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“So why do it then?”

  “Because you said I should do it.”

  “I said you should do it because you want to do it.”

  I closed my eyes and contemplated my next move.

  “What are you doing? Praying?” Winsome asked.

  “No, but I need to be. I was thinking about how much ice cream and chocolate we need to stock up on so that when I get hurt, I don’t have to run out to the store.”

  “Speaking of fattening shit . . .” Winsome looked at the time on her cell phone. “It’s nine thirty and the gym closes at eleven. We need to get moving. I’m not going to sleep with all this grease in my stomach so my ass will feel like lead in the morning.”

  We gathered our trash to throw it away. Winsome reached over and took mine. “I’ll throw this away. It’s loud in here. Go outside and call Tevin and ask him what time you need to be ready tomorrow.”

  I grinned. “Okay.”

  “And also tell him that he has to meet me tomorrow to get my approval before he takes you out of town. I’m sick of only seeing him from the window.”

  “Yes, Mother!”

  Winsome headed toward the trash receptacle while I went outside on the pavement to call Tevin and accept his offer. It was time for me to take a chance.

  Chapter Nine

  “One day, someone will walk into your life and make you see why it never worked out with anyone else.”

  —Unknown

  This view is breathtaking!” I exclaimed, trying to catch my breath.

  Tevin had taken me to Shenandoah National Park to go hiking and we were on the Appalachian Trail at the Panorama.

  “It’s great how you can see everything for miles from here.”

  “And in every direction,” Tevin added. “So do you like hiking?”

  I looked up into his almond eyes. “I do now, but this is honestly my first time.”

  Tevin chuckled. “Your first time? Why did you agree then?”

  I shrugged. “Why not agree? At some point, everything is someone’s first time. Good thing that I’ve been going to the gym on the regular or I wouldn’t have been able to hang.”

  He looked me up and down. I had on all kinds of hiking gear that I had rushed to purchase at Arundel Mills Mall the second he had told me the plans. In addition to the clothes, I had utilized Google to find out what essentials I needed for hiking.

  “You had all of that in your closet already?” he asked.

  “No, not at all, but I like to be prepared. I did my research and once I found out that this park has five hundred miles of trails, more than a hundred of them being the Appalachian Trail, I wanted to make sure that if we get lost, we’re covered.”

  Tevin was carrying my heavy-ass backpack for me. He set it down on the ground. “What’s in here?”

  “Let me see.” I looked upward while I tried to recite the list of everything tucked inside. “The essential list is: a map, a compass, a flashlight, eye protection, extra food, extra clothes, a first aid kit, a pocket knife, waterproof matches, a fire starter, water bottles, a whistle, insect repellent, and sunscreen.”

  Tevin chuckled. “Are you serious? We’re only out here for a few hours. I rented us a yurt.”

  “What the hell is a yurt?”

  “Aw, something that the school principal with a thirst for knowledge doesn’t know already! I’m shocked,” he joked.

  “You should have told me so I could look it up.”

  Tevin didn’t understand how upset I was that I didn’t know what a yurt was. I didn’t like it one bit.

  “So what is a yurt? Is it a tent, or some other kind of pop-up shelter?” I paused. “We’re not going to sleep near bears, are we?”

  Tevin took my hand, lifted it, and kissed it. “I’m the only bear you have to worry about. A yurt is a round cabin.”

  I finally exhaled. “Whew! I’m so relieved!”

  “Well, yes, you can relax. Actually, the yurt has a stainless-steel kitchen, two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a stone fireplace, a living room, and an outdoor deck and grill.”

  “That sounds lovely.”

  “Not as lovely as you.”

  He was still holding my hand and pulled me closer to him so that he could kiss me. Boy, did he plant one on. It wasn’t even cold outside, but I was trembling.

  He broke the kiss and stared right into my eyes. “I love you, Jemistry.”

  My mouth fell open. I wasn’t prepared for that . . . not at all.

  “I love you and you don’t have to respond. I don’t want you to tell me until you mean it.” He let me go and picked the backpack up. “I’m a confident man and I can see it in your eyes. You’re falling for me . . . hard.”

  He started walking down the hill. “We need to get back before dark.” He paused and looked back at me. I was planted in place. “You coming, or you need me to leave this survival backpack for you so the flashlight and matches can help you fight off bears?”

  I snapped out of it. I had been joking about the bears but we were in the middle of the wilderness. “Oh my goodness! They do have bears out here, you know.”

  “Yeah, I know, and I’m prepared.” Tevin pulled a handgun out of his jacket pocket. “This is how I fight off bears and anyone or anything else.”

  I giggled. “That definitely works.”

  I started walking so we could head back down toward his car, about three miles away. “You weren’t kidding about spending time in isolation, but I’m having fun.”

  When I caught up to him, he took my hand. “That’s a good thing.”

  * * *

  We got settled into the yurt, which was nicer inside than just about any hotel room or suite that I had stayed in . . . ever. The rental community was in Gordonsville, Virginia, and they had it all: cabins, lodge rooms, a manor house, campsites, RV sites, chalets, and yurts. They had all kinds of activities as well: basketball, billiards, a gym, horse-drawn carriages, miniature golf, and a lake to go fishing.

  Tevin had found a small, local grocery store where we purchased everything necessary to grill hamburgers and hot dogs, as well as some food for breakfast the next morning. He turned out to be a great cook. He had asked me to come over to his house for dinner on numerous occasions, but I had avoided it. I didn’t want to put myself in a situation where I would be tempted to sleep with him. All of that was about to change. I was prepared to go all in with him to see what could actually become of it. But it would be a challenge and I wanted him to know that. I could no longer convince myself that a “friends with benefits” situation would work with him. We had spent way too much quality time together and I cared about him too much to disconnect from my emotions.

  “These burgers are banging.” I took another bite of mine as Tevin cut off the grill. “Where did you learn to cook like this?”

  “My mother taught me how to cook. By ten, I was cooking dinner three times a week.” He sat down across from me at the picnic table on the deck. “You probably thought that I was lying when I said that I could burn.”

  “No, I took it more literally, like you were burning food and jacking it up.” We both laughed. “You haven’t told me much about your parents. Are they still living?”

  “Yes, they both are. Again, sorry to hear about the loss of yours.”

  I looked down at my plate, trying to avoid eye contact and to prevent myself from tearing up. “It is what it is. Sure, it would be nice to still have my parents in my life, but I’m not going to throw a pity party. There are many, many people in worse situations than me. I have a couple of degrees, a career that I am passionate about, and . . .”

  Tevin was waiting for me to finish my sentence. When I continued to hesitate, he asked, “And what?”

  “And a man who loves me.”

  He grinned. “Yes, you definitely have that.”

  We stared at each other for a moment. He had told me not to reciprocate what he had said until I meant it, so I would not. But my feelings for him ran deep. I could not call it being in love quite
yet, though.

  “Tell me more about your parents.”

  “Well, they’re divorced, but they only took that step after all of us were grown. I have two sisters. One lives in New Jersey and she owns a few retail stores. My other sister lives in Florida and she’s a dentist. Mom lives down in Florida near Alexis and my father lives in Sweden.”

  “Sweden?”

  “Yes, my father is a vascular surgeon as well. I got it honest. He decided that he wanted to move out of the country after the divorce because he needed a change.”

  “That’s one hell of a change!”

  “Indeed! He loves it, though. He learned their language, moved over there, and landed a position at Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm. He comes back three to four times a year to visit the States.”

  “I’ve always found it intriguing when people take such a leap of faith. Moving to another country is not a simple undertaking.”

  Tevin laughed as he took a sip of his beer.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “It’s just that, for a woman who has such a thirst for knowledge, I’m surprised you have that outlook.”

  “What outlook?”

  “Thinking that it seems like a massive undertaking to move to another country. Then again, a lot of us Americans have that same view. It seems more strenuous or daring for us to move somewhere else, but people from other countries uproot their entire families all the time—relocate to the United States, and manage to figure it out.”

  “You have a good point. I have never thought of it that way. A lot of them even leave everyone else behind to come here and try to make things work.”

  “Yes, they do. Many never see their family members again.”

  “You know, I couldn’t imagine being a mother in a war-torn country and letting my children be smuggled out to have a better chance at life. I would like to think that I would let them go, but it is unthinkable to me.”

  “We really need to appreciate the United States, as messed up as so many things are here.”

  I giggled. “A patriotic conversation and it’s not the Fourth of July.”

  Tevin wiped his chin with his napkin. Even that seemed sensual to me.

  You’re going to fuck him tonight and you know it!

  “I will say this,” I added. “This has given me some food for thought. A lot of my students have been offered opportunities to study abroad or stay with foreign families. I have never been too thrilled about the concept, but when you get right down to it, it’s dangerous here in the States.”

  “Yes, there have been a lot of school shootings lately. It’s crazy.”

  I took a deep breath. “Tell me about it. We’ve had to rethink our security and take more precautions. There’s no way to tell when or where someone might lose it. I guess when it’s your time, it’s your time.”

  Tevin looked into my eyes and grinned. “Okay, enough of the dismal stuff. This is our time . . . to get to know each other.”

  “Indeed.”

  “What else would you like to talk about?”

  I shrugged.

  “How about we discuss why you’re so bitter toward men?”

  “Didn’t you just say ‘enough of the dismal stuff?’ ” I got up from the table to throw my plate in the trash bag we had near the grill. “So this makes sense to you? Taking me away from the hustle and bustle of the city to a peaceful, secluded place only to turn around and ask me to conjure up all of the negativity that I’m attempting to leave behind?”

  “Now that you put it like that, no. It makes no sense at all.” I felt his presence behind me a second before he put his arms around my waist and whispered in my ear, “But in order for me to avoid the same mistakes the other men made, I need to know what you expect.”

  “It’s not really all about expectations. It’s about human decency and not trying to cause the next person to self-destruct.”

  He gazed into my eyes. “That definitely is not my intention.” He kissed me on the cheek and let me go. “Instead of going into everything from your past in minute details, how about an overview?”

  He sat down on the bench of the picnic table, facing outward toward me. “I can make some assumptions, based on that poem you recited.”

  “What kind of assumptions?”

  “Well, I can assume that you’ve been cheated on, yelled at before, possibly beaten on.”

  I glared at him, trying to decide how to respond.

  “Okay, I am going to give you a quick overview. Yes, all of those things have happened to me before, including the domestic violence. I always told myself that no man would ever hit me and get away with it . . . until it actually happened.”

  I walked over and sat down beside Tevin. “I was engaged once. It turned out to be a nightmare. His name was Wesley and I thought he was the moon, the sun, and the stars when I first met him. We met in grad school at Georgetown. He was from what they call old money, originally from Boston. I loved everything about him, from the way he walked with such confidence to his authentic Boston accent. He was just . . . cool. He was charming, brilliant, and said all the right things.

  “Most of the women on campus wanted to at least sleep with him once, and I was no exception. Crazy, but the truth. Like a lot of younger women, I believed that my pussy was better than anyone else’s and after he got one taste of it, he would be mine forever.

  “I actually competed for his attention. I can laugh about it now, but it was ridiculous back then. It’s amazing what people can accept as normalcy when toxic situations are all that they have ever witnessed. Looking back at it now, I’m not sure if I ever had any relatives or friends growing up that did not live in complete dysfunction. So if you only comprehend that type of behavior, something better is damn near impossible to relate to.”

  “I understand where you are coming from. I’ve run across quite a few women who felt like I was too good to be true because I wasn’t hitting them, cheating on them, or yelling at them like they expected. It’s true that good men usually finish last.”

  “It took me a long time to realize that. When I would meet a seemingly nice man, I always expected something crazy to happen. Most of the time it did, but now that I look back on it, I realize that I kept hooking up with guys similar to Wesley over and over again.

  “Men who looked great on paper. Men who women would fall all over each other to get to. Men who could never actually do right by another human being because it wasn’t in their nature. Then I started believing that all men had to have some kind of crazy mentality about them. I was attracting the wrong type of men because I was wearing my pain, low self-esteem, and negative outlook on my face.”

  Tevin glanced over at me and took my hand. “I know that extremely well.”

  I felt ashamed because he was right. It was the expression written all over my face the night we met, not to mention the “Bitter” poem.

  “So why even approach me? Why even ask me out if you saw all of that?”

  “Because I wanted to be the one to change your outlook. Color me stupid, but I believe it’s actually working . . . somewhat.”

  I blushed. “Yes, it is.”

  We shared a long kiss and I was ready to let him take me right there on the deck, but I stopped him.

  “I have to warn you about something,” I said.

  “Warn me? You’re not really a man, are you?”

  I slapped him on the thigh and we both laughed.

  “Now that would truly turn this situationship into an adventure,” I replied. “No, I’m not a man.”

  “I was just kidding. You’re way too beautiful to be a male.”

  “Please, there are some trannies that would put every woman that I know—including me—to shame.”

  “Not a topic that I’m interested in, but I’ll take your word for it.”

  His comment made me concerned so I asked, “You’re not homophobic, are you?”

  “Absolutely not! Everyone should do them. I’m just not interes
ted in the lifestyle of transsexuals. Nothing against them, though.”

  “Good, because Winsome is bisexual.”

  “Your roommate?”

  “Yes.”

  Tevin had met Winsome when he came to pick me up. It was not going to go down any other way. Winsome had made it a point that if she did not finally meet him, she would give me hell when I got back.

  Tevin shrugged. “Cool with me. So she’s involved with both a man and a woman?”

  I giggled. “I wouldn’t say involved. I would say she is simply doing her. She’s more scared of putting her heart on the line than I am, but her issues are different.”

  “Like what?”

  “A lot of men get excited about her being bisexual because she can help them live out their fantasies. A lot of women don’t trust her because they think she’ll go chase after dick behind their backs. The truth is that being bisexual doesn’t automatically mean that you’ll always want to have your cake and eat it too. It means that you find something attractive and exciting about both.”

  “Got you.” He paused and licked his lips. “Wait; whoa, back up. What exactly is a ‘situationship’?”

  “It’s a word that I use to describe what I usually end up in. A situationship is like a relationship but one where there is so much outside bullshit, so many emotional hang-ups, and so much that will inevitably go wrong, that it ends up being a hot mess.”

  “Are you saying you still expect something to go wrong with us?”

  “I sure hope not.”

  We stared at each other for a few seconds. He was probably trying to see if I was going to shut down on him suddenly, after he had made so much leeway with me. I was going to try my best not to do that. I wanted him, and not only in a sexual way. But I was still scared half to death to get my feelings hurt again.

  “It’s getting chilly. Let’s go inside.” Tevin took my hand and led me inside.

  Chapter Ten

  “Love is when you look into someone’s eyes and see everything you need.”

  —Unknown

  Later that night, we had both showered in separate bathrooms and met back up in the living room of the yurt. Tevin had put our bags in different rooms to let me know that there was no pressure to sleep together. He had no idea that fucking him was definitely on my itinerary for the weekend.