Mr. Make-Believe (An Urban, Chic-lit Novel)

Chapter 19: The Meet Up

Audrey popped her headphones in her ears, stretched her legs, her arms and pressed play on her iPod, Musiq Soulchild’s song “Halfcrazy” filled her buds and before she knew it she was jogging at a slow pace lip syncing to the lyrics. Of course it was the worst possible song to listen to especially in her current situation dealing with Corey and she could just as easily move on and forget he even existed. She was no home wrecker.

But her heart was beating fast for other reasons then her jogging.

She knew keeping anything going was just going to end in the biggest shit storm of her life and she could not and would not go through that. That was why she was going to listen to what he had to say, but she was going to officially end things. She couldn’t do that to another woman.

Poor Sarah.

She was crazy for even asking him to meet her.

Audrey jogged around the park for about three laps, stopped at her favorite bench and leaned her head back with her hands over her head to catch her breath. The music changed to Eryka Badu “Bag lady”. She slightly bobbed her head with her eyes closed. Letting the music take her somewhere else, she didn’t feel the presence of Corey when he approached the bench.

He stood a few feet from the bench watching her bob to whatever she was listening to while the setting sun seemed to shine bright on her sweaty body. She was wearing a Nike running bra with the matching jogging pants, so he could see the tightness of her stomach.  Her hair was pulled up into a sleek ponytail a few strands sticking to her face.

Even seeing her sweat, she was still very beautiful to him. He watched her for a second more than took a seat on the bench beside her.

Audrey felt the weight of the bench change and peeked to her right to see Corey looking ahead. Even still, sitting there on the bench in his basketball shorts and Armour sweatshirt, he still looked so damn good.

She paused her music, popped out one headphone and greeted him. “Hey Corey.”

He looked at her. “Hey Audrey.”  Of course there was a long moment of silence. Neither one really knew what to say to the other. On the way here, just like Audrey, Corey had come up with a whole skit of what he wanted to say to Audrey. He even played out the possibility of her responses. He honestly felt like he was coming up with a presentation for work with how organized and thought out he had his speech.

But now sitting in front of the her, the entire ball game had changed. It was different from imagining her sitting in his office chair while he rehearsed his speech. With her so close and tangible it was harder, his palms were getting sweaty and he was at complete loss for words so he said what his speech summed up.

He turned to his side and grabbed Audrey by her hands gently. Audrey looked down at her hands in his and had a quick reaction to pull them away. She couldn’t touch him, it made things that much harder.

She slowly took her hands from his putting them at her sides but kept the eye contact.

He took a deep breath a little sad that she didn’t want him to touch her, but that was expected. “Audrey, I’m so sorry. I should have told you, I should have been more straightforward. I was just so caught up in the fantasy of having someone as beautiful, loving and free as you. I fucked up, I get that. After this, you don’t even have to give me the time of day but I can’t leave her without telling you how deeply sorry I am for being so dishonest.”

Audrey allowed what he said to sink in for a few minutes but she continued to look into his eyes because she wanted to see him flinch. She was looking for something in those beautiful brown eyes that would tell her that he was going for a Grammy because what he said sounded a little rehearse to her. Was this similar to something he would say to Sarah when he would fuck up?