Page 8 of Broken Clocks
I clenched my hands around the bouquet. I fought to keep my breathing steady. Fought not to cry. Fought not to look up. But how do you stand still when your heart is screaming? When every beat feels like it’s trying to break out of your chest and run? When the person you once begged God for is standing across from you, dressed like forever—but not for you?
The pull was too strong. It had always been.
Without meaning to, my head lifted. My eyes found his. Light brown. Flecked with gold.
Donte. The man who wrecked me. The man about to marry my best friend.
Chapter 5- Eshe
PAST
I wasn’t looking for trouble or love that day, but when Donte walked into that café looking like every bad decision I swore I was done making, my instinct screamedstay away—but I still signed up for heartbreak, because he also looked like my future.
My breath hitched before I even realized I’d stopped breathing.
Light brown with flecks of gold—his eyes were the first thing I noticed about him. Not on some superficial colorism shit, only because they stood out against his dark, almost midnight-black skin.
He had flawless skin wrapped around a big, stocky frame, covered in a charcoal gray sweater and black slacks. My eyes drifted to the Converse on his feet. My kind of man. His feet looked to be a size thirteen. Definitely my type.
He watched me as I watched him. There was a cocky smirk on his God-like face.
Let me worship at your altar, I thought.
I slid my tongue across my teeth before giving him my best "come fuck me" grin.
He threw a wink my way, and I wanted to throw my wet panties his.
I shifted in my seat, thighs pressing together like that would stave off the ache he caused there.
“Eshe, you here with me, baby?”
Isaiah’s voice dragged my attention back to him like a rubber band snapped against skin.
He was leaning across the table, eyebrows pinched, his hand reaching for mine. I slid it out of reach.
Isiah called himself my boyfriend. I didn’t argue. But the truth was I’d never had an official boyfriend. Never really thought about having one. I’d been too busy with school and caring for my granny. To me, he was just the man I currently sucked and fucked.
“Yes, Isaiah,” I answered, trying to hide the annoyance in my voice.
I swiveled in my chair to face him. Isiah had dark skin, dark eyes, dark mood. That’s how I liked my men. You know the type—the ain’t-no-good, don’t-mean-you-no-good, but fuck-you-good type that women so foolishly believed they’d change. Well, that was Isaiah.
I was moving out of the bad boy phase of my life, though. I was starting to think about settling down. I wanted a husband and a baby. I was twenty two. I’d like to have a family by Thirty, and I definitely couldn’t see that happening with Isaiah. All he did these days was irk my nerves.
“So, you gonna do that for me?”
I had no idea what he was talking about. As soon as Mr. Tall, Dark, and Fine As Fuck wandered into my peripheral, I hadn’t paid Isaiah a bit of attention. But before I tuned him out, I remembered he’d been talking about moving our relationship in another direction.
Tuh. That was a no-go. I planned to text him as soon as I got home to tell him we had to call it quits. Our situationship, though only six months old, had run its course. I knew texting somebody that you don’t fuck with them anymore was terrible. But I didn’t do well with confrontation. I was a folder, and most people in my life knew that and used it to their advantage. So I texted people.
“I’m gonna be honest with you—I zoned out,” I said. I reached across the table, pulled his hands into mine, and pouted prettily so he wouldn’t trip and embarrass me in public. He had done it before..
He sucked his teeth. I hated when a man did that.
“After this, don’t make me repeat myself again, Eshe,” he tried to check me.
“Whatever.”
“I asked, do you think you could get your girl Sinica to have a threesome with us?”
