Yasmin Sullivan - In His Arms

“He was damn near incomprehensible sometimes,” Rashad agreed. “I’ve dabbled, as well.”

“Kudos to us for trying,” Michelle said. “High five.”

Michelle raised her hand, and Rashad met it.

“Are you sure you’re not a sports fan?”

“Absolutely sure.”

They were at Michelle’s car now and had paused. Rashad seemed as reluctant as she was about the end of the evening. It had felt like being on vacation to Michelle. Adult conversation with a handsome man, an hour in which she didn’t have to be anywhere, talking with someone who seemed to be genuinely interested in what she was saying, what she was thinking. It was like paradise.

Michelle unlocked her door, and Rashad leaned toward her and reached around her to open the door. But they still stood there.

Rashad leaned toward her in the dim light of the garage, and, for a moment, Michelle thought that he was going to kiss her. She held her breath and felt her heart begin to pound in her chest.

But just as quickly as it happened, the moment was over. Rashad straightened, and Michelle wondered if she had misread his body movements. She felt her face flush with embarrassment, wondering if he could tell that she’d thought he was about to—

“Follow behind me. I won’t run any yellow lights or anything like that. But honk if you start to fall behind.”

Rashad had turned and had taken several steps toward his car, but he turned back.

“How long have you been married?”

“Married?”

“Your husband is a lucky man. And you were married right out of high school, so that’s about...six years?”

“I’m not married anymore.”

“Huh? I thought...”

Michelle saw the confusion in Rashad’s crinkled brow.

“I was divorced a little while before I moved to D.C. That was one of the reasons I moved—to leave that past behind, so to speak.”

“But before I asked how long you guys had been here.”

“I thought you meant me and my son. We’ve been here two years. I didn’t know that you thought—”

“Wow. I guess I just assumed that you were married—still married.”

“I guess I wasn’t clear.”

There was a pause in which each seemed to be recalculating—tracing their conversations to detect the flaw that had led to the misunderstanding and reassessing what had just happened in light of the clarification.

Still, Michelle wasn’t sure what to think, and it was she who broke the silence.

“I had better get going. I have to get my son from the sitter.”

Her words seemed to awaken Rashad from a reverie, and he refocused his eyes on her. He stared at her a moment before he spoke. “Okay. Yes. Just follow behind me.”

He took a couple of steps toward his car and then turned back again.

“Next Wednesday let’s have dinner in Old Town Alexandria after class and window-shop along King Street—if you can get home late again.”

“Okay,” Michelle answered. “I’ll check and email you if the sitter doesn’t mind.”

“Don’t forget.”

“I won’t.”

Michelle followed Rashad as far as Beltway Plaza on Greenbelt Road, wondering all the while what had just happened.

When he turned off Beltway Road to the street leading to her apartment complex, Rashad stopped and waved her past him.

There was no traffic, so she pulled up alongside him.

“Can you get home from here?” he teased.

“Don’t you play with me when I can’t reach you to strangle you. The real question,” she said, “is whether or not I can find my way from class again.”

“Can you?”

“No.”

They cracked up.

Michelle waved, passed him and continued on as he made a U-turn and headed back to Beltway Road.

She picked up a sleeping little Andre from two doors down and carried him home to put him in his own bed. Once that was done, she started to change. She had to get to bed right away because she had to be at the coffeehouse early the next morning. She would get Andre ready and drop him off with Mrs. Miller, who would walk him to school.

She cherished Mrs. Miller. It mattered more than anything having people around whom she could trust, especially with her child. She paid Mrs. Miller, of course, but what Mrs. Miller did for her couldn’t be counted in money. She took Mrs. Miller grocery shopping and had her over for Sunday supper sometimes and did whatever else she could, but it didn’t seem like enough. Mrs. Miller and her cousin Nigel and his wife, Regina, and her boss at the coffeehouse allowed her to do the things she hoped would get her life back on track after that fiasco of a marriage.

She had even spent a night out after her art class with almost no notice. And that was what was really on Michelle’s mind, keeping her awake.

She kept replaying the moment when it had seemed that Rashad wanted to kiss her, and she kept wondering about his reaction when she’d told him that she wasn’t married. It was clearly news to him, but he hadn’t come back to kiss her. Perhaps he didn’t want her if she was actually within reach. Or maybe he hadn’t been about to kiss her and was just being polite to let her get over her embarrassment. But then he had asked her out the next week, or was that only to continue their friendship from class?

Deep down, she wanted him to be interested, and that’s what scared her.

It was funny to think that after being divorced for two and a half years, the prospect of a date would perplex her, but it did. Was next week a date?

Michelle fell asleep wondering what the following Wednesday would bring but determined to let it be whatever it turned out to be. In her mind, life was looking up. She could at least imagine having a date, and she was finally getting her life in order after the merry-go-round marriage she’d had.

Don’t forget to check with Mrs. Miller and email Rashad. That was her last coherent thought before she nodded off, and her dreams were tinged with possibility.

Chapter 4

Rashad sank into the leather sectional that lined the back of his brother Marcus’s law office. Rashad was the youngest of four brothers, and all were now gathered in Marcus’s office because they had planned—before Rashad knew about his class dates—to go to a Washington Redskins game. He had called to bow out, but he came to see his brothers off. Now all of the brothers—Derrick, Marcus, Keith, and Rashad himself—had arrived.

“I’m just explaining,” Rashad said. “Why I can’t go tonight. I have a class, and I’m having dinner with a classmate afterwards.”

“Is this dinner with a man or a woman?” Derrick, the oldest brother, asked.

Rashad rolled his eyes.

“It’s a woman,” Keith said. He was sitting next to Rashad and nudged Rashad’s shoulder.

“What does that prove—whether it’s a man or woman?” Marcus said.

“Just because you’re gay doesn’t make the rest of us gay,” Keith said. “We love you, bro. But this is a different story.”

“If it was just dinner,” Rashad explained, “I would reschedule, but I can’t change the date and time of my class.”

“Forget the class,” Keith said. “We want to know about the date.”

“Are you still playing,” Derrick asked, “or are you getting serious?”

Rashad was the only one of his brothers not married, including Marcus, the gay one, and it was never long before they started their ribbing and tried to get him to find the right one and “settle down.” Rashad let his head fall back and then shook it, looking at the ceiling. It was starting.

“Rashad hasn’t been serious about anyone his whole life,” Derrick said.

“Hey, I’ve always been up front about not wanting to get serious.”

“That’s to your credit,” Marcus said. “But what about getting serious for a change?”