Becoming Mrs Jones: My un-Valentine Love Story

CHAPTER 1: VALENTINE'S SURPRISE

Aurelie
"Another gin and tonic, and two shots of Cîroc please," I dejectedly utter my order to the tatted up, mixed bartender with facial piercings as he returns to my side of the scratch-worn wooden bar.  

He acknowledges me with a nod and takes the empty glass I slide his way.  When he turns away from me, I allow the gathered unshed tears to spill from my eyes again. Those drinks will be my fourth round and the alcohol still hasn't numbed my heart enough for the tears to stop falling. I know it's pathetic to be tearfully drinking alone, especially in public, but I can't go home. My chic, high-rise one-bedroom apartment used to be my safe haven, my retreat from the concrete jungle below, but now it's a contaminated crime scene. Contaminated with the scent of their lust, the symphony of their pleasure, and my once ivory bedroom walls are now painted with vivid scenes of their betrayal.

Hi, my name is Aurelie Kalala. Happy Valentine's Day. All my dear fiancé Julian got me was an exclusive live screening of his dirty affair with my Instagram fitness "influencer" neighbor, Raine. What did you get?

***Flashback***

Five minutes after five, I check the time on my phone as the elevator doors close to take me up to my fifteenth-floor apartment.  I'm five minutes late, but really, who expects a black woman to be on time? Certainly not my fiancé Julian. We've been together for four blissful years, so he's used to my tardiness by now, if anything he'll be proud that I'm under an hour late.  The African time struggle is real! Julian Kacou and I met at his cousin Maxence's wedding, he was a groomsman and I was my cousin Layla's plus one. We hit it off on the dance floor when our favorite song ‘Pull Over’ by Kcee played and we both busted out our best moves, causing the other guests to form a cheering circle around us.  You could say it was love at first dance.

Julian is cool, charming and calculated, which is why he is a successful defense attorney and the yin to my crazy, energetic and creative yang as a graphic and web designer.  We both come from Francophone African backgrounds, I’m Congolese and he’s Ivorian. It's nice being with someone who gets you culturally and can still communicate with you when your English brain switches off.  Julian or Jules as I call him, is the perfect toned big spoon at 5’9” to my 5’3” curvy small spoon. His rich dark chocolate complexion preserves his handsome angular thirty-two-year-old features like fine wine, while his pristine teeth dazzle when he unleashes his signature ten thousand-megawatt smile.  His full mane of shoulder-length jet black locks are the crowning glory women would sell their ovaries for. No lie, my man is a catch and I damn sure know it, so you best believe I'm always on my A game.

Thinking about my handsome fiancé so intensely while the elevator slowly crawls up to my floor has me giddy like an excited school girl in anticipation for tonight's festivities.  They will surely include some hot love making, which I'm very much looking forward to.

Julian has been away for work, so this will be the first time we've seen each other in two weeks.  My kitty and I have surely missed him. I habitually roll my asscher cut engagement ring around its perch on my ring finger as I unlock my front door, ready for whatever romantic surprise awaits me inside.  

Jules never disappoints, and as expected, I walk in to find my lounge covered with an assortment of yellow and white flowers on every available flat surface and fairy lights twinkling overhead creating the illusion of stars as the blackout drapes are drawn.  Oh Jules is such a dream, I gush internally with a silly excited grin on my face as I follow the trail of white rose petals and tea light candles to my ajar bedroom door in search of my thoughtful man.