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“Stop lying. The first night we had sex, you weren’t ovulating. If all we wanted was to use you for babymaking, we wouldn’t have touched you.”
“Ha! You said it yourselves. You and Takeshi love sex.”
“Do I need to refresh your memory?”
“What are you talking about?” Lakeshia’s body tenses and a frown downturns her mouth.
I caress her cheek and her eyelids lower over her glazed irises. “What happens between us is more than mere fucking and you know it. Stop denying our connection.”
“But—” Her breathing increases, but I interrupt her before she thrusts us into a heated argument.
“Transactional fuckers don’t talk the way we do. They can’t comfort each other the way we do. And they sure as hell don’t fit each other as perfectly as we do.”
“Shinji…” Her voice is low as if coming from the far end of an empty tunnel.
“No, Lakeshia. I bet you’re consumed with thoughts of me and Takeshi when we aren’t around, the same way your name whispers through our minds five minutes after we say goodbye. That shit isn’t because you’ll carry our child one day. You mean so much more to us than you know.”
I stop talking when my words don’t seem to have an effect. I’d wonder if Lakeshia’s listening, but she doesn’t look good.
“Take…me…to the…car.” Lakeshia gasps, her body beginning to shake, reminding me of our first night together.
Without thinking, I rush us to the car and place her in the back seat. Harsh breaths pepper the air and sweat breaks out on her forehead, casting a clammy sheen on her brown skin. Silent recriminations beat me over the head for not realizing her panic sooner. I sprint to the trunk with our bags and extract the blanket she never sleeps without.
“Please, leave.”
“Not on your fucking life.” I hand her the crocheted covering, wrap my arms and legs around her, and squeeze. When her shudders continue without abating, I hum the song I wrote about her after she gave me my first concussion. After the first run, the force of her trembling weakens and I sing the chorus.
Once her body slackens in my hold, I turn her body until I see her face. Remnants of tears leave her lashes spiky and her cheeks shiny.
“I’ve got you,” I whisper, almost broken by the realization she cried in absolute silence.
“I’m okay now.”
“No, you aren’t. When will you accept you don’t have to be strong all the time? Lean on me and let me be your strength.”
“But…”
Seeing she hasn’t accepted our dynamic yet, I switch tactics, though I cannot hide the depth of my emotions. “If I told you I needed to hold you, would you allow me?”
Either the force of the words through my pressed lips or strained voice stops Lakeshia’s protests.
She curves her arms around my shoulders and buries her face in my neck.
I tremble in her hold, wrap my arms around her, and breathe in her tuberose and vanilla scent. Her willingness to comfort me after experiencing an anxiety attack belies all the pushback she gave me on our walk.
“Can you tell me what occurred just now?” I ask once I’m calm.
At my question, Lakeshia tries to pull away, but I tighten my hold on her.
She quickly loses her fight. “I told you before, I don’t do role play,” she whispers.
“The relationship guy?”
She nods but doesn’t add more details apart from what she told me the first night.
I pull her arms from around my shoulders and nudge her out of my arms. “I need you to see my face when I tell you this.”
“What is it?” Confusion clouds her stare, but the defiance of moments ago no longer lingers in the tight skin at the corner of her eyes.
