Malik and Jade

Chapter 38 (Malik): Her Lips

Copyright © 2024 by GroveltoHEA

When I was growing up, we had a cat that liked to wait behind corners and pounce on us as we walked unsuspectingly into his path. We began to approach corners in our house with caution until he tired of it and eventually stopped springing at us.

I felt like I was now the cat and my wife was eyeing me with trepidation ever since I'd told her I had fallen in love with her. Her looks were wary, almost as if she was waiting for me to pounce again. It wasn't like I could blame her. Hearing those words from me in a diner wasn't quite the declaration I'd imagined. It wasn't the way I'd wanted to tell her, but with her question and Nino's words ringing in my ears, I felt I needed to answer her despite my very real concern that it would be so unwelcome she would get angry with me or even worse...stop talking with me.

She hadn't said anything since that night, but I caught her watching me closely as if trying to figure out what my game was. Jade didn't believe me and I wasn't surprised. I'd been all over the place trying to figure out my emotions. I'd run through everything in my mind over and over, analyzing my words, my thoughts and my feelings, and was amazed that for such a smart man, I was an absolute idiot where my wife was concerned.

 "I told her I loved her, Nino," I admitted to my brother a week after I'd made my romantic declaration in a diner. We'd just finished a game of tennis and were at lunch. My mother had all of the grandchildren and Mira and Jade were out shopping for a cousin's bridal shower.

"I know," was all he said, and I pierced him with a look.

"That's it? You know is all you have to say?"

He gave me the same look back.

"Yeah. That's it."

"Well, did she say anything?" I demanded in exasperation.

"Why are you asking me? Jade's the one you should be asking."

To buy myself some time, I took a long drink of my iced tea. "Nino, please."

"Please nothing, Malik. I'm your brother, and I keep your confidences. I also became Jade's brother when you married her, so I keep her confidences, too. I told you a long time ago, I'm not your go between and you could pass her your own notes during class."

"I never passed a girl a note in school," I scoffed.

"Well, maybe you should have. Then you might not be so clueless right now."

I looked away, truly understanding for the first time just how much missing out on some key rites of passage by skipping grades and being so much younger than my classmates at a critical time had affected me.

"I don't want Nour to grow up to be clueless, Nino," I said quietly. "I want him to grow up and do normal things. I don't want him to skip grades and miss out. Someday, when he gets married-- I don't even know how to articulate this -- but I don't want him to be like I was. I want him to be in love with his bride, right from the start, so he never hurts her like I hurt his mother. I want the apple to fall far, far from my tree. If I could wish for anything for our son, I'd wish he could be like Jade, not me."

My older brother's eyes dissected me. "You're trying to change things, Malik, about yourself, about your situation. Some people just continue on in their old ways, but you're not doing that. Whether or not the way you feel now eventually matters to Jade is something only she can decide."

"I know. I know."

"You got it in you to be patient with her?"

"I perform surgeries that take ten or more hours, Nino. I can be patient."

"For how long?"

"For as long as it takes."

"So where'd you tell her you loved her?"

Making a face at my brother, I just resisted rolling my eyes at him. "You know damn well where I told her. So why did you ask me?"

"I just wanted to hear you say you told your wife you loved her for the first time in a diner," he guffawed at me.

"I shouldn't have told her there," I said, mad at myself all over again.

"Why did you then?"

"She asked."

Nasim shrugged. "Then you did the right thing, I think, and that's just my thinking and not based on anything Jade said. Keep telling her how you feel, be honest about your feelings when she asks and, above all, be patient."

"I plan on it," I told him.

"Got a bone to pick with you," he said suddenly. "My wife now wants either a porch or dancing lessons."

I grinned at Nasim. "Word of advice, Nino. Give her both."

For the next three weeks, I continued to be the cat in the hallway with Jade. She watched me, expecting me to pounce, but I didn't. We finished our Roaring Twenties dance lessons, and I bought her the four fifties dresses, complete with a tulle slip to fluff out the skirts of the dresses. 

When Jade walked out the first night with her fifties dress and her fifties hairdo, she looked just as beautiful as she had with the fancier Roaring Twenties costumes.

"You look gorgeous, Jade. I'm really looking forward to the next four weeks."

"I am, too," she said. Then, feeling playful, she spun around. "This is the best dress!"

It was red with white polka dots, and red was one of Jade's favorite colors to wear, providing a bright contrast to her dark hair. 

"I think it's the person wearing it. Ready to go?" 

After the diner incident, I'd started to follow my compliments to Jade with a question or a neutral statement very quickly so she didn't have to react to the compliment. 

"Let's do this!" she said, and she let me grab her hand as we walked out to my car.

We learned the fast paced hand jive that night, and I missed a couple of movements I was so caught up in watching Jade laugh as she tried to get the hand motions right. For some reason, the sequence kept eluding her -- maybe because she was laughing so hard.

My wife was still giggling when we got to the car. Jade stopped my hand from starting the car. 

"Is this right? I think I have it now. Watch," she ordered me.

Once again, she didn't have it, and when I told her not quite, she tipped her head back and laughed again.

"I will get this! You're going to help me every night this week until I can do this in my sleep."

"Anything, hayete." 

Dammit, I hadn't slipped in weeks. 

"You've almost got it," I added quickly, hoping she'd ignore that endearment. She did.

"OK, I'm holding you to the practice every night, Malik."

That night, Jade asked me to unzip her dress in a way she had that let me know she wanted me to unzip her dress. 

Her soft sighs whenever I touched her just made me want to please her more, and I channeled everything I wanted to say into my hands and lips, into Jade's pleasure. 

Which led to me whispering, "I love you, hayete."

Jade's eyes looked into mine and softened, her lips parted in surprise. She reached up and pulled my head down to her.

And kissed me.

Copyright © 2024 by GroveltoHEA