Kaede passed him, picked up her backpack near the door, and pulled out a pair of YEEZY high heeled mules. She then went back on Joseph’s chair and unzipped her knee-highs under Dominique’s stare.

Dominque bit his bottom lip, “if you want me to leave you alone, you are going about it the wrong way,” the man said as his gaze traveled down from her thighs to Kaede’s ankle’s while she slipped on her mules.

“Trust me; I’m not playing up some kind of seduction ploy; my feet hurt, okay. I haven’t worn heels since,” Kaede stopped as she remembered her first date with Marco. She had gone all out for him, as the woman tried on her whole wardrobe before ending up rushing to Galeries Layfayette department store to get something fresh.

Kaede was stressed, and she could not believe such a fine man as Marco was genuinely interested in her. Late for their rendezvous, Marco apologized for a couple of times throughout the evening. He paid for the meal and played an authentic gentleman who did not even try to kiss her the first night, leaving Kaede’s lips scorching.

“Heels, hurt, I think I sprainedㅡ.”

Before she could finish, Dominque knelt at her feet and grabbed her ankle.

“Hey, what are you doing? Are you crazy?”

“You said it hurt.”

Kaede glared at Dominque, “eh, like hello, I didn’t mean for you to grab my ankle,” she stopped, “and massage it.”

The woman’s eyes widened in front of the surreal scene. What left the woman speechless was how good the man was with his hands. Kaede sat up and attempted to regain her composure, “ahem, ㅡeh, I told you. ㅡIt isn’t a ploy to have you touch me up. ㅡGet your soft hands off me. Who touches a random girl’s feet?”

“I already told you your not just anybody,” Dominque lifted his gaze to face hers. Their eyes remained locked on each other.

“I ain’t buying it. I don’t believe that.”

“It’s a shame because I do. And I’m going to prove it,” the man said, accompanying his words with a whiplash wink.

Kaede prayed for the timely knock on the door that would interrupt what appeared a mistake in the making. Instead, Dominique’s phone slid and buzzed on the table like a breakdancer smurfing on the floor. Dominque got up and grabbed his phone.

“Marco.”

“Man, where are you? Don’t tell me you left.”

“Nah, I’mㅡ,” Dominque turned to look at Kaede, who got up and adjusted her dress, “I was charging my phone. I’ll be down in a minute.”

Marco moved towards the entrance to try to hear him better, “what, what did you say? I lost you.”

“I’m coming down.”

Dominque hung up, “sorry, what were we saying?”

Kaede waved the man off, “nothing much on my side; you were just raving about I don’t know.”

“Us.”

The woman cocked an eyebrow, “pardon.”

Dominque came to stand in front of her, with her heels, the man could almost fix Kaede without having to lower his head,” I think there’s something between us.”

Kaede giggled, “eh, nope, I don’t know where you fetched that idea from.”

Dominque grabbed her hand, turned her palm, and placed his on hers, “this Kaede, you know I’ve never run after a woman in my entire life. I’ve never needed to.”

Kaede looked sideways.

“Look at me, Kaede.”

Kaede furrowed both stare and lips in protest before meeting Dominque’s eyes.

The man’s stare seemed stern and determined, “test me.”

“What?”

“Try me, Kaede.”

“You mean like a test drive?”

The woman expected anything than such a direct approach. Dominque was blunt. It said a lot about him; Joseph always said candid men don’t lie. One could recognize a sneaky guy from the detours he took to express something.

Kaede faced a dilemma where she almost found the man’s words relevant; it scared her because he was in appearance all she fled. Dominque was the type of man with whom she would feel insecure when beautiful women would approach him.

Once more, Marco came to mind, scenes where women would ask his number in front of her, danced the nae-nae. She recalled her jealous outbursts, the tears, and the social media stalking she did on all of the man’s female followers profiles.

Kaede would sit up all night, stalking the stories. The next day Marco threw fits as he had a clear view of his profile’s activity since he only possessed professional accounts, also the girls would tell him.

No, the guy who stood in front of Kaede at this instant was one to avoid. Dominque and Marco were the same stereotypical men. Kaede was not ashamed to admit she openly discriminated by labeling them and throwing them in the panty-seekers trashcan.

All one could expect with men like them were hard knocked cries while singing Mary J. Blige I’m going down. Also, the men were friends.

It stressed Kaede to imagine them having a conversation about her as though they spoke of a car or a horse they both rode.

This time the knock on the door saved the situation as it stopped the woman from brewing a black coffee of her worst fears. Kaede detached her hand from Dominque’s and answered, “come in.”

Tara poked her head inside, “Kaede, Joseph needs you for the photocall.”

“I’m coming down.”

Tara left, and Kaede went to the door, which she was about to open when Dominque pushed it shut, “so what do you say?”

Kaede smiled, “I say nay, no, never. Our encounter is only a few days old.”

This time it was Dominque who grinned and opened the door, “never say never. Time is only a pretext.”

“Dominque, nothing, and I mean nothing will ever happen between us unless I’m high, drunk, suffer from momentary blindness and amnesia all at once,” Kaede finished her tirade by tilting her head to the side and giving a cynical smile.

“Wow, I love your snappiness.”

Kaede sighed, “are you listening to me?”

“No, not really. Let me tell you this: miss Missoni. I’ve decided to live life every day as if it’s my last. I can take any risk I want. I love challenges.”

Kaede walked out of the office, and Dominque followed and grabbed her wrist, “we haven’t finished.

“What do you want, Dominque, what are you going to do? Push me against the wall and whisper something in my ear like your mine?”

The man released Kaede’s wrist, “Kaede,” which was like a 2010 pick-up line in fiction. No sane guy says stuff like that unless he has some freaky penchant [natural inclination in French] to seek violence and have feminists give him a kick in his royal specter. If it’s the kind of thing you like, I can cater. You can reply something along the lines of you don’t own me for a total fifty shades spoof,” Dominique said, remembering how his younger sister used to squat his computer to read novels online.

The man learned a thing or two from the chapters she left open on his screen. The first was that most scenarios were unrealistic, and second, they dispraised both women and men. But the most significant was that they devalued relationships made them seem smutty and toxic.

Men were categorized as either: nerdy, bad, or fucker boys with a whole load of mental issues and darker than black childhoods.

Never Dominque thought of proclaiming himself the owner of anyone, and it troubled him that Kaede suspected him of being such a man.

Kaede shook her head, “your mouth sure does challenge.”

Dominque smirked, “you’re making me level-up.”

A glint of what one could take for a smile surfaced on Kaede’s face. She turned away and resumed her strut. They both went downstairs.

Marco came to meet them at the bottom of the staircase. A drop of sweat broke out as he tried to distill something in their behavior. In appearance, it didn’t seem to be any rumble.

The team made the man panic as some told him Dominque seemed extremely interested in Kaede and visibly came to see her daily.

“Hey, dude, I’ve been looking for you for the last half hour.”

“I went up to charge my phone in the office.”

Marco waited for Kaede to be far to say, “did something happen?”

“No, nothing, why?”

“I mean, she didn’t bother you?”

“No, she looked at the cameras,” Dominque saw how tense Marco was. It was clear there was more to his overprotectiveness towards Kaede that met the eye.

“Marco, is there something between you two?

“Nah,” Marco replied with a sheepish stare. The man passed the threshold where he couldn’t bring up his relationship with Kaede without getting backlash for hiding it during and after the breakup. People thought Kaede was a jealous best friend at the time, as they never demonstrated their love in public. Kaede was the private person who was all cuddles behind the scenes. The woman didn’t hang out. Marco profited from this and passed her off as a friend on most occasions, which was practical. Now he imagined people not believing him.

The event was coming to an end; Kaede posed with Joseph, then Marco. The three got photographed together, and then the whole team joined in.

Everyone knew the buzz on the socials would be enormous. At 10:30 PM, they began to empty the store as they were going into restricted hours for which they did not have a permit. As usual, the Uber taxis took the staff to the destination they wanted.

Dominque waited for Marco outside with their footballer friends who held him hostage, “dude; you’re coming to the Rimbaud tonight whether you want to or not.

“Guys, I’m drained, Iㅡ.”

The Da Stuff team began to leave Dominque could see Kaede talking to Joseph and Marco while the DJ finished packing.

Ten minutes later, everyone was out, and Marco came to join them.

Kaede strode past the men without acknowledging the famous footballers.

“Aww, she didn’t even say goodbye, I meanㅡ.”

For men used to being idolized by all French football lovers, the woman’s behavior was blasphemy.

“Perhaps we can invite her,” Bastien, a second league player, said.

“Nah,” Marco interjected.

“We can drop her off,” Corentin added.

“Forget it; Joseph got a Uber. And trust me, Kaede, rather sliver home like a snake than climb in any one of our cars.”

The men glared at Marco, “man, why are you like that. Just say I want her for myself.”

Marco turned and watched Kaede drive off, “I can say all I want she just a girl I can’t have,” the latter of the sentence anymore remained in Marcos’s mind.

The footballers brought the subject back on its initial course, “okay, whatever. It’s Rimbaud time.”

In the taxi, Kaede’s mind blew up with all the theories one could imagine concerning Dominque.

What was his goal?

Kaede knew all was strategy, but the part of her that liked the attention swayed.

One thing was sure the man had more depth than Marco. His obsession over their matching beauty marks corrupted all of Kaede’s ideas. The concept disturbed Kaede, and the fact Dominque wanted her to test him barbecued her neurons.

It was not the tryout that frightened Kaede but the result.

Kaede could not guarantee the outcome, and as Dominique said, she could end up liking him.