The Lying Game

25.

E M A N I

I end up making dinner for William and I. Only out of respect to my mother and her invisible wrath that was still present.

"Hmm something smells good." William walks into the kitchen rubbing his eyes.

"Were you sleeping?"

"Yes, this woman who's also my wife has a heavy ass hand and hit me in the chest. So I had to sleep to heal it." He rubs his chest in an exaggerating motion.

"She must've had a good reason." I comment while focusing on the food.

"Just a jealous one." He leans against the counter next to me.

"Tonight, we're  having honey garlic chicken and rice." I lift the spoon to his mouth.

He questions me with his face. I scoff. "I didn't poison it." He grins and opens his mouth. He tries the sauce and his face lights up.

"Emani, you really have the magic touch." He goes to taste more from the spoon.

I pull the spoon away. "Tsk tsk, go set the table." He challenges me with his eyes. He tries to move forward but I place my hand on his chest.

"William, go set the table." I try to be serious but I can't help but laugh.

"Yes captain." He salutes and walks to the table. I shake my head and add a little bit more of spices to the sauce. William sets the table quickly and I bring the pots over. We both take our seats at the round table.

"Jesus bless the food, amen." I mutter under my breath before taking a bite. William takes no time to begin eating. I've gotten a hang of this routine. Somehow, we're pulling this off. It doesn't even feel like we're married. It's more like we're roommates. I smile at the thought.

"What?" I look up at William whose mouth is full and he has sauce on the corner of his lip.

"What?" I ask.

He swallows more of his food. "Why were you smiling?"

"Oh." I didn't think he noticed. "Just go us. We're pulling off this whole fake marriage thing and we've got this routine down packed."

"Oh yeah we're killing it." William holds his hand up across the table and I gladly high five it. For the remainder of the time it's silent. William and I have that one thing in common. We don't like talking while eating our food. It's wasting precious energy to talk when more food can be in our mouth.

"Man I am stuffed." William slouches in his seat.

"Me too, but I could really go for some dessert right now." I giggle.

"I was just thinking that." William chuckles. "What would you have right now?"

I think about it for a second. "I could go for chocolate cake with chocolate frosting." I lick my lips just thinking about it. "Oh with milk of course."

"That sounds so good, and I know the perfect place we could get that." William says with his devilish smirk.

W I L L I A M

"Why do you always have to wear the same thing as me?" I say with a serious playful tone. I quickly take my eyes off the road to see Emani on my phone. Emani waves me off. She decided to change into adidas joggers right before we left. She's in a white shirt while I'm in a black V-neck.

"Emani quit ignoring me, I don't like it." She continues to scroll on my phone.

"We need to get you some better music tastes vanilla." She says.