Page 33 of Sleeping with the Frenemy

“Many, many times,” she responded. “But she seems to think that if she brings it up enough, we’ll change our minds.”

“My mom is the exact same way,” Liza said, coming up to stand beside her wife. “They just don’t understand that we are still a complete family even without children.”

Kamilah strode up shaking her head, clearly having heard what they said. “It’s real funny how quickly things go from ‘you better not get pregnant, because I’m not raising any more babies’ to ‘give me some grandbabies before I’m too old to enjoy them.’”

“Facts,” Sofi said while throwing up praise hands. “My mom told me that if I didn’t want to find a man and get pregnant, I could always adopt and she’d help me raise the baby. As if a lack of man is the only reason I’m not popping out offspring.”

“Mothers,” they all said at the same time before bursting into laughter.

“Speaking of finding men,” Liza said after they’d all settled down. She gave Sofi an expectant look, eyes wide and eyebrows up.

“What?” Sofi asked.

“Obviously we want you to tell us about the sexy French men you met while in Paris,” Lucy nudged her with an elbow.

“Or sexy Greek men,” Liza said.

“Or sexy Italian men,” Kamilah added, which started a round of them throwing out nationalities.

“Or sexy Spanish men.”

“Sexy Scottish men.”

“Sexy Irish men,” Kamilah said with a dreamy sigh, obviously thinking of her own sexy Irishman.

Sofi jumped in before they could go through all fifty European countries. “Y’all know that white European men are really not my jam.”

“Okay, but there are plenty of brown-skinned immigrants and I bet their accents are to die for,” Lucy pointed out.

That was true. “Well, I did go on a few dates with this gorgeous Nigerian guy who had a British accent à la Idris Elba. And there was also this fine-ass Palestinian Chilean guy at my job who liked to flirt with me in Arabic, French, English, and Spanish.”

Excited squeals abound.

“Tell us everything,” Kamilah demanded. So Sofi did.

8

When he’d first come down, after having to take a cold shower, Leo’s chest had felt warm and tight. Nothing made him happier than seeing his family surround Sofi with love and acceptance. As they’d welcomed her back into the fold, Leo had kept a discreet eye on her. She’d clearly been overjoyed to be back with his family. He’d been able to tell by the huge smile she gave everyone and the way she tossed her head back to laugh boisterously.

As the night went on, his feeling of happiness had begun to turn into annoyance. He sat there, a few feet away, listening to her, Kamilah, Lucy, and Liza gossiping together like a bunch of old biddies over a laundry line. Every time they brought up a new guy Sofi either dated or flirted with Leo’s jaw clenched.

How could she blissfully bring up dating and flirting with other guys right after they’d basically dry humped against the wall? He knew what she was doing. She was putting up walls again. She was trying to tell him that kissing him had been a mistake. She had the tendency to throw other men in his face when she wanted him to think she was over him, but it never quite worked out how she wanted because he knew her too well.

“Your sister and her friend just walked in,” Carlos, the main trumpet player, told him.

Leo spun around with a side smile that quickly turned into a scowl when he saw the guy helping Sofi into her stool at the high-top table. Fucking Brandon was still sniffing around, it appeared. Leo couldn’t stand the guy Sofi had met in one of her summer college classes. He reminded Leo of when Steve Urkel would turn into Stefan, sure he looked better and his balls weren’t squished into some tight-ass pants, but it was still clear that he was trying too hard to be something he wasn’t for Laura. That’s what Brandon was, a dork pretending to be someone deserving of a badass like Sofi. What was worse was that Sofi knew it, but she kept bringing him around anyway.

She’d snuggle up under his arm and flutter those ridiculousSnuffleupagus eyelashes at him while laughing at his corny-ass jokes and hanging on his every word. It was annoying as fuck because Leo knew it was fake. Sofi didn’t actually like Brandon. She wanted to because he was the type of guy she thought she should be with, but she wasn’t into him. Just like she wasn’t into any of the guys she dated. She never would be because they weren’t him. Leo knew how that sounded and, yes, he could oftentimes be overly confident when it came to his looks, but that wasn’t what he meant. He and Sofi had something that she lacked with these other clowns. They were connected and not just because of her friendship with his sister. They saw each other. When everyone else only saw what they wanted people to see, he and Sofi could see each other’s true self—the one they used all their ticks to hide from the world.

It pissed him off that she refused to acknowledge that. Sofi wanted to make it seem like they only had a physical attraction, one they kept giving in to by mistake. It made him feel stupid and Leo loathed feeling stupid. It brought out the worst in him. Which was probably why he turned to the band and said, “I want to change our opener.” They all groaned, but they were used to Leo’s last-minute switch ups, so they rolled with it.

A few minutes later, they were ready to begin their set.

Leo stood on the stage watching Sofi sip at her drink with a look of tired boredom on her face. When Brandon turned to glance at her in the middle of whatever story he was telling, she forced an interested smile on her face and nodded like she’d been listening. Leo smirked. It wouldn’t be long until Brandon was kicked to the curb. And if he could help the guy along, all the better.

Marcos, the keyboard player, began the introduction to Marc Anthony’s “Te Conozco Bien” and Leo stepped to the mic and waited for his cue to begin the first verse. “‘Siento pena...’” he sang to the crowd, “‘porque te quise de veras.’” He continued dragging his attention around the audience as he sang the first two verses about how he placed the world at her feet, how he felt bad for her because he knew she still missed him even though she tried to pretend like she wasn’t miserable with some other guy. But when he got to the pre-chorus he looked right at Sofi, telling her that he knew her so well, he was willing to bet that she wouldn’t last one more weekend with her new guy. At least, not without her skin missing... “‘todas mis caricias.’” He dragged out the last word while building power in his voice just so that when he belted out the chorus about how he knew her so well that he knew she would come back to him, it was felt by every person in the room, but especially the stubborn woman glaring at him from the dim corner. He gave her a wink before he continued signing about how well he knew her and how he knew she’d be back because she regretted leaving him and trying to be with someone else.

In the end, it hadn’t even taken another weekend for Sofi to dump Brandon and show up at Leo’s door. She’d shown up that very night. After raging at him for a bit about his audacity she’d climbed right on his lap and rode him until the only feeling felt in the both of them was an exhausted and pleasurable satisfaction. Leo was sure that would be the last time he’d have to call her out in order to get her to acknowledge what was going on between them, but he’d been wrong...like always.

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