Page 6 of The Best Man: Unfinished Business

He smiled at her—with his mouth, but not his eyes—his lips stretched and closed.

They’d eat, she’d be full, and he’d be on his way home to work, where he wanted to be.

Instead, at the end of breakfast Bailey suggested another stop at a great coffee spot she knew.

“It’s just on the way back to your place,” she said.

“The barista is my girl!” Seems reasonable, Harper thought. It was on the way home.

At 12:48 p.m., while walking on the cobblestone streets of DUMBO, Bailey was talking, and Harper was thinking about his sequel’s first draft and what about it had earned the label “existentially indulgent and tonally boring.” It “lacked the fun of the original,” he was told.

But no matter how he tweaked the draft, he only found himself digging a deeper hole.

He needed a “big idea,” not some to-go coffee and now a suggested ride on the Brooklyn carousel.

“It’ll be fun,” Bailey promised. “Clear your mind.” As Harper sipped, somehow this idea seemed like a reasonable option to jolt his creativity. So, he agreed.

At 2:17 p.m., the walk from the carousel turned into a stop for ice cream, again “on the way,” and idyllic under other circumstances.

Harper knew the day was wasting away, but there was something charming about catching melting chocolate with his mouth until they reached the end of the park at 2:48.

Something in him liked being with Bailey, but that thing was fading quickly.

He tried to satisfy her whims, to enjoy her easygoing excuses to procrastinate, but it was wasting time.

The distraction didn’t help—his ideas weren’t flowing.

At 4:35 p.m., they still hadn’t made it back to Harper’s.

By then his mind was a mess of thinking, of swirling deadline worries mixed with disjointed ideas.

Still “on the way back,” they passed a cookware store and stopped to taste a demo that ended in Bailey offering to cook dinner, if they just popped into the specialty grocery at the end of the block.

Harper wondered how so very much could be packed in under Brooklyn’s iconic bridges.

Entire worlds of experiences, distractions that he normally never noticed, preferring his usual places and tight schedules.

This meandering was not part of his day’s agenda and the sun setting on his best writing hours would be a failing grade on the day’s productivity.

By now, one thing was clear: the excursions weren’t helping at all, and he had to make a choice.

“So…” Bailey cajoled, “I could make some of that tagliatelle…and you could make…” Harper yawned. “Oh. Am I keeping you up?” Bailey chuckled but seemed a bit taken aback. Her hand froze mid-caress on the side of his face.

“Nah, just…I did wake up early. And girl, you kinda wore me out today. And last night.” Harper’s charm was down to fumes.

“Plenty more where that came from.” Bailey offered a smile.

He didn’t smile back. “Maybe you need a nap…” Bailey smiled coyly.

“I wouldn’t mind that…” She brought her body closer to his, lining herself up against his torso.

He felt himself getting excited (again).

Damn. The temptation began to snake its way through his body, but his mind was already on overdrive.

It was time to go to work. In the middle of the pasta aisle, surrounded by bags of dried noodles, Harper managed to put some air between him and Bailey.

“Hey, look…dinner sounds amazing, but I’m sorry, I have a deadline.” There he said it, “deadline.” He had a deadline.

“Oh?” For a second Bailey paused, like she was hurt, or concerned, or puzzled.

And then she seemed to shake it off just as quickly.

The smile returned to her face. “Oh, I get it, you need to get work done. Of course…I will totally be quiet. And whip this up with some vodka sauce, fresh parmesan, or maybe some fresh ricotta…” With every offer, Harper became more anxious.

“Plus, I want to see your process. I want to get to know you, Harper—how you work, produce your bestsellers. But I won’t intrude.

I’ll work with headphones on and let you do your thing. And then …you can do your thing on me…”

That’s it, Harp. She doesn’t get it. He had to make it plain.

“Bailey—No, I’m sorry. I need…I have to be alone right now.

I mean, I need to work alone. That’s my process.

And I have a deadline.” Harper finally said something with certainty and conviction.

And Bailey became silent with a blank stare.

She bowed her head introspectively and incredulously.

It was like the entire shape of her head morphed into someone he barely recognized.

Oh shit, I done did it now. And braced himself. This was going to be awkward. She mad.

“Oh, you have a deadline, ” Bailey said, as if the word were not in English.

“Why didn’t you just say that ? Look, Harper, don’t worry.

I’m a big girl, not some fragile delicate flower.

It’s okay. So cut the bullshit.” Bailey put the full basket of grocery items on the floor in between them.

Fuck. Momentarily, Harper deflated. Bailey turned on her heel and marched down the aisle toward the sliding glass entrance.

“It’s—it’s not like that…” Harper stammered to an entire audience of silent jars of tomato sauce.

He was alone in the grocery aisle. At the front of the store, Bailey was briskly approaching the door.

With that much intention behind her strides, she wasn’t just walking out of the store.

If he moved quickly though, he could catch up.

Harper decided to take off after her. Maybe this could be smoothed over?

By the time he caught up to Bailey outside, she was already halfway down the block with her phone whipped out, typing intently as she stomped down the sidewalk.

“Bailey!” Harper called after her, half out of breath.

Damn, she’s moving fast, he thought. Where was that urgency earlier?

“Listen, let me call you an Uber Black car, okay? We can maybe link later…?”

“I’m calling my own car, Harper. Thank you.” She replied with attitude. “And no, I’m going home…to stay. ”

“Are you sure…?”

“UMMMM, YEAH. You just said you needed to be alone. The fuck?” By now she’d stopped and whipped around to face him.

She’s definitely mad-mad, Harper thought. He hated drama.

“Two minutes away,” Bailey said definitively, slipping her phone back into her bag.

“Look, I’ll wait with you.”

“Oh, thaaaanks,” Bailey’s tone dripped with sarcasm. “Don’t bother.” She wrestled Robyn’s birthday jacket from her body and shoved it into Harper’s torso. Harper took it reluctantly.

“You’re sure you don’t want to wear it until your ride comes…It’s kind of cold…”

“You know what, Harper?” Bailey began. “You really need to grow up. You’re a brilliant writer but you’re full of shit and you suck as a human being.” Harper had expected some nasty retort, so he was going to take it. “You suck as a man. No wonder you’re divorced. Fucking selfish prick,” she spit.

“Listen, I’m sorry. I should have been up front—”

“Yeah, you should’ve. Not just with me, but with anyone else you’re sharing your fake orgasms with.

” Whoa. What? “Yeah, I could tell. What fucking man does that? Who are you?” Passersby were tuned in to their lovers’ quarrel and Harper didn’t like the visual of two Black folks—no matter how stylish and sexy—having a public spat. No longer #couplegoals.

“Hey, Bailey, can we not do this here?” Harper attempted to evenly intervene, but she was on a roll.

“You should just come to terms with who you are.” Bailey stepped in close for emphasis. “A middle-aged fuck boy. ” Harper was frozen and dumbfounded. He forced himself to close his mouth and swallow that one. Wow. “A middle-aged fuck boy who doesn’t even really wanna fuck. Where do they make you?”

Though it was rhetorical, the intensity of her stare and the tone of her voice demanded an answer.

Harper didn’t have one. Fuck boy. That stung, but was it accurate?

Harper didn’t know, but he didn’t like the way it sounded.

She meant that shit. Harper began to open his mouth to articulate something, but she said what she said, raised her hand as if to say Don’t say shit else, rolled her eyes, and walked down the block.

Damn, I really liked that T-shirt. Harper watched her switch away. Even pissed off she was still sexy AF. But fuck boy? That one was hard to come back from. It was likely over anyway, he thought… just like the others.