“Close your eyes.”
My eyebrows drew in even further. “What?! Listen, I don’t know what—”
“Calm… Don’t be… Rela—shit, B,” he chuckled, then drew his bottom lip between his teeth for a second as he shook his head. “Just roll with me for a second, please?”
I sucked in a long breath, then blew it back out. “This isn’t about to be any crazy shit, is it?”
“Nah,” he laughed. “Nothing crazy, I promise.”
I let out another sigh. “Okay. Fine.” I did as he’d asked and closed my eyes, trying not to fidget as I waited for whatever was about to happen. A little yelp of surprise sprung from my lips when he touched me, but I managed to make myself keep my eyes closed as he pulled my wrists forward, then let me go. A moment later, I felt paper in one hand, and my fingers instinctively closed around it. What he put in my other hand was unmistakably a wine bottle.
“You can open now.”
My eyes went to the bottle first, and I could only imagine how crazy my expression had to be when I saw that it was my favorite wine – I’d just poured the last of a bottle earlier in the night. I took a step back, and adjusted my grip on the neck of the bottle, prepared to use it as a weapon if necessary. “Okay… uh… how…”
“A few weeks ago, I was with Rob when Iris called, asked him to pick up some stuff from the liquor store for y’alls little “Girls Night.” I was the one who scribbled the list down while he repeated it back to her, and I remembered “Stella Rosa Black, for Brandi”. They had it at the racist chick’s store just now, so I brought you a bottle. Cause I’m a gracious guest and shit, you know? My people raised me right.”
I laughed, and my grin lingered longer than I wanted it to. “Oh, is that right?”
“Damn right,” he nodded.
I put the bottle down on the counter, and my eyes went to the thick card envelope in my other hand. “And… what is this?”
“Open it,” he said, shrugging like he didn’t know.
My eyes narrowed a little at the envelope again, and I carefully pulled out the gaudy, brightly colored card. The front was covered in drawings of different styles of pants, intermingled with variations of jalapeno peppers. I looked up at Kyle, whose hand was covering his mouth as he watched me, then back down at the card to open it and read the pre-printed message.
“I would love to get jalapeno pants.”
I frowned.
Jalapeno pants?
Shaking my head, I looked up at him again, confused. “Jalapeno pants?” I said, out loud, and as soon as I did, it clicked, and I burst out laughing. “Oh my God,” I giggled, holding up the card. “What the hell is this?”
Kyle had finally taken his hand off his mouth, and was laughing his ass off now that I’d gotten the “all up in yo pants” joke. It was so infectious that I couldn’t help laughing about the silliness of it too, and when he finally caught his breath, he held his arms open, motioning for me to step into them.
I rolled my eyes about it, but I did, and tried not to melt about the hug he wrapped me into. “Happy Valentine’s day B,” he said, his hands dipping just a little too low on my back.
“Thank you,” I told him, easing my way out of his hold. “Happy Valentine’s Day to you too.”
There was a moment of silence between us, and I cast my gaze back down to the card still in my hands, instead of looking at him. Of course I knew that the card and wine were just friendly gestures, but I was in a place where… it meant a little more to me than it should. As juvenile as it was, I’d been particularly down about not having a “Valentine” this year, so holding this card in my hand…
I shook my head.
I wasn’t about to let myself go there.
“So, since when are shirtless selfies not thirst traps, Mr. Everett?” I asked, tossing the card onto the counter to pick up the wine bottle instead. His gaze followed me to the drawer that held my corkscrew.
“That’s just how I work sometimes. The shop can get hot when I have art drying. I don’t want any moving air to mess up the paint.” He took a seat at the counter, watching as I peeled off the foil from the top of the bottle, then set the corkscrew. “You’re about to open that now, when it hasn’t been chilled?”
I shrugged, then made quick work of uncorking the bottle. “That’s what ice is for,” I said, opening a cabinet to grab two glasses.
“You’re about to put ice in those, for the wine?” he asked, and I nodded as I opened the freezer, using the scoop to dispense cubes from the ice maker.
“Is that a problem for you?”
He scoffed. “Problem? Hell no. More like you’re about to make me fall in love.”
“Shut up,” I laughed, then went back to the counter with the glasses. His eyes stayed on me as I poured them, then pushed one across the counter to him. He didn’t look at it. He kept looking at me. “What?” I asked, then took a deep, thirsty sip. “Why are you staring at me like that?”
“Staring has an ugly connotation, B. I’m not staring at you, I’m looking. And I’m looking because your ass is fine,” he explained, then took a sip of his own as I rolled my eyes.
“Look, let’s just… be easy, okay? None of whatever it is you’re trying to do right now.”
He raised a thick eyebrow at me. “I wasn’t trying to do anything. Just stating what was on my mind. What did you think I was trying to do?”
Right.
What did I think he was trying to do?
I shook my head – at myself, not him. I was on the verge of embarrassing my silly ass, thinking he was trying to hit on me, when he obviously wasn’t. “Nevermind. You hungry?”
“Hell yes,” he answered immediately, putting his hand to his stomach. “I doubt we’d be able to get any delivery in this weather though, not for a while.”
I shrugged. “So? I’ve got food.” I pulled open the fridge, looking around for a few moments before I glanced back at him. “You want grilled cheese? That’s the most work I’m doing at this time of night. With good cheese though. Or Zion has frozen pizzas…”
“I’m good with a grilled cheese… or two… please?”
I laughed as I grabbed the cheese and butter from the fridge, then put them down on the counter. “You can have two. Zion always inhales the first one, then actually chews the second.”
“You sound like my stepmother did when I was that age. Always talking about me “eating her out of house and home”. I couldn’t help it though.”
“I know, I know,” I said, pulling out my skillet, placing it on the stove and turning the heating element on. “He’s a growing boy – shot up damn near a foot in the last two months. It’s like a switch flipped when he turned thirteen. The time for Brandi to go broke buying shoes and clothes switch.”
Kyle chuckled, and I wrinkled my nose as I pulled a silicon spatula from the utensil drawer. “Yeah, laugh at my pain now, but KJ is what, four? He’s coming up on that age where he’s gonna be going through a new pair of shoes every month. I at least still get three or four.”
“His mother is already complaining.”
I grinned. “See?” I turned to put a fat chunk of butter into the skillet, then took six slices of whole wheat bread from the loaf on the counter. “But, that’s probably not a big deal for you, Mr. Former NBA. I can barely believe you kick it with us regular folks.”
“Cut that shit out, B,” he laughed. “I’m regular as hell.”
“Ballistic had a full spread in the last issue of Sugar&Spice. Imagine my surprise, to look over my client’s shoulder while she’s in my chair and see your face.”
And not just his face. He’d been shirtless there too, covered in paint, but holding a pristine basketball. The art direction of the shoot had been gorgeous… and so had he.
“It was a good opportunity for my business,” he shrugged. “But don’t act like you weren’t hugged up with Dani’s little songbird ass on Instagram a few weeks back after you hooked her up with the color on her locs.”
“See there?” he asked, as I went back to the fridge for a jar of pesto, which I spread over the other three slices of bread. “You’re a celebrity stylist, about to be a household name. The NBA was seven damn years ago. Nobody recognizes me like that anymore.”
“Whoa.” I held up a hand to stop him, and reached for a tomato from the counter with the other. “First of all, you have social media followers like current players, so you can kill that. Second – I have a couple of celebrity clients, but I’m not a celebrity stylist. And I don’t think I ever want to be either.”
I grabbed a knife and cutting board, quickly breaking the tomato down into thick slices.
“Why not?” Kyle asked, while my back was turned, layering the tomato slices on top of the cheese, then topping each sandwich with its other piece of bread before I flipped them all over. “Why wouldn’t you want to pursue your passion to the top?”
“Who says doing hair is my passion?” I shot him a glance, then turned back around to grab plates from the cabinet. “I love making people look good, feel good, all of that, but when I was in high school thinking about what I wanted to go to college for, it wasn’t hair. I wanted to be a journalist. I thought I was going to be CNN’s flyest Black political correspondent. But… I had a baby instead, and I had to get real. I was good with hair. Maybe even… gifted. So I went to beauty school, got the license, and got a damn job, so I could take care of my kid.”
Kyle whistled. “Damn. So you had to give up your dream.”
I shrugged. “It’s okay, you know? I got to watch Angela Rye flourish on CNN during election season, so it felt like a win. And, I’m happy with my career. I’d love to own my own shop one day, but following celebrities all over the world, stuff like that? I’ll pass on it. They can always hit me up when they pass through here though.”
“I feel you on that,” he nodded. “Basketball was always just a means to an end for me too. Scholarship got me into college, which led me into the NBA, which led me into jacked up knees… but also put me in a position where I could paint and create for a living. So, no regrets.”
I picked up my glass, holding it over the counter for him to touch with his. “To no regrets,” I said, and he nodded again.
“I’ll drink to that.”
I tried not to choke. The toast had been my idea, but the “no regrets” thing wasn’t completely honest. Sure, my life had managed to work. I had great friends, great family, steady work, a great kid. But there were definitely times I wished things had been different.
Wished Zion’s father had been different – as in, not been a worthless, trashfire of a man who’d insisted I get an abortion, and stopped speaking to me when I didn’t, or just simply been somebody else. Not Scott’s stupid ass.
I shook my head.
There I was, letting my thoughts take me somewhere else again.
I took our finished sandwiches from the skillet and deposited them on the plates, where I cut each in half. I handed Kyle his plate with two, then moved to get both of us water to balance out the wine.
“This is good as hell,” he said, accepting the glass of water before he took another bite. “Way better than the American cheese on white bread you would have gotten with my grilled cheese sandwiches.”
I laughed, then joined him at the counter. “I try to do a little better when I’m feeding grownups than when I’m feeding Zion. That kid’s palette… I just don’t understand it.”
“He’s a kid,” Kyle chuckled. “He has time to be sophisticated later. KJ’s favorite thing in the world is damn chicken nuggets. But, in the meantime… I’ll eat his servings of whatever you fix. Cause this,” – he pointed at the second sandwich. The first was already gone. This fool eats just like Zion – “is bomb.”
“Well, thank you,” I said, taking my first bite.
“You realize this is strike two, right?”
I lifted my eyebrow, as I swallowed. “Strike two?! I didn’t know I’d gotten strike one! And what do the strikes mean anyway?”
“First strike was the wine served over ice. Second strike is this good ass sandwich. One more strike, and that’s it. Your fine ass isn’t gonna be able to get rid of me.”
I burst out laughing, shaking my head. “Boy if you don’t stop playing…”
“What’s up, what you gone do?” he teased, nudging my shoulder.
“I’m gonna put you out in the Sharknado is what I’m gone do,” I shot back.
His eyes got big, even though he knew I wasn’t going to do any such thing. “Oh damn, let me straighten up then, so I don’t get put out.”
“Yeah, you better.”
We settled into a comfortable silence to eat, but after a few moments, his phone rang in his backpack. Curiosity got the best of me, and I peeked up from my plate as I finished to get a glimpse of his face as he checked the screen to see who it was.
Whoever it was made him smile.
Big.
I picked up my plate from the counter as he answered, then reached to take his empty one as well. He didn’t even seem to notice though, as he embarked on a conversation that, after a moment had passed, was clearly about his son.
As quietly as I could, I ran a sinkful of hot, soapy water to clean up the small mess I’d made in the kitchen. I was gathering our glasses when Kyle came into the main part of the kitchen.
“What are you doing?” he asked, with the phone pressed to his shoulder, earning himself a hiked eyebrow.
“Um, cleaning up?”
He sucked his teeth, then put a hand at my waist, easing me away from the sink. “What kind of wack ass guest would I be if you cooked and had to clean up after? Let me do this.”
“Okay,” I readily agreed. I certainly wasn’t about to argue with a man wanting to wash the dishes. He put the phone back to his ear, using his shoulder to keep it in place while he talked to whoever he was talking to, and cleaned the kitchen. While he was in his own little world, I took the opportunity to put away what was in the dishwasher, now that the cycle had finished running.
I was pushing myself up on my toes, reaching high to put away the slow cooker, now that the porcelain insert was clean. I really need to store this on a lower shelf, I thought to myself, and just as I did, I felt Kyle’s hand on my waist again, as he approached me from behind.
“Let me help you with that,” he said, taking the pot from my hands and easily placing it on the shelf. I sucked in a breath as he stepped in closer to me, right against my ass, to push it into place so the cabinet would close. My heart was thumping loud as hell as I waited for him to move back, but that moment never came. Instead, he moved to press his palm flat against my stomach.
“What are you doing?” I hissed, not knowing if he was still on the phone or not.
Instead of answering immediately, he used that hand on my stomach to pull me closer to him. So close that I felt the unmistakable hardness of his dick against the hollow of my back.
“Something I’ve been wanting to do for a long ass time,” he said, with his mouth so close to my ear that I felt the brush of his lips on my skin.
Annoyed, I turned around, pushing him away. “Okay what is this?” I asked, crossing my arms. “What, you think I’m lonely and thirsty enough to give you some ass just because you’re here?”
“Wait a minute,” he said, putting his hands up. “B, I didn’t mean any harm, damn.”
“Oh, I’m sure you didn’t, but let me set something straight – I didn’t invite you here for pussy.”
“Who said you
did? Brandi, we’ve been flirting and shit with each other since we met, so it’s not like it’s out of the blue.”
I scoffed. “Flirting, no. Putting your dick on my back – yes! I’m not stupid, Kyle, don’t try to play this game with me. You thought “oh, she’s alone on Valentine’s day. Must be desperate.” Tell the damn truth!”
“What the hell?” he said, looking genuinely confused. “B- my ass is alone on Valentine’s Day too, which is exactly the damn point! We’ve been flirting and teasing and shit for months, yeah, but now I’m single. You’re single. I figured we could see where all the shit we’d been talking could go.”
I shook my head. “What do you mean now you’re single? You telling me you weren’t when you were doing all that damn flirting before?”
“Not… completely. The shit was complicated, and I wasn’t trying to bring anybody else into it, especially not my homeboy’s lady’s best friend. I was trying to avoid drama… but it looks like that’s in the wind.”
“Wait,” I said, raising my hands. “So you’re saying… you didn’t take it past flirting before because you were involved with someone?”
“Right.”
“But now… you aren’t.”
“Right.”
“Which is why… no date for Valentine’s Day.”
He gave me a slow nod. “… right.”
I dropped my hands. “Oh.”
If only it were possible to melt into the floor.
There was an awkward moment of silence between us, and then he nodded. “Yeah. Uh… I’m gonna go check on my clothes, see if they’re ready to go in the dryer.”
I didn’t respond as he turned and left the kitchen, but as soon as he was gone I covered my face with my hands. It wasn’t even just that I was embarrassed by my reaction… I felt kinda bad for assuming his intentions. He could blame the majority of his gender for that. If so many of his fellow dick-carriers weren’t horrible, I wouldn’t have so easily assumed he was too.
“B,” I heard from behind me, and dropped my hands to my sides. I turned to find Kyle leaning against the entrance to the kitchen. “Listen… my bad for coming at you like that. I shouldn’t have put my hands on you, or assumed you were… open to it. We’d flirted and shit in the past, but when I think about it, you really weren’t on that tonight. I should’ve picked up the clues. I’m sorry. Seriously.”
The Lies: The Lies We Tell About Love, Life, and Everything in Between Page 2
