Page 137 of IRL: In Real Life
I frowned at the screen.
Me: Unfortunately.
Kendra: Don’t get mad. Just go look at Candace’s page.
That sat wrong immediately.
Candace and I weren’t close. More like acquaintances. She had come to one of my events a while back, and after that, we had traded the usual little social media niceties. A comment here. A story reaction there. Nothing with meat on it. Lately, I had noticed her looking at my stories more often, but I had not thought enough of it to care.
Women looked at stories.
That was life.
Still, Kendra never said don’t get mad unless she already knew I was going to have a reason.
I opened Facebook and found the post.
Candace had thrown up one of those vague little statuses people posted when they wanted the right folks to know exactly who they were talking about without having to say a name and risk somebody checking them.
Funny how some men think they slick. Fucking on bitches in private and still trying to look like the good nigga in public. Banker boys be the worst.
I stared at the screen—then stared a little harder.
Who knew Candace was so damnghetto?
The post should have rolled off me. It was ugly. Beneath me. And, more importantly, it was obvious old-fucking-newsbehavior. Whatever she thought she was doing, the thing between Micah and me was already real enough that one bitter little post from a woman he used to entertain should not have gotten under my skin the way it did.
And yet.
Jealousy moved through me anyway, ugly and hot, before pride could make it pretty.
Because I knew what she meant.
Knew who she meant.
And I knew she wanted other people to know it too.
That was the part that made my stomach tighten.
Not because I thought Micah belonged to her in any way that mattered now. Not because I doubted what he had been showing me. But because there was something uniquely nasty about a woman trying to drag you into a story she had not earned the right to tell, especially before nine in the morning when my coffee had not even had the decency to exist yet.
Kendra texted again before I could decide whether to throw my phone or laugh.
Kendra: I knew it was about him.
Kendra: Don’t make up a problem if it’s not one, but you need to ask.
That part was fair.
I swung my legs out of bed and sat there for a second in my sleep shirt with my hair wrapped and my mouth already tight.
The worst part was, I didn’t actually think Micah was out here doing anything current. My intuition had been too settled with him for too long to let me leap that far. But old mess had a way of staining a morning anyway, especially when another woman decided to drag her hurt into the open like it was everybody’s business.
I needed to speak with him, and texting wasn’t going to do it.
I hit FaceTime instead.
He answered on the fourth ring, and the second his face came up on my screen, I could tell he was at work already. White shirt. Tie on. Office light. That composed banker face he wore before nine-thirty when people were already trying him.
