“I’m ready. Get changed and we’ll start your warm-ups.”
“That’s what I’m talking about,” I said; ready to work out blood, sweat, and tears.
***
I meandered into the dressing room, showered and dressed in my suit and tie, minus the jacket. After a grueling training session, I felt one hundred percent better. My mind relaxed and I was ready to go back to the office and superman the day.
“Good workout, man,” Mario said as I passed him to leave. He stood close to the front counter greeting guests as he came and went.
“Thought you were trying to kill a brother on them squats, but at least my head is much clearer. I feel a million times better.”
“That’s what it’s all about,” he said, the anxious look on his face growing by the second.
"What’s wrong with you?" I asked, knowing his reply would be something I didn’t want to hear.
“I want to say one more thing about what we were talking about when you came in.”
“Bruh,” I said on an exasperated sigh. “I thought you were in the business of selling your services for positive endorphins. Didn’t I just tell you that I feel better? Are you trying to stress me the hell out again?”
“No, I don’t want to do that. I just want to leave you with something to think about.”
Thinking was exactly the thing I was trying to escape. I slid my arm into my jacket. Since he was intent on dragging me back down, might as well have taken the time to do something constructive. I didn’t want to hear about me moving on and finding another woman. That was the furthest thing from my mind. As far as I was concerned, after the Justine trick, I would be on a hands-only diet for a while where women were concerned.
“Spill it, Mario. I have to get back to work,” I barked. He was taking too long to respond.
“Just don’t close your eyes to what’s around you,” he finally blurted.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“The real one could be right in front of your face. It could be someone God has already sent your way and you overlooked her because you still want to see Destiny by your side. Hell, it could be that fine ass secretary of yours, for all you know. Crawl out of Destiny’s ass for a minute and think about that hot piece of—”
“Who Shalonda?” I shook my head profusely. “Nah, man. That’s strictly professional.”
“So, you’re saying you never even thought about tapping that?”
“Yeah, that’s what I’m saying. Strictly professional.”
"Good for me, then," Mario rubbed his hands together. “If you don’t holler at her, I’m going for it.”
"You have a thing for Shalonda?"
"Man, that lady is super thick. I would’ve tapped that by now. I thought you had—"
"I don't look at her that way,” I cut him off. “She's the one that keeps me together businesswise, and I want it to stay that way. Sex complicates shit, as you can see."
“Well, I’m taking applications for new complications,” Mario laughed.
“Aight, man, I’m ‘bout to get up out of here,” I said and extended my hand to give him some dap.
“Alright man, stay up,” Mario said, pulling me in for a brotherly hug. “Just keep your eyes open. Your blessing could be staring you in the face. That’s all I’m saying. I can’t say I’m sad that you haven’t blessed yourself with Shalonda though,” he said and bit down on his lips. “Mmph, mmph, mmph.”
I blinked my eyes to prevent sexual thoughts of Shalonda from entering my mind. “Holler at you later, man,” I said and walked out the door.
CHAPTER TEN
Montie
Her
I smelled her before I saw her. I paused in the foyer to partake of her scent a while longer before I walked into the reception area of True Colors. Lissa waited beside Shalonda’s desk in all her tenderonious glory. I mean, when Bobby Brown grinded on the stage in the nineties singing about tenderonies, she was exactly the type he had in mind. As I stared at her, I couldn’t help but think about what Mario said about my blessing staring me in the face. Did Lissa possess the power to make me forget about Destiny? Just the mere fact that the question lingered in the air validated that thought.
No.
I damned the renegade musings from wandering aimlessly around my tortured mind. My attention went to a flowing bouquet of flowers sitting on the counter in front of Lissa. "Nice flowers, Shalonda,” I said, including Lissa and Shalonda in my gaze.
As far as I knew, Shalonda didn’t have a special guy to send her flowers.
"I think it’s sweet that you have someone special to send you flowers, Montie," Lissa spoke up and winked at me. “Shalonda and I were just admiring how pretty the bouquet is…I remember those days.” Lissa’s gaze left mine and fell to the briefcase in her hand.
"These aren’t yours?" I asked, as my questioning gaze moved to Shalonda.
“No, they’re yours, boss.”
I looked at Lissa. She raised both of her hands innocently; dousing the idea that the most beautiful woman in Atlanta had hand delivered me flowers. “I didn’t bring them here,” she confirmed.
“I don’t know what I was thinking,” I said.
“There's a card attached. Would you like for me to read it for you?" Shalonda asked, taking the card off the bunch.
"No thank you. I’ll take it from here,” I removed the card from her hand and left the bouquet on the front desk.
I strolled to my office with Lissa on my trail. The click of her heels behind me sent images of me spinning around and gripping a handful of her bountiful ass that I knew was bouncing along with her poised stride through my mind.
"Sorry, I wasn’t set up when you arrived,” I said and placed the card on my desk.
“It’s really not a problem. I got here a little early.”
“Now that I know you are an early bird, I'll never be on time again." I smiled, hoping to lighten the mood and hopefully see her pretty smile in return.
Her cheeks turned up delighting me with her shimmering beauty as she took her seat on the opposite side of my desk. “I just wanted to make sure you weren’t waiting on me. That’s all,” she said coyly.
With that smile, she sucked me into her air like she did yesterday. Her essence just overpowered the room, extracting my greatest loss from the atmosphere and implanting her winning spirit wherever there was once despair. All my problems faded away and I only saw Lissa McDaniels when she was in the room. That could go two ways. Either she was a damn good businesswoman who reset the atmosphere to achieve her intended effect, or she was a real live angel sent to show me the light of the new day.
I gripped my hand tight as if that would help me get a grasp on my wandering thoughts. The firmness of the card from the flowers cradled my palm. I looked down at the envelope and glanced inside to see who sent the arrangement.
Seeing Destiny’s name compelled me to read the entire card. I didn’t get a chance to tell you goodbye face to face before you left Miami, but I take from your abrupt leaving and you not attending the wedding that you just weren’t ready for all of this. I will give you time to come around, and I know you will. I just want to tell you again how much I thank you for being such a great man and father. I will always love you as a true friend should – Destiny.
I held the card as my eyes roamed over the words I had just read. It wasn’t in her handwriting, but signed with her name.
"Wow! Must be someone really special,” Lissa’s voice scissored into my reverie.
I dropped the card down onto the pile of papers in front of me on my desk. “Why do you say that?” I asked nonchalantly pushing the papers aside.
“The look on your face when you read that card. I don’t know, you just seemed to be taken to another place, another time," Lissa stopped short of saying more.
I pushed the card off my desk and into a top drawer. "Yeah, it’s the mother of my kids thanking me for co-parenting with her while she lives in Florida. She moved there to be
with her new husband."
"That's impressive, Montie. Co-parenting, that is."
I looked intently into her eyes. She was only attempting to be supportive in her small talk. However, I had no interest in hearing how great I’d been by allowing my children to move states over without contest. I should have fought harder for my kids to stay in Atlanta. I should have fought harder for my marriage.
As if sensing the inappropriateness of getting into my personal business, Lissa slid a CD across the desk to me. "I was up all night sketching this out and had one of my best developers come in at four this morning to finish the preliminary draft. Of course, keep in mind that the final quality will be much better, but I think you will appreciate the headwork we’ve done."
"Let see what you have," I took the CD from her hand and popped it into my computer.
"It will work better on their computers that are set up for the test environment, but you can definitely try it on your computer."
“I have this computer souped up with all of the latest software and hardware,” I assured her as a colorful display with Mr. Bromage’s company logo popped up on my screen. A clean looking application with an exquisite array of fonts was on the next screen. I was impressed with the quality of her mock up.
“What do you think?” she asked anxious to hear my thoughts.
"It looks excellent," I scrolled through a few screens. “And it’s user friendly with all of the modules highly visible at the top.”
"I wrote it to work best with the specifications for the computers that Mr. Bromage purchased."
"This is the direction we want to go in,” I said calmly, while wondering where she’d been all my life. There’s nothing like a woman who is motivated, talented, and beautiful. She was exactly the type of smart person I needed on my team. “Where have you been all my life?” I asked with a hearty smile spread easily across my face.
"I've been waiting on you to consult my firm," Lissa giggled, after her cute smile teased the corners of her lips.
"Well, now we're together. Imagine the things we will do."
“We don’t have to imagine. Let’s just take over the world.”
“Deal,” I reached inside my desk, pulled out her contract, and signed it. “Sign on the dotted line and I’ll get Shalonda to make us each a copy,” I told her. Once the formalities were out of the way, we dug into the software a little deeper.
“So, you want the quick close feature removed and the sign out prompts added?” she asked thirty minutes later.
“Yes, I think that’ll decrease the chance of making a billing error from getting kicked out because they had to stop and work on something else. That’s one of the things the billing department will need.”
“We don’t want any errors. It should be a foolproof system by the time we’re done.” She paused to think. “I’ll tell you what. I’ll get these updates back to you in the morning and you can work on any improvements on your end after that. If you can return the corrections tomorrow evening or the next day, I think we can have something finalized within four days. Right now, my other projects with a later due date have been put on hold and this is our main objective.”
“That sounds lovely. If this is done by Friday and I can get my tech writers to draw up a user guideline by Monday, we will look it over and test it out Monday and present it to the client on Tuesday.”
“I like that timeline. It’s stringent, but what’s a challenge to a couple of giants?”
“I like the way you think.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Lissa
No Fake Friends
“Hey, friend!” I said to Shayla in a high-pitched greeting, when she waddled into my office that evening, carrying her eight-month pregnancy as though it pained her to the core. Shayla Davis and I became close friends when I rented out my office space in our building five years ago. Her psychiatry practice located downstairs made us the only two black women business owners in the plaza. We just clicked from day one.
“Hey girl,” she said, sitting down and taking a deep breath. “I can’t wait until Glory brings her jumpy butt on out here with the rest of us,” she rubbed her super pregnant belly. “She is giving me fits today.”
“Don’t rush my shugga bear. She’ll be here soon enough,” I said and laughed.
“Yeah, says the woman who still has her perfectly flat stomach and round booty that’s not inflated by pregnancy hormones and cravings.” Shayla shot me a deadly look. “Have I told you that you make me sick today?” she asked jokingly then sat down and pretend pouted.
“I’m not falling for your stinky mood swings today. All I will say to you, my beautiful friend, is thank you for giving me two babies to love on without the responsibility of carrying and caring for them around the clock. You and your baby-making womb are a blessing to me.” I giggled, and she rolled her eyes and blew out a gush of air.
“What are you in such a good mood for?” Shayla asked, as she finally settled into a comfortable spot in the chair. “And, will you please invest in bigger chairs? I’m stuffed in this tiny seat like a dough girl. I’m sure your clients are uncomfortable, too. You need to get some chairs like I have in my office.”
“Whatever, no one told you to grow a badonka donk. That has nothing to do with the chairs.”
I could tell she didn’t want to laugh, but she unwillingly let out the tiniest of a giggle. “It’s Glory. She has me eating like a mad woman, and my pant size just keeps on growing. If I hit sixteen, I’m going through the roof.”
“My god-baby has your fat cells by the collar,” I teased. “I bet you’ll stop and think about that the next time Antonio tries to jump your bones.”
Shayla’s husband, Antonio, seemingly couldn’t keep his hands off her ever since they resolved their issues with Rhonda Wilson, the girl Jameson dumped me for. She was also Shayla’s ex best friend that cheated with her first husband who tried and failed to seduce her second, Antonio. Since she couldn’t get Antonio to creep with her, she stole his sperm from the sperm bank and conceived his child without his consent. That woman was loopier than the whole ward of loonies in the state hospital.
“Oh, shut up,” Shayla cut into my thoughts. “I didn’t know I was already two months pregnant when we were going through that drama with Rhonda. God forbid, if I would have lost my baby dealing with her. My world would have crumbled down completely.”
“Karma is making right what Rhonda was trying to make wrong for everyone,” I paused. “Won’t she do it?” I snapped my fingers and humped my shoulders.
“Yes, she did, and yes, she will.” Shayla laughed.
“Since I have accomplished making you laugh, enough about Rhonda,” I said.
“Yeah, enough. That girl can put a damper on anyone’s day.” Sadness entered Shayla’s eyes as she thought about her friend. “I just hope the judge doesn’t let her out any time soon. I don’t want her to see the light of day for years, after what she did. I truly don’t think she needs to, because she’s always fixated on something delusional where I’m concerned.”
“The only thing worse than a true hater, is a fake friend. We both know she’s so jealous of you that she doesn’t know what to do with herself when she’s not trying to steal what you have,” I said, feeling steam rise up inside of me. “She’d better not bother you, if she knows what’s good for her,” I warned. I would go to war for my friend and put my range lessons to good use, if Rhonda even imagined harming Shayla again.
“I just worry about it sometimes. Especially since I’m pregnant and can’t really defend myself,” Shayla admitted.
“She’s locked up and not getting out any time soon. You don’t have anything to worry about.”
“That does very little to calm my nerves after everything we’ve been through. Anyway, did you skip lunch today?” Shayla asked, notably changing the course of conversation. Her small hands rested above her rounded belly, letting me know the talk about Rhonda was causing her tension in her stomach.
“You didn’t call me like you usually do, so I ended up working right through it,” I admitted. “I thought you skipped lunch, too.”
“Nah, I didn’t skip it. I just brought something from home. I thought that maybe you’d be busy, since you’ve been out of the office this week in meetings. Maybe the reason you’ve not been in your office will be the answer to my original question.”
“What question?” I asked, confused.
“What has you in such a good mood today?”
“I’m the same as I always am. Nothing new,” I lied and turned my see-through gaze back to my computer. I never had a poker face, so I was sure Shayla could see right through me.
“Oh, no. When I came in here, you were sitting there looking at your computer and cheesing like you just hit for the Mega Millions. I would have thought young Denzel was about to step out of the screen and give you a lap dance then present you with your lottery check.”
“Ha! You think too much, Shayla.”
“But I’m always right, so spread the joy with me. I need something to smile about too, as hot and miserable as I’ve been.”
“Oh my,” I bubbled with glee when Glory chose to run her foot across the expanse of Shayla’s stomach. Shayla froze still and moaned until Glory situated in her belly.
“Ugh.” She let out a curt breath.
I sat back in my seat. “Glory is warning you to leave me alone. I was smiling when you came in, but it was nothing worth conversation,” I flat out lied. My meeting with Montie Brown merited conversation, verbal elation, and stimulation; well, let’s just say it was hard to fight off temptations where Montie was concerned.
“Nothing worth conversation, huh?” Shayla repeated in a dry tone. “Come again, and remember that this is me you’re talking to.”
“I just opened a pretty lucrative business deal. That’s all.”
Breathless 4: Loving Montie Page 7
