Drake stood abruptly, paced the floor. “Stop asking me questions like that.”

“Well, you did pay me.”

“To buy your silence, not to prescribe me medicine and be my psychotherapist.”

El chuckled. “You do realize that one dollar doesn’t even buy you a minute of my time under normal circumstances.”

And this was the downside of having a shrink for an uncle-brother. El always tried to find the hidden emotions in everything. Drake was tempted to inquire if El had asked himself all these whack questions. Maybe his uncle-brother wouldn’t be afraid to move on from Avery.

“To answer your question,” Drake said, “we don’t live in a perfect world. Because if we did, I wouldn’t be going through this right now.”

“Is it possible that you have feelings for Love that go beyond friendship?”

It was a trick question. There was no right answer. If he said yes it would affirm El’s suspicions of hidden emotions. If he said no it wouldn’t make any sense, since they’d spent the night together rolling around in bed naked.

“She’s my best friend.”

“Like a sister?”

Drake snorted as he paced. “Hell no.” He had a little sister, and knew what sister feelings were. His friendship with Love had never been like that. For starters, he didn’t admire his little sister’s legs or her cleavage. “But we’ve known each other since we were toddlers.”

He and Love had never crossed a line with each other. Drake had never given her kisses behind the chalkboard in kindergarten, made forts in the backyard so they could play house. No Hide-and-Go-Get-It in the wooded trails behind the school. There was no picking on her boyfriends because he was jealous.

“This is going to sound like a strange question, but did you enjoy it?” El asked.

Drake whirled around. “What?”

“Did you enjoy being with her?”

Drake clenched his fists and stretched his neck. “I—I…” he sputtered. “It was sex. I enjoy sex.”

“Once again, you’re not answering the question. Did you enjoy being with Love on that level? It’s a simple yes or no answer.”

“Of course.” Drake scowled at El. “Like I said, it was sex.”

“Was there anything about the experience that was different than your other sexual relationships?”

“Yes!” Drake blared. “It was different because it was her!” The sheer exhaustion he felt after that admission made him sit back down on the couch. Hard. Arms on his knees, he leaned forward. “I can’t stop thinking about it. Once I remembered the details, it’s been running through my mind on a loop.”

Every kiss, every touch of her lips to his…it still burned there. It wasn’t simply making love. They made fire together. Hot, scorching fire that had seared his brain, stayed with him. Seeing her that morning in her snow boots and puffer coat, looking into her expressive brown eyes, had made him want a repeat.

“I don’t know what to do with this,” Drake admitted. “Things are different. I’m trying to keep it the same but I still feel her, smell her. She’s not in the ‘can’t go there’ box I put her in all those years ago. I’ve gone there, and I can’t flip a switch and pretend I didn’t.”

El coughed. “Okay, so let me ask you…what are you going to do about it?”

What can I do? Any move he made ran the risk of destroying everything, and he’d promised he wouldn’t let what happened ruin them. “Nothing. The sooner we can end this marriage, the better.”

The answer wasn’t one he liked. He’d have to put some distance between them if their friendship had any chance of surviving. She’d already been hurt enough by Derrick. Drake couldn’t hurt her.

His phone buzzed with a message, breaking him from his thoughts. When he saw who it was from, he groaned loudly.

“Who is it?” El asked.

“Her dad.” Drake glanced at the text again: My office now. “I have go. I’ll call you later.

Walking to Dr. Leon Washington’s office was like walking the plank. It wasn’t that Drake hated him. It was quite the opposite. Drake’s own father was a lousy one, and Dr. Leon had filled in a lot of gaps for him as a child.

Drake’s parents had never married. His mother was one in a long line of mistresses that only served one purpose in life for his father. When Drake was born, his father took custody of him, and he could count on one hand the number of times he’d actually seen his mother. He’d met her once after his kindergarten graduation. The second time was an unplanned incident at the mall when he was a teenager. He hadn’t even recognized her when he saw her but she had walked up to him and gave him a hug and a kiss before she disappeared from his life for good. He’d found out she died a few years later.




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