Lust and Lies (The Jamie Reynolds Chronicles #1)

by Casandra Charles

  “I won’t.”

  “Next,” the front desk attendant said, loud as hell.

  Damn, this chick is about to ruin everything. I wonder if he heard that, I thought. “Alright, babe, I have to go. I’ll call you later.”

  “Love you.”

  “Ditto.”

  “Hello,” I said to the female at the front desk, trying not to give her attitude.

  “What is your destination?”

  “Atlanta,” I said as I handed her my photo ID.

  “How many bags you checking in?”

  “I’m not checking in any bags. I was hoping to check myself in electronically, but I’m running a little late, and I know it can only be done at least an hour before the flight.”

  “Oh, you could have still done it; your flight has been delayed for forty-five minutes.”

  “Ain’t this a bitch?”

  “Excuse me,” the front desk clerk said, looking confused.

  “I’m sorry, I was talking to myself. So what time does the flight arrive in Atlanta now?”

  “Probably around 12:30 a.m. or so. But this is just an estimate. Your captain or the flight attendant will confirm the time.”

  “Thank you,” I said as I took the ticket and headed towards the terminal.

  Damn, what should I do? Should I call Toni? I couldn’t call him because the airport was always making announcements; he would ask about the extra noise in the background. I guess I should have picked a business trip that required me to fly. Boston was only a few hours’ drive, so I wouldn’t call from the airport.

  “Oh well,” I said to myself. He would be okay. Let me get my life together with this extra time in the airport. I was always so productive at the airport but never knew why.

  ***

  “Hey, Angela, I’m outside, where are you?”

  “Hey, girl, I didn’t get your message until late. I’ve been at the airport for two hours now.”

  “I am so sorry, I tried my best to call and let you know the plane was delayed.”

  “You good. I got something to eat at Paschal’s in the airport. I’m walking up to the front now. Where you at?”

  “I’m sitting on the bench in front of the AirTran baggage claim sign.” Within seconds Angela was in front of baggage claim, picking me up.

  “Thanks so much for the ride. I’ll rent a car the next time I’m in Atlanta, but this trip is so brief, I figure I’ll be chilling with Toni and don’t need a car.”

  “Can’t believe you’re surprising him like this; that is pretty cool. How do you plan on telling him you’re here?”

  “I’m going to call him now. Check this out.

  “Hey, honey, sorry to call you so late. I had a crazy day. How was your day today?” I said to Toni as I guided Angela on which driveway to park in.

  “It was okay, I felt crazy today. I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I wish I was there with you to help you move and to help relax you after moving.”

  “That sounds good. You can still relax me after my crazy day. Open the door.”

  “What?” he said, sounding very confused.

  “Open the door. I’m in front of the house.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Toni, I’m at your front door. I flew in to surprise you. Open the door,” I said as Angela just laughed and shook her head at me.

  “Hey, Toni,” Angela yelled over the phone. “I heard so much about you, I can’t wait to meet you.”

  “That’s my friend Angela. She picked me up at the airport and we’re both waiting outside.”

  “Are you for real?”

  “Why don’t you open the door and find out?”

  “This isn’t funny, Jamie. This better not be a joke.”

  “Open the door and find out.”

  “Yeah, man, open the door. It’s late and I need to meet the famous Toni I heard so much about,” Angela said as she crossed her arms, waiting for Toni at the front door with me.

  “Oh, shit, you are really here,” Toni said as he opened the door and saw me and Angela standing on his front step.

  “I can’t believe you’re here. Did you even move today?”

  “Hell yeah, I moved. I really had a crazy day today. Oh, I’m sorry, Toni, this is my best friend Angela. Angela, this is Toni.”

  “Good to meet you, we got to do lunch sometime. It’s late and I’m tired as hell. You guys have fun. JR, holla at me in the morning. I have to be at work in a few hours.”

  “Sorry to keep you up this early. Thanks again for picking me up,” I said to Angela as I gave her a hug.

  “Nice meeting you,” Toni said as Angela got in her car and drove off.

  “Hey, honey,” I said to Toni as we embraced each other for the second time as a couple.

  “I can’t believe you’re here.”

  “Well, believe it, I am here. I hope I surprised you.”

  “Oh, you surprised me alright.”

  “Okay, honey, it’s late, and I had a crazy day. I just want to get some sleep.”

  “Yeah, sleep,” Toni said in a funny tone.

  “Is everything okay? You still in shock?”

  “Yeah, I’m still in shock. I wish you called me and gave me a heads-up. My room is a little messy.”

  “It’s cool. How bad could it be?”

  Man, I regretted saying that. I had never in all my life seen a room so messy. There were clothes, food, shoes, paper and garbage all over the place.

  “JR, JR,” Toni said, trying to snap me out of my amazement of his room.

  “Yeah?”

  “You okay?”

  “I wish I did call you; this place is pretty bad.” Damn, did I just say that out loud? I knew I must have hurt his feelings. “I am so sorry, I didn’t mean to say that.”

  “No, it’s okay. I’ve been so busy myself, cleaning has managed to make its way to the bottom of my priority list.”

  “Anyway, it’s cool. I guess I know what I’m doing tomorrow when I get up.”

  “What?” Toni said.

  “What else? Cleaning this room. Where do you sleep?” There were clothes everywhere; you couldn’t even see a bed. Nor did I see any sheets.

  “Hold on, let me get some clean sheets.”

  Toni did the craziest thing I had ever seen. He walked over to a pile of clothes on the floor in the corner of the room, searched for a set of sheets and pulled out a white fitted sheet and a light yellow flat sheet and began to throw the clothes from the bed onto the floor, and put the new sheets on the bed. I guessed he slept on the mattress with his clothes and this was normal in his eyes. Not to mention he really didn’t have a bedroom set, it was just a mattress and box spring on the floor. I was speechless.

  “Are those sheets clean?”

  “Hey, that pile in the corner is clean, the other pile is dirty,” he said as he pointed to the larger pile on the other side of the room. At this point, I was so tired, I just kept my mouth shut and went to bed.

  “Good morning, honey,” was all I heard and the sight of fresh-cut fruits was all I saw. The presentation look so good it almost distracted me from the world’s messiest room.

  “Good morning, babe. How did you sleep?”

  “Great since I had my baby lying next to me.”

  “You are so sweet.”

  “I can’t believe you’re here. I still wish you would have called and let me know.”

  “Why, besides cleaning up your room, what would you have done differently?”

  I might not be the neatest person, but come on, besides an unmade bed and a basket in the corner with clean clothes, my room/house was always together. My closet didn’t count because this was always messy. My mom always got on my sisters’ and my case growing up about a tidy home. “You never know,” my mom always said. So to date as an adult I always try to keep certain areas of my home clean because you never know.

  “Man, if you would have told me you was coming I would have not only cleaned the room but put groceries
in the house, you know, make it look less like a bachelor pad,” Toni said right before he snapped me out of my daydreaming while again I started looking around the room.

  “It’s cool, honey. The room don’t bother me,” I said, straight lying through my teeth. “This breakfast looks good. I’m so hungry.”

  “I’m glad you like it; eat up. I’ll be downstairs cleaning up.”

  “Alright, honey,” I said. And no sooner after he closed the door behind him, I jumped up out of the bed and started to clean up the room. First I walked around the room with several large laundry baskets (which were filled with everything but clothes) and picked up every piece of clothing off the floor.

  “I don’t care what’s clean and what’s dirty. If it’s on the floor, then it’s all dirty,” I mumbled under my breath. After ten minutes of picking up dirty clothes, I then moved on to the rest of the trash on the floor. I couldn’t believe this guy, he had food wrappers, old cups, old bowls, paper everywhere, empty gum wrappers, open and unopened mail. For someone who ate so healthy like he claimed, there were a ton of Wendy’s, McDonald’s and Taco Bell bags all over the place. It wouldn’t surprise me if there were bugs all over the room. Thank goodness I didn’t find any, but then again you never knew, the carpet was so nasty once I removed the trash and clothes. Once again I used my floor theory and picked up and threw almost everything on the floor away. I finally started making an improvement on the room, as you could actually see the floor, but there were stains and crap stuck in the carpet. “This is nasty,” I said as I heard what I thought were Toni’s footsteps walking upstairs.

  “Knock, knock.”

  “Come in,” I shouted, after putting a piece of fruit in my mouth.

  “Yo, J, what’s good? Toni texted me late last night and said you was in town.”

  “Hey, Jonathan. How is everything?”

  “Good, good, I see this nigga Toni’s room is still a mess. Yo, I stopped coming in here after a while.”

  “Are you kidding me? I have been cleaning this crap for about twenty minutes now. You should have seen it then,” I said to Jonathan as we both started to laugh.

  “Hey, what’s so funny?” Toni said as he was walking upstairs. Just as he hit the corner and noticed the clothes off the floor and in baskets and most of the trash was off the floor, he knew what we were laughing about.

  “Damn, Toni, you got your girl to fly in from out of town to clean your shit.” Jonathan tapped Toni on the shoulder and walked back downstairs.

  I could just see the look in his eyes and saw that he was embarrassed. I felt bad, but he should be embarrassed.

  “Babe, you don’t have to do this. I just been busy. My room is never this messy.” Which I knew was a lie because Jonathan said it was always messy after I spent twenty minutes cleaning it. He walked towards the bed and noticed the full plate of untouched breakfast. “You didn’t even touch your breakfast.”

  “I’m sorry, honey, I’ve been nibbling on it between cleaning up.” I walked over to him and gave him a big hug and kiss, with the biggest devilish smile on my face, knowing that this battle of the messy room was over and I had won.

  “It’s okay, honey. Thank you for helping me clean up. You relax and finish eating your breakfast and I’ll finish up.”

  What a Mess…

  “Hey, girl, how was your time in Atlanta?”

  “It was cool, Angela, but too short. I didn’t even want to leave.”

  “I am so happy for you and Toni. He seems like a really good guy.”

  “Thanks, Ang, he is. He really is. I have so much work to do these next few weeks. As much fun as I had in Atlanta, it really set me back. I’ve been spending more than I’ve been making. I have to be on my grind these next few months. I was thinking about picking up a tax job for the next few months.”

  “You and this tax job thing.”

  “Come on, Ang, you know most of my clients pay under the table; I need a tax job. Besides, the extra cash will come in handy. So a nine-to-five gig would be helpful right now.”

  “What you going to do? Go back to bartending or retail?”

  “I don’t know yet, I was thinking retail. This is a new city and all, and I’m not too familiar with the club scene round here. It might be safe to do a retail gig since I’m living by myself and all. I’ll keep you posted. I’m about to walk into this crazy house in a minute. I’ll call you later.”

  “Alright, Jamie, I’ll talk to you later.”

  ***

  Finally after seven hours of heavy cleaning and packing away, my new place started to look livable.

  “I deserve a drink for all my hard work,” I said to myself as I walked over to my cabinet full of large bottles of liquor and began to make myself a much-needed drink.

  “What do I have a taste for? Malibu Bay breeze, peach Long Island or a sex on the beach.” I took a long pause and decided to fix myself a peach Long Island.

  Ring, ring, ring.

  “Hello.”

  “Hey, what you doing?”

  “Nothing, I just finished cleaning up and I’m about to fix myself a drink.”

  “Who is at the house with you?”

  “Nobody, I’m by myself, why?”

  “You’re making yourself a drink by yourself?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “Only alcoholics drink by themselves,” Toni said as he began to laugh.

  “I drink by myself all the time and I am not an alcoholic, I’m West Indian. Besides, I have to refresh my bartending skills sometimes.”

  “You’re crazy. What does being from Trinidad and Tobago have to do with anything? What are you making?”

  “I’m making a peach Long Island, and my Trinidadian roots makes drinking a social affair, as West Indians are very social drinkers, like Italians and wine.”

  “Italians and wine, I got it now. Well, enjoy your drink. Wait, what is a peach Long Island?”

  “It’s a Long Island ice tea with peach schnapps instead of triple sec.”

  “Damn, you’re making a real drink.”

  “Yes, I am, thanks to Mexico. Remember I told you when Angela and I went down there last year I came back with a suitcase full of liquor.”

  “I thought you were exaggerating when you said suitcase.”

  “No, I was dead-ass serious. When you spend forty bucks on a medium bottle of Ketel One in the U.S. it’s like twenty-five bucks in Mexico, or at least the part of Mexico we went to. I loved it.”

  “Spoken like a true alky.”

  “Ha, ha, funny. I know how to hold my liquor. Besides, one to two drinks doesn’t make me an alky.”

  “No, one to two drinks a week don’t make you an alky.”

  I didn’t have the heart to tell him I meant one to two drinks a day on certain days. “Thank you,” I said with a false sense of security. “Anyway, honey, enough ’bout me, what’s going on with you?”

  “Same oh, same oh. Just thinking ’bout this girl I love.”

  “Girl you love, are you cheating on me? Because I thought I was the woman you love.”

  “Ha, ha, very cute.”

  “Anyway, I’m ’bout to fix dinner, enjoy my drink, take a shower and head to bed. I have a busy day tomorrow.”

  “Is that anything new? I’ll call you later, baby. Love you.”

  “Ditto.”

  How About Tomorrow…

  “Hey, honey, I can’t really talk now, I have a whole crap load of work and my director is M.I.A.”

  “I know you’re busy, honey, I just wanted to hear your voice.”

  “Aww, babe. You are so sweet. I miss you.”

  “I miss you too.”

  “Hey, got to go, hit me on AIM.”

  “Okay, bye.”

  Toni: Hey, baby.

  JR: Hey, honey.

  Toni: Long time no talk.

  JR: You stupid. I just hung up the phone.

  Toni: I know, I know, I am so bored at work.

  JR: Well, it is almost 5 o’clock and
you should be leaving soon.

  Toni: No, honey. Today is Thursday and I get off at 7.

  JR: Damn, sorry, honey, it’s not that bad. At least you get off while it’s still light outside. I don’t know what time I’m getting out of here.

  Toni: I know, honey, I hate the fact of you getting off set so late and having to drive home by yourself. It’s just not safe.

  JR: I know, honey, maybe one day, I won’t have to drive home to an empty house. ☺

  Toni: Yeah, I can’t wait for the day that I’m home waiting for you with a warm candlelit bath and a hot home-cooked meal.

  JR: Damn, that sounds good. One day, honey. One day.

  Toni: How ’bout tomorrow?

  JR: ???

  Toni: I’m just going to leave work now and drive up to the woman that I love.

  JR: Yeah, right.

  Toni: Okay, don’t believe me. Watch, before you get off work tomorrow, I will be sitting on the steps, waiting for you with open arms.

  JR: That’s sounds nice, but don’t get me all excited. I should be done with this movie in about a month, and then maybe we can take a vacation or meet back up in Virginia.

  Toni: Forget Virginia, we can have that magical weekend every night for the rest of our lives.

  JR: So what you going to do? Just quit your job and move up here with me?

  Toni: Yup…

  JR: Stop playing. You stupid.

  Toni: I think I’m serious.

  Ring, ring.

  “Hello, Toni, stop playing, are you serious?”

  “I thought you was too busy to talk.”

  “Funny, I just went outside the office. I can’t believe you’re considering this. Are you serious?”

  “I don’t know, I have been thinking about it. I hate my job down here and you being in Jersey messes with my head. So what do you think?”

  It took me a few minutes to reply and Toni asked me the question again.

  “Babe, what do you say?”

  “Babe, I don’t know. This is a big step, we have only known each other for five months and—”

  Toni interrupted, “I walked out on my job about twenty minutes ago.”

  “Wait, what?”

  “We are soul mates and I can’t be away from you too much longer, so I walked out and I’m getting ready for the next chapter in my life, in our life.”