To Buy a Vow

by Chencia C. Higgins

  It wasn’t until I graduated high school, one year after him, and made my way to Franklin University—without Ashton—that Chris finally showed any interest in me.

  Although Ashton had decided to go to school in sunny California, she assigned Chris with the task of “looking out for me”. He definitely did that—and more. After a few months of him dropping by my dorm room randomly just to “check on me”, he invited me out for pizza and a movie. My clueless ass had been so used to him treating me as an extension of his younger sister that I had no idea it was an actual a date. We went to see a movie, then to Pie Hi, a local pizza parlor, where I tried to pay for myself at both spots. He smoothly rejected my offer each time.

  “Come on, girl. I invited you out; I’m not gon’ let you pay.”

  His deep voice had a teasingly flirtatious lilt to it, and even though I knew what it sounded like—had heard something similar from other boys throughout the semester—I reminded myself that I was still just the “little friend” and that he was only doing this to appease Ashton. It wasn’t until the night came to an end that I finally got the message that he was trying to send.

  I’d been in the middle of thanking him for getting my head out of my books when he shocked the shit out of me. First, he not only walked me to my building as he usually did, but he took it a step further and followed me on the elevator and walked me to my door. The flap of butterflies in my belly from just being near him was so commonplace by that point that I’d actually named them.

  Quiet down Sasha, you loud ass bitch! This ain’t about you Lisa; let me have this moment, please!

  I got myself together and turned to face him, my back to my door. “Thanks so much for tonight, Chris. I know Ashton has been on you about looking out for me, but you went above and beyond, and I really appreciate this.”

  The way he just stood there, looking down at me was fraying the fuck out of my nerves, but I didn’t know how to end the evening like a person with a healthy dose of sense, so I rambled on, twisting my keys in my hand.

  “You have no idea how stressed I’ve been about these midterms. The other night, I fell asleep in my textbook. I drooled on the pages and everything! It was crazy. So…yeah, I’m just saying that I really, really appreciate you getting me out of my room and helping me to loos—”

  Before I could finish my sentence, two of his fingers were on my lips, and I damn near crossed my eyes trying to see what the fuck he thought he was doing. I might have been lovestruck, but I’d be damned if he was trying to shut me up. I opened my mouth to ask him if he’d lost his mind, but apparently, after four years of me and his sister being attached at the hip, he must have known what was going to come out of my mouth.

  “Dang, girl, do you ever stop talking?” His lips were twisted into a sly grin but “love of my life” or not, I was going to give him a piece of my mind. My eyes widened in disbelief, and I jerked my head back from his hand, ready to cuss him smooth out when he shushed me. Normally, a simple shushing was not effective on me and only served to run me hot, but his was coupled with his face descending upon mine and his eyes drifting closed as his lips made their way to mine.

  My heart was pounding out of my damn chest, and although I’d been kissed quite a few times before then, I was nervous as all get out. I slammed my eyes shut and tried to just keep my lips together to prevent ruining the moment that I’d only been dreaming about for the past 1,435 days.

  “You ‘bout to kiss me or something?”

  My eyes popped open as I surprised my damn self by whispering that question. I looked up at Chris, but his eyes were crinkled with amused confusion. His lips hovered right above mine, and my butterflies flapped furiously. I placed a hand on my belly and acknowledged that Chris hadn’t pulled away from me.

  “Well, yeah. Is that a problem?”

  I rolled my eyes even as my body heated with joy. “I mean…” I let the word draw out. “Why now?”

  Shit.

  I hadn’t meant to ask that. Of course, I wanted to know what changed for him and when, but I first wanted to taste those brown sugar lips that I’d memorized an eternity ago.

  “Shiiiid. I got tired of waiting for you to lay one on a brotha first, so I had to gon’ handle it.”

  My eyes snapped up to his. No the hell he didn’t? He’d been walking around, fine as hell, for years, and never even looked at me but had the nerve to say some shit like that? Nah.

  “Shut ya lyin’ ass up!”

  “I’m dead serious, Nedra.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Aight. I can show you better than I can tell you.” And he did just that. His hand slid to my cheek as he nudged my head back. This time, he kept his eyes open, holding my gaze with an intensity that scared the shit out of the nineteen-year-old me. The moment our lips touched, it seemed like our eyes closed at the same time as he worked his mouth over mine and ruined my life.

  I wasn’t confused after that.

  His lips and tongue tasted like marinara and Dr. Pepper from our dinner, but it was an intoxicating flavor all the same. My hands wrapped in his t-shirt and pulled him closer to me while his hand fell from my cheek to wrap around my waist so tightly that I was practically lifted from the ground. We stood there in the hallway of my dorm building, sucking face and holding on to each other for who knows how long until the door to my room swung open behind me.

  “Okay, Nedra, get ya fast ass in here. You have a test tomorrow.”

  Startled by the intrusion, Chris and I clumsily disentangled, and I turned to glare at my roommate who gave me a knowing smirk.

  Ole hating ass hoe.

  Chris grabbed my hand and squeezed it before letting go and backing up to the other side of the hallway. He acknowledged Shanice with a nod of his head as he grinned at me.

  “What up, Niecy; them books ain’t getting you down, huh?”

  With one hand on the doorknob and the other on her hip, Shanice shook her head. “Nope. Ya girl, on the other hand, is struggling. That’s why she needs to be in here in these books instead of in your face.”

  Chris shook his head, grin still in place, eyes still on me. “Nah, Niecy. You got it backward. I’m in her pretty ass face. But you’re right. She needs to get back to them books. I just took her out so she could de-stress a lil bit. It’s all good.” He pushed off the wall and came back to stand in front of me.

  “I hope I wasn’t too much of a distraction. Ashton’ll kick my ass if I disrupt your studies.” He chuckled and leaned down to drop another kiss on my lips before whispering in my ear that’d he’d see me later and heading down the hallway.

  I stood there silently, watching him disappear down the hallway, with my heart in my throat until Shanice yanked me back into our room.

  “Ow, bitch!” I rubbed my arm where her fingers had dug into my tender, heated flesh.

  “What the hell was that?!” Her eyes were wide and excited.

  My face split into a shit-eating grin, but I didn’t have an answer for her yet because I didn’t know myself. It wasn’t as simple as a kiss. It was Chris Phillips blowing my mind and kissing me like it was something that he’d wanted to do for as long as it had been something I wanted to do. But that was crazy. He had never seen me as anything other Ashton’s friend. I ran a visual catalog of the previous four years through my head, searching for any lingering touches or secret looks when he thought no one was watching.

  No, there was none of that. I know because I had always been watching. So, if he never felt anything for me before now then what had just happened? That couldn’t just change overnight, right? But…that kiss was definitely not the kiss of a man who saw me as his little sister’s “little friend”.

  That kiss—and the many the followed it—was the sweetest and most meaningful kiss I’d ever had that didn’t lead to sex. Kissing Chris that first time felt like the last piece of the puzzle of my life clicking into place. It felt like grabbing the last bag of Oreos off the grocery store shelf. It felt like wa
king up and discovering that Blockbuster was still in business and that not only was Borders still slinging books, but they were having a buy one-get one free sale.

  It was everything I had dreamed of since I was a fourteen-year-old with a crush on my best friends brother and yet everything I had never imagined a kiss could be. It was sweet, alluring, and full of the promise of things yet to come. That one kiss had sealed my lovestruck fate with Chris. I was his from that point on. Unofficially, though, because he said he wanted me to focus on school and not on trying to be his girlfriend. At the time, I thought he was completely right and I didn’t fight him on it. I had a GPA to maintain, and I wasn’t going to ruin it for a few kisses that didn’t even come with a side of dick.

  Yep, not only did he not claim me as his girlfriend right away, he also withheld sex. When the semester came to an end, he gave me a ride home and didn’t even ask to come inside even though my mama wasn’t there to welcome me home. Once again, he walked me to my door and kissed me senseless. I was tired of waiting, though, and grabbed his arm as he started to head back to his car.

  “Are you saving it for marriage?”

  He almost stumbled trying to turn back to me as he gave me a crazy look.

  “What are you talking about?”

  I dropped my grip on his arm and shrugged my shoulders. “I’m just wondering why you haven’t tried anything yet.”

  His mouth dropped open at my bold assertion. I stared up at him, gaze unwavering. His kisses were driving me crazy and I know Shanice was tired of pretending she didn’t hear me use my vibrator several times a week. Her smart-ass gave me a pack of batteries as a Christmas gift and I ran from mall to mall until I found a bag of coal at a gag gift store to give her in return.

  Chris’s mouth opened and closed a few times like a flopping fish out of water, and I didn’t know whether to laugh or be upset that he was at a loss for words. Had he seriously not even considered the possibility of us having sex? Was his regard for me as his little sister’s friend so strong that he couldn’t move our relationship to the next level? His silence was all the answer I needed.

  I rolled my eyes and turned my back to him, finally opening the front door to my house. I was halfway inside when he called my name. As if I didn’t hear a thing, I entered the house and started to close the door behind me when Chris stuck his foot in the doorway. He came in and wrapped his arms around me, kicking the door shut and burying his face in my neck.

  “Don’t be like that, Ned. Let’s at least talk about it.”

  “There’s nothing to talk about, Chris.” Especially not while he was nuzzling me and getting me all hot and bothered with no intentions of following through.

  “I didn’t know if you were ready for all of that, and I didn’t want to put any pressure on you.”

  I turned to face him. “So…it has nothing to do with you still being a virgin?”

  His eyes bugged and his mouth dropped open once again.

  “How…? Who—?” He stopped and shook his head. “Is there anything Ashton doesn’t tell you?”

  I shrugged. “I hope not, or I’ll have to get in her ass about keeping secrets. Now, answer my question.” I folded my arms across my chest and tilted my head. I didn’t let him get out of that one easily. Earlier in the semester, Ashton had told me that he had experienced a couple of false starts with a girl he dated his freshmen year and that he never seemed to bounce back after that.

  As a teenager in love, I had taken that information and twisted it to mean that I was supposed to be his first. Now that I was an adult, I could see it for what it was: a boy who was tired of being a virgin saw an opportunity to fix his problem. Just as Ashton used to tell me all of Chris’s business, I’m sure she told him all of mine, and he probably knew that I’d had sex before and that I was in love with him. He was just being opportunistic. Can’t fault him for that.

  However, looking back on the situation with a fresh perspective and Granny’s words swirling around in my head, I had to wonder if I truly was missing something.

  Chapter Four

  Nedra

  When Jealousy Is a Four Letter Word And You're a Sailor

  My drive home from Bullseye was a tense one. Every mile that brought me closer to my destination also brought my anger to a boil. I know that I shouldn’t have let my granny’s words get to me—that it was probably her intention to spur some action from me—but I couldn’t help it. Things were starting to make too much damn sense.

  I raced my car down the street and punched at the remote for the garage. Seeing Chris’s truck parked in the driveway, as usual, further irritated me. Everything looked normal as fuck even though it was far from it.

  My impatience almost caused me to drive into the lifting gate. Once parked inside the garage I repeatedly stabbed at the remote until the metal door began to reverse. The garage door wasn’t even down halfway before I was out of the car and into the house.

  “CHRISTOPHER PHILLIPS?!”

  I yelled his name at the top of my lungs with the slam of the door punctuating my anger-fueled outburst. I tossed my purse and keys on the side table by the door and flew through the bottom floor of the house like a tornado, scanning every room with the eye of a hawk, scouring for any sign of the object of my fury. Unsuccessful in my search, I stomped up the stairs with determination, muttering expletives to myself with every step.

  “Where is this nigga? I know he here. His truck outside.”

  I was once again a woman on a mission. This time, it wasn’t giddiness that fueled me but ire. I threw open every door in my path, even the closets. I was tripping, but my anger made me irrational.

  When I reached the door to the guest bedroom that Chris had chosen to move into after his life-changing announcement two months earlier, I saw that it wasn’t quite closed but instead cracked a few inches. The reminder that he’d abandoned our marital bed and relocated in there boiled my blood, and I bent my knee and kicked the door open with all of the force I could muster. It flew back and slammed against the wall. Chris stood at the foot of the bed, his eyes wide with surprise and annoyance.

  “Aye, what the fuck are you doing?” He relaxed his clenched fists and dropped his hands to the towel wrapped around his waist.

  Realizing that he must have just stepped out of the shower in the en-suite bathroom, I was momentarily distracted by his naked torso and the droplets of water that beaded on his skin.

  “Nedra!”

  Chris’s brusque tone jolted me out of my reverie, and my anger returned full force.

  One hand propped on my hip and the other reached out to point a finger in Chris’ face. “Who you fuckin’, huh?”

  The tension dropped from his shoulders, and he heaved an irritated breath. He pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head.

  “I’m not sleeping with anybody.”

  That admission wasn’t good enough for me. I moved further into the room. “I know you fuckin’ lying, Chris! You used to want sex all the time, so if you ain’t touching me, you must be fuckin’ somebody. Who is it, huh?”

  Another shake of his head and his face screwed tight with frustration. “I swear I—”

  “Stop lying!” I didn’t want to hear him deny it again. Using both hands, I reared back and shove him in the chest. The move hardly moved him, but because he was already standing at the end of the bed, the backs of his knees hit the mattress and buckled. He dropped into a seated position at the edge of the bed and reached up to grab my wrists tightly.

  “I’m not lying! I would never fuck somebody else while we’re married. I wouldn’t do that. You know that!”

  I shook my head and tried to yank out of his grasp. I was so worked up, so angry, I could spit. My mind raced as I tried to pull away from him. “I know that you need it regularly, so who you gettin’ it from? It ain’t me. You won’t even look at me anymore. So, who you giving my dick to, huh?”

  “Ned—” He sounded distressed but I didn’t care at that moment. I was heart
broken and desperate, and just the thought of the man I had loved since I was barely a teenager sleeping with someone who wasn’t me drove me crazy.

  “Who, huh?!” My voice cracked and my eyes clouded with unshed tears and I dropped to my knees in front of him. I pressed my face into his lap, nuzzling his dick through the terry cloth material of his towel. His grip tightened around my wrists briefly before it loosened enough for me to finally pull free of his grasp.

  “Come on, Ned. Don’t do this.” His protest sounded firm but the way he dropped his empty hands to the bed and gripped the cover was a contradiction.

  I shot him a warning glare. “Shut up!” I snapped and pulled open the towel, revealing his quickly rising dick. When I wrapped my hand around the base and squeezed, he hissed.

  “Who you giving my dick to?” I repeated the question as I continued to glare at him.

  Chris stared down at me with hooded eyes and licked his lips. “Bab—Nedra—I swear I—ooh shit!”

  He broke off on a grunt as I sucked his length into my mouth. I swallowed him down until I reached my fist then came back up and used my saliva to start pumping him to full stiffness.

  He moaned in surrender. “Ned…”

  I swallowed him down again, this time, removing my hand and aiming to put my nose in the curls in his lap. I’d almost made it when he hit the back of my throat, and I had to pull back up. Tears sprung to my eyes, and I gasped for a breath, jacking him aggressively. I wanted to hurt him even as I pleasured him.

  “Who you letting choke on your shit, huh?”

  At this point, I was talking to myself. Chris’ head was bent back, and he was twitching in my hands. I used the corner of my t-shirt to wipe the tears from my eyes and focused on my task, determined to prove a point. If I gave him everything he needed, he wouldn’t go looking for it elsewhere. If I kept his balls empty, he couldn’t empty them into someone who wasn’t me.

  I bobbed my head up and down in his lap and used both of my hands to jack his dick simultaneously, employing a twisting motion similar to operating a pepper grinder. When his knees squeezed around me, I dropped one of my hands between his legs and tugged on his balls, knowing that the hint of pain would push his pleasure over the edge.