SYLVIE

“This is not too bad, mon!” I tell Holt with a grin after taking my first bite of our jointly prepared goat. “You must have had a pretty good teacher, yeah?”

“Yeah, I did,” he agrees with another rare chuckle.

“You should try beef patties next,” I tell him. “Those are easier for people who need recipes. More like baking.”

“Those are the things you used to make with the dough. Like Jamaican empanadas, right?”

“Right,” I say, not surprised he remembers. I used to make a batch in the evenings before bed and find them gone by the time I got home from work. Beef patties are perfect for a guy with a semi-permanent case of the munchies. “Though my Aunt Judith calls empanadas ‘Mexican beef patties,’ so…”

The conversation continues like that. Easy breezy until it is time to clear the dishes. When I rise to gather our plates and take them back into the kitchen, he jumps up and says, “No, let me.”

“Whoa! Did you take a basic course in loading dishwashers, too?” I ask, craning my head to watch him scrape the dishes and place them in neat rows in the dishwasher.

“No, I’m sort of winging it,” he answers, glancing over his shoulder at me. “How am I doing?”

“Fine. But why all this now?”

Holt stiffens and doesn’t meet my eyes when he says, “I’m embarrassed I didn’t know how to do any of these things before. I let you take care of me ten years ago, and I never once tried to take care of you.”

I felt relaxed and happy during dinner, but this recent admission of his makes my heart pound with the memory of that night…

Holt decided to ask his friends over. Supposedly to watch some soccer game, but in reality he plans to tell them about our marriage and invite them to walk to the courthouse with us. It’s down Church, less than a two-minute walk from Holt’s place.

But I don’t want to spring this on his friends in the middle of the day when they probably haven’t eaten. So though Holt told Javon to make reservations at some fancy restaurant after our courthouse visit, I make jerk chicken drummettes, plantains, beef patties, and set out chips, dip, and cut vegetables on the dining room table. I also clean the apartment and let Holt give me money to buy myself a white dress. Not a fancy wedding one, but a pretty cotton number with eyelet embroidery, a flared, tiered skirt, and sleeveless tie-top shoulders that my mother never would have abided when I lived under her roof.

I want to impress his friends, but things start to go wrong from the beginning. Holt is four beers in before Javon buzzes up to say Luca and Zahir, who room together in New York, are on the elevator and headed our way.

I know both of his best friends… sort of.

Zahir was Asir’s tall, chisel-jawed brother. I clearly remember how he was the target of Prin’s angry rant the night we drove back to Hartford from New Haven.

As for Luca? Well, he might not have a naked girl bouncing on his lap, but it would difficult to forget a face as gorgeous as his. For his part, he has no recollection of me at all, and greets me with a distracted chin lift and a, “Hey, what’s what?” after Holt introduces me.

I am surprised to discover these are Holt’s best friends. But I am determined to “be cool” as Prin would say.

“Hey…” I begin by way of a greeting. Only to trail off in disbelief.

See, though my parents tried to keep me as cloistered as possible from the corner activity in our neighborhood, I had witnessed enough drug deals go down to recognize what is going on when Luca clasps hands with Holt before bro-hugging him at the door.

My suspicions are confirmed when Holt vanishes into the back of the apartment without another word, leaving me to awkwardly escort his guests to the table where I’ve set up the food and offer them drinks.

Things might not have been so bad if Luca showed more interest in the spread I prepared for them and less in me.

“So, you’re the girl who’s been keeping Holt too busy to throw parties,” he says following me to the kitchen when I fetch him a beer and a Perrier for Zahir.

I am not sure how to respond so I say nothing. Instead, I reach into the fridge and bring out a cold bottle of Red Stripe and a can of Perrier.

But Luca doesn’t move, even after I hand him the beer. “Tell me, how much is Holt paying you?”

I blink, not understanding his question. Luca looks at me quizzically. “Wait. You telling me he’s not paying you?”

“I am not telling you anything,” I answer honestly. “I’m not a hooker.”

And that is when it happens. A dark cloud passes over Luca’s affable expression, as if by not charging his friend a fee, I have vexed him more.

I decide not to wait for a follow-up question. “Excuse me,” I say, pushing past him and into the dining room to hand Zahir his drink.

Zahir takes the Perrier with a terse, “Thank you.” He doesn’t ask any nosy questions, but his eyes are as suspicious as Luca’s as he looks my inexpensive white dress up and down.

Normally, I would take the time to pour their drinks into a glass. But I have a very bad feeling about this. About them. And though I spent all afternoon preparing the appetizers, I decide to stay with Holt in the back until it’s time to announce why he really invited his friends here.

But when I turned to leave, Luca is once again in my path, the beer I gave him casually tucked under one arm.

“Hey, hold on,” he says, cupping my shoulder like we are old friends. “Don’t let me run you off, sweetheart. Stay here with us until Holt comes back. I want to get to know you. Find out what all the fuss is about.”

I stop, feeling extremely uncomfortable. Because the only boy who has ever touched me in such a familiar way is Holt. And this boy with his “what’s what” and package of white powder is definitely not Holt.

But before I can formulate a response, a hard voice says, “Stop flirting with my girlfriend, Luca.”

A beat of tense silence passes as we both look up to see Holt. He’s dressed in a suit with his hair pulled back in a sloppy ponytail. Ready to go, one would think. But his feet are bare because he’s forgotten to put on shoes.

An easy-going grin spreads across Luca’s devilishly handsome face and he says, “Hey man, I was just being nice. You know me.”

“Yeah, I know you. That’s why I want you to take your hands off her right fucking now,” Holt answers, his tone low and threatening.

This time the silence lasts even longer. But then, as if making a decision, Luca drops his hand from my shoulder and says, “Sorry, man. I didn’t realize I wasn’t allowed to be nice, considering you invited us over. Not to party with girls, but to do what, exactly? Watch a soccer game and, like, pretend this isn’t weird? You suddenly swapping out your real friends for some girl you met a few months ago?”

Holt tilts his head, his eyes vicious as nitrous ice. “This girl has proven herself ten times more loyal than my so-called friends. She’s not here to party, or have random hook-ups with strangers.”

“Okay, yeah, she’s so much more noble than me, right?” Luca shoots back. “I mean, I’m a real asshole. All I did was bring you the package you been texting me about all day, like you asked. While this martyr here makes chicken wings and fucks you on command. All you have to do is what? Let her live here? Pay her bills? And trust she’s not going to source a story on the batshit crazy Cal-Mart billionaire as soon as you sober up long enough to dump her?”

My mouth drops open, but before I can defend myself, Holt is across the room. He and Luca fall to the ground, throwing punches, seemingly deaf to Zahir’s yells to, “Stop this. Cut it out. Now!” and my cries of, “Please stop! Don’t!”

But Holt ignores us, and manages to get the upper hand with Luca. He hauls him to his feet, then shoves so hard, Luca falls against the dining room table I covered with food. The drummetes hit me square in the chest, staining the front of my dress before the plate crashes to the floor. An enraged Holt lays his friend across the table and starts throwing punch after punch into the boy’s pretty face.

That’s when Zahir decides to join the fray in order to break things up. But by the time he pulls Holt off Luca, his friend’s pretty face is mottled and bruised.

But that isn’t nearly enough punishment for Holt. “You don’t fucking talk about her!” he yells from behind the wall Zahir has made out of his body. “You do not fucking flirt with her! In fact, get the hell out of my house! Now!”

Luca opens his mouth, looking like he wants to say something else. Then his face sets into a hard expression. “Just like I thought. You are beyond fucked up, man. You need help. More than some random chick can give you.” He turns his baleful hazel gaze on me. “And I am so sorry if I offended you, Sylvie—that’s not my style. Especially with the ladies. But deep down, I think you know I’m right. You’ll figure out he’s going to need more than some Jamaican chicken wings to get straightened out—know what I’m saying?”

I stare back at Luca. I don’t want him be right, but my heart is beating wildly because he has spoken my most secret fear aloud. The one I sometimes have when I put a babbling Holt to bed. When I run for him the same baths I would for the children I used to babysit. When he asks me to marry him three times, but cannot remember asking me the first two times by the next day.

That my love for him and his love for me isn’t really beautiful at all, but something ugly and toxic.

“Come, Luca,” Zahir’s slightly accented voice interrupts our standoff. “Holt has had far too much to drink, and you are not on your best behavior…”

Somewhere in the distance, I hear Zahir’s poshly-accented English saying all the right things. He thanks me for my hospitality, and apologizes again for Luca before dragging his beautiful and bruised friend out of Holt’s apartment.

And then it is just me and Holt, several piles of scattered food, my stained white dress, and the broken dishes. Plus, the near overpowering stench of alcohol. I look around to find beer pouring from an open bottle of Red Stripe. I had been so excited for Holt and his friends to try it with food from my country. Now the bottle rests on its side where Luca dropped it during the altercation with Holt.

The bottle isn’t broken, just disturbed and nearly empty. Like me…

Without a word, I bend down and start picking up the shards of dishes.

“Fuck, the food…,” Holt mumbles behind me. “I am not reasonable when it comes to you. I couldn’t allow him to talk about you like that.”

I don’t answer. Don’t know how to answer. Like when we first met on his balcony, this whole situation is beyond the scope of my imagination. As if at some point last May I, the most boring of Jamaican girls, walked through a portal to a place where Rich Guy A got in a drunken fight with Rich Guy B over the poor Jamaican girlfriend no one but Rich Guy A thought he should be with.

“I’ll help you clean up,” Holt offers.

But then he sways and looks around helplessly. I realize he doesn’t know how to clean up this mess. It’s not part of his programming. Not to mention, he’s drunk and altered on top of that.

“No, Holt, you are barefoot. I do not want you to step on anything and cut yourself. I’ll take care of it. Go lie down.”

He does as I tell him but not before throwing me a fond look and mumbling, “Luca is an asshole. He can’t begin to understand how good you’ve been to me.”

Maybe…maybe. The word endlessly repeats as I finish cleaning up another mess Holt has made.

But that was ten years ago, and tonight…well, tonight he really is taking care of me.

Somehow, I keep my voice level and say, “I never asked for you to take care of me.”

“But you needed it, just like I did, and I never did a thing for you. I took and took until you left.”

Holt is still facing the sink, and his words punch me in the gut.

They hurt so bad I can barely choke out, “Don’t. Please do not say things like that! We were both very young, and doing the best we could under the circumstances. You are healthier now, and in a much better place.”

I force a smile to my face and thrust a joking tone into my voice, “Also, the curry goat was delicious. Seriously, mon, anybody would forgive you anything after eating that.”

He chuckles and pushes the dishwasher door shut. “Maybe I should bring some to the board meeting tomorrow? That might convince them to extend my contract and make me the official CEO, right?”

I grasp onto this new topic like it’s a lifeboat and I am about to drown. “Is this something you are worried about? The extension of your contract?”

Holt shrugs and crosses the kitchen to lean against the open counter. “Well, thing is they’re trying to live down my dad, but since they named me acting CEO two years ago, my wife died in a drunk driving accident and my son had a meltdown that went viral. They could definitely use either of those as a reason to vote me out.”

“I see,” I say with a considering nod. “But how do feel about going into tomorrow’s meeting?”

He shrugs again. “I’ve made a lot of improvements. Profits are up and so is employee satisfaction. I’ve worked incredibly hard to turn this company around in the last two years, but if the board wants to hold my domestic life against me, then to hell with them.”

“Well, if that’s how you feel, then that’s how I feel, too,” I tell him.

We grin at each other like we are silly and young and have decided not to care what the grown-ups think. Again.

“Are you ready for some dessert?” he asks.

“Yes, please,” I answer, curious what he has planned.

Holt pulls a plate of strawberries and cream out of the fridge, but instead of placing it on the table, he carries it past me to the back of the house.

I wait. Then wait some more. Until I eventually give in and follow him.

When I walk into the large gray-and-white bedroom, it’s empty save for our suitcases parked against the double doors of what I assume must be a walk-in closet. “Holt?” I call out, wondering if I am in the wrong room.

“Come on in! I’m almost done,” he calls from the en-suite bathroom.

I tentatively push open the bathroom door, only to be hit by the sweet smell of roses. I soon discover the source: a large claw foot bathtub filled with scented bubbles…and rose petals.

Holt is seated on the lip of the tub, his hand wrapped around the silver faucet knob. The strawberries and cream concoction he took from the refrigerator wait on a slatted wooden tray that spans the width of the tub. Next to it is a small lit candle and what appear to be a bowl of bath salts. Everything, including Holt, appears to be waiting patiently for me to slip into the warm water.

I can’t help but feel the awkward Jamaican girl, not knowing what to do or how to do it.

“Sylvie, get in,” Holt says with a smile. “I prepared this bath for you.”

He has seen my naked body a thousand times. Forced me to be bold in ways I never would have dared with another man.

But tonight I feel shy as I timidly unbutton the shirt dress I am wearing and let it fall to the ground. And though my eyes stay firmly focused on the ceiling as I step out of my panties, I can still feel Holt’s gaze on me, taking in my heavy breasts and thighs. My wide hips. My belly…

Okay, I can’t take any more of this. I somehow manage to all but jump in the tub without meeting his intense blue stare.

“Thank you,” I say once I am covered in thick bubbles and rose petals.

Holt nods, then picks up a wash cloth and dips it into the warm water.

“Wait…what are you doing with that?” I ask him in alarm. He grabs a bar of soap, clasps it in the washcloth, and begins running it over one of my arms.

“Isn’t this what you used to do for me?” he asks. “When I was too fucked up to even shower on my own?”

“Well, yes,” I say. “But…”

“And isn’t this how you took care of me?” he asks, cutting me off and dipping the washcloth and soap combo back into the frothy tub water.

“Yes, but I’m not…” I give up trying to find a polite way to say “not wasted” and go with, “I don’t need you to take care of me.”

Holt doesn’t answer, just gently lifts my other arm and starts to soap it up.

“Are you…? Are you trying to take care of me?” I ask him. “Is that what this weekend is about?”

“Not completely,” he answers. “I do have to go that board meeting tomorrow afternoon. Then I’m hosting a citywide benefit at the Calson Botanical Garden.”

But all I hear is “not completely.” And those two words are somehow worse for me than the expected weekend of hate-sex followed by goodbye forever.

Oh, mercy…the guilt of my secrets flatten me with their unbearable weight.

“Seriously, Holt. I do not need you to do this for me,” I tell him. “I don’t need you to do any of this for me.”

“Seriously, Sylvie. I want to,” he returns, dipping the cloth again.

I catch his wrist. “But what if I don’t want you to?” I ask.

“Sylvie—” he says, his voice little more than an irritated bite. “Just let me do this, okay?”

We stare at one another, the past counting down between us like the timer of a bomb before the inevitable explosion.

“Why don’t you join me in the bath?” I suggest. “That way this won’t feel so weird to me.”

Holt hesitates, but then stands and begins to undress. Now it is my turn to check out the changes time has wrought on his body beneath the bright bathroom lights. I watch as he pulls the t-shirt over his head.

Age has treated Holt well. His crow’s feet only make him seem more distinguished, and his body…I echo the thought I had when we were together in his office that first time. Someone has definitely been working out, and my fingers itch with the urge to pinch his skin covered muscles to see if there is any fat underneath.

“Scoot forward,” he says in his commanding voice once he is completely naked.

I awkwardly obey, losing my view of him when he lowers himself into the bath behind me. “So, tell me. What do you plan to study at CIT next year?” he asks, settling in.

I start to answer but lose a breath or three when his large hands cup my waist and pull me back so I can sit more comfortably between his legs. Despite his casual tone, I feel him long and rock hard against my back.

“Psy-psychology,” I answer.

And though I don’t say it aloud, I know the words “just like you told me to” hover silently above us.

“Better late than never, you know,” I add.

“Yeah, I know,” he agrees, settling his chin over my shoulder. But it doesn’t feel like he’s talking about my delayed college education, though he continues with the topic. “You said you wanted to try for your Masters. That’s going to take a while, right?”

“Well, not necessarily,” I correct him. “I started taking online courses at UHART a few years ago when Barron began his online course work to earn his high school diploma. I got as far in my course study as I could without having to do any in-person work. CIT is accepting most of those credits, and according to my academic counselor, if I study hard and work with the childcare center, I should be able to earn my Masters in two or three years. Which is good, because I really want to start a fam—”

This is how I know I am not accustomed to talking about myself. It took only a few simple questions before I started to go off road into topics I really should not discuss in the bathtub with the man I’m supposed to be saying goodbye to.

I reach over to the bowl of strawberries and cream and start stuffing the delicious fruit into my mouth as if I am plugging up a hole.

But as soon as the last strawberry is gone, Holt says, “Go on, finish what you were about to say.” And I have no conversation stoppers to turn to. I’m a sitting duck.

I hesitate before deciding to give him a halting version of the truth. “Barron has been worrying about the chances of us contracting ALS like my father. Last year, he pushed me to send our lab work to some medical genetics company…anyway, it turns out neither of us carries the mutation believed to cause heritable ALS. I guess poor Daddy was just unlucky. But now that I know I am not a ticking time bomb, I want to have one or two more children.”

Holt says nothing. For so long, I am suddenly very eager to leave the tub though it’s still warm and cozy.

“Well, thank you for the bath,” I say in a stilted rush. “I’m feeling a little warm though. I think I’m going to get out.”

The water sloshes with fading bubbles and petals as I clumsily scramble out of the tub. I barely avoid tripping over the wooden tray with the empty plate on it. It feels like a million fires are fueling my embarrassment as I snatch up a fluffy white towel from the dark gray shelf at the far end of the tub.

I don’t dare look at Holt as I wrap the large towel around myself. Nor do I dare respond when he says, “Sylvie,” his voice quiet and low.

I flee the bathroom, my flight response at full tilt. When I reach my suitcase parked next to the closet door, I kneel down beside it and try to slow my breathing. I need to go. I can’t do this. It is too risky. If I stay, all my secrets will come spilling out. But before I can heft the suitcase onto the bed, a hand grabs hold of my arm.

Holt looms over me wearing nothing but one of the thick white towels around his waist. “Sylvie, stop. Don’t run again. Don’t make me chase you. For once in your life, just stay and finish what you started.”

I shake my head helplessly. “I don’t want to have this conversation with you, Holt,” I reply. “I don’t even know why I said all that in the bathroom. I want my degree. Period. It is very important to me. And it’s my dream. My only dream.”

“Your only dream,” he repeats, his mouth reconfiguring into a disbelieving frown.

“Yes, yes, it is,” I answer. “And this is the only reason I came with you to Arkansas. So you would give me the freedom I so desperately want to make my dream happen. To pursue my own life as you have pursued yours.”

Holt’s expression darkens. “That’s what you want me to believe?”

“It is the truth!” I answer.

“Okay, Sylvie, okay,” he says, raising his hands in the universal gesture of “I come in peace.”

We stare at each other, both of us believing our own narratives. And then we are in each other’s arms.

He grabs me. Or I grab him.

Either way, our towels slide off as we fall onto the bed, kissing wildly, desperately, with the abandon of rutting animals.

“Holt! Holt!” I gasp, reveling in the feel of his long body once more on top of mine in a bed. Kissing face to face.

“Fuck, Sylvie…give me a sec. I need to calm down.”

He rears back and I grab at him, not wanting him to leave. But instead of getting out of the bed, he kisses a path down my stomach.

And then he does something he swore that first night in his office that he would never do again.

My back arches with the feel of his warm, wet mouth on me for the first time in ten years, his tongue swirling warm and thick, before pushing in deep.

One moment I am gasping at the new sensations, and the next I am completely overwhelmed. He sends me over the edge into an orgasm that has been lurking in the background all these years.

It feels wonderful. Fantastic even. But it is still not enough.

I want him inside me. I need him inside me. “Holt…” I moan.

“I’ve got you, babe.” He reaches into his nightstand and finds a condom. He’s ready in what seems like mere seconds, but rather than pushing in right away, his gaze finds mine. And only when my eyes are completely locked onto his does he push into me, slow and aching. Like a vital piece of myself is finally sliding back into place.

I have had sex with other people. Obviously, we have both had sex with other people. But this…

This isn’t like any of that. It’s not at all like the sex I’ve had before.

It is wild and untethered, yet completely in-sync. Together we climb, leaving the past behind. And the thing building up between us shines like a star and is even hotter to the touch.

Inside my mind, within my heart, I have been trying to use the crassest, most base terms to describe what it is we do together in Holt’s bed. But tonight there is no denying what this is. As we hold each other tight, and roll as one, I am forced to call it what it really is: we are making love. Quietly and desperate. Like it is our very first time and our very last.

There are no words…no words…because none are needed.

But then the words find Holt.

Just as we reach the very edge, Holt collapses downwards, his mouth finding my ear where he growls, “You want another baby and I want that baby to be mine. By the end of this weekend, I will prove my worth to you. And the next time we discuss this, it won’t be a question of how I will put a baby in you, but when.”

What?

What is this?

What is he saying?

He cannot…

He cannot be saying this…we could never…

The orgasm hits before I can reply, clogging my throat. It won’t even allow for a scream as I come and come, shuddering beneath him instead of telling him exactly why we will never see each other again after this weekend.

Like the old days, Holt’s orgasm is my orgasm. His manhood kicks inside me as I come hard, and his body goes rigid as he fills the condom with his release. No further words are spoken, yet his vow echoes in my ears as the world explodes around us.

And his words continue to echo. Even after he rolls off and sprawls out on the bed beside me.

“Holt…” I begin in the heavy, post-sex silence.

“Don’t,” he bites out. “I know what you are going to say, and…don’t. Okay? Just let me have tonight, Sylvie.”

I think about pushing the subject forward anyway, or at least getting another assurance from him that he will keep the promise he made before we came here.

But in the end… Well, in the end I say nothing. And thoughts about what I should and shouldn’t do race through my head, while the secrets between us beat a dark and ominous rhythm in my chest.