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"Look who decided to grace us with her presence." my friend Ashley said as she walked into the software developers' shared office space at the company we both worked for, her bright smile illuminating the room. It was a Friday afternoon and James, the head software engineer at the company we worked for, had called us in to add finishing touches to a project that was urgently due.
Ashley had built herself a reputation of dressing like a temptress because the hourglass figure she'd worked on in the gym was always perfectly outlined in whatever she wore, and now, as she walked over to sit beside me, her ample breasts bounced in the lilac button down blouse she'd worn with some buttons open and revealing a bit of cleavage.
"Ashley, are you trying to corrupt the young interns with your boobs?" I asked her, staring pointedly at them.
"Girl, you know they work downstairs, they'll never see me. And anyway, with my track record, they'd probably still not see me if I were standing naked right in front of them." she laughed. "Maybe, if I was lucky enough to fall around in pharmacies and get hot doctors to flirt with me at GreenMart, I wouldn't be so scandalously single."
I sucked my teeth. "I told you he almost flirted with me at GreenMart, and it shouldn't matter. I have Bakari."
"And what about it?" she challenged, her accusing eyes pinning me in place. "It's not like Bakari has you."
"Ashley," I warned my best (well, only) friend of twenty years, daring her to say more.
She rolled her eyes and laughed again, her shoulders hiking up in feigned innocence. "What? Did I say something wrong?"
"Yes, you did. Bakari is my boyfriend. Of course he has me."
"Then how come you have more chemistry with a brick wall than you do with him, Chey?"
"Ashley Wembo!" I gasped. "You take that back."
"You be honest and say you've only been with BK for so long because he's not a flight risk." she said, knowing, without me having to confirm it, that she was absolutely right. Still, I couldn't let her win. Not when another man was occupyung unwanted space in my mind when I needed to be focused on Bakari.
"Everyone has the potential to leave someone, Ashley. You're a flight risk, too. Yet, here we are."
"Come on, Chey. It's been twenty years, if I wanted to leave you I would have done that already." she said, pulling me into a comfortable side hug. "Look, BK is a great guy, and I know you care deeply about him. But, the guy doesn't excite you, Chey. I know because I was right there with you in Inde when puberty hit and you started to see guys in a new way. I know how you like romance--hot, thrilling, potentially dangerous. If your type is cane corso, then I'm sorry to say this, but BK is an adorable golden retriever."
Yeah, but my mom's type was King Kong, and we all paid a price for that. Maybe aggressively sexy wasn't the best way to go in choosing a life partner. I always kept that in mind, so when I found BK, gentle, level-headed and predictable, I appreciated that. I didn't say all this to Ashley, though, she'd probably just tell me to stop basing my life decisions on my mother's failures.
