Page 58 of Reclaim Me

“Sorry. We just wanted some privacy,” he says.

“There’s no one downstairs. Who exactly were you seeking privacy from?”

“It’s my fault,” Alyssa interjects. “When Taurin told me he was working at your gym, I asked if I could come down for a tour. I pushed him to bring me up here, so please don’t be mad at him.”

“I’m not mad,” I assure both of them, adjusting my features to reflect that fact and thanking God that spending so much time with Riley has made me more aware of how surly I can come off sometimes. Taurin’s girlfriend is nice, and she seems good for him, so the last thing I want to do is ruin the mood by overreacting. When both sets of their shoulders sag with relief, I know that I’ve succeeded. “In the future, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t bring people up to my office without my permission, T.”

“Noted.” He nods, and I know I won’t have to tell him again because as long as I set firm boundaries with him, he’ll respect them. “Well, I should walk Alyssa to her car,” Taurin says, putting his hand on her back and moving them towards the door.

“Bye, Hunter,” Alyssa calls out over her shoulder.

“Bye, Alyssa,” I say, sending them off with a wave and a smile that does nothing to convey how confused I am about going from having no one in my life to three someones I’d lay down my life for in such a short period of time.

21

HUNTER

Then

“Four years is such a big deal!” Indigo squeals. “We should be doing more than just going out to dinner. We should go dancing or get?—”

She stops, catching herself before she suggests that I celebrate four years of sobriety by taking a trip to a bar, club, speakeasy, or whatever the fuck kind of haven for vices she frequents with her friends. I’m not judging. I know everyone doesn’t have the same issues with self-control as I do, but I am tired of having to remind Indigo of my limits. I’m even more tired of her looking disappointed every time she remembers them.

“Never mind,” she says, reaching up to fix the collar of my shirt even though it’s fine. Her posture reeks of self-consciousness with an undercurrent of annoyance, and I wish I felt compelled to comfort her, but I don’t.

I don’t feel anything when I look at her but confused about why I’m still doing this thing with her, especially after knowing what it’s like to kiss Rae. To hold her body in my hands and hear the sounds of her pleasure, her desire, in my ears.

“You look handsome,” Indigo tells me, her smile too wide as she runs a hand down my chest.

“Thanks. You—” She looks at me expectantly, waiting for me to finish my sentence, but the compliment I was about to pay her gets all tangled up in my throat as Rae walks into the kitchen. She’s wearing a sky-blue baby doll dress that matches the stripes in my shirt, and her hair is down around her shoulders. Recently, sometime after the kiss that we still haven’t spoken of, she had Dee give her face-framing bangs that make her almond eyes look wider and even more brown.

And now those eyes are on me and Indigo, taking in our closeness while the scent of her perfume—an expensive formula with notes of pear and vanilla that I got her for her twenty-third birthday just last week—floats into the room around us.

“Oh, Indigo, you’re here.”

The snark in her tone isn’t evident to Indigo, but I hear it.

“Yeah, Hunter asked me to come to his ceremony, and I thought it was important for me to be here to support him.”

I can’t read Rae at all. Her expression is flat, her eyes emotionless. It’s the way she looks when she’s got a million different things going through her mind, but it’s not safe to let them out. She told me once that she mastered the skill when she first started dance, and her teacher, Ms. Alice, told her she needed thicker skin if she was going to make it as a Black ballerina. I’ve never, not once in the four years of us knowing each other, seen her deploy the skill. That she’s doing it now means I’ve fucked up tremendously, and I don’t even have to dig deep to know how because the answer to that question is standing right beside me, her arms wrapped around my waist possessively.

“Well, isn’t that nice,” Rae says finally, moving further into the kitchen. She moves parallel to us with long, graceful strides that carry her over to the shelf at the back door, where she always leaves her shoes.

And even though I want her to, even though I plead with her silently using only my eyes, she doesn’t look at me. She just picks up her shoes and turns her back to me, planting a palm on the wall to steady herself as she lifts one leg and then the other to put them on.

“Is Will ready?” I ask, desperate to draw her into conversation.

“Yep,” Will says, appearing out of nowhere and stealing my chance to talk to his sister. “Let’s go get you chipped.”

The drive to the church where we have our meetings is filled with Indigo and Will’s chatter and Rae’s silence, which is louder than anything else. Every chance I get, I try to catch her eye in the rearview, but she intentionally keeps her gaze on her phone. As I navigate the streets, I wonder if she’s texting Dee, telling her all about my fuck up. I wonder if Dee knows about the kiss and if Rae has told her how hurt she is that I brought Indigo into a day she and I have celebrated together for years because it’s not just the anniversary of my sobriety; it’s a commemoration of us.

Truthfully, I didn’t ask Indigo to be here. She invited herself when I told her I couldn’t go to the movies with her tonight because I was getting my chip, and I was just too weak to tell her she couldn’t come. I’ve been too weak for a lot of things lately.

To break up with Indigo.

To talk to Rae.

To stop thinking about that kiss.

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