She was still so impossibly beautiful. No Afro now, her hair wavy and hanging past her shoulders, muted lipstick adorning her thick lips. She wore a tight leather dress with short black boots, her shapely legs on full display, and she was still absolutely gorgeous. Her eyes were rimmed in black, and her thick eyelashes fluttered as she stopped short of sitting down, her gaze fixed on me, her flawless mahogany skin shimmering.
“Temple…” I nearly whispered.
“Sam,” she replied in that femininely husky voice that fueled her success as a DJ.
Relocating my manners, I hopped up and pulled her chair out for her, her natural scent filling my nose, familiar and heady and intoxicating. Once I’d reclaimed my seat, I said, “You are so beautiful, love…just as beautiful as I remembered.”
Tilting her head to the side, she smiled, and my pants got a little tighter in the crotch area. “Thank you, Sam.”
Before I could respond, a waiter approached, taking our drink orders—wine for me, sweet tea for Temple. When we were alone again, she said, “I’m going to assume life’s been treating you well. You certainly look it. You’re staying here at the Sable?”
I nodded. “I am.”
“Then you’re rich, huh?”
Smiling, I shrugged. “I do okay. I’m no famous DJ with a syndicated radio show, though.”
“I do okay, too.”
That made my smile widen.
“You’ve barely aged. You look…good. Very good, Sam.”
“Thank you, love, but I see I’m not the only one who’s tapped into the fountain of youth. Time has done you well.”
Giving me a one-shouldered shrug, she said, “Eh, you know what they say about black not cracking.”
I laughed. “Yeah, I’ve heard that a time or two, Ms. Lewis. It is Lewis, right?”
“No…it’s Camden. I’m married, Sam.”
My heart plummeted to my feet as my eyes shot to her left hand, where I could see a faint tan line on her ring finger.
“We’re getting a divorce, though, should be finalized any day now. My second one. Can’t seem to get this marriage thing right,” she continued. “But then again, relationships have never really worked out for me, you know? Shit, I can’t even maintain platonic friendships with people.”
Yes, I knew.
Regretfully.
My eyes found hers and my heart stuttered at the defeat I saw in them; all of her confidence seemed to have drained from her. This was my fault. Any heartache or pain she’d endured with other men was my fault, just like the heartache and pain I’d directly caused, so I said, “I’m sorry, Temple.”
She shook her head. “It isn’t your fault. At least the divorces aren’t.”
“Aren’t they, though? I…I owe you an apology, Temple. At the very least, I owe you that.”
Temple
When we met, he was a senior, and I was a junior. I was also an Army brat. This was yet another new school and new town for me, and I was already over it, wasn’t taking anyone’s actual or perceived shit, and so I basically became a full-time resident of detention.
He stood out to me—tall, dark, and excruciatingly handsome. I couldn’t understand why he was staring at me that first time we crossed paths. I mean, I thought he surely had a girlfriend. But he didn’t.
Two weeks after meeting him in detention, he rather abruptly asked me to be his girlfriend. I said yes, just for kicks and giggles, having no idea I’d fall for him, that he would become my greatest love and deepest sorrow rolled into one beautiful package.
Pulling myself back to the present, I stared at this man who still looked so much like the boy I’d wrapped my whole world up in all those years ago. His voice bore sincerity; his eyes were beseeching. He was genuinely remorseful. That was plain to see, but I instinctually knew his contention ran deeper than what happened between us on prom night. I knew in my soul that his repentance held within its core, a confession.
3
Sampson
Twenty years earlier…
“Just one more of the two of you together,” Temple’s mom said. “Don’t you two look like royalty? My goodness!”
Temple had chosen our colors—gold and white—and we really did look good, so I smiled, wrapping an arm around my gorgeous girl’s waist for picture after picture. Temple’s mom and dad had always been nice to me, and I legit owed much of my happiness to her father, whose career had brought Temple to me. Plus, she was their only child; they had a right to go a little overboard.
This was fun, especially since my no-nonsense, extremely serious parents thought the high school prom ritual was trivial in the grand scheme of things when it came to me, their only child. My mother had actually said, “Do you not realize who you are? This is pure foolishness.”
Yeah, they definitely didn’t get it, at all, and only agreed to pay for my tux and the limo because it aligned with my “status.”
Whatever that was supposed to mean.
They were always saying shit like that, spinning tales I half-listened to and wholeheartedly disbelieved about a lineage of greatness that bypassed them but was passed on to me.
Temple and I arrived at the hotel where the prom was being held a little late by design; she wanted to make an entrance, and the gold dress that fit her like a glove deserved all the attention it could get. As we made our presence known, my mind kept drifting to what Temple was determined would occur after the prom in a room upstairs that I’d already reserved for us. I loved her, had wanted to be with her in that way since my eyes had first been blessed with her visage, but sex was a big deal, especially sex between two virgins. Plus, there were the stories my parents had told me about sex being more than physical but also deeply spiritual. All of that had made me hesitant to initiate anything with Temple in the seven months we’d been boyfriend and girlfriend. But she wasn’t taking no for an answer.
Not tonight.
I knew her wishes because she’d plainly verbalized them more than once, but as we stepped onto the crowded dance floor and swayed to new school and old school music, I could feel it in her touch, sense her need and desire in the way she melded her body with mine, hear it in the sighs she released, and I for damn sure wanted her, too.
Brian McKnight’s “Love of My Life,” our song, almost sent me over the edge, especially with the way she raised up on her toes in her modest heels and whispered the words of the song into my ear as we danced. Twenty minutes of us dancing and chatting with a few friends passed before she finally grabbed my hand, squeezed it, and shifted her eyes to the ceiling of the ballroom, my cue that it was time to leave, that she was ready.
But shit…was I?
I really wasn’t sure if I’d ever be ready. Still, I ushered her out of the ballroom and onto the elevator, my heart pounding in my chest, my mind racing with thoughts of what was about to happen and memories of every kiss and touch we’d already shared. Still gripping her soft hand, I pressed the button for the sixth floor.
I’d splurged on a suite, using all of the money I’d earned and saved from working for my dad over the summer at his dental practice. As we approached the suite’s door, I almost felt like I needed to carry her inside, because what was about to happen was just that special, akin to the rituals that followed a sacred ceremony. Instead, I unlocked the door and with her hand in mine, walked inside.