Falling For Autumn

She had barely hit Send before he responded.

Yoga, huh? A man can do a lot with that type of information.

She smiled despite herself. Ajay barely flirted with her in person, yet was flirting with her via text message. Maybe he’s just horny. Or maybe he was just warming her up before getting to the real reason he texted her. The water continued to hit her body, and the combination of the rhythm of the water and rereading what Ajay had written her was sparking her boldness. She wanted to entertain his flirtatiousness...just a little.

You know, they say yoga doesn’t just increase your strength, balance and flexibility. It also helps your endurance...

Not exactly flirty, but good enough. He wasn’t really flirting with her heavily, so she couldn’t lay it all out there. The dots didn’t appear for a short while, and she wondered if he was trying to think of a response.

Endurance. One of my favorite words. The ability to remain active for an extended period of time. What other extracurricular activities do you enjoy?

She laughed at the ridiculousness of their conversation. Ridiculous or not, you’re enjoying it.

I also love Zumba. Any excuse to lose myself in a dance, let my thoughts float around and get a workout at the same time.

Once again, his response was quick.

So you enjoy activities that allow you to lose yourself and get lost in your thoughts?

She starting typing a general response, but decided to be more honest.

I tend to enjoy anything that lets me escape harsh realities and find solace in not overthinking everything I say or everything I do. Even in a roomful of people, I sometimes feel like the sole individual. Alone in my relaxation. Just the way I like it.

There. She did it. She’d told him something that she hadn’t really told anyone before. Further making her wonder why in the world he affected her and made her want to open up. Probably because you’re secretly hoping that he will try to understand you. But that wouldn’t happen. Couldn’t happen. She wouldn’t let it, and she wasn’t an open book. Getting her hopes up meant she was leaving room for disappointment.

She placed her phone back in a safe place away from the water. A couple of minutes later, it dinged again. Don’t read his message, she warned herself. You’ve already let him take over half your shower. Deep down, she knew it was no point heeding her own warning. She dried one hand again and read his message.

A sea full of people and no one who understands you... I know the feeling all too well. Sometimes it’s better to be alone because it gives you a chance to find yourself. To be yourself and answer any unresolved questions.

She read the message a second time, surprised that he’d related to her message and even read between the lines and interpreted things that she hadn’t even written. Before she got a chance to write a response, another message popped up.

And then other times, you may be in a roomful of people and lock eyes with someone who notices you. Someone you don’t have to explain anything to. Someone who sees past what you’re trying to hide from others. All of a sudden it doesn’t matter if thousands of people don’t understand the type of person you are as long as you find one person who does... Or one person who’s willing to try.

Her lips parted as she stared at the message. Mind. Blown. She no longer had to worry about Ajay invading her relaxing shower, because after his profound text messages, he’d just hijacked all the rest of her thoughts for the week.

Chapter 4 (#ulink_b5ee9950-4d69-527e-8ac9-a72515ca7376)

This had been the longest week he’d had in a long time, but Ajay knew he had brought it on himself. He had no idea why he had contacted Autumn five days ago, but he had. And she’d responded.

He’d been thinking about her after his basketball game last Sunday and for some reason, he’d wanted to know how she was doing. They hadn’t even exchanged a lot of texts messages that day, but the few they had had been enough to make him think about her the entire week.

Autumn was like a puzzle and he was slowly finding the pieces needed to figure her out. Not fully, but enough to understand her character and hopefully figure out why he had this insane attraction to her.

Her responses to his messages seemed to mirror the thoughts that were floating around in his mind, which didn’t make much sense. He’d been around her enough to know that they had many dissimilarities. But he guessed he must have disregarded the few parallels they might have. Before he’d known what his fingers were doing, he’d responded to her text honestly. Not that he would have lied to her. He just might not have written a message so close to how he actually felt. Up until those texts, everything had been a competition with them. He’d stared at his phone the rest of the night as their messages had continued for almost an hour after his first message.

Now he was standing outside her door debating on going inside. He glanced around the area to see if he noticed Jaleen’s car parked anywhere. When he came up short, he decided to take his chances and pray that Danni was already there so that he could at least focus his attention on both of them rather than just Autumn. Inevitably, he would have to go inside, since he was meeting with Autumn, Jaleen and Danni to discuss Winter and Taheim’s party.

He finally knocked on her door and waited for her to answer. When she did, he instantly felt his pants tighten just a little.

He’d seen her in dresses and jeans before, but he’d never seen her in the type of outfit she was wearing now. Thanks to having a brother in the fashion industry, he knew things that he probably wouldn’t have known if it weren’t for Taheim dragging him to one fashion show after another.

The coppery romper she wore accentuated her toned legs and luscious thighs. Her hair was pulled into a high ponytail with a small hump at the top. Standing in the doorway the way that she was, there was no mistaking her beauty. But it wasn’t just her looks that caught his interest. It was the confidence in her stance and the awareness reflected in her eyes. After his reaction to her, he didn’t give a damn if Danni had made it to Autumn’s house or not.

“Hello, Autumn. You look nice.”

“So do you,” she said with a smile. “Please come in.”

As he walked into her town house, he couldn’t help but feel as if he were picking her up for a date, rather than discussing a party. He could feel the nerves creep up his spine, and for him, that was so unlike his character.

“Hey, Ajay,” Danni said as they rounded the corner to the dining room. “You’re just in time. We’re finally finished talking about what we want for the women-only portion of the night.”

“Tell me again why the wedding party is planning this without the help of Elite Events?”

“Everyone in Chicago goes to those ladies for all their planning needs,” Danni replied. “Of course they would help plan this if we asked them to, but they are already helping Winter and Taheim plan the wedding in Bora Bora, so the least we could do is plan the other events.”

Ajay observed Autumn. “I’m surprised I didn’t hear any grunts from you while Danni was talking.”

“I’m turning over a new leaf,” she said with a forced smile. “At this point, everyone knows how I feel about weddings, so there is no need to continue complaining about it. Besides, this is for my sister and the man she loves, so the least I could do is be the maid of honor she deserves.”

“Look at you,” he said jokingly. “After how you acted when they asked us to be maid of honor and best man, I would have never thought I’d see the day when Autumn Dupree actually seemed okay with planning a wedding event.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.” She glanced down and began moving around a couple of papers on the table.

“It was meant to be.”

She looked up at him then and held his gaze. I’d never want to play poker with her. There was no doubt in his mind he would lose. Sometimes he could understand her cues, but most of the time, her thoughts were still a mystery.

“Do you want me to get the door?” Danni asked Autumn. He hadn’t even heard the doorbell.

“No, I’ll get it,” she replied as she rushed out of the room. The gentlemanly thing to do would be to let her walk out of the room and discreetly check out her backside or not even look at all. Instead, his eyes followed her all the way out of the room.

“I don’t know who’s worse. You or your brother.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, turning back to Danni.

She gave him a knowing look. “The way you’re always staring intently at Autumn is the exact same way your brother stared at Winter in the beginning of their relationship.”

“You can’t compare me and Autumn to Taheim and Winter.”

“Why not?”

“Because they were falling in love with each other. They had a bad first date, which made things rocky in the beginning, but in the end, they realized just how much they had in common. Autumn and I barely know each other.” Except for the things we shared with each other a few days ago. He quickly brushed the thought aside.

“Oh, okay, I see now,” Danni said. “Taheim and Winter didn’t get along when they first met. You and Autumn got along great when you first met, right?”

“Right,” he said without thinking. “Well, not really. She told me the food I’d ordered for a practice we had before the grand opening of Inferno Night Lounge wasn’t healthy. The same way she hounded me for weeks after about the menu of my other venues.”

“Gotcha. And Taheim and Winter were forced to work together for an event. But you and Autumn were never forced to work together, right?”