Page 14 of Double

I handed her the drawers and a pair of socks before leading her out of the closet. Once we were back in the bedroom, I pointed my finger. “The bathroom’s there.”

A few minutes later, she stepped out. As I suspected, my clothes were oversized on her. She almost looked like she was playing dress-up but not quite. She did look adorable, though, and I told her so. “My clothes look good on you, Wife.”

She rubbed her hands up and down the front of the joggers. “I’m glad you think so, Husband, because they’re mine now.”

I chuckled.

“What is this? One hundred percent cotton? It’s so soft.”

I chuckled again. “Come on. Let’s go eat.”

6

This Gorgeous Man (Who Makes Me Nervous) Is Part of My New Normal

Tinsley

After breakfast, he and I moved from the formal dining room to the family room. He had a game set up on the cocktail table.

“You play Scrabble?”

I smiled. “I love Scrabble.”

“Cool. We need to talk, and I don’t wanna just shoot off questions at you. I thought it would be cool if we talked while we played. Like maybe for every word, we can ask each other a question. Grab some pillows.” He gestured at his overstuffed, comfy sofa.

I grabbed a few pillows, arranging them on the floor for my comfort. I was hyper-aware of the fact that I wasn’t wearing a bra. My boobs weren’t the tiny, perky kind that allowed me the option to have braless days. My DD cups demanded that they be wrangled in at all times, and I usually obliged. I appreciated the fact that my husband was being a gentleman. I’d caught his eyes on my breasts a few times, but he hadn’t let them linger.

I reached into the box and pulled out seven letters while he did the same. I had so many questions that I wanted to ask him that I wasted no time arranging my tiles into a word.

“Ladies first,” he told me.

I put down my first word. C-L-I-M-B. “What’s your real name?”

He rubbed the hair at his chin for a second. “Yeah, that probably seems like an easy question, but it’s multi-layered. My mom named me Jayson. That’s my father’s name, his given name. But at one point, my father was in the streets. The streets gave him the name Jinx. He was always called Jinx. So, me being named after him, my family called me Jinx, too. They called me Double Jinx or just Double. When I got old enough to decide, I decided that the name Jayson didn’t fit me. I legally changed it to Jinx.”

My mouth was on the floor. This man had taken a perfectly good name and traded it in for his father’s street name? A word that was associated with bad luck? “I don’t get it,” I admitted.

He nodded. “If it makes you feel more comfortable not to call me that, don’t. You can call me Double.”

“Can I call you Jayson?”

“That’s not my name, though.” He laughed.

“But do you still answer to it?”

“If my mom says it, and she’s in her bag? Yeah, I answer to it. Generally, though, I don’t. Shit, my dad don’t even answer to it.”

“So, I should call you Jinx or Double? Got it.”

He changed my word to CLIMBER by adding an E-R at the end of it and went ahead of me in points. Since he didn’t make an actual new word, he didn’t ask a question.

I placed the word COBALT. “What’s in this for you? What do you get out of marrying me? Even a nice guy wouldn’t marry somebody just because he was asked. Why’d you agree to marry me?”

“Shit. That’s not an unfair question. I’m saying, you deserve to know how you ended up in this situation.” He cleared his throat then ran his hand over the locs on his head.

Double was such a handsome man. His smooth, flawless skin was fair with just the slightest kiss of melanin. His eyes were pools of light brown. He had a perfect nose and medium-sized lips that were topped by a mustache. His expression was currently serious, but I liked his smile best. He was a big guy. He was at least six foot four, or six foot five, and with his muscular frame, he looked like a linebacker. But from what he’d shown me so far, he was a gentle giant.

“I had a lady. We were together for about five years. Long story short, we were going in two different directions. I was focused on the future—marriage, having a family. She was more focused on excitement and having experiences before she settled down. She was offered the opportunity to move to Europe. She took it, even though it meant walking away from me⁠—”