Page 16 of Double

“Damn.”

“Yeah.” I nodded again. “It was very intense and created a war of wills. The more defiant I was about eating, the more he pushed me to eat. He would make me sit for hours at the dinner table, even after I’d thrown up on my plate. I’d fall asleep there most nights. My mom would wake me in the wee hours of the night and send me to bed. That went on for months and months. Finally, I told a counselor at school what was going on.”

“Oh, shit. I’m sure your father ain’t appreciate that.”

“Nah.” I chuckled. “Especially because she decided to do a home visit. He told her off and got her fired from the school. But he stopped making me sit in front of a plate of vomit. They put me in exposure therapy. I was brought face-to-face with the foods that caused the most violent reactions by a trained professional. She never made me eat the foods, which I think is what my father thought would happen. She just made me look at them. We talked about what I thought about them. What I envisioned when I looked at them. Eventually, I stopped seeing worms and blood sauce in a pot of spaghetti, but I couldn’t eat it. I could stomach seafood. They fed me seafood. Now, all I eat is seafood. Pescatarians, stand up!” I joked.

He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. I could see the compassion there, the concern there.

I looked down at my tiles. TASKED. “Are you close with your mom? You talk a lot about your relationship with your father and your grandfather.”

“That’s the homey. I love that lady. I’d turn the world upside down for that lady, but my dad would beat me to it.”

“What’s she like?” The truth was that I was nervous about meeting her. What would she think of a girl who married her son to get out of marrying somebody else?

“One question per word, Sweetheart.”

“Uh,” I said, before pouting a little bit.

He laughed at me. “You’ll be cool.” He put down his word. PATTERN. “You consider yourself a serial dater, or are you the type to lean toward long-term relationships?”

I knew questions about relationships would come up. I huffed out a sigh. “Neither. I’ve never really dated.”

“Talk to me about that.”

I pulled a face. “One question per word, sir.”

“That’s not a question.”

His expression was serious. He needs to get to know you, I reminded myself. “Uh, having a father like mine made me . . . suspicious of the intentions of men. By the time I was old enough to date, my father had passed away. I was finally free. The last thing I wanted was to end up under some other man’s control. At university, I occasionally went out with men. But if they did anything that even remotely reminded me of something my father would do, I ghosted them. After a while, I decided that throwing myself into building my business was what was best for me. I figured love would find me if it was looking for me.”

“Okay.” His head bobbed up and down slowly. “Lynne told me off the bat that you’ve held on to your virginity.”

I gulped loudly, which probably gave him the impression that what he’d said was news to me. It wasn’t. “For some reason, news of my virginity seems to be something that everybody thinks they have a right to share. Aunt Gretchen loved to throw that fact around at dinner parties. I didn’t know it was a source of pride for Moses and Lianna as well.”

“I like you.” He pointed at me while chuckling. “On the real, though. It wasn’t their pride that made them share that. It was their concern for you. They wanted to make sure that I understood that they weren’t looking to put you back in the same situation. They wanted somebody who understood what you mean to them. And what your dignity . . . your virtue means to you.”

I scoffed. “Look, I didn’t keep my virginity because of my virtue. I kept my virginity because of their lack of virtue. The dumb asses that tried to date me didn’t deserve my trust. There was no way I would’ve slept with any of those men.”

Before the conversation could continue, the doorbell rang. Although my stomach jumped at the thought of having to meet whoever was behind the door, I was glad for the interruption. Double and I needed to get to know each other, but hell, we didn’t have to expose everything in one afternoon.

I stood from the floor and got ready to make a break for the bedroom that I lived in, but he stopped me with his hand on my wrist. The touch was light, but it still sent a shockwave through me. “Hold up. It’s my cousin, Lyric. She’s here for you.”

“Your cousin?” My feelings of fear and shock must’ve shown on my face because Double gave me a small smirk.

“It’s cool,” he assured me, standing to his feet. “She’s a stylist.”

“As in . . . hair stylist?”

“Personal stylist. She owns a styling business. She dresses most of the who’s who of Chicago.”

I was lost and doing my very best to use context clues to put together what he was telling me. “Why is she here for me?” I followed on his heels as he made his way to the front door.

He stopped walking and turned to me with a softness in his eyes. “Sweetheart, you told me yesterday that you didn’t have any clothes. You’re standing here in front of me, wearing my joggers, my t-shirt, and my drawers. Did you think I wasn’t gonna make moves to get you straight?”

“I . . . I don’t . . . I didn’t think . . .” I stammered.

He grinned his lady-slaying grin. “I got you. Yo, I’m taking you out for dinner tonight. So pick something appropriate for that.”