What He's Been Missing

“Lesbian?” Ian frowned comically. “You get down with that?”

“I don’t like girls. I just really like her lyrics. She has this way of communicating her feelings. You know? I know all of her songs.”

“So you say . . .” Xavier said dubiously. “I guess I’ll have to test that statement. See how real you are about your lesbian lover’s music.”

“Go ahead. Try me.” I scrunched up my face to accept his challenge.

“Name this tune: ‘I’m sorry I left you no home, but your words they shattered my bones.”

“That’s super easy!” I said. “That’s from ‘Shirk’! Devil’s Halo!”

“And . . . she’s wrong!”

“Hell no!” I laughed.

“Well, right song, but wrong album. ‘Shirk’ is on my favorite Meshell Ndegeocello album—”

“The World Has Made Me the Man of My Dreams!” I cut him off.

“Gold star, boo!”

“Boo?”

We looked at each other.

“So who else do you like?” I asked.

“That might surprise you? Hum . . . India.Arie,” Xavier said and then he started singing, “I am not my hair. I am not this—”

“Please stop!” I covered my ears. “India is probably somewhere screaming!”

“What, a brother can’t get in touch with his feminine side?” Xavier said and he kept singing horribly.

We went on playing like this for hours. Until the sun went down. Dinnertime passed and only growls in our stomachs forced us to get up from the floor. This easy conversation. This easy connection. I was immediately taken away. I kept looking at him in disbelief that he was with me. But then I was so happy that he was. After two days in the house, eating everything in my refrigerator and two pizzas Goldie delivered (Goldie was not happy to see Xavier), Xavier insisted that we go somewhere.

I was in the shower having withdrawals. I felt like if we went out into the world everyone might notice that I was living in a little fantasy and maybe the fantasy would shatter. I was also worried about how we might operate together. Ian still didn’t know about Xavier and I didn’t know how to tell him—not that I needed to tell him anything. There was also still the lingering question I’d been considering when Xavier was asleep with me in my bed—why was he so into me? He knew what had happened between me and Ian at the wedding in New Orleans. Why wouldn’t that turn him off? Was he just jonesing for me because he knew how much I’d wanted Ian? Was he jealous?

The new events manager at the Atlanta Botanical Garden had been trying to get me to come see the summer bloom for weeks in hopes of talking me into perhaps booking my client’s summer wedding there the next year. I asked Xavier if he wanted to visit the garden with me, sure he’d say he wasn’t interested—it wasn’t the most masculine place. He surprised me by saying he often went on walks in the Chicago Botanic Garden to clear his head and would like to see if A

tlanta would top it. I swear, everything about that man was mounting up to be a surprise. A beautiful surprise.

“It’s the Punica granatum.” Leek, a slender, soft-shouldered man in peach pants and a cream shirt with a peach collar, walked Xavier and me through a spinning maze of flowers that overpowered our senses with colors and sweet scents. We waited until sundown when they served wine and played jazz for couples walking through the gardens. The June heat was making Atlanta melt, and while the moon in the sky made little difference in the humidity, it was far more romantic than the sun. There were a few more couples with wineglasses walking through the maze ahead of us.

Like them, Xavier and I held hands and sipped wine. He grabbed my butt a few times when Leek wasn’t looking.

“Taste it,” Leek said, pointing to the red flower he’d identified as the Punica granatum.

“Eat the flower?” Xavier asked.

“Yes. Everything in here is edible. The Punica granatum is a dwarf pomegranate. You can eat the little orange bulbs.” Leek pointed to a round growth that looked like fruit hanging from the flower. “Please.”

“Go ahead, Xavier. Eat it,” I pushed.

“Um . . . no, Eve. Last time I checked, a man shouldn’t eat red things offered to him by a woman in a garden.”

“Well, maybe she could eat it first,” Leek said. “Maybe you could feed it to her.”

Xavier looked at me and picked the tiny pomegranate. “Sounds like a plan.”