“Just the regular?” he asked.
“Yeah, do you, man.” I’d known Kadaris for a while now and considered him one of my closest friends. In my opinion, and that of a lot of others, he was the best barber in Chicago, hands down. His design game was unmatched, and when I’d decided to cut my sides and add a shaven design, he was the only man for the job.
“You kinda quiet,” he noted. “You good?”
“Not really,” I told him honestly. “Woman problems, but I’ll figure it out.”
“I understand that,” he said. “Whateva is going on, are you at fault or her?”
“Me, man. All me. It’s almost like, I know I need to do betta with her, but I’m fucking it up before we even get started.”
I glanced up in the mirror in time to see Kadaris nodding his head. “Ain’t that always the case. I’m the last one who should be giving you advice, but if you fucked up, you should just apologize and quit procrastinating.”
“Yeah, you probably right.” While Kadaris got to work, I couldn’t help but think more about why I was avoiding Meeka after I was the one to kiss her. It was a bitch move. I knew it. She knew it. Our friends knew it since I’d already gotten texts from them. But the only problem with input from others was that with the exception of Z, the other ladies, Meeka included, didn’t know my background. They didn’t know the craziness I’d dealt with in a past relationship.
That was no excuse to dismiss Meeka, but I’d just needed a couple of days to get my mind right. I was seeing her later today anyway, so the first thing I could do when we met up was tell her that I was sorry for—
“Anthony Michaels, you got a lot of damn nerve ignoring me.”
What the … I looked up from my chair to see a very pissed off Meeka standing near the front of the barbershop.
“She said his government name,” one of the guys in the shop said. “Wonder what he did.”
I wanted to tell dude that I had messed shit up and was going to apologize today, but refrained because it wasn’t any of his business. Instead, I asked Meeka, “How did you find me?”
She rolled her eyes, stomping over to me with so much switch in her hips, I thought she might knock someone over. “Boy, please. I knew the minute we met and I saw the design in your fade that you had a Kadaris Kuts original. Besides, I noticed a couple of days ago that you needed a touch up so I figured your trifling ass would be here.”
A few of the men in the barbershop ohh’d as if we were in high school. “Meeka, I texted you. I just needed a couple days to myself to take care of some shit.”
She placed a hand on her hip. “And I told you that I would not deal with Dragon Breath Tabitha’s wrath on my own. She already called me three times to chew my ass out since we are behind schedule.”
In the back of my mind, I told myself not to piss her off more. However, the irrational part of my brain loved it when this woman got all hot and bothered, so I pushed her even more. “I don’t know what you want me to do about it. You’re the lead. I’m just documenting your journey.”
She rummaged through her purse and pulled out her cell phone. “Then maybe the fact that one of my exes contacted me and asked to meet me in twenty minutes will light a fire under your ass. Meeting with Tabitha has been pushed to tomorrow afternoon. Or would you rather tell Dragon Breath that you couldn’t document my next conversation because you were in a barbershop living your best life by rectifying your grown-out fade?”
Some more ohh’s filled the shop, but all I did was smirk, hoping she knew that her words didn’t mean shit when her eyes were telling me her thoughts were rated-R.
“Hey, you can talk about Tone’s ass all you want, but don’t lie on the hair,” Kadaris said. “I get my regulars in here every week.”
She shrugged, but didn’t give him any lip. She knew I kept myself nicely groomed and it probably pissed her off that she couldn’t call bullshit on Kadaris’s comment.
“Fine. Let’s go.” I looked to Kadaris. “Raincheck?”
Kadaris nodded his head. “Bet.”
“Thanks, Kadaris,” Meeka said. “I owe you one.”
“Owe him one?” I glanced from Meeka to Kadaris. “What you do?”
“He told me you were here,” she answered for him, smacking her lips. “I had a feeling you were, but I wasn’t dragging my butt out here if you weren’t.”
I turned to Kadaris “You shitting me, right? Do y’all know each other or something?”
Kadaris lifted his hands in defeat. “Sorry, bruh. You my dude, but Meeka and I go back to the sandbox.”
“Of course y’all do,” I muttered. Was there anyone in Chicago who didn’t know this woman? “It’s cool though. You can pay me back by comping my next cut.”
Kadaris laughed me off. “Nigga, get the fuck outta here.”
Honestly, I wasn’t upset with Kadaris, but Meeka had me feeling all types of frustrated. Per usual, she was wearing a small winter coat that gathered at the waist, leaving her ass exposed to the cold elements. Problem was, I didn’t give a damn about her getting cold. The way her booty was shaking in the maroon leggings she was wearing were giving me all types of freaky thoughts that I needed to keep locked inside of my mind.
All of the men in the shop were looking at her, but being attractive was never Meeka’s problem. It was the fact that one minute she was giving you extra sexy sass, then the next, she was giving you wild I-watch-you-when-you-sleep eyes. It was hard to know which Meeka you would get, and only a dude who’d attracted crazy in the past understood when he was staring crazy in the face.
She walked to the door, smacking her lips and rolling her eyes back at me the entire way. And like I expected, but tried to ignore, the shit was turning me on even more. I wasn’t sure how long I stood there, staring at her while she continued to walk out the shop, but she snapped me out of my unwanted thoughts when she hollered, “Boy, if you don’t hurry up so we can record this shit and get on with our day …”
“Damn, Meeka. I’m coming!” I yelled back. The guys all had some shit to say as I walked out, but I paid them no mind. My eyes were glued to the jiggling booty rushing to her car to avoid the cold rain. When she got inside of her car, she glanced at me getting into mine and flipped me her middle finger.
“Who? Fuck me? That’s what you want to do,” I yelled, loud enough for her to hear with her window shut. This time, she flipped me off with both hands, and although I shouldn’t have been entertaining the thought of sleeping with her, I couldn’t help myself. Fuck. Zahir was right. I did love me a melodramatic chick, and Meeka was getting me all in my feelings.
MEEKA
“IF YOU BOTH will follow me, Mr. O'Connor will see you now.”
I stood to follow the receptionist, thinking back to the first time I’d been in this downtown skyscraper. With its black glass exterior and Chicago river view, it was still one of my favorite buildings in the city.
“Damn, who’s your ex?” Tone muttered as we walked down the hallway. “A famous singer or rapper?”
I rolled my eyes. “Typical that you see plaques on the wall and assume he’s an artist.” Tone shrugged. “No, he’s not a celebrity of anything. He’s a real estate mogul.”
Tone squinted like he was trying to read the plaques when we arrived at the office.
“Your guests are here, Mr. O’Connor.”
“Thanks, Patty,” he said, turning from his file cabinet to greet us. I hadn’t seen my ex in a while, but he was one of the few men from my past who I actually looked forward to running into.
“Hey, Luke,” I said, giving him a quick hug.
“Hey, Meeka. I was glad to get your email. Nice to see you again.”
“You too.” I turned to Tone. “And this man prepping his camera is my co-worker, Tone.”
Tone went to shake hands with Luke, but ended up snapping his fingers instead. “Small world. Lucas, what’s up, man?”
Luke smiled. “Wait, this can’t be Lil’ Tony from the west side.”
Tone shook his head, looking me dead in the eye when he said, “You betta wipe Lil’ Tone out your vocabulary because I haven’t been called that since I took a growth spurt in college. I was a late bloomer.”
“Yeah,” Luke added with a laugh. “Used to be skinny and short from what I remember when I lived out west.”
Tone shook his head. “With a six-foot-five, three-hundred plus personality.” He looked my way. “I was skinny as hell and only about five-five until one summer, my physique took shape and I grew about eight inches.”
“That’s quite a growth spurt,” I said.
“It was. Had a few issues with my knees and back, but all is good.”
“And then the obvious career choice is to be a cameraman which is hard on both,” I teased. “That makes perfect sense.”
Tone smirked. “Never thought of it like that, but pretty stupid on my part, huh?”
I lightly touched his arm. “Not stupid since you’re great at what you do. Lil’ Tony would be proud of grown-up Tone.”
He held my gaze, briefly dropping his eyes to my lips. “I appreciate that.” I wasn’t sure how long we stood there staring at one another, but I broke out of my Tone trance when Luke cleared his throat.
Luke glanced from me to Tone, amusement in his eyes. “Shall we get started?”
I nodded my head. “Yes, of course.” Tone got the camera ready, and once he gave me the okay, I dived right in. “Thanks for meeting me today, Luke.”
“You’re welcome. Always a pleasure to catch up.”
“I agree. And since I’ve already debriefed you on the project, can I ask, in your opinion, why did we break up?”
“Let me start by saying, we had a great relationship,” Luke stated. “Probably one of the best friendships I’ve ever had with someone I was dating.”
I smiled. “I remember it the same way.”
“And as much as I hope this doesn’t come across the wrong way, I thank you for breaking up with me when you did. I’d just gotten out of a pretty messed up relationship a year before we dated. I was in a bad place, but then I met you at that art event and dating you reminded me of how carefree and easy relationships could be when you’re with the right person.”
I noticed Tone adjusting himself in his seat, probably assuming that this meeting with my ex would have gone like the last two. “Thanks for saying that.”
“It’s the truth. As friends, you and I were great together. But I think we both agreed that we weren’t fully being ourselves.”
I nodded my head. “We weren’t. I think on my end, I thought if I showed you all of me, you’d hit the street running in the opposite direction.”
Luke laughed. “And I felt like, if you knew how stuck in my own ways I was about certain things, your vibrant light would dim and I didn’t want that.”
“I didn’t want you to feel uncomfortable either. I’d never dated someone like you before. You had your shit together. Had a great job. We used to laugh together all the time and I guess … I guess in a way I wanted to stay in that world we’d created for ourselves.”
“Our own reality,” he added. “Where we ignored the bullshit and only focused on the fun.”
“Fun. Right.” Those words came from Tone, but when I looked over at him, he wasn’t watching at me, but rather eyeing past the camera dead at Luke. I would have called him out for being rude, but the two of them were just staring, silently talking without using words and certainly not clueing me in on the matter.
Unable to take the silence anymore, I asked, “Is everything okay, guys?” Neither answered me, but eventually Tone nodded and Luke cleared his throat.
“All good here,” Luke said, turning back to me. “Meeka, I guess what I’m trying to say is there are not a lot of people who are confident in their own skin. You don’t apologize for the type of person you are, and I hope you always stay that way. Life is too short to be with someone who doesn’t look at you as if their world would shatter without you in it. You showed me that when you broke things off. I haven’t found the right woman for me yet, but I know what I deserve and you helped me get there. I only hope that if you haven’t already found it, you get that, too.”
Luke O’Connor, ladies and gentlemen. He was always so good with words. It was nice to see that he hadn’t changed. Reaching over, I lightly touched his hand. “Thank you, Luke. For everything.”
Luke held my gaze for a couple seconds, his eyes reflecting a silent thankfulness that only he and I understood. “Anytime, Meeka. Anytime.”
Turning to Tone, I gave him a quick nod. “I think we’re done here.” We said our good-byes and made our way to elevators, the walk down the hallway seeming a bit longer than before.
Tone looked at the plaques again. “Real estate awards. Pretty cool.” He smiled, but to me, his smile didn’t reach his eyes.
“Yeah, they are.” It was hard not to observe Tone since he’d gotten so quiet on me. I didn’t need to explain myself to him, but wanted to all the same. “Luke and I dated for almost two years and actually broke up a few months before I met that trifling ass Vance. Like Luke said during that meeting, things were easier between us than any relationship prior. I remember calling my mom and telling her that I’d finally found the man of my dreams. That he and I were probably going to marry one day. Then one night, I saw this couple kissing outside of a movie theater and I observed the way the man looked at the woman and the way she gazed back at him and I realized that Luke and I didn’t stare at each other like that. True, we had love for each other, but we weren’t in love. At least not like that.
“So, the next day, I did the hardest thing I’d ever had to do. I broke up with Luke and encouraged him to find a woman who set his soul on fire, not just one he enjoyed spending time with. I’m confident that Luke would have proposed had we stayed together. He was that type of guy. We’d be married, maybe have a kid by now. I’d be going to his industry events and he’d be going to my company holiday parties. We’d be happy, but not the kind of elated happy that we both deserve.”
Tone looked at me across the empty elevator we’d gotten into, an expression in his eyes that I couldn’t read. “It sounds like you did the right thing. And you’re brave as hell for doing what you did. Took a lot of self-reflection to do something like that.”
He stepped closer to me, his eyes moving all across my face, like he wanted to kiss me, but wasn’t sure he should. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry we didn’t talk this weekend. I was being an ass and there’s no excuse for behaving that way. But I promise you, that won’t happen again.”
I sighed, his appetizing cologne filling my nostrils at his closeness. “Thank you, I accept your apology.”
We arrived on the ground level, the elevator ding breaking our moment. I was glad Tone knew a bit more about my relationship with Luke. However, I was grateful we were no longer in the confines of the elevator, because what I didn’t say was that I’d worried after Luke and I broke up, I may never find that kind of love. That a man would never look at me like the man outside of the movies had gazed at his woman, nor would I look at him the same.
What I couldn’t say was that a part of me was scared that I would change myself for a man, even if it was only a little change like I’d made for Luke, and he’d love me less once he’d learned all of the parts of me I sometimes kept hidden.
Out of all the things I’d refrained from mentioning to Tone as we walked out of that gorgeous black glass building, the words I’d kept close to my heart with an internal swear to never expose them, was not to tell Tone meeting him had changed some of those doubts. I may not know if a man would ever gaze at me with unbiased love in his eyes, but I did know I was capable of looking at a man like that. For admiring his faults as much as I admired his good qualities. Proof was in the man walking beside me who could piss me off and make me swoon all in the same day.
What I hadn’t wanted to say was
that whether I liked this assignment or not, Tone was learning more about me in a couple weeks than any man had in my entire life. And while that should have been comforting since he seemed to like what he saw, deep down, it scared the shit out of me.
CHAPTER 8
Don’t be afraid to show someone
a different side of you.
~ Madame Social ~
T ONE
I’D BEEN good and fucked. Not in the literal sense, but in every way that mattered. Satisfied and infatuated to a point that had my heart racing when she brushed up against me or my mind contemplating on what it would be like if we got more serious, giving into this flaming connection we seemed to have.
Meeka had me feeling shit I hadn’t felt in longer than I could remember. Yet, for the first time, my gut was telling me I was exactly where I wanted to be with precisely who I wanted to be with. Problem was, we weren’t together. We didn’t even get along until recently. Hadn’t gone on a real date despite the amount of time we’d been spending together. Then you need to change that, bruh. For all of the reasons I thought I shouldn’t be with a woman like Meeka, there were a shit ton more reasons why I should.
“Thanks for the ride,” Meeka said as we pulled up in front of her condo complex. It had only been a short ride from our meeting with Luke, and although we hadn’t spoke during the drive, I wanted to spend more time with her.
I glanced at my watch, before meeting her eyes. “Would you be down for grabbing dinner tonight?”
Her eyebrows lifted. “You mean, like a date?”
“Yeah, exactly like a date.”
She smiled. “I’d like that. Do you have any place in mind?”
I didn’t have to think about it long. “I do, but it’s a little different than what you’ve probably done on a date. If you trust me, I promise you’ll enjoy it.”
She looked at me curiously, contemplating my offer. “I’d be willing to do something outside the norm.”
I was sure the smile on my face was way too big, but I didn’t give a damn. “Even though it’s your assignment, you’ve been sharing a lot of yourself with me. So tonight, how about I introduce you to my world a little?”
Single AF (Social Experiment Book 1) Page 6
