Love at War

Chapter Six

Halfway into dinner with the Connell family and Keisha was ready to leave. The entire time she and Adrien kept trying to hold their smiles in place but neither one of the Connell family seemed to have noticed their  false smiles.

“Yes, you know Blakely just got her real estate license. She's about to start work next week, as an official realtor and we can't wait,” Mrs Connell said.

Keisha stabbed a piece of food on her plate with a fork and rolled her eyes. They'd been talking about Blakely for so long that it was starting to get boring.

“What about you sweetie?” Mrs.Connell asked. Keisha looked up from the plate of cold food and tightened her smile. “What do you do for a living? I feel like everyone's been talking about themselves and we've barely heard you say a word.”

Wasn't that the point of staying silent? Keisha wondered.

“I graduated from art school. I'm a writer and I'm doing pretty well in that area,” she simply replied, having no interest in keeping the spotlight on her.

Blakely seemed intrigued. “Are there any books you've published? Many any best sellers?”

“Hopefully, soon,” Keisha replied.

With that tone of finality, the attention shifted back to Adrien.

She sat there, silent, listening to them throw all sorts of questions at Adrien who had quite the number of stories to tell, so with that, dinner which should've lasted for about an hour had rolled into two hours.

“Is there a problem dear?” Mr.Connell asked, noticing Keisha's discomfort.

“Yes. I don't know if anyone noticed but it's getting pretty late,” she responded.

Their eyes widened. “Oh my goodness, I didn't know time went by that fast,” Mrs.Connell laughed and rose to her feet as everyone else did.

They walked both Adrien and Keisha to the front porch. “It was really lovely having you both over for dinner,” Mr.Connell said and shook both their hands. He stared at Adrien. “Maybe we'll be seeing you around.”

Adrien scratched the back of his neck.

“Oh yes that would actually be amazing. We could have like a little cookout and I'm sure Blakely would love to see you again,” she said and glanced back at her daughter. “She hasn't stopped talking about your meeting up with her a couple months back.”

It took a minute for Keisha to register what she'd heard. She replayed that sentence and frowned.

Adrien met up with Blakely a couple months ago?

Nevertheless, Keisha did her best to hold a blank facial expression and from the looks of it, she was barely winning. Her face twitched with so many unanswered questions.

“It was a pleasure meeting you. Thank you for the evening,” Adrien finally said and turned around to leave.

“I'll be waiting. We could meet up whenever you're free,” Blakely called out as they walked towards the car.

Throughout the ride home Keisha said nothing, responding briefly only when spoken to.

She still couldn't process what she'd heard and she didn't know how to.

She wondered if he and Blakely had done more than just having a casual meet up. How exactly were they even communicating?

When they'd eventually gotten home, they’d found Diane already changed into her night gown, her hair held up into a messy bun.

“I was starting to wonder when you two were going to get back,” she said as she stirred a cup of milk in her hand.

Keisha said nothing, instead she regarded her mother with a smile and went upstairs. She didn't want to remember dinner, she didn't want her mind to wander off.