Welcome to the last #WednesdayWritingPrompt! Sit back, relax, read, comment, and share! Then, head on over to check out the other blogs. If you haven't read the other Wednesday prompts, feel free to go back and check them out. Thank you for reading, enjoy!
“Come on Dougie, stop playing around and take this picture,” Jade said, evading her boyfriend’s lips as she squirmed on his lap.
“Gimme a kiss first,” he said, nuzzling her neck.
Jade gave in. Twisting on his lap, she pressed her lips against his, humming when his tongue slipped inside her mouth and tangled with hers. Her phone slipped out of her hand as she draped both arms around his neck.
Doug pulled back and rested his forehead against hers, their breathing erratic.
“Why’d you stop?” she asked, caressing the back of his neck.
“Because we have a study session in thirty minutes and if I continued, we wouldn’t be going,” he told her, pulling back.
He was right. This wouldn’t be the first time they blew off a study session to make love, but they’d promised each other not to miss another study group.
Jade turned back around and Doug wrapped his arms around her. “I’m going to set the self timer, smile this time,” she told him, bending down to pick her phone up off the carpeted floor and programming it.
When the countdown flashed on the screen, Jade smiled, looking into Doug’s eyes through the camera. His brown orbs gleaming as he smiled. Her man was beyond handsome. At six foot five inches, with decadent chocolate skin, a trim beard and mustache, he was fine.
“Did this picture come out to your satisfaction, babe?” his husky voice teased in her ear.
She looked at the picture she’d just taken and smiled. She held up the screen. “What do you think?”
“Perfect, just like you. You’re a great photographer,” he told her.
“I’ve been studying photography since I was ten. If I can’t take a decent picture with a cell phone, then I shouldn’t be a photographer,” she said.
“Can you picture it? You and I together, taking over the world. You, a bomb ass fashion photographer. Me, a lawyer, handling all of your contracts and making sure you get top dollar. The next power couple,” he said, squeezing her around the waist.
“Move over Jay Z and Beyonce, the Pauls are taking over,” she told him, turning back around, and giving him a sweet kiss on his full lips.
“Damn right,” he murmured against her lips.
“Jade? Jade...Jade!” an exasperated voice called out, snapping Jade out of the daze she’d been in.
"What?” she asked, her older sister, Ruby.
Ruby eyebrows were furrowed and a concerned look covered her face. “You okay? You spaced out on me.”
“Yeah, I…” she cleared her throat.
“You what?” Ruby asked.
“I was lost in memory of Doug and I. Ever since I read his interview in Ebony about being a single dad and moving back here, I’ve been dreading running into him. Everywhere I go, there are so many memories of us…” she looked away from her sister, a lump forming in her throat. Jade stared out the window of the tiny bistro she and her sister were at. This was one of the rare occasions when she was in their hometown. Her work as a top fashion photographer rarely left her any time to come home.
“Why are you dreading running into him? You decided, idiotically, to break up with him, not the other way around. If anything, he should be dreading running into you,” Ruby told her.
Leave it to her big sister to be blunt and show zero sympathy. “You know why,” she ground out between clenched teeth, hands balling into fists where they lay against her thighs.
“Actually, I don’t. How about you explain to me why you broke up with the love of your life,” Ruby asked, sipping on her iced tea.
“Love of her life, nah...I clearly wasn’t that or she wouldn’t have left me an ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ voicemail...but I’d love an explanation,” a deep voice behind her said, freezing Jade in her seat.
Her whole body went still, then a shiver coursed through her, and she closed her eyes.
It can’t be.
Jade turned in her seat, hoping that fate was playing an unkind trick on her. Nope, behind her stood Douglas Paul, her ex-fiance.
Her palms began to sweat, and the roaring beat of her heart was the only thing she heard as she took in her ex. All of the noise and the other people in the restaurant faded away.
Jade felt lightheaded as she raised a shaking hand to push her curls away from her face.
“D-Doug...what…” she said, unable to complete a sentence.
“Hi Doug,” Ruby chimed in, bringing Jade back to herself.
“Hi Ruby, you mind if I speak with your sister?” Doug asked, smiling at Ruby. The smile faded when his piercing stare settled back on Jade.
“Well, considering--”
“Bye Ruby, I’ll see you later at your house,” Jade said.
Ruby raised an imperious brow, but gathered her things and left. As soon as Ruby left, Doug sat down across from her. For long moments, neither spoke.
“You stole my heart Jade, and didn’t give it back when you left. I did everything I could to drown out your presence, but nothing worked...so I resolved that the next time I saw you, I would get closure and ask the question that has been burning on my brain for the last five years. Why did you leave me standing at the altar in Las Vegas?”
Jade’s heart lurched and she glanced around, anything to keep from looking at the hurt on his face. How could she tell him the truth? Where did she start? “I….”
“Daddy!” a little girl squealed, running up to them, and throwing herself in Doug’s arms. Behind her was an impeccably dressed woman, sauntering towards them as if she were on a runway.
“I can’t do this,” she said, quickly gathering her purse, and leaving enough money on the table to cover her and her sister’s meals. Jade evaded his hand, which shot out to grab her arm, when she stood to leave.
She made her way quickly to the door, glancing back at Doug, who had been waylaid by the woman and child. Five years ago, she not only broke his heart, but her own...and now, it felt like her heart was breaking all over again as she watched him with his child.
Jade owed him answers, she just wasn’t sure she could handle telling him the truth.
*****
Doug stared at Jade’s retreating figure, sadness and anger warring inside. Five years later and she felt as if it had been ripped out of his chest. He’d sank to the floor, stunned, as Elvis asked him if his bride was coming because they had another wedding scheduled in ten minutes.
Doug had frantically sprinted back to the motel, hoping to catch her, but once he’d entered the room, he knew. She was gone. For five days, he’d sat in that motel room, getting pissy drunk, and hoping that she would come back. She never did. When his money ran out, and he could no longer afford to stay in Vegas, he’d packed his clothes and caught a Greyhound to his apartment in Houston.
“Daddy, can I pweas haf some ice cweam?” a little voice interrupted his reverie, pulling him back to the present.
His two year old daughter looked at him, eyes wide, as she gave him a big smile. His anger melted away, and he picked her up, pressing a kiss to her cheek.
“The princess can have whatever she wants,” he told her.
“That’s why she’s rotten now,” his ex-wife said, disapprovingly.
Doug sighed, he needed to deal with his ex-wife, but later...he had no intention of letting Jade slip away. Come hell or high water, he was getting his heart back.
Don't forget to head over to the other GAP authors' blogs to check out their take on this week's #WednesdayWritingPrompt.
www.delaneydiamond.com
www.tiyelovebooks.com
www.staylorromance.com
www.joylcampbell.com