Pleasurable Expectations

t h i r t y - n i n e

"Come to New York," Heaven said over the phone. "Dior is doing a private showcase tomorrow of some designs."

"I can't just fly out to New York, Venna," I said. "We're doing this trading card rollout for Malcolm and—"

"Did you hear the part about Dior, Ara? It's a private showcase! You know they're gonna be selling exclusive pieces."

I chewed my bottom lip at the thought of a new, exclusive pair of Dior heels sitting in my closet. I hadn't grabbed a pair in a minute, and I had all the money I needed to do so.

"It's tempting," I said as I released a breath.

A voice whispered in the back of my mind, telling me that I should probably stay. Jeremiah was here, and I had only just worked up the sense to have some kind of conversation with him. I wanted to let him know that I was wrong in the way I went about it and that I was ready to hear the truth from him.

"I can hear the "but" before you even say it," Heaven said with a sigh.

"Trust, I wanna go and grab a pair of heels, a purse, something." I breathed out a laugh. "I just wanna talk to Jeremiah real fast and see what's up with him before I say yes."

"Don't tell me you're asking Jeremiah for permission—"

"Nah, it's not like that," I dismissed with the wave of my hand. "Some shit went down, and I wanna see if I can resolve anything before I cross the country."

"What happened?"

"Don't worry about it, Venna. I'm gonna call him right now; I'll let you know in the next couple hours."

I heard her begin to press me for more information, but I hung up the phone before I could hear a word. I fiddled with my phone for a moment before I pressed Jeremiah's name. The phone rang once before I was greeted with Jeremiah's chin.

"Uh, J?" I said as I raised my brows. I pursed my lips as I brought my face closer to the phone.

"Hold up," Jeremiah said. The audio bumped as Jeremiah fumbled with his phone before I could see his face. "You good?"

I squinted my eyes as my eyebrows furrowed. "Yeah...Are you good?"

"Nah, I got some questions," he said as he shook his head. He pressed his lips together as he fixed me with a look.

I averted my eyes from the screen. I'd forgotten that this was the first time I'd spoken to Jeremiah since the night of King's birthday party, the night we had sex. I knew we weren't gonna be able to brush past it, but I was hoping I'd get a few niceties before he brought it up.

"Yeah, I called you cause I wanted to talk to you. Where are you? I can—"

The call of a flight number in the background caught me off guard. I furrowed my eyebrows as I turned my eyes to Jeremiah's surroundings. My attention was split between avoiding Jeremiah's gaze and sneaking glances that I didn't even realize where he was.

"Are you in an airport?"

Jeremiah cleared his throat. "Yeah."

"So, you were about to leave the state without saying anything?" I looked at him expectantly. "You weren't gonna tell me? Your girlfriend?"

I'm over here on the phone with him because I didn't want to run away to a different state without settling what needed to be fixed. And here was Jeremiah, my wonderful boyfriend, sitting in an airport ready to dip without a word to me.

"Listen, it was a last-minute thing with—"

"You really wanna sit here and make excuses?" I scoffed and rolled my eyes. "I don't know what's making you act so outta character right now, but I'm tryna get this dealt with. I was gonna see if you were free now..."