by Ashley
Jada put her hand in front of his face, trying to distract him. “Daddy, did you see me?”
“I saw you, baby girl. You did your thing out there,” he commented.
His Brooklyn accent made London smile.
“Hey, baby girl!” Destiny shouted as she approached the threesome, her arms spread out for a hug. She was rocking knee-high Baby Phat boots and skintight jeans, and her wrists were cluttered with jewelry.
Jada ran up to her and wrapped her arms around her waist. “Hi, Ma. I did good, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, my little mama was working it. You were the best dancer up there,” Destiny replied. She immediately picked up on the tension between London and Kalil. She’d known Kalil for years and could tell when he was feeling somebody. The way he was staring at the other woman instantly made her jealous nature surface.
She stepped between him and London. “Hey, Kalil.” She wrapped her arms around his waist and whispered, “I miss you,” in his ear.
Kalil could smell her game from a mile away.
But before he could put Destiny in her place, London walked away, saying, “Excuse me, I need to go check on some of the other dancers.”
“Yeah, you do that,” Destiny stated smartly.
Kalil could see the expression on London’s face as she walked off in a hurry.
He pushed Destiny off. “Don’t do that.”
“What you mean, don’t do that? You all up in her face and shit. What, you fucking her or something, Kalil?”
“For one, don’t be talking that shit to me in front of my daughter. Two, you are not my woman. What I do don’t concern you anymore. You fucked that up when you started fucking Fatboy.”
“Why you holding on to old shit, Kalil? I’m sorry for fucking with Fatboy. You know that it’s me and you. I’ll drop his ass in a heartbeat if you tell me to.”
Kalil shook his head as he looked down at her in disgust. “Take my daughter home. I’m not fucking with you, Destiny. Get that shit through your head,” he spat out as he walked away in search of London.
The crowd had started to disperse, and he spotted her cleaning up the dressing room. “Yo, ma, I’m sorry about that. Jada’s mother gets to acting up sometimes.”
London didn’t stop working. She walked around the room picking up after her students. “You don’t owe me an explanation.”
Kalil could see that she was upset. He reached out to her, but she dodged his touch. “London,” he called out to her.
She finally stopped what she was doing to look at him. “What?”
“Don’t be like this. That’s Jada’s mother. We’re not together, so you don’t have to be worried about her. That’s just how she is.”
Tears formed, but she quickly closed her eyes and willed them away. “Look, Kalil, it doesn’t matter. You don’t owe me an explanation. I’m not your woman, and I can never be your woman, so I don’t have a right to be upset with you. She just reminded me that I can never really have you in my life. I messed up. I almost started to believe that I could be with you, but I can’t. And it wouldn’t be fair for me to expect you to be with only me when I can’t guarantee you the same in return.”
“I don’t want a guarantee, London. I’m a man. I know what I’m getting myself into.” Kalil touched the side of her face.
“No, you don’t,” she replied sadly. She removed his hand from her face and walked away, leaving him standing there alone.
Chapter Seven
London smiled when she saw the arrangement of lilies and baby’s breath sitting on the edge of the stage. She looked around nervously and bit her bottom lip before plucking the card from the top of the bouquet to read the inscription: London, I know you’re in a complicated situation, but I can’t get you off my mind. I’m feeling you and I want to get to know you, ma. Get at me anytime. (586) 638-4432.
London quickly disposed of the flowers, tossing them into the trash. She wasn’t trying to get caught up with Kalil. If her husband knew that he’d sent her flowers, there would be hell for her to pay.
It was easy for her to disregard the note, but when she received a new arrangement every day after that for two weeks, he became almost irresistible to her. She wasn’t a fool, though. As quickly as the thought of him crept into her mind, she erased it. Her husband had a way of reading her thoughts, and she didn’t want him to detect any trace of another man. She disposed of each and every bouquet that she received from Kalil.
But the more time passed, the more his sentimental gifts began to wear her down. Get your shit together, London, she told herself as she watched Jada and the rest of her dance class enter the auditorium.
Jada ran up to her and handed her a note. “Ms. London, my daddy told me to give you this.”
London took the piece of paper out of her hand. “Thanks, sweetheart. Go and get changed for class.” She opened the note: Will you be my girlfriend? Circle Yes or No. She burst out in laughter when she saw the words. He’d taken it back to the ol’ school on her. Oh, so he think he’s cute.
She folded the letter and put it in her purse. She was flattered by his persistence. He had simplified a situation that she thought was so complex. A part of her wished that she could get to know Kalil better, but she knew that it was impossible for her to ever get away from her husband.
As she taught her class that day, she tried to imagine herself on Kalil’s arm. She wondered what it really felt like to be with someone who would genuinely care for her. Her head was on cloud nine as she tried to focus on the girls in her class. Each time she tried to concentrate on teaching them her mind drifted back to Kalil. He was charming, to say the least, and it was becoming harder and harder for her to say no to him.
She heard the doors in the back of the auditorium open and she turned to see Kalil walking in. He carried a single white rose in his hand. He was sexy in his baggy sweatpants and black Sean John hoodie. He approached slowly, as if he was tired, and he appeared to be carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. His stress was apparent.
London instructed her class to keep practicing and she made her way off the stage toward him, wringing her fingers and looking around, even though she knew that there was no one else inside the room.
“So you checking for me, huh?” she asked as she approached him slowly. She couldn’t stop the smile that blessed her face as he walked toward her. He looked good to her; in fact everything about him appealed to her. Even though she could tell that he didn’t have much, there was something about his personality that attracted her. Money didn’t matter to her. Her husband had money on top of money, but she was miserable with him. Kalil seemed to be empty-handed, but the way he looked at her made her knees weak.
“You already know where my head at,” he said as he stood in front of her. “You ready to stop playing games?” he asked as he handed her the flower.
London shook her head and stepped back to put some space between them, but Kalil stepped right with her, closing the gap.
“Stop. You can’t do that.”
“Can we talk somewhere . . . in private?”
“No, Kalil! I’m serious. You have to stop with the flowers and the notes. You can’t do that. If my husband even thinks that—” Her words caught in her throat as she felt him massage her neck with his hand.
“You really want me to stop?” he whispered.
“You have to,” she replied desperately. She could feel her heart beating rapidly. Fear, anxiety, and confusion caused her to tremble slightly.
“Can I take you out?” he asked.
She shook her head, but kept her eyes on the floor as she thought about what she wanted to do. I can’t do this. Just tell him no and stop this before it even starts.
He lifted her chin. “Don’t think about him when you’re with me. You don’t have to be afraid of him. The next time he touches you, I’m gon’ put something hot in him.”
A tear slid down her cheek, but she brushed it away quickly. I can’t. “Kalil, you have to go. I can
’t do this with you. Please, you don’t understand,” she pleaded in a low whisper.
As Kalil stepped closer to her, she looked around frantically as if there were a million other people in the room. He noticed her hands begin to shake. “London,” he started as he placed his hand on her neck. He could feel her pulse racing, and her chest heaved up and down quickly.
“You have to leave,” she whispered.
“Look, ma, I’m feeling you. I just want to get to know you. If you don’t want to fuck with me because you not interested, then I’ll step off. But if it’s your husband you worried about, that man doesn’t concern me.”
“He hurts me, Kalil.”
It was the first time that London had confided in anyone. No one knew her secret, but now she had spoken the words and laid her cards out on the table.
“He hits me if he even thinks I’ve lied to him. He hits me. His punches are so hard that I can hear my bones bending when he connects. I can’t—” Her words broke off in her throat.
He had no idea of the abuse that she encountered every day. “You don’t have to worry about that. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
London nodded her head and wiped her eyes before she returned to the stage.
Kalil stayed and watched the two most important women in his life. He didn’t understand why he felt so strongly for London, but he was feeling her tough and he didn’t even really know her.
After class he dropped his daughter off at home and then took London to dinner. He stared at her across the table.
She wore large Chloe glasses to conceal her face and she was so nervous that she couldn’t stop fidgeting. She blushed because she could feel him watching her. “What are you staring at?” she asked sweetly. She removed her glasses and peeked above the menu.
The sound of her accent was sexy and she had Kalil’s full attention. The light from the candle danced on her dark brown eyes, as Kalil got lost in the specks of green that reflected from her eyes. “I’m just wondering how somebody like you got stuck with a nigga that mistreats you. You don’t have to hide when you with me.”
Embarrassment filled her face. “I know what you thinking, Kalil. I’m not stupid. You really want to know why I can’t leave my marriage?” she asked as tears filled her eyes.
He didn’t have a chance to respond.
“I have nowhere to go, Kalil. I don’t have my own money. My father owed my husband a lot of money when I was younger. In order for him to pay off his debt he gave me to my husband. He took me away from my family. I was only sixteen when I was forced to marry him. The first time we had sex, his hand was wrapped so tight around my neck, I couldn’t breathe. What can I do, Kalil? I can’t go to the authorities. I have no identity, no green card, no visa, no Social Security card, nothing. He wouldn’t even take me to apply for a license. He told me that he wants to make sure that there is no trace of me, just in case. He can make me disappear. You have no idea what it feels like to be me. I’m property. He owns me, and I have nowhere to go to feel safe. Do you know how it feels to not have anybody in this world? Yes, he hits me sometimes, but underneath it all, a part of him does love me.”
“Love you? He blacking your eyes and you think he loves you?”
One tear slipped down her cheek. “I have to believe it. Every time he climbs on top of me, I have to believe something. If not, I feel worthless.”
“I can’t sit back and watch him hurt you like this.”
“What do you want me to do?”
It hurt Kalil to his heart to hear her story. Just knowing what she had been through made him fall in love with her almost instantly.
He reached across the table and wiped the tears from her face. “I don’t want you to do anything. Just let me make you happy. I know that I don’t know everything about you, but I want to learn.”
She got up from her seat and eased across the table so that she could sit directly next to him. She was afraid of what she was getting herself into, but at the same time she didn’t care. She barely knew the man that sat in front of her, but she loved him. She didn’t care what the consequences to her actions would be. She would rather live enormous than live dormant and was about to allow herself to be with Kalil.
He kissed her lips softly and passionately as she wrapped her arms around his neck. He could feel her heart beating wildly and he placed his hand on her heart to calm her down. “You don’t have to be afraid with me,” he promised. “I won’t let anybody hurt you.”
She looked into his eyes and knew that he meant what he said. Her feelings for him were so strong at that moment that they scared her. He was what her life had been missing. Kalil was the type of person that she wished she could be with. “I like the way that you make me feel,” she admitted out loud.
Her words made his heart hurt because he knew that she would never be only his. He gripped the back of her head tightly. “Let’s just take this slow. I don’t want you to feel any pressure from me. I’m feeling you, so let’s see where this will lead.”
She nodded her head and smiled at him to lighten the mood. He didn’t know it, but he had her entire heart in his hands and she was willing to risk everything she’d ever known just to be with him.
A waiter came over to their table and placed a menu in front of each of them. The waiter returned ready to take their orders after a few minutes.
Kalil flipped open the menu and observed the selections of the restaurant. He noticed that none of the meals cost less than $60. Damn! These mu’fuckas taxing. The construction job did not pay enough for him to be splurging on expensive meals. He knew that he couldn’t afford the restaurant. Trying to impress London was going to break his pockets, but he knew that there was no way of getting out of it now. Fuck it. He looked at the waiter. “I’ll take the lobster.”
“I’ll take the filet mignon with garlic potatoes,” London said.
The waiter collected their menus and walked away.
“So tell me about you,” London said. “You know about my situation and my life. Now I want to know more about you.”
“There’s not a whole lot to tell.”
“Well, why am I just now meeting you? Jada’s been in my class for over a year now. Why didn’t you come around before?”
Kalil leaned back in the booth and debated whether he should tell her he’d been locked up. He didn’t want her perception of him to change, but he decided he didn’t want to keep any secrets from her. He wasn’t the type of man to lie about what he had been through. He was born a hustler, and London would either have to accept all of him or nothing at all.
“Look, ma—”
“I told you about that ma stuff,” she stated playfully.
He smiled at her. He loved the fact that she stood up to him. She didn’t like to be called ma, which made him think that she didn’t fall for game. She demanded his respect from jump, and he admired that about her. “All right, Miss London, I’m gon’ keep it real with you because I don’t want there to be any secrets between us. I did a bid upstate for four years. That’s why you’ve never seen me around. I was getting money in Brooklyn when I got caught up, so I had to do a stretch upstate.” He expected the news to scare her off, but the intimate look on her face never changed.
“So what do you do now?”
“Since I got out I’ve been trying to steer clear of the streets. Jada means the world to me, and I promised her that I wouldn’t leave her again. I’m doing this construction thing right now, but that ain’t really going anywhere. It’s just another job. I work all day and don’t make no real dough. That’s how it got to be right now, though. I just got out and I’m not trying to get sent back upstate. I’m just trying to keep my head above water and be there for my daughter.”
London knew that Kalil would never find a job in New York, at least not with a criminal record, but she respected him for staying out of the drug game for the sake of his daughter. “You really love your little girl, don’t you?”
“Yeah, that’s my
shorty,” he said, an instant smile gracing his masculine features.
“See, I want that. I want to feel that one day.”
“What? You don’t think that’s gon’ happen? Your husband doesn’t want kids?”
“I don’t want to have his kids. I want my children to grow up in a home. I want their father to be a great man. He’s not that man.”
Just then the waiter brought their food out. By the end of dinner they felt like they had known each other for years, talking about everything, from their childhood to their life’s dreams.
“So where does your man think you are tonight?”
“He’s out of town on business for the next week.”
When the waiter brought the bill to them Kalil opened it up. He already expected the bill to be high, but when he looked at the two-hundred-dollar tab, he knew there was no way he was paying for it. He looked underneath the table to see what type of shoes London had on.
“What are you doing?” she asked him.
“Making sure you got on the right kicks,” he replied with a smirk.
“For what?” She frowned in confusion.
“Because we ’bout to dine and dash.” He motioned for the waiter.
“Kalil, no!” she whispered, but a mischievous smile spread across her face. Her heart began to beat nervously as Kalil sent the waiter back to the kitchen for the dessert tray.
He got up and placed the white linen napkin on the table and casually strolled out of the restaurant.
“Kalil!” London whispered urgently as she watched him walk away. She looked back and saw the waiter coming out of the kitchen, so she finally got up and rushed out behind Kalil.
“Hey!”
She heard the waiter shout. She looked back and laughed when she saw the waiter fall onto the dessert cart as he tried to run after them. Kalil waited outside for her with his hand outstretched. She grabbed onto him as they ran up the block and out of sight of the restaurant. She could barely keep up with Kalil because she was laughing so hard.
“Oh my God!” she yelled as she finally stopped running and bent over in laughter.
