Page 47 of Curvy Girl Summer

He was stone-still with his mouth hanging slightly ajar. She was frozen in place with unmistakable rage. And I looked between them in disbelief.

Aw hell naw.

With both her fists balled up, she charged across the room.

I turned my entire body so that I could face her. I wasn’t sure if she was going to try to swing on me or not, but I needed to be prepared. I didn’t know how to fight. More than that, I refused to fight over a man. But I wasn’t going to let someone just hit me without defending myself. Running through the moves I learned in kickboxing class, I prepared to bust out the jab-cross-jab-hook combo.

“What the hell is going on here, Brayden?” the woman yelled.

The conversations that surrounded us hushed. People turned to look. A few even stopped dancing. Only the mellow beat of the music carried over the tense atmosphere.

“I’m sorry,” Brayden whispered before he rose to his feet. “Sierra, uh, what—” He blocked her path. “What are you doing here?”

“You said you had to work late, but your office said you left on time,” she spat. “And since you wouldn’t answer your phone, I used the tracker app.”

“Well, I was just finishing up here. Can we talk outside?”

“Move! Get your hands off me!” the woman shouted as she tried to move around him to see me. “What? You don’t want your date to know you have awife!”

I balked. “A wife?”

“Yes, I’m his wife,” she reiterated, trying to get around him.

“Come on, Sierra. Chill. I’m meeting with a colleague and—”

“A colleague? Are you kidding me?” she screeched, sidestepping him to point at me. Her hand was only a couple of feet away from me before he pushed her back a step. “You’re lying and saying you’re in a meeting, but you were holding this bitch’s hand!”

“Calling me a bitch is a little uncalled for,” I grumbled under my breath.

“What?” she growled, turning her anger toward me. “You have something you want to say to me?”

I frowned and shook my head. “Nah, you good.”

That bitch looked strong.

“I know I’m good.” She held up her left hand. “That’s why he married me.”

I stared at her in confusion.Well, he asked me on a date and said he was a widower, so he really ain’t a prize, sis.

I lifted my hands. “You can have him,” I assured her. “I didn’t know he was married.”

She glared at him and then looked at his hands. “Where’s your fucking ring?”

He pulled it from his jacket pocket. “I must’ve forgotten to put it back on when I left the gym. You know I worked out after work today.”

“Stop lying, you piece of shit!”

“I’m not lying!”

“How long have you been dating my husband?” She yelled the question at me. Each attempt she made to get around Brayden to get to me, he blocked her.

“This was a first date,” I answered. “Again, I didn’t know he was married. He said he was… single.”

I decided at the last minute not to tell her what he really said. I wanted to avoid making a bad situation worse.

Brayden shot me a look over his shoulder before he faced his wife again. “Sierra, please—”

I gasped as the pop of her hand slapping his cheek reverberated through the bar.

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