by Love Belvin
I sat back when she turned toward the theater and made her way to a seat. I watched the crusade of her ass and hips in painted on yellow pants as she retreated. Her girls, who continuously turned back to check on her while we’d been speaking, waved her on.
“Can I offer you another glass of champagne, sir?” the bartender asked.
“Nah.” I didn’t look at him when answering. “You can take two thumbs of Mauve out to the young lady who just left. See if her friends need refills.”
“Yes, sir.” He bowed before turning for the bar.
A tiny body plopped down in front of me, purposely killing my view. “That ain’t the plan.”
Finally, I swung my attention from the back of Bilan’s head to Rory’s splayed nostrils.
“What’s not?”
“Her pussy.”
“Plans change.”
She sighed, tossing her miniature torso back against the sofa. “So, we changing up the plan?”
Disinterested in the conversation, I shrugged with my forehead. “Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, the agenda never does.”
“What—” She lowered her voice, shifting forward. “What the fuck that mean?” she whispered.
I reached over to my bag and grabbed my laptop. “It means...” I grunted, arched over, “…I’ve got a few reports to get through for work and a damn strategy plan to conjure for my damn father and brother to lay low on this Damien shit, all before I meet with them tonight.”
As I opened the flap of the computer and began typing in my login credentials, I could see her standing in my peripheral.
“Shit. Good!” Rory grumbled. “Long as your mind ain’t on nothing close to Ricky’s hoe-ass girl.” I chuckled, pulling up my email. “Be nice, Bean.”
“What the fuck ever,” she hissed, strolling toward the fridge for a bottle of water.
“You lied…
You cheated…
Abused…
Misused.
Abandoned…
Defeated…
I’ve got nothing to lose,” I sang along with Pixie, hating we were nearing the end of the show.
She’d been at it for close to an hour and a half, and I’d been right there with her, jamming. Tasche and Randi were to the right of me, shouting the lyrics, too. This track, “Our Last Goodbye,” was almost two years old, but one of her bigger records. It had a hip-hop/rock feel to it and had been written and produced by Young Lord back when people didn’t know he’d been writing a string of R&B hits. Pixie was smart and got in on it quickly. But as a blog wisely stated, she helped put Young’s writing and producing skills on the map.
“Thank you, guys!” Pixie offered the audience as the band continued to rock out. We responded with our spirited cheers and hoots. “Can we give it up for the sickest band on the planet?” She swung her arm behind her, giving attention to the musicians.
As Pixie began to name them one by one, Tasche turned to me. “I gotta pee like a muthafucka, yo!” She added a little shimmy. “I hope it ain’t far from here.”
Randi sucked her teeth. “Bitch, we’re in a fuckin’ suite. There’s one right there!” she didn’t shout, but offered nastily. Something was eating at her. “Let’s hurry the fuck up so we can get out of here. I ain’t tryna get no shit spilled out in the streets and back to Ricky’s crazy ass.” She rolled her eyes and shuffled out of the auditorium-style seats. There were two sets of two rows and a total of twelves seats: two rows of two on one side of the short stairs, and two rows of four on the other.
After Brenda let her out into the aisle, Randi led the way with Tasche on her heels and me trailing last. As soon as I turn toward the suite, I saw his powerful figure coming our way. Did he watch the show? I made sure I didn’t turn back to look for him the entire performance. Sadik made me nervous…and tingle.
“The bathroom this way. Right?” Randi asked briskly.
Sadik’s security pointed and nodded. Randi and Brenda walked Tasche near there when Sadik stepped in front of me, breaking the trail.
“Can we continue our conversation?” There was a nonnegotiable utterance to his tone—it wasn’t forceful, but certainly beseeching.
“I didn’t know we had more to discuss.” In a span of seconds, my brain whirred with the details of our previous one. “You read one of Jones’ books in the past and you brought it to show me. I get that. Okay, we’ve talked about—” My jaw fell and eyes bounced all around the room before slamming into him. “How did you know you’d see me here?”
Sadik smiled coolly at first. Calm and unperturbed. Then his chin dropped to his chest. “I’ve been carrying the book around since I bought it…the day after our chat at the diner last week. Not only have I read Haunted, I’ve also finished Love in Warm Hues.”
My eyes averted again and I took a deep breath. This guy wasn’t fond of ambiguity. He’d been making his pursuit of me clear. From just at his shoulder, I could see Randi peering over to us intently and her girl, Brenda, next to her doing the same. I didn’t like that. I may have been a novice at men, unlike Randi, but I could handle my own.
With one step, I shifted from her line of view.
“What do you want from me?” I heard the crack in my voice.
“What I told you last week. To be a friend.”
“And what does that entail?”
“Only getting to know you.” His tone was just as quieted as mine.
“I won’t sleep with you.”
“I haven’t asked you to.”
My tone disclosed my impatience with this. “Then what are you asking?”
“Let’s go somewhere and talk. Just a friendly, informative conversation.”
“About what?”
“You haven’t heard my thoughts on Jones.”
“They don’t matter. I’m not a fan of her work. I told you I’d heard about that particular title and gave it a try.”
“Then while I’m trying to be a friend, let me attempt to argue her very valid and poignant views.”
My face fell. “Who are you? Where are you from? And do you dye your face?”
His cheek lifted first, mouth expanded just slightly. “Hell no, I don’t dye anything on my body. And you’d find out that and more if you gave me the time.”
“When?”
“Tonight. Now.”
“Where?”
“Some place quiet.” I tossed a gaze over his shoulder at a gaping and scowling Randi. Then he shifted even more to turn his back toward her. “Alone.”
I considered it for a moment. Like…actually began sending my acquiesce down to my throat. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“Why not, Bilan?”
“I don’t entertain guys in a relationship.”
His head lurched back, brows met in indignation. “I’m not in a relationship.”
I scoffed. “But you’re expecting a baby. Guys fresh out relationships get voted off the boat, too. Does she know you’re not in a relationship?”
He took a deep breath, pushing his hands into the pockets of his sweatpants. Sadik turned away, mouth twisted. Then almost like lightning, he recovered. His hand pulled from his pocket, holding a cell phone.
“If she told you we’re in no relationship, would you feel comfortable coming with me to have a private conversation? I can drop you off anywhere you need to go when you’re ready.”
Before I could respond, his phone was lighting up in service. My tight face swung left to right as I tried to figure out what he was doing.
I heard a fuzzy sound before a woman’s voice broke through.
“Hi, Sadik,” a feminine voice greeted warily. “Everything okay?” There was a soft panic to her voice.
“What up, Lia? Nah. Everything’s good. I just need a favor from you.”
There was a slight pause before she uttered, “Okay…”
“I’m trying to take a friend of mine out. She’s a little hesitant because of the pregnancy. Would you mind telling her I’m a free agent? I have you on s
peaker.”
There was another pause of hesitance on her part again. My pulse raced. This was so unnecessary. I didn’t think going out with him was a good idea anyway—no matter how cute I found him.
“Awwwww…” vibrated off the device he held in the air. “I can totally understand her position. Thank god for real fucking women still left on the planet. But yes, it’s totally fine. Sadik and I are not in a relationship. He’s totally free to date whomever he pleases.”
I didn’t have a response for that, other than staring at him like he was extraterrestrial.
“Thanks, Lia,” he spoke into the phone. “Talk soon.”
“Okay, Sadik! Hope it works out.”
He scoffed, gazing into my eyes. “No doubt.” Sadik tapped to end the call. “The moment you’re ready to go, I’ll take you wherever you say.”
I sucked in unexpected air as my eyes swept around him, where I felt Tasche, now out of the bathroom, gaping at us no different than Randi and Brenda.
∞5∞
“This way, sir.” A doorman directed Sadik the moment we walked into what looked like a brick residential building in Midtown Manhattan.
I trailed behind him as we were led to an elevator. The doorman pressed the call button and, within seconds, the bell tolled. The lift was small, as was every other space in New York City, which was why I didn’t understand why so many people I grew up with fantasized about moving here.
Awkwardly, I stood in the center with Sadik behind me since he stepped on before me. Mentally, I counted down until the moment we’d arrive. A soft touch of his pinky finger sending prickles of electricity had my eyes bulging when I didn’t know they were closed, my head swinging up. Slowly, I peered over my shoulder and found Sadik’s face toward the floor. His eyes rolled up, expression blank until he winked at me. My neck whipped hard away from him, immediately rendering me embarrassed.
The car tolled, and the doorman led me out with Sadik’s heated presence on my back. So unnerved, I stepped aside so he could proceed ahead of me. We passed apartment doors, and I wondered which was his at each one. I didn’t want to go to his place. That wasn’t what I had in mind when he proposed this. Just when I was nearing a panic break, the doorman walked toward a metal door and pushed it out into the night air.
I followed Sadik onto the rooftop of the building, lit with strings of small, white globe lights hanging from post to post. Tealight candles lined the enclosure wall. Mild music played, the artist I was unfamiliar with. To our left was a bar where a handful of people were. Seating was sparse throughout the lounge area, though there weren’t many present. Soon, my attention was drawn to the segregation of the space when we were being escorted to the opposite side of the bar to a fireplace with seating for no more than four. Two loveseats faced each other, adjacent to the blazing hearth with a coffee table in the center. Heat from the crackling flames thankfully warmed my chilled bones. Late March temperatures at night could be brutal.
“Just a bottle of Mauve—Platinum—and two glasses, please.”
Hearing Sadik’s commanding voice woke me from my stupor. I hadn’t realized someone from the bar had come over. Both the doorman and bartender broke from our private fireside lounge. I caught the inviting smile on Sadik’s face as he invited me to sit with a nod of his forehead.
As I did, he took to the loveseat across from me. “Is this place okay?”
My forehead lifted and eyes blossomed in shocked-stupor. I didn’t know what to say.
“I guess,” was all my brain could produce.
He grinned, eyes sparkling again. “Thought it would be nice to have a quiet and private place to chat.”
My eyes brushed against the backdrop of the city. I could see the highlights of New York City; the Empire State Building, Madison Square Garden, and Times Square.
“The view isn’t bad either.” I shrugged.
“And there are people around to expel the assumption of my agenda tonight being sexual.”
I rolled my eyes—more at myself for assuming that—and fought a sheepish grin.
“I was just looking out for myself. The only person checking for me is me.” My shoulders lifted again before I rearranged myself on the sofa, trying to relax.
“You’re the only person looking out for you? That’s a morose claim for a human being to make, much less a young woman.”
“Well,” I began as a man and woman arrived with tumblers and glasses of ice water. One carefully placed the bottle of Mauve on the table. Brandy was poured for the both of us, and Sadik dismissed the pair once we were served. He pushed my glass toward me, inviting me to it and then with another nod, he encouraged me to continue. Blinking as I shook my head, trying to recall the conversation we were in, I continued. “I was only going to say it’s my reality.”
“What is?”
“Having to look out for myself.”
“You don’t have family to help with that monstrous task?”
“Family? Some. Help? No.”
“Where are your parents?”
I held the cool glass in my misted palms over my lap. “They’re gone. My father passed about a year after I graduated high school. My mother died five years ago.”
Sadik stretched his neck, head circling over his shoulders, expressing discomfort. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“It’s okay.” I shrugged and nodded coolly. “It happens.”
“What does?”
“Parents dying. It happens every day.”
For a moment, he didn’t speak. It was clear Sadik was measuring my words. Did he not agree?
“Brothers and sisters?”
I nodded. “One brother.” I rubbed what was left of my lipstick together with my lips, eyes dropping to the table. “He’s…” I cleared my throat. “Incarcerated.”
Sadik nodded mutedly, again delaying his response. That’s when it hit me. I found him intimidating, and I didn’t like it. Just like earlier, and even the last conversation I’d had with him a few days ago at the diner, he’d been the raider, probing for conversation. Yeah, he’d shared his family history with that story of his great-grandparents having a shipload of kids in North Carolina, but other than that, the only other piece of information he’d offered up was his name.
“Where are you from?” My eyes rolled from the tumbler twisting in my palms to his handsome face.
“Mostly Oakland—Bergen County,” he offered right away. “Then we moved to Hunterdon County when I got to high school.”
“We?”
His cheek lifted into a grin before he sat up, raising his glass. “Before we go any further, can I get a toast?”
My forehead wrinkled. “For what?”
“For finally having you to myself for real dialogue. Not on borrowed time from your job or muscled time from your friends at a damn Pixie concert. But a consensual conversation where we can talk.”
I took a deep breath, not completely understanding his accomplishment. However, I appreciated the endearment. I pushed my arm into the air, over the table until my glass clinked with his. Then I gestured with my forehead for him to continue exactly how he did me earlier.
A guttural chirp cut the air and he tossed his head back, chuckling. “Okay!” His face opened, beam illuminating. “I uhhh…” With a curled index finger, he scratched his nose, trying to lose the laughter in his voice. “…have two siblings—”
“Two?” I was struck by my sharp interest.
He nodded. “Two. I’m the middle child. My brother is forty-two. He’s married with two unearthly gorgeous girls. And I have a younger sister, who’s twenty-six.”
I didn’t breathe when I asked, “Is she married?”
“No. Far from it.” He pushed out a small chuckle from his belly, causing his head to jerk back. “Far from it, to my family’s consternation.”
“Why? She’s not old?”
Sadik’s brows met, and an expression of confusion set on his face. “Well, I imagine it’s because of what Christina C. Jones
is trying to convey to the world. Black love. My family is small, but steeped in core values, standards, traditions, and family norms, one of which is marriage. We believe in marrying with the purpose of extending the family, strengthening it. By the time our mother was twenty-six, she was married, a mother of two, and armed with two degrees. She holds a doctorate.”
“All of that with two degrees?” My jaw went slack. “How?”
“She was smart. Got skipped in school a couple of times. She went to college in the middle of her high school years. By eighteen, she was married and had her first baby.”
“Which came first?” I took my first sip of fancy-shmancy Mauve.
“The baby. Only because legally, the only thing that could come first was a baby. They’d been together since her freshman year.”
“Just hers?” That quickly, I was enraptured. Smiling, I noted, “High school sweethearts. How much older is he than her?”
Sadik’s eyes narrowed with dangerous amusement, and his lips spread. “When my parents met, my mother was deciding on which college would give her the most scholarships for a degree her mother couldn’t afford. My father was twenty-six and had just acquired his first half a million dollars.”
My eyes ballooned as I nearly spit out the sip I’d just taken. After a quick gulp, I struggled to breathe and coughed up a lung. It took a minute to quiet myself.
“Your mother was a sixteen-year-old child and pursued by a man with a fully developed brain?” Sadik’s demeanor didn’t shift an inch. “He’s ten years older than her!”
“And still married to her. Still committed to her. And still protects her fiercely.” His piercing gaze bulleted into me, only his mouth moving. “Forty-two years solid, this year.”
With that, my eyes swept to the fire and I gulped down more brandy.
“Your mother sounds like an accomplished woman.” I tried stepping back into the conversation. Before sipping from his tumbler, Sadik nodded. “What does she do?”
“She’s been an educator for over thirty years. She has a few charter schools in the state.”
“What about your sister? What does she do?”
