Nothing Has Ever Felt Like This

by Mary B. Morrison

  The double ring tone of her phone indicated Byron was in the lobby. Instead of answering the phone, Fancy slipped her dress over her body, stepped into her shoes, grabbed her purse, dabbed perfume behind each ear and between her breasts, and hurried downstairs. When the elevator door opened, Darius stood in the lobby holding another bouquet of roses.

  Frowning, he asked, “Where are you going?”

  Dammit. She should’ve answered the phone. “Out. You said you were going to call back by noon.”

  “No, you told me to call before noon. I told you not to make plans.”

  “Darius, it’s too late. I have plans already,” Fancy said, staring at Darius’s Escalade in the circular driveway.

  “What nigga you goin’ out with?”

  Mr. Cabie busied himself, pretending not to overhear their conversation.

  “It doesn’t matter. I’m not going back upstairs. I’ll call you when I get back.” Fancy prayed Byron didn’t arrive before Darius left.

  “Well, let me in before you leave and I’ll wait for you.”

  Darius was insane if he thought she’d let him roam her condo alone. Men were actually nosier than women. Sneaky. Distrustful. Shaking her head, Fancy said, “I’ll call you when I get back, Darius.”

  Squaring his shoulders, Darius yelled, “This is bullshit! Don’t call me ever again!” He walked away.

  Fancy yelled back, “When are you going to grow the fuck up and stop acting like a spoiled-ass kid! You don’t want a commitment but you want to control where I go! I told you I wasn’t staying home tonight. I’m glad you’re leaving! And don’t come back!”

  Darius opened then slammed the lobby door. As Fancy waited for the elevator, Byron drove into the driveway.

  Damn! Hoping Darius had left and wasn’t parked on the street, Fancy strutted through the lobby and eased into Byron’s car. Fancy hadn’t been on a date with Byron in months.

  “You look nice. I like that dress,” Byron said, opening the car door to his BMW.

  “Thanks. So where’re we going?”

  “To a concert, dinner, then to my place.”

  “Concert and dinner is cool but not your place. Mine.”

  “Lighten up. I heard you’re seeing Darius and I just saw him leave. He’s probably upset because he can’t afford to treat you the way I do.”

  Fancy was in for a long night. Ignoring Byron, she admired the new condo development off of Harrison Street and Jack London Square and asked, “How much do you think that building is worth?”

  “About a hundred million.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “You have a license, look it up on the MLS and see what the asking price is.”

  “Yeah, I will. So how many clients do you have for me?”

  “One right now.”

  “Cool, but just so you know, I’m not dating Darius,” Fancy said, staring ahead at the building in Jack London Square that once housed TGI Friday’s. Seemingly overnight the restaurant had closed and no one knew the real reason. Fancy had researched it, discovering Oakland’s waterfront was being rehabilitated, including the Old Spaghetti Factory and every business in that building. All Fancy cared about was the real estate value. One day she’d sell commercial properties.

  “I don’t care about Darius. In fact, don’t mention his name when you’re with me. You’re with a real man now. One who should be your husband.”

  Byron’s name didn’t start with a D so according to the homeless woman’s prediction, he couldn’t be her future husband. Besides, Fancy was through with Byron and his big dick. Miss Kitty knocked twice. Darius’s dick was bigger and better. Miss Kitty knocked twice more. Cut that out. Fancy pressed her thighs together. “How much do you think that building is worth?” Fancy asked, pointing at the Park Hotel.

  “Look, if you don’t want to go to the concert and dinner at Yoshi’s, we don’t have to.”

  “No, it’s fine.” Why was it that Byron could talk about his business for hours but now that she was interested in making money, he didn’t want to discuss the properties?

  Dinner at Yoshi’s was nice. Fancy ordered sushi. Byron ordered steak. Byron didn’t want to discuss real estate and Fancy wasn’t interested in having a relationship. Quietly they ate. When they entered the intimate concert area at Yoshi’s, they sat up front. Byron pulled his chair close to Fancy and placed his arm around her shoulder. Instantly Fancy moved his hand.

  “Please, we’re not in a relationship so let’s not pretend.”

  “Fancy, you know I love you. I didn’t invite you out as a friend. I invited you out as a lover. And my love.”

  “You never said anything all through dinner. Not one word.” Byron had stared at Fancy the whole time. Eerie. Irritating. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking. One minute he seemed calm, the next he acted as though he was jealous of her. Now that Fancy had her own money, she noticed the men in her life were treating her differently. She didn’t need them anymore. But they needed her to need them. “You never once mentioned your friend who’s supposed to be my client. There probably is no client, Byron. My time is valuable. If you’re going to play games, and all you want to talk about is getting back together, let’s go.”

  Byron asked, “What about the show?”

  What about the show? Was that all he had to say? Fancy stood and started walking toward the door. “I don’t care about the show. Take me home.” Fancy was compromising herself for a ghost client.

  Exiting the concert room and entering the lounge area, Fancy wished she’d stayed inside because Darius was seated in an oversized chair facing them. Like he was intentionally waiting for her to come out. Had Darius followed them to Yoshi’s? Fancy tried to slow her pace but Darius immediately headed in their direction.

  Patting Byron on the back, Darius sarcastically said, “I see she’s yours tonight. Enjoy yourself, man.”

  “Oh no, you don’t,” Fancy said, following Darius outside. “You are not going to treat me like a piece of meat.”

  Standing outside, Darius yelled in Fancy’s face, “What the fuck you doin’ with that nigga? I thought you were my girl. I should’ve known better than to trust your ass.”

  “Darius, it’s not what you think! And I’m not your girl. And I’m not his girl! You can’t just decide arbitrarily that I’m yours! Byron and I were giving closure to our relationship. That’s all.” Damn, why had Fancy said, “That’s all”?

  Byron walked by Fancy and Darius and said, “Closure. Yeah, right. I’ll see you tomorrow night,” and kept on walking. Darius turned and walked in the opposite direction. Men were scandalous just like women. Fancy had no plans of ever seeing Byron again after he fronted her in Darius’s face.

  Hailing a taxi, Fancy’s heart ached because she didn’t want to lose Darius. She loved Darius. She thought.

  CHAPTER 17

  Since Darius had enough credits from his prior years at Georgetown, he entered UCLA as a junior and was exempt from the mandatory “live on campus” policy for freshman basketball players. At Darryl’s request, Jada paid for a dorm room anyway. Darryl had said, “Son, you’ll have fewer distractions if you live on campus. Your room is too small to host parties and when the females crash your dorm room offering sexual pleasantries, at least you’ll have your roommate to witness that you didn’t rape them.” Dad always tried to predict the outcome of every situation before anything occurred.

  Darius had asked his dad, “So you think I’m going to spend every night in this shoebox?”

  “Son, you have to make sacrifices in life to become successful.” Darryl’s eyes shifted toward Darius’s roommate then back to Darius. “You know what we discussed earlier.”

  “Yeah, I know.” One was not to name-drop his inside connections to the NBA draft to his teammates. Darryl had informed Darius that his coaches and teammates would make assumptions, but Darius was not to confirm nor deny their statements.

  After breaking up with Fancy, Darius returned to Los Angeles. Chilled for a w
eek. Attended his psychology classes. Basketball workouts because, according to NCAA rules, the team couldn’t officially practice for almost another three months. Darryl’s advice to Darius regarding Fancy was, “Don’t trip. There’ll be another Fancy knocking on your door every night. Focus on school and basketball.” Darryl was wrong. There’d never be another Fancy. Fancy was the reason Darius had to respond to Ashlee’s demand to see him.

  Starring out the window into the clouds, Darius thought about how his life, overnight, took a different direction. The woman he hadn’t seen in eight months, Ashlee, had called him. And within a few hours, Darius was on his way to Dallas. The coach plane ride seemed the longest mental and physical trip Darius had taken, including the descent into Dallas, Texas.

  While in flight, Darius could not believe that a terrible kid with a cast on his leg continuously kicked the back of his seat, the person who sat next to Darius snored, and Darius’s seat wouldn’t recline. During the flight Darius ignored the kid he could’ve strangled by reading the second half of The Preacher’s Son, figuring some brotha had to have more problems than he, and Darius was right. Dude was a straight trip.

  “Aw, shit.” Darius closed the book, unbuckled his seat belt, then stood. The plane, only a few feet from landing, suddenly was on an incline back into the sky. Rattling and shaking, the 757 shook so hard Darius fell into his seat, not sure they’d make it up or down safely. Darius silently prayed, “God, please don’t take me out like this. Don’t let my mother have to identify me by my teeth. Please, Lord, please.”

  “Everyone, please remain calm and seated with your seat belts fastened,” the not-so-chipper flight attendant announced. “There were crosswinds on the ground and for your safety we were instructed to circle around until given clearance to land.”

  Dallas-Fort Worth always had ground crosswinds. That shit wasn’t new. “Who in the hell gave clearance for landing? Whateva sleepy overworked muthfuckin’ air traffic controller is in that tower, fire his ass!” Darius shouted.

  A few “Yeahs!” and “That’s rights!” roared throughout the plane.

  When the flight attendant held her head in her lap, Darius closed his eyes. If she was scared, he had cause to be terrified. After circling around three times, Darius almost regurgitated as the plane landed safely on the runway. Everyone except Darius clapped as he retrieved his carry-on and headed to the exit door before they arrived at the gate.

  “Sir, for you own safety, please re—”

  “This is for my own safety. I ain’t movin’,” Darius said, standing in front of the attendant.

  The door opened and Darius dashed to the taxi stand because his mother refused to pay for a driver. The anxiety stirring in Darius’s abdomen made the taxi ride from DFW airport to Presbyterian Hospital an eternity.

  Ashlee had called at two in the morning and told Darius she went into labor prematurely so Darius convinced his mother to buy him a ticket he couldn’t have purchased with his last few dollars. Moms was undeniably in denial; trying to keep from losing Wellington to the same woman twice, she’d become obsessed with chasing her husband. Darius was too emotionally tied to Fancy, so he was glad his full-time class schedule would start soon.

  The hospital lobby was cold like a morgue. Quiet. The smell of sick people reeked throughout the corridors as Darius exited the elevator onto the maternity floor. What if Ashlee’s baby wasn’t his? Oh, shit! What if he was dead? Or going to die? “Stop buggin’ out, man. That old homeless lady who claimed she was predicting your future didn’t know you. Her ass was crazy.”

  Darius stood outside Ashlee’s door. What the hell, he was here now. And whether or not the baby was for Darius, Darius wanted to see him. Her. Since Ciara had given him back her engagement and wedding rings, and since Darius originally had bought the engagement ring for Ashlee, he would propose to Ashlee if the child was his. But he was in love with Fancy and he needed money, so on his way to the airport, Darius had pawned a twenty-thousand-dollar engagement ring for five grand. He had the wedding band in his pocket along with the money, ready to hand everything to Ashlee for the baby. Darius prayed Ashlee had a boy.

  “Hey,” Darius whispered, quietly entering Ashlee’s room. “You doing okay?”

  Ashlee didn’t look okay. She was paler. Eyes puffy. Hair scattered all over her head. Her stomach protruded as though she hadn’t delivered the baby. Lawrence sat in the corner in a huge chair. He stared at Darius and didn’t speak.

  Darius wanted to curse Lawrence out for interfering with his relationship with Ashlee. “Hello, Mr. Anderson,” Darius said, remembering how his real dad told him to keep his enemies close, and if Darius was lucky, out of the media when Darius turn pro.

  Lawrence stood and said, “Ashlee, darling, I’ll be back in an hour. Hopefully he’ll be gone by the time I return.” Lawrence kissed his daughter’s forehead.

  “Thanks, Daddy, for understanding,” Ashlee said, hugging her father.

  When Lawrence exited the room, Darius kissed Ashlee’s lips. “Is it a boy? I miss you. How are you?”

  Ashlee’s smiling eyes resembled the look Darius used to see on his mother’s face whenever he walked into a room. “We’re fine. And yes, it’s a boy.”

  “Can I see him? Where is he?” Darius asked, wondering if the baby resembled him.

  “He’s in the nursery.” Ashlee pressed a button on the side of her bed and said, “Nurse, can you bring Junior in, please?”

  Darius smiled, hoping Ashlee could see the excitement in his eyes.

  The nurse replied, “Certainly, Mrs. Williams.”

  The sparkle in his eyes glazed over. No, Darius did not hear the nurse say “Williams.” He wasn’t prepared for that shit. “Williams? What the hell?” Standing over Ashlee, Darius questioned, “Ashlee, you have something you need to say to me?”

  The nurse entered and handed the baby to Ashlee. “No, please,” Ashlee said to the nurse. “Let Darius hold him.”

  The nurse dumped the kid in Darius’s arms like he was the father. Darius wanted to move his arms but then the kid would fall on the floor. Instead, Darius scratched his locks, wondering what to do next. Darius couldn’t yell with the baby in his arms.

  “Darius, I apologize. I wanted you to be here with me and I couldn’t tell you over the phone. But I wanted you to see him. He’s so beautiful. I want you to be his godfather.”

  “This is a joke, right? I took the first fuckin’ flight, a red-eye flight that almost crashed, to be here for this. You apologize for being late or stepping on someone’s foot, Ashlee. Not for making a man fly over a thousand miles to tell him it’s not his baby.” Darius shouted, “Why is everybody fucking with me? You of all people kickin’ my ass when I’m already down. Please tell me you’re not playing me for a fool, too.”

  Propping the pillow behind her back, Ashlee cried, “Darius, we’re family. I love you. Can you think of someone other than yourself for just a moment?”

  The kid was kinda cool and hella tiny, barely heavier than a bag of sugar. He weighed five and half pounds. Except for the wrinkles, Darius thought the baby favored him. A little. “So you married Kevin because he’s the father? You married him after he stole all of my money?”

  “Darius, can’t you see? Kevin was trying to be like you. He’s really a nice man.”

  “Nice man, my ass. He’s a thief! All he wants is your money. Ashlee, is this my son? Because if not, I’m out. I have to get back to school and back to my woman.”

  Ashlee closed her eyes momentarily then said, “My dad was smart enough to draw up a prenuptial.”

  “Your dad let you marry this clown and he won’t let you speak to me on the phone!” The baby started crying. “Oh, damn. I’m sorry. All I want to hear you say is whether or not he’s mine. I need to hear it from your mouth, Ashlee.”

  “He’s hungry.” Ashlee extended her arms and uncovered her breasts. Holding his head with one hand and her breast in the other, she directed the baby’s head toward her nipple. Dar
ius’s dick got hard so he sat in the only chair across the room, the one Lawrence occupied earlier. Did she mean to uncover both of her titties? Watching the little fella breastfeed made Darius reminisce about doing Ciara in her office. Ashlee patted the baby on the back, then asked the nurse to come and get him.

  Darius stood, stretched, then walked over to Ashlee and said, “I demand a paternity test.”

  “I agree. That’s fine.”

  Darius was tired of Ashlee’s charade. “I really don’t have anything else to say to you. I will be a father to my son but I can’t be Kevin’s son’s godfather.”

  “That’s fine, Darius. I don’t know why I expected you to be a man about this.”

  “This is bullshit! Be a man about what? I’ll arrange for the test before I leave.” That meant another phone call to his mother for more money because there was no way Darius was spending his money to find out the truth. “I love you too much, Ashlee, to play games.”

  “No, you love yourself too much,” Kevin said, entering the room.

  Darius turned to witness a shorter image of himself. Kevin had grown locks, was sporting a Rolex, and his clothes were top-of-the-line designer down to his shoes. Without speaking a word, Darius’s hands clamped around Kevin’s neck and tightened.

  “Darius! Don’t!” Ashlee yelled. “Let him go!”

  Darius slammed the imposter into the wall, sending a framed photo of daisies crashing to the floor. “Nigga, if you don’t pay me back my money . . .” Darius choked his half brother until Kevin couldn’t suction an ounce of oxygen. Huge veins popped out of Kevin’s neck. Tears swelled in both men’s eyes. Darius was hurt that Ashlee had betrayed him. Darius could beat Kevin’s ass and feel better. But there was nothing Darius could do about the pain Ashlee had caused him. The entire situation was Ashlee’s fault. If only she’d been faithful.