Page 28 of Sweet Surrender
11
ALEX
“Hey, you made it.”
“Yeah, I had to dodge lunch hour traffic, but I made it. Here, these are for you,” Judah greeted, handing me a bouquet of tulips.
“They’re gorgeous, and they smell so pretty,” I replied, accepting the flowers and sniffing them.
“You’re welcome.”
“Judah, thank you so much for changing up at the last minute. I’m sorry that I couldn’t get away to meet you for lunch. My last meeting ran over, and we had some issues with a vendor for a wedding next weekend.”
I closed and locked the door after Judah walked into my shop. I wasn’t expecting anyone else to show up for almost another hour.
“It’s no problem. I’m the one who had the last-minute idea to meet,” he replied, following me back to my office.
“It smells great. What did you get?”
“Soldiers,” he stated, holding up the bag from the popular African restaurant.
“Mmmm. I haven’t had anything from them in a while.”
While Judah went about setting our food out, I put the flowers in a vase and grabbed some sodas from the breakroom refrigerator, along with some paper plates, plastic forks, and napkins.
“Here you go.” I handed him some of the items I gathered and sat down at my desk.
He was sitting on the other side of my desk that I had cleared a few minutes before his arrival. Although I was starving, I was a little concerned about what he wanted to discuss, which was making it difficult for me to eat. My stomach was in knots because I sensed that it had something to do with me denying him in front of my family.
We hadn’t talked about it that night, and we hadn’t had many conversations since then. They were just brief calls and text messages to check on each other. I was worried that he would tell me that he didn’t want to see me again.
I really liked Judah, and I didn’t want him to walk out of my life. My actions had been playing on a loop through my mind for the past four days. Now that it was the middle of the week, I had been wondering if we would go out again this coming weekend or not.
“You are so sweet for doing this. Thank you, baby.”
“You’re welcome.”
We tucked into our food and ate for a while without talking. I was only taking small portions of my food because of the nervous energy swimming around my belly.
“So, Judah, what’s on your mind?” I asked, setting my fork aside and grabbing a paper towel to wipe my face.
“A lot.”
My stomach cramped. “Was it my denial the other night with my family?”
He sighed and set his food aside too.
“That’s a little of it, but there’s more. You know that I divorced Jessica, but you don’t know the details.”
“No, I don’t. I wondered what happened, but I didn’t want to push you on something you were clearly uncomfortable talking about.”
“I think you should know, and maybe it might clear up some of the misunderstanding between us.”
“I’m listening.”
“Jessica was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and compulsive sexual behavior disorder, or hypersexuality, prior to me meeting her. I knew about the bipolar disorder, and I was committed to working through that with her, but I wasn’t aware of the other.
“In time, it came out when I caught her cheating on me. I found some condoms in her car after she had been arrested for public indecency. I was prepared to leave her, but that was when she told me about the hypersexuality. I didn’t believe her at first until she put me in contact with her therapist and permitted her to tell me the truth. We went to couples’ counseling, and I thought it was getting better. Then I learned that she had joined an escort service and was still cheating on me; that shit was a wrap.”
