How to Fail at Flirting(3)
Two
The sun set over the Chicago skyline, and the smell of basil and garlic hung faintly in the air from the pasta my best friends had prepared for dinner. At Aaron and Felicia’s kitchen table, I was still mulling over the potential cuts, Joe’s bombshell about Davis, and those damned boat shoes.
“What’s up with you tonight, Nay?” Aaron took a swig from his beer when Felicia went upstairs to put their oldest to bed.
My mind had wandered, and I jerked my gaze up from where it had landed on my old friend’s chest.
“Eyes up here, pervert.” He covered his torso with splayed fingers. “You haven’t had any action in a while, but that’s no excuse to objectify me.”
“Sorry, but Felicia wouldn’t mind sharing.”
“I know. The only way my wife would ever agree to a threesome would be with you.” He gave a full-body dramatic shudder, and I threw a balled-up napkin at him.
Aaron and I had met freshman year and shared one painfully awkward date, complete with an uninspired, fumbling lip-lock. That was before he asked out my best friend, I gave her my blessing but warned her to not expect much, and they ended up married with three kids. “You’re an ass.”
“You love me. But seriously, why so distracted tonight?”
I’d joked with them about Quinton or Quenton. As a high school teacher, Aaron liked exchanging student stories. “I’m still annoyed about that kid today.”
Aaron’s tone sobered as he ticked off his fingers for each new point. “Cocky, self-assured, dismissive, the polo shirts. Sound familiar?”
I reflexively touched my left wrist. “It’s not that.”
Since leaving the classroom earlier, the memory had crept alongside every other thought. A few months after we started dating, I’d been excited Davis wanted to see me teach—he was taking an interest in my work, and as a professor with more experience, he could give me pointers. I’d been lively and engaging with my students in ways I hoped impressed him. I was so naive. When class was over, he’d strolled to the front of the room, his expression impassive when I asked, “What did you think?”
He didn’t answer immediately, but reached for my hand and brought it to his lips. The gesture was soft, but his tone was steely. “You were flirting with the male student in the front row.”
“I wasn’t. I would never.” I tried to pull my hand back, but he gripped it firmly.
“I was sitting right there.” He’d twisted my arm behind my back, slamming it into the wooden podium with a fast jerk, and I yelped. To anyone walking by, it would look like he was hugging me, but pain radiated up my arm from the impact. “You practically fell into the kid’s lap.” His face inches from mine, he’d pecked the tip of my nose with a smirk as he twisted my wrist with more force. He dropped a kiss to my mouth after that, biting my lower lip before sucking on it.
“You’re hurting me, and people are right outside.”
After a moment of tense silence—the only sound the ticking clock—he’d laughed, a small caustic sound. “What? You worried they’ll lose respect for you? Believe me, if you always act like you did today, they already have.” He’d released my arm, letting it fall at my side, and told me he’d see me after work, walking out like nothing had happened.
I stifled the shudder of revulsion, and the memory of the flowers delivered the next day, and the lie I’d told Felicia about slipping on the ice. I shook it all away, focusing on Aaron’s question. “He’s a kid. I don’t compare my students to men I’ve dated. That’s . . .” I searched for the phrase that best described the rising bile in my stomach and settled on “inappropriate.”
Aaron shrugged and pushed back from the table to get another beer. “I’m not saying you want to sleep with the kid. I’m just saying he might remind you of Davis.”
Felicia breezed into the room, plucking the beer from her husband’s hand. “What did I miss?”
“I was just saying, Nay always has strong reactions to people who are self-assured.”
“Definitely. Except for me. It’s a miracle we’ve been friends so long.”
My best friend since third grade when she punched a girl who was bullying me, Felicia was my opposite in every way. Bold to my timid; dark, smooth skin to my ethnically ambiguous; brave to my fearful. Her smile was contagious, and I gave her a knowing grin. They were both wrong, though. Self-assurance didn’t bother me. Davis was cocky. The way his lip curled when he was upset with me and how I had learned to cower at that expression—cocky bothered me. I shook my head, willing away the image as Aaron continued.
“You’re wound too tight, Nay. Always have been.” Aaron popped the top off two beers and handed me one. “I bet that kid wouldn’t bother you this much if you”—he lifted his brows a few times—“found someone to help you loosen up.”
“My sex life has nothing to do with that kid being prepared for my class.” That was true, and my interest in sex had been nonexistent for a long time. After my last relationship, I’d felt disconnected from my body, and I didn’t trust anything that felt good. Then, a few months earlier, Felicia had talked me into doing yoga with her a couple times a week, and eventually I’d become more in tune with my body. Turned out, my body missed sex even though my mind was resistant to trusting someone.