didn’t want.
Chad stopped laughing. “You okay?”
“No.” I pushed at his chest. “The grass is scratching my ass. Let me up.”
With skepticism in his eyes, he stood up, then held out his hand to help me up.
We got dressed in silence.
Didn’t matter how dark and shaded this garden was, with all the sex noises we’d made, someonehadto have peeped out their window and seen us. Probably watched the whole thing.
Two sick menaces fucking under the maple tree, right next to ‘Margaret & Ford’s’ posthumous swing-bench. Their ‘Souls Enshrined, Engrafted, and Entwined’ was now defiled.
Fuck their boring love.
My bad-man Chad and I just wrote over their lame history with our own profligate story: ‘Chad & Jhay—Souls at War, in Life, in Death (whilst they hath really good sex)’.
“You’re gonna answer my question?” I pushed, once I was dressed and less vulnerable.
Chad straightened his ever-present cross pendant silver chain, snagging my focus from his face to his addictive body. His customary semi-formal attire of blazer and jeans was ditched tonight for casual black jeans, black T-shirt and black boots. His after-sex hair had me wrestling the urge to tackle him to the ground and do this male-to-female sex all over again.
Several minutes passed before he attempted to respond, and I wrote off his imminent answer as too late to be true.
Turning in the opposite direction, away from me, he started out of the garden, leaving me to follow. “I came to deliver something to someone. Saw you walking when I drove in.”
I caught up to him, matching his wide strides. “And you had absolutely no idea this is where I live?”
His head turned slightly, and his eyes peered down into mine. “No.”
“Not even from your spy, Nadia?”
“You’re fucking her?”
Although he staged it as a question, it sounded more like he was telling me he knew.
“Indians. They get wet so easily. And when they come, it’s in ongoing gushes of creamy—”
“A simple yes would’ve sufficed,” he sliced.
We turned onto the path of the tree arcade. “I’m not a fan of monosyllabic conversations.”
“You’re not allowed to sleep with her anymore.”
A derisive snort escaped me. “I’m notallowed?”
Instead of answering, he just looked down at me while still walking, his arched expression conveying, ‘that’s exactly what I said.’
