Page 14 of Mahogany 1

I was loaded, cocked, and ready for him to say no. If he did, that would be a bold face lie. Duke didn’t like to talk about the past. Hated it. Of course, he did. Our past wasn’t pretty and the majority of the shit we talked about was shit he’d done. Who would want all of their dirt aired out in front of a stranger? No one. And well… I didn’t want to have to relive it. I stalled.Left marital therapy on the back burner to avoid facing a past I clearly couldn’t escape. The one with him, where I didn’t love myself. I hated that part. Tried to avoid thinking about it but it haunted me every time he touched me.

“I mean, yeah. I just?—”

“—Don’t want to talk about it. Me neither. But?—”

“Yeah, I know.”

There was an awkward silence. The elephant in the room washuge. Took up most of the small space.

“How was work?” I asked with a sigh to shift gears.

We didn’t talk about any of it. At all. Not how distant I was. Not about the tension, or the tight-lipped kisses. We just existed. Talked about everything but the truth. I complained about what he didn’t do. Never about what he did. Ran from that past like it was the plague. Not only because I’d been in lala land for years, but because I was afraid of what reopening those old wounds would do. The bandages I placed on them did a good enough job holding up, until they were touched. You’d think that just because I did what I did, I’d be better. You’d think the wounds would be gone. Healed. Like revenge could do that. Revenge only made things worse. I got nothing but an orgasm out of it and they didn’t last but about a minute or so. Right after, it was back to reality.

He sighed and I waited for him to spill. Duke worked as a structural engineer. He hated it. Preferred basketball. But after tearing his Achilles during one of the games, he had to kiss that dream goodbye.

I groaned when he hit the perfect spot on my foot. I was never wearing four-inch heels to work again.

“Eric—you remember Eric right? The new hire... The white boy... the one that show up every fuckin’ day smelling like yesterday’s shit.”

I laughed, resting my hands on my stomach. “Yeah, I remember him. What happened?”

Just like that, it was as if the short therapy conversation didn’t exist. It was right back to lala land.

“Caught him and Gina’s fat funky ass fucking in the trailer.”

With raised brows, I sat up and my jaw dropped. “I know you fuckin’ lying!”

He shook his head and sucked his teeth. “Mannnn.”

“Ain’t Gina in her fifties?”

Duke turned the corners of his lips up as to say ‘exactly’. “Fifty-five.”

I scrunched my face up. “Ew.”

This was us.

Monotone questions about work. Lifeless passion. Barely any real chemistry. Every. Single Day. It was the same thing. We weren’tona merry-go-round;wewere the merry-go-round. The machinery. The very thing that kept going round and round and round. Sometimes it—we— stopped... briefly.Verybriefly. For a special occasion. You know... birthdays, holidays... anniversaries... shit like that. Sex every now and then. But the next day, like clockwork; it was right back to this.

As painfully boring as it might’ve sounded, I stayed because of this. Despite the bullshit we went through in the past, he was my person, still. However, these days, he felt more like a best friend I fucked every now and then than a husband. But... I settled. Believed that eventually, we’d get back. Getbackwhere? I wasn’t sure. We’d never really been anywhere but here. But... I was tired of it anyway. Hoped that one day we’d get to that place. The sweet place. The... place where my mind wasn’t filled with traumatic memories, and I could be as happy as I wanted—no, needed— to be.

“How was work for you?” He asked me.

I gave him a lazy smile. “It was good. Secured another contract.”

With raised brows, he lightly smiled and released my foot to pull me into a tight hug. “That’s what the fuck I’m talking about, NeNe! Congrats baby. You been on a fuckin’ roll.” He released me and tossed, “Ay! Mom secured another contract!” over his shoulder.

A few seconds later, the kids ran back to the foyer with smiling faces covered with pizza sauce to congratulate me, mouths full of food.

Cute, right? Wrong. Dismissive. Yes, he was supportive and massaged my feet, but I couldn’t stop thinking about how he’d lied about the pizza after telling the kids I was cooking dinner, knowing I worked twelve hours and had therapy. Resentful? No, not exactly. Just… observant.

4

DUKE

“How my grandbabies doing?”asked my momma, as she stood at the stove, flipping pork chops. “Good, I hope. Ain’t seen ‘em since New Years.”

With a light sigh, I told her they were alright. “Work been keeping me busy as hell, ma. You know how that goes.”

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