Tell Me No Lies

by Nikki- Michelle

  “Answer it,” I told her as I slowly rocked my hips against her. I did it slow and steady, just the way we both liked to start off.

  Every time I eased out and pushed back in, she soaked the bed just underneath where her plump ass lay. I used one arm to brace myself and hold myself up and the other to massage and fondle her breasts. The phone eventually dropped to the floor, and the person on the other end got an earful. Her legs began to shake, while her moans and pleas for me not to stop got louder. I leaned down to kiss her, stroking deeper as our tongues danced. Her hands pulled at my locks before she ran her nails down my back. Damn, it felt good to be inside of her raw and uninhibited. No man knew what heaven felt like until he felt the power Chyanne held between her thighs.

  Hours later we were in the kitchen, cooking. It had been a while since we had the chance to just lounge around the house on the weekend. We’d usually have some weekend business to attend to with our jobs, or we would be out with the kids, but we were free this weekend. The kitchen smelled of eggs, bacon, grits, and cinnamon toast. I was squeezing fresh orange juice, while she was flipping the bacon. We were having breakfast for a late lunch.

  “We should be ashamed of ourselves, eating like this,” she said while sticking a piece of cooked bacon into her mouth.

  “No, we shouldn’t. Consider this a cheat day,” I told her. “Besides, all our food is organic. We should be cool for one day. Have you called to check on April today?”

  She looked at me and pulled her hair back into a ponytail. “No. I called the broker and asked her to cancel all the appointments for today, though.”

  “So you’re going to let her stay there?”

  “Just for the next day or so. I don’t really want to talk to her right now.”

  Her answers were brief, and I could tell she would rather talk about something else. So I changed the subject.

  “I’m going to see my family in a couple of weeks. I was wondering if you’d come along with me,” I said after filling the crystal pitcher with orange juice.

  Her eyes widened as she grabbed a plate and started filling it with food. “Really?”

  “Yes, really. I think it’s about that time. Don’t you?”

  The house phone interrupted our conversation.

  “Yes, I do,” she said. “But hold that thought. Let me get the phone.”

  She kissed my lips before moving to answer the phone, while I continued with the juice. Who knew? Maybe if Chyanne went with me, things wouldn’t be so bad. We could be in and out, make it just a weekend thing.

  “Here, baby. Phone’s for you,” she said, holding out the phone to me.

  “Who is it?” I questioned.

  “She said she’s your grandmother.”

  I looked at Chyanne, then quickly took the phone from her hand.

  “I’m going to take this outside,” I told her. I saw the brief look of confusion on her face, but I didn’t stop to explain why I wanted to take the call away from her. It was a bit chilly out, but it didn’t bother me. The fact that the sun was shining did nothing for the temperature. “Grams?” I said into the phone.

  “Hey, baby boy. Hi’ yuh doing?” a raspy but comforting female voice said through the line.

  “I’m okay, Grams. How’re you?”

  “Oh, chile, I’s making it. Barely, but I’s making it. Hi’ the big city treating yuh?” she replied.

  To anyone from my hometown, Atlanta was just as big as New York.

  “It’s been treating me kind. I can’t complain.”

  “I hear that, baby boy. Nice li’l young lady yuh had ansing ya’ phone there. She your woman?”

  “Yes, ma’am, she is.”

  “She sure does sound lack she purty. Very respectful. Tell me ‘Yes, ma’am’ and ‘No, ma’am.’ Way better dan that Ashton’s mama. But hi’ she doing, anyhow? Wanna ask ’bout her since she my great granbaby’s mama.”

  “She’s doing okay. How’s the family?” I asked by rote. I didn’t really care.

  “Errr’body ’bout the same, Jamie boy. Your auntie Rosa Lee ’bout had another stroke. June boy jus’ got a new job down nair at da chicken factory. And Bessie Lee done married some white man down nair in Jackson. He a nice old white main. Got a lotta money. Yuh know Bessie Lee was always chasing a main with money, baby. She done got her one nah.”

  I looked out over my land as she talked. The wind blew dead leaves around as cars passed through the neighborhood. One of our neighbors was finally getting around to taking down their Christmas decorations.

  “That sounds about right. Have you been eating like you’re supposed to? Using the juicer I sent you?”

  “Yes, lawd, I have, baby. I ain’t had ta take no pain meds. I sho’ do thank yuh for that thang and the book. Ya’ brother Jimmy be mostly making my juice for me. He good with that kinds of stuff. He been asking ’bout yuh, Jamie. Yuh still coming for the ’union, ain’t cha?”

  I closed my eyes and squeezed my fist at the mention of my family’s reunion. There was no way I could tell my grandmother no. So it looked as if my indecisiveness had been taken from me.

  “Yes, ma’am, I’m coming. How’s Jimmy? Has he been staying out of trouble?”

  I could tell by the way she was talking, she had snuff in her lips. I heard her spit before she spoke again. “Yeah, he on’t like for folks to be picking at him, though, Jamie. So once yuh get down heah, maybe yuh can help him with that. He knock the shit outta anybody pickin’ at him. I just don’t want my baby gettin’ in no trouble. Yuh hear meh?”

  There were so many issues plaguing my family that I didn’t want to face. Jimmy was my older brother. He was the only sibling I had.

  “I hear you. I’ll be down there soon. Tell him that.”

  “I is, baby. He knows. Been telling folks and braggin’ and carryin’ on. Yuh know he thanks yuh shit don’t stank, baby boy.”

  I had to chuckle at that. “I do miss him.”

  “He miss yuh too, baby. He miss yuh too. Look, Jamie, there’s a reason I call, yuh hear? Listen to me, hear?”

  I knew there was a reason for the phone call. My grams rarely called. She’d write a letter before she would call. A phone called meant there was a dire emergency. That was why I didn’t want to take the call in front of Chyanne.

  “What is it, Gram?”

  “Yo’ mama was round here other day.”

  My heart damn near fell out of my chest and hit the ground. If it had, I would have stomped on it just to be sure my life ended where I stood.

  “And?”

  “Your uncle Ray getting outta the cell next week, Jamie. Yuh hear meh?”

  I swear to God it felt like any and every emotion that I owned came to the surface. The anger and fear were the ones that resonated with me the most. My breathing was slow and uneven as my grandmother continued to speak to me.

  “Yuh hear meh, baby boy? Yuh mama came round here, looking for money as usual. She let slip he was getting out. I wanted ta tell yuh befo’ yuh got here. I won’t let him round yuh, baby. Yuh ain’t got nothing to worry ’bout. His ass ain’t welcomed round heah. . . .”

  Although I could hear her words, I wasn’t listening. All I could think about was the man being released from prison. I thought about Chyanne and the relationship we’d built together. Would she leave me if she knew about the demons I sheltered because of my family? Would she leave me if she found out the truth about my brother, Jimmy? My mother? And God help me, if I ever laid eyes on my uncle again, I’d kill him.

  It took me about ten minutes to go back in the house after I hung up with my grandmother. I stood outside, wondering what would happen when and if I laid eyes on my mother. Sometimes I felt sorry for her. Other times I felt nothing, because I didn’t know what exactly had made her the way she was.

  “Jamie, is everything okay?”

  I turned to see Chyanne’s head sticking out the door. She had a soft smile on her face that masked the worry in her eyes.

  “Yeah,” I lied.
“Looks like my grandmother is all ready for us to visit,” I told her as I walked back inside.

  The smile widened on her face and showed that she was happy with this idea. “Really? So you told her about me?”

  I nodded. “Yes. So do you think you’d be up for going?”

  “I am, but I don’t know if Aric is going to be okay with me taking AJ away from him.”

  “That’s not an issue. I haven’t even taken Ashton down there too much. He’s been maybe three times in his life, and that was just so my grams could see him.”

  I placed the phone back on the cradle as we talked.

  “Why not, Jamie? I do notice that you rarely talk about your family,” she commented as she set our plates on the table.

  I walked into the dining room just as she was about to sit and pulled her chair out for her. Then I sat across from her at the square-shaped table. We said grace before eating. Our dining room was decorated in red, cream, and gold, with hints of dark chocolate, all courtesy of Chyanne.

  “I don’t talk about them much, because there isn’t much to talk about.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because there just isn’t,” I said. My voice was a bit harsher than I’d intended.

  The tone of my voice caught her off guard. Talking about my relatives had always easily annoyed me. That didn’t deter her from questioning me, though.

  “Why, Jamie? Did you have a bad childhood? I’ve never even heard you mention your parents once.”

  “You don’t talk about your parents, either, Chyanne.”

  “You’ve never asked.”

  I took a deep breath, pulled my locks back, and looked at her. “Because I figured if you wanted to talk about them, you would. I’d appreciate the same courtesy.”

  For the first time in our relationship there was tension in the room with us. She looked like she wanted to say something, but she just picked up her fork and started to eat her eggs slowly. There was silence after that. All you could hear was our utensils hitting the plates.

  “I wasn’t trying to pry, Jamie,” she finally said in a low voice. “I was just trying to talk about your family since you did invite me back home with you. I was only asking about your mom and dad. We’ve been together all this time, and all you’ve done is mention them in passing. You barely talk about your family,” she continued, then looked over at me.

  Her brown eyes cast a solemn glance at me before she went back to eating her food. She was talking about me not speaking about my parents when she hadn’t mentioned hers, either. It annoyed me. I didn’t ask her about her parents, because I didn’t want her to ask about mine.

  “They’re dead. Both my parents are dead. For the record, again, you don’t talk about your parents, either,” I finally said. “Can we talk about something else now? You happy? They’re both fucking dead.”

  Before I knew it, I’d slammed my fork down beside my plate. I shoved away from the table and walked out of the dining room. I didn’t want to see the look of pity on her face. I didn’t want to hear the “I’m sorry.” I didn’t want any of that. Hell, I didn’t even want to talk about the shit.

  “Oh my God, Jamie. Jamie,” she called after me.

  I kept going, ignoring her calls, and headed to the basement. I just needed to be alone. I needed the time to stop the images flashing in my mind. It wasn’t her fault. She didn’t understand what was going on, but I simply wasn’t man enough to disclose my past to her just yet. I didn’t want her to know the family I was from, the demons that came with them. I was just fine with her thinking that I could do no wrong.

  It wasn’t until a few hours later that Chyanne and I spoke to each other again. She slowly opened the door and walked down a few of the steps to the basement.

  “Jamie?”

  “What?”

  I answered her, but my eyes remained on the college football game on TV. I could tell her feelings had been hurt. We’d never had dissension come between us before. We had always been able to communicate and had done so effectively; however, when the subject of my family came up, there was nothing to talk about.

  “Can we talk when you’re done watching the game?” she asked.

  I turned my head to look into her eyes and wanted to be calm. I wanted to tell the woman I loved that we could talk, but I just didn’t want to. In that moment I just wanted to be left alone.

  “Maybe,” was all I answered.

  She dropped her head, then glanced back over at me. She looked dejected. She’d always been emotional, one who wore her feelings on her sleeve. When she left, I turned back to look at the TV. I would worry about her emotions later.

  Gabe

  Listening to Aric vent had me doubled over in laughter. He’d called Chy over the weekend, and apparently, she had picked up the phone in the middle of having sex with Jamie. Aric was none too pleased about it.

  “Can you believe that shit? Why the fuck would she answer the phone?” he asked, throwing things around on his desk.

  “I don’t know. I can’t answer that,” I said, then laughed.

  Monday morning had rolled around, and so far it had proved to be better than my weekend had been. My father hadn’t said as much as two words to me, and I’d stayed at his place the whole weekend. I didn’t know what I said to him to make him feel like he had to give me the silent treatment, but I couldn’t do anything about it. I’d said what I said, not to make him feel bad, but to give him the honesty he’d asked for. Point of the matter was what I’d said was true. He knew it. I knew it. Stephanie and her mother knew it too, since they’d always found a way to throw it in my face.

  “I mean, did she think it was cute?” Aric asked again, eyeing me as he sat down. He leaned to the side and cast a look out the window. “The fact that I could hear the nigga fucking her, did she find that shit cute? When I see her, I’m putting my foot in her ass.”

  Monday was the day when we normally had employee meetings and discussed the happenings with numbers and figures for the company, which was why both of us had forgone the normal suits we wore to work. I had on black designer jeans with a navy blue polo shirt and a pair of the latest Nike shoes. Aric was dressed similarly, only he had on a shirt that AJ had painted on. He’d gone to some kind of festival at AJ’s school earlier that day, but now it was business as usual.

  So far we’d been doing pretty well business-wise since the merger of B&G and Charter. The idea to merge two of the biggest advertising firms in the region had been genius and profitable. Oddly enough, the only competition we seemed to be facing was the mother of his child and her business partner. That had been our fault, because we hadn’t seen them as a serious threat. That wasn’t so much because they were women, but because they were a fairly new company. Even after years in this business, most big companies and corporations didn’t take chances on new marketing and advertising firms, especially with the economy still being on the rocks.

  “What?” I asked with a laugh and shook my head. I sat forward in the brown leather wingback chair across from his desk and against the wall. “Tell me, Aric. How in the hell are you going to walk up to another man’s woman and proceed to put your foot in her ass?”

  “She’s my son’s mother,” he said with a frown on his face, like I’d insulted him. “I don’t care who she’s with. She’ll always be mine.”

  My right brow slowly rose at his declaration. The messed-up part about it was that Aric believed his own hype. The fool actually believed he had the right to treat Chyanne like she was his because she was the mother of his son.

  We’d moved to another office building in Buckhead since the merger. Aric’s office looked and felt like it belonged to a corporate exec, with its big cherry and oak desk and its high floor-to-ceiling bookshelves that lined the office walls. Pictures of AJ and Chyanne sat atop his desk. The office was spacious and had Randwick Berber carpeting. The cedar-brown walls were lined with his degrees and plaques lauding his accomplishments. It was the role we played. While he
focused on the companies that were Fortune 500, I focused on those looking to become Fortune 500 companies. So my office was a little less flashy to make the up-and-comers feel more comfortable.

  “Aric, are you out of your damned mind? Do you really think Jamie is going to let you walk up on the woman he loves and jump stupid with her?”

  “The fuck you mean, let me?”

  I threw my head back and chuckled again. Aric was my boy and all, but he was out of his mind at times.

  “Aric, Jamie is not about to let you come at Chy sideways. You’re mad because you had to listen to her having sex? That’s what people in relationships do. They have sex. Do you realize what you’ve taken this woman through? And that’s why you’re mad?”

  “She shouldn’t have answered the damn phone.”

  “How do you know it didn’t just fall off the hook?”

  “Her cell?” he asked, looking at me as if I was stupid, his tone belligerent.

  “It could have come on without her knowing.”

  “Kiss my ass, Gabe.”

  “It happens, Aric,” I told him, still thinking he was a complete fool for even being mad.

  “That shit didn’t just come on. I heard him tell her to answer the phone. And just why the hell are you defending her so much?”

  He looked at me like he wanted to fight me in that moment. That made me laugh harder. The whole thing was quite hilarious to me. I would never understand his need to be so possessive of a woman that he claimed he didn’t want or love.

  I stood. “A’ight, Aric. I’m leaving, because you’re tripping. I’m trying to get you to think logically before you and Jamie come to blows. And you’re funny. I will never get this shit with you and Chyanne, at least not your part. The girl was head over heels in love with you, and you didn’t want her. Then, when you had a chance to be with her”—I moved my hand from my pocket and used it to talk—“you pretty much gave her your ass to kiss. You walked away.”