Page 61 of Becoming His Muse
“You were?” she questioned, surprised.
“I was. Your relationship with Elion inspired me to want to try it.”
Olani scoffed. “Yeah, well, we see how that ended.”
“We also know why it ended that way, but I’m serious. You should think about opening it up for the masses. You can charge a signup fee like the other sites, and I’m sure you’d be able to find someone to, I don’t know, write a program to auto-match for compatibility.”
She leaned against the arm of the couch as she took in Xola’s words. She was sure she could do all of that, but the question was, did she want to? She felt bitter when it came to the site, when in reality, she should have felt bitter toward herself.
Although her cousin had a point, there were other people out there who were looking for what she had been. Hell, if there weren’t, then shows likeMarried at First Sightwouldn’t exist. But it seemed like a lot of work, and she wasn’t sure she had the energy to take it on.
“Doesn’t he have an art show coming up soon?”
“He does,” Olani responded, and she knew her cousin whiplashing between topics was on purpose. Something Xola did to make it seem like they weren’t staying on one unpleasant subject for too long when they really were.
“Do you know where it is? We…could go. The two of you could talk.”
She shook her head. “I do know where it’s being held, but we aren’t going. I will not crash his exhibit just to get him to talk to me. He doesn’t want to. I’m not going to force him.”
“He invited you before all of this went down, so it wouldn’t be crashing.”
“No, Xo.”
Her cousin sighed. “Fine, but sometimes Lani, you have to fight for what you want.”
“Not when what you want doesn’t want you,” she mumbled, leaning her head against the back of the couch and closing her eyes.
Xola didn’t respond, and for that, Olani was grateful. She just wanted to let the situation go, didn’t want to think about it anymore. The relationship had fallen apart. It wasn’t as if none of her others hadn’t done the same. This one hit her differently; felt worse.
“You should stop moping around and just call her,” Clara stated.
Elion cut his eyes at his niece. “I’m not moping.”
“You are, and you have been all week.”
He didn’t respond, because justifying her with an answer would make Clara think she was right, and she wasn’t. He hadn’t been moping; he’d been thinking, replaying. Replaying dates and conversations. Replaying the week they’d spent together. Thinking that while he had every right to be hurt by the situation, he might have overreacted.
“Look, I’m not sure what happened, but is it really something the two of you can’t work through? You like her. That much is obvious, and she’s good for you because she had you focusing on something other than work. You were taking days off and having fun.”
Elion hadn’t told Clara about what happened between him and Olani, but it hadn’t taken her long to figure out they were no longer seeing one another. She’d asked him a couple of days after their argument when he would see Olani again and if he had decided what to do about the site's end goal. He hadn’t answered her, and it seemed that was answer enough for his niece.
Olani had called and texted him, and it’d taken everything in him to not answer the phone, to not text her back. Maybe he was holding onto his hurt, or maybe he was trying to distance himself and make the inevitable breakup easier because he was unsure if she’d want to be with him after their last conversation. He wasn’t sure which one, but what he was sure of was that he didn’t want to sit around and be lectured by his niece. So, he sent a text to Shaw asking if he was at home and if he could stop by.
When he got the okay, Elion grabbed his keys, told Clara he would be back in a few hours, and headed out of the house. He took the almost hour drive to Shaw’s house, listening to soft jazz.Once he pulled up behind Shaw’s vehicle, he knocked on the front door.
“It’s open. I’m in the basement,” Shaw stated through the speaker at the front door, and he stepped inside. He locked the door behind him and went to the finished basement, which Shaw designed as his man cave.
“Hey,” Shaw greeted, turning in the recliner he sat in to look at him. “You look like you need a drink.”
“Hey,” Elion responded as his friend stood.
He wasn’t sure how Shaw knew he needed a drink. To his knowledge, he didn’t look any different than he always did. However, they’d known each other for a decade, and it’d become second nature for them to pick up on things going on with the other. He sat on the couch while Shaw made them both a drink.
“Thanks,” he stated, taking the offered glass a couple of minutes later.
“You want to talk about it?”
Elion took a drink. “Talk about what?” He was playing dumb; sometimes, it helped in getting Shaw to drop something. This was not one of those times.
