Page 32 of Vicarious

I shrug and continue, “Her father and Pray have been dropping subtle hints that we should get a move on since it’s been four and a half years. But I’ve always had the excuse that Cres is young and not looking to settle down quite yet. But now that she’s almost twenty-six, that’s not an excuse. Either we get engaged or we don’t. We’re too far into it to break things off without any bad blood. At least for now.”

“Cres… Latina? Dark brown hair? A little taller than me?”

“Yes.”

“I met her. She went shopping with Dele and I and brought her stylist to help change my look.”

I’m going to have to discuss with Dele about who exactly is going to know that Phae is alive. That’s Cres, assuming she knew who Phae was, and Isabella and Bond Uccello. I haven’t even figured out what I’m going to tell Eileen about this and Dele is just exposing her existence.

But that’s later.

“I’ve already got her father’s blessing, and Pray approves. It would just be a matter of announcing it.”

“But how would that help getting onto Pray’s estate?”

“We’ll just drop that Cres’s dream wedding is in a vineyard. Pray will offer the estate to us.”

“I didn’t know my uncle to be that generous.”

“He’s not. But he also never passes up a chance to make it seem like he is that generous. He’ll give us the vineyard for the wedding. And, of course, Cres isn’t going to want to make that official without seeing the place…”

“And when you go see it, that’s when we’ll have our chance to search the place.”

Phae smiles at me when she says this, one of those blinding smiles that never failed to make my heart stop and lose all ability to focus on anything else when we were younger. And seeing that smile now, at this particular moment, reminds me of why we gravitated to each other. What worked so well between us. She would come up with the bold, daring ideas. I would come up with a plan and strategy to make her bold, daring ideas work.

“Well, looks like I now have to plan a romantic engagement,” I mutter into my wine. Or, at least, the story of a romantic engagement. “That’s going to be fun…”

It’s not until after the evening is done, and Phae and I are heading back upstairs that Phae brings up the plan we came up that Phae suggests a solution to my new task at hand.

She turns to me at the bottom of the stairs and says, “Maybe Dele can help you. With planning your fake engagement.”

“Dele,” I repeat.

“Why not? She did plan all this, after all. It was nice. I enjoyed myself.”

That’s right. She did. She planned my date with my wife, and made sure to send me off with a good fuck first. It occurs to me that Dele wasn’t trying to be as helpful as she made it appear that she was being. That she only did that to make sure the memory of her naked body, her smell, her voice, her touch, her taste, all of her was impressed upon me. So that even while spending time with another woman, I would never forget her.

Not that I could have easily forgotten about her even if she hadn’t. There wasn’t a conversation that Phae and I had that didn’t lead back to Dele somehow.

“I’m glad,” I respond.

It’s then I notice that Phae has invaded my personal space, and I realize she’s likely hoping for a kiss. A kiss I can’t give her because doing so would be a betrayal.

So when I feel her put her hand on my chest, I blurt out, “I need to tell you something.”

“What is it?”

It’s Dele. It’s always been Dele. It’s been Dele these last seven years. That’s what I need to tell her. But I don’t know how to say it. Because saying it means losing Phae all over again in a lot more ways than one. Saying it means hurting her all over again.

“I…”

I need to say it. But I can’t bring myself to.

Suddenly, a sympathetic look crosses Phae’s face.

“I think I know what this is about,” she says.

“You do?”

---