Here lies your book boyfriend…naked.

I know, I know I need my ass kicked for not posting regularly. I’ve been influencing! Content creation etc is not easy, y’all. And I am one little woman. I have no idea what I’m doing, but I’m managing, ok.

I haven’t even been into K-dramas and such with my usual intensity, although I have managed to start watching Red Swan on Hulu. But I’m back on the blog — where I frickin’ should be more often — and I have a good long snippet from book 2 in my Idol Love series for you. I hope you read the first book Saints and Sinnas. If you did, thank you! Please leave me a review on Amazon, ok? 

In this snippet, which picks up where the last one left off, Bik finally learns why Vi has been running from him. Her story is shocking, but he’s no quitter. Where there is love…

“How about lunch today, Vi?”

“No, thank you.”

“Busy, are you?”

“Yes.”

“What’s on the old agenda?”

“Work,” she shrugged, offering a tiny smile.

And watching her walk away from him for the umpteenth time, Bik lost his temper. “Ya!” he yelled.

Vi flinched, instinctively ducking to avoid a blow or a thrown object. Everyone stopped talking to stare at her. She saw the shock and then the curiosity, and hastily turned her back on the room. 

Dang it. Great. Things had been going so well! Now they probably thought she was crazy. To her everlasting shame, Vi felt tears well. 

Later she’d put it down to tiredness, overwork, and hormones from her approaching period, not to mention the stress of dodging a handsome man you really didn’t want to dodge. But as she turned away, the tears rolling free so fast and hard she could barely see. She wanted to curse, wanted to run, but her feet felt like lead, used to not moving lest she trigger even more anger about whatever had made her ex upset.

She heard the others whispering in Korean around her, and she flinched when she felt an arm go around her shoulders. She knew who it was before he said, “Hush, darling. I’m sorry. It’s alright. Don’t cry, love. I’m sorry,” he said when he tried to steer her, and she tried to pull away. “There was a puddle. I just didn’t want you to slip.”

She looked, and sure enough, there was a small pool of soda and melting ice. One of her coworkers stood nearby, shocked, with napkins in hand to clean it up. She hadn’t been paying attention.

Vi made a valiant effort to get herself together. She shrugged off Bik’s touch, and he reluctantly let her go as she finally compelled herself to walk away from the group. She felt Bik beside her, but she didn’t look at him. She was too embarrassed. She didn’t stop walking until she was on the roof. She began to pace, and after a few minutes the jerky, unsettled movements, and the still dripping tears, calmed.

“Feel better?”

“Yes, thank you.” She waited for the questions, but he said nothing. Just sat waiting for her on the bench the smokers had installed to make their habit more comfortable. 

Funny, she could have sworn she felt his pleasure when she finally sat down beside him. After a while he reached for her hand. This time, she didn’t move her hers away. 

“I got married when I was 19.” Why in the green grass glory did I just blurt that out?

She gave him points for not reacting, but she felt him stiffen before he offered a nonchalant, “Oh?”

“Yeah.”

“Isn’t that too young? Even in the American south?”

“Probably. But it felt normal. I’d known him for years. He lived in town. We went to the same schools. His parents were well off, owned a lot of land. He courted me, and after a while he came to the house to ask my parents for my hand.”

“Did you love him?”

“I thought I did. Later I realized I was just flattered by the attention, and I let everyone else being impressed by him influence me. Plus, he was my first.”

“So, you imprinted on him like a baby bird.”

Vi laughed softly. “Yeah, I did. I guess because of the imprint I didn’t pay enough attention to who he was as a person. So, the first time he hit me, I was really surprised.”

Bik flinched, his hand instinctively tightening around hers, but Vi didn’t take hers away. She could only imagine what he was thinking. Probably: Good God. He’d suspected bad man problems were at the core of her refusal to entertain him, but abuse?

“Didn’t see it coming, hey?” he said, his tone light, but she heard the strain he held under rigid control.

“No. I sure didn’t. He apologized afterwards. I remember being relieved. He seemed so sorry, so appalled. Like he was surprised at his own actions. But not too long after that I realized that pretty apology aside, he never said he wouldn’t do it again.”

Bik took her hand. She watched as he carefully engulfed it in his larger one and held it on his thigh.

“After a while it was almost an everyday thing. I hid it from my parents. I stopped coming around as much, started wearing long sleeves, no shorts to hide the bruises. He was smart enough not to hit me in the face. 

“After two years of that I got real scary. Nervy like. You would be too if you were always flinching away from blows.”

“That’s what happened just now when I yelled,” he realized. “I’m so very sorry, darling.”

Vi patted his hand over hers. “S’alright. My bad,” she teased, and got a wan smile for her efforts.

“When did you decide to leave?”

“Well, I didn’t,” Vi laughed. “My mama got sick. In hindsight, one of the saddest times in my life was also the doorway to one of the happiest. She gave me an out by necessity. I went to tend her, and do you know that fool expected me to come home every night and cook his dinner? My mama’s dyin’, and he has the sack to ask, what is he gon’ eat? That was the first time I told him to kiss my ass. 

“My mama was fading right before our eyes. There was no way I was gonna leave her, and my poor daddy was beside hisself. My mama was his whole world, and he didn’t know what to do without her by his side. He died seven months after she did from a broken heart. I pretty much went from her bedside to his.

“One day he asked me, does he still hit you, Vi? To say I was surprised would be a stretch. I had no idea he knew. But it turns out after mama died he’d noticed a thing or two and pulled my husband aside. Unbeknownst to me, that liar tearfully agreed to stop, claiming it had only been a time or two, but I had to admit that he hadn’t.

“Divorce him,” my daddy said. He paid for the lawyer, came with me to pack up my things, and he never let him back in the house again. My uncle had moved in by then. My daddy was getting thinner and thinner. I knew he was pining for my mama, but he showed me a smile ‘til the day he died. I didn’t realize it ‘til after he passed, but he prepared me quite well for his death.”

“He loved you.”

“Yeah. He did, bless him. But I knew once he was gone, I’d have to go too. I knew Robert – that’s my ex-husband’s name – was just waiting on him to die so he could yank me back. But daddy held on until that divorce went through, then he up and died on me too. I guess even a daughter you love can’t compare to the wife you can’t live without.”

“I think I might have a clue about that,” he said slowly. “Your parents remind me of my own.”

“The day of the funeral Robert tried to show his ass at the repast if you can believe that. Tried to pull me into a back room and raise his damn fist the day I put my daddy in the ground. My uncle Fred ran him off at the end of his gun. Told me it might be a good idea if I got out of town ‘til things cooled off. The police in Mississippi aren’t always the best at doing the right thing in marital disputes.”

Bik’s grimace said he knew that was an understatement.

“My uncle was worried he might not be around at the right moment, and I’d get hurt. He said it would be good for me to go somewhere ‘til the divorce settled, and I got my head together. 

“Daddy had left me the house and all his land, but I knew my uncle would run it for me, so I wasn’t worried about that. His and daddy’s parcels are right next to each other. They’d always run things together, like a family, you know?”

“Your uncle sounds like a good egg.”

“Yeah. He’s a sweetheart. He worshipped my daddy, who was quite a bit older than him, more like a father, you know? He drops the profits from the farm in my account every season without fail. Won’t take a dime from me either. I have to settle up the accounts at the grocery, feed, and hardware stores just to take care of him.

“Anyway, I didn’t know it ‘til after he died, but my daddy had a few buildings in Chicago. He sold most of them off after my mama died, but he kept one six flat. Guess he knew one day I’d need a place to run to, and he had one ready for me. I run a little beauty shop out of the basement, rent out five of the units, and live in the six. I make a real good living.” 

“No men though.”

“No,” she agreed quietly. “No men.”

Bik kissed the back of her hand. “I’m here now…”

I hope you enjoyed this snippet and you’re looking forward to the book. Subscribe to my newsletter, okay? I publish new content for you to enjoy every week-ish.