Page 33 of IRL: In Real Life
. . .
By the timeI left the bank Tuesday evening, downtown had gone blue at the edges and my phone felt heavier than it should have in my pocket.
Talia and I had texted enough after lunch to do real damage. Thursday was set. Mercy House. Seven-thirty. She had told me not to say anything out of pocket when I saw her. I hadn’t promised. That had stayed with me all afternoon, right alongside the littlemmshe kept dropping like she didn’t know what it did to a man once he had heard her real voice in a room.
The rest of the day had gone the way work usually went when I forced it to. Numbers. Meetings. Deadlines. A client call that should’ve been an email. One deal summary that neededreworking because a business owner kept confusing optimism with evidence. None of it hard enough to fail at. None of it strong enough to push her out of my head.
That was irritating.
By five-thirty, I had answered enough, signed enough, revised enough, and told myself enough lies about focus. The floor had thinned out. Jackets disappeared. Elevator dings came closer together. Somebody near reception laughed with that tired little freedom people found only when the workday was finally loosening its grip.
I shut down my laptop, slid it into my tote, and looked once through the glass wall of my office at the city catching itself in twilight.
Thursday was set. That should have made things easier.
It did not.
Because now there was something waiting on me, and I was too grown to pretend that didn’t change a man’s whole day.
Devon appeared in my doorway without knocking, one shoulder against the frame, tie loose, expression already annoying.
“You leaving, or are you about to sit here staring at the skyline like a nigga in a luxury cologne ad?”
I looked at him. “You got a woman.”
“And still found time to check on you.” He pushed off the frame and stepped inside. “You text her?”
I should have denied it.
Instead, I zipped my bag and said, “Mind your own business.”
That made him bark a laugh. “Oh, it’s bad.”
“It’s not bad.”
“You saying that too fast.” He crossed his arms. “That’s the one from the mixer?”
I stood. “Devon.”
He held up both hands. “Aight. Aight. But you do look different.”
“Different how?”
He shrugged. “Less aggravated at the world.”
“That sounds made up.”
“I’m in a relationship as you keep reminding me. I know what a man look like when he got a little interest in his bloodstream.”
I grabbed my jacket off the chair and slipped it on. “You real poetic when you need to be in somebody else’s business.”
“And you real dry when somebody clock you.”
I shook my head, but I was smiling despite myself, which only made him worse.
“See?” he said. “Exactly.”
“I’m leaving.”
