And now he needed the money more than ever because he had fucked up.
He took a breath, hit the reply button, and typed two words that he knew he would regret.
I’m in.
17
Jawan couldn’t believe it.
Deahnna was there with him.
In his bed. Naked. Breathing softly, evenly, peacefully. Her head was on his chest. Her right arm wrapped across his waist. Her right leg lying over his left. His left arm lay across her upper torso, his fingers caressing her smooth skin as though it would fall to pieces if he touched it too hard. He breathed in the scent of her shampoo. Strawberries and melon. Just like the commercials promised.
He was dreaming. He had to be, because this was just too perfect.
He closed his eyes. Counted to ten, sure that when he opened them, she would be gone and Grady would be lying in her place. He hit ten and opened them. She was still there. Still naked, still sleeping from the passionate and unexpected bout of sex they’d had. Unforgettable sex. Sex that moved mountains.
Dreaming.
Jawan swore that it was all a dream. Insisted on it. Insisted that after the movie, Deahnna had taken a cab home alone to her home. He hadn’t been sitting beside her, her hand in his, his index finger lightly going over her knuckles. They hadn’t looked at one another with lingering gazes. They hadn’t arrived at his house, gotten out of the cab, and walked hand in hand up four steps to his front door.
“I only live a few blocks away,” she said, waiting as he opened the door. “Down on Grant.”
Jawan opened the door and flipped on a light. “That is close,” he said. “After you.”
Deahnna walked in. He followed, and closed and locked the door behind him. They were standing in a foyer. A flight of stairs leading up was in front of them, and a closed door was to their immediate left. The door was at the beginning of a tiny hallway, which led down to another door on the right.
Deahnna smiled. “Nice. Bigger than I thought. You have two floors.”
“Three, actually. There’s a basement. I rent out the top to a man and his wife and two girls. The basement’s unfinished, but my washer and dryer are down there.”
Deahnna said, “My apartment would fit in here.”
Jawan laughed.
“My granny had a washer in her kitchen in an apartment she used to have in Brooklyn by Flatbush Avenue,” Deahnna said. “She used to hang dry her clothes. I wish I had an apartment like that. Going to the Laundromat is a killer on the pocketbooks. You’re lucky.”
Jawan nodded. “I am. This was a foreclosure unit. I lucked into it a few years ago.” He turned to his left and unlocked the door. “Welcome to my humble abode.” As he pushed the door open, Grady meowed and pranced out to his leg. “What’s up, Grady-Grade,” he said, bending down and petting his companion behind the ear.
Deahnna “aw’d.” “The famous Grady,” she said. She bent down and, instead of shying away, Grady went to her outstretched hand.
“Grady!” Jawan said. “I thought you were supposed to be my watch dog? How are you gonna go to her for love without even feeling her out first?”
Caressing Grady underneath his chin, Deahnna looked up at Jawan. “He knows a good thing when he sees it. He doesn’t need to feel me out.”
As she moved from beneath his chin to beneath his belly, Grady purred and meowed as if to say, “Exactly.”
“Don’t worry, Grady,” Deahnna said, putting her mouth closer to the cat’s ear. “I won’t let him hurt you anymore.”
Grady purred again as Deahnna stood up and smiled at Jawan.
Jawan lightly and playfully pushed his companion to the side with his toe. “You have to leave sometime,” he said to Deahnna with a sexy smirk.
Deahnna stuck her tongue out at him. He couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to suck on it as they kissed. He smiled and then said, “Come on in. Luckily my maid cleaned up today.”
Deahnna chuckled. “A maid on a teacher’s salary. Hmm. Maybe I need to give you my resume.” She walked past him into a small front room with a computer sitting on a metal desk, a small black leather sofa, and a shelf system in the corner.
Jawan closed the door. “Trust me, I pay my maid a minimal salary. Somewhere along the lines of free per hour.”
Deahnna laughed.
Jawan did too. “So this, as you can see, is my study.”
Deahnna nodded. “Nice. I like the dogs playing poker on the wall.”
Jawan smiled. “I thought it was a good fit here.”
Deahnna raised her eyebrows. “Mm-hmm.”
Jawan moved past her and clicked on a light in the next room. “This would be the living room/movie theatre.”
He led the way as she followed, with Grady at her heels.
“Do you have hardwood floors throughout?”
Jawan nodded. “Yeah. Except for the kitchen. I actually put the floor down myself.”
“A teacher and a handyman. Hmm.”
In his best Jimmy Walker voice, from the show Good Times, Jawan smoothed over the moustache of his goatee and said, “Well, you know, what can I say?”
Deahnna cracked up with laughter. “OK, J.J. I love hardwood flooring. It makes the place look bigger and it’s a lot more sanitary than carpeting.”
“Yeah, but it’s a bitch to clean. I sweep at least two, sometimes three, times a day to pick up dust and Grady’s hair.”
“I thought you had a maid to do all of that.”
“Oh, I meant that she sweeps two or three times a day.”
“Mm-hmm. Well, you can definitely tell you live alone.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Black leather furniture, black lacquer coffee table. Silver lamps, Muhammad Ali and Michael Jordan on the walls. This place is definitely lacking a woman’s touch.”
Jawan shrugged. “I’m already paying my maid nothing to clean. I can’t pay her any more to decorate, too.”
Deahnna smiled and shook her head. “OK, Scrooge.”
“Bah humbug.”
They both laughed while Grady hopped onto the arm of the sofa and stared at them.
After a few seconds, silence settled between them as they looked at one another. Jawan cleared his throat. “So, do you still want to watch the Avatar? Or does my pitiful bachelor pad have you wanting to hightail it into a cab home?”
Deahnna looked at Jawan, then at the living room, before settling back on him. “I’m definitely ready for the show,” she said.
“I was hoping you’d say that.”
Jawan continued to caress Deahnna’s arm as she continued to sleep peacefully. That conversation didn’t happen, he thought, inhaling the fragrance from her shampoo.
No way.
This was definitely a dream.
They didn’t sit on the couch, first side by side, watching the Avatar series on his big screen, before cuddling arm in arm. A dream. That’s all it was. He hadn’t really moved his arm and placed it around her shoulders. She hadn’t really slid down and laid her head on his shoulder. His fingers hadn’t caressed her arm, worked their way up to her neck, and then moved from her neck to her cheek. She hadn’t moaned, hadn’t turned her head, bringing her lips upward toward his. And somewhere during Ang’s quest to save the world, they hadn’t really begun to kiss softly, passionately.
Their tongues hadn’t really danced slowly as his hands slid beneath her sweater and felt the smoothness of her belly, before working their way upward to her full, soft breasts. She hadn’t moaned as he ran his fingers over her thick, erect nipples. She hadn’t moaned louder as he eased the sweater off of her, unclasped her bra, and then took her breasts in his mouth.
A dream.
That’s what this was.
A passionate, intense, fulfilling dream filled with kissing, nibbling, stroking, sucking, tasting, pushing, pulling, twisting, turning, circling, flipping, sweating, moaning, groaning, begging, demanding, screaming, exploding, bucking.
Just a dream.
Jawan took a deep breath through his nostrils, drinking in the figment of his imagination wrapped in his arms.
So sweet.
So delicious.
So soft.
So damned real.
He again soaked in the object of his desires and wants, and then kissed her softly on the top of her head. Deahnna stirred a little and burrowed herself closer to him.
Jawan smiled, closed his eyes, and hoped they wouldn’t open again, because if this was a dream, it was definitely a dream he didn’t want to wake from.
18
“Yo, what up, kid.”
Brian gave his boy, Will, five and a one-armed hug. “Sup,” he said.
“I’m glad you changed your mind, kid.”
Brian shrugged. “I couldn’t leave my boys hangin’,” he said. He thought about his pregnant girlfriend and wished the situation were different.
“So we’re your niggas again, huh?”
Brian looked over Will’s shoulders. Tyrel was sitting on the couch, an Xbox 360 controller in his hand. Tyrel stared at him, his eyes hard, his jaw harder.
Brian stared back, his muscles tensing up. “Y’all never stopped bein’ my niggas,” he said, meaning it.
Tyrel scowled, then said, “Yeah, a’ight,” and went back to playing his game.
Brian looked back to Will, who frowned and shrugged. Brian raised the right corner of his mouth and shook his head. He walked past Will, cursing himself for being irresponsible and not using protection.
He walked into the living room and sat down in a chair off to Tyrel’s right. Neither he nor Tyrel said a word. Will came in a few seconds later and sat down on the couch beside Tyrel, but he too didn’t speak. The only sound in the room was of the Need for Speed racing game Tyrel was playing.
Brian sat forward in his chair, rested his elbows on his knees, remained that way for a few seconds, and then sat back again. He couldn’t get comfortable. He didn’t want to be there, but had no choice but to be. Again he cursed himself for his irresponsibility.
Engines revved, brakes squealed, cars crashed and exploded as the friends watched soundlessly for four minutes until Will stretched and said, “So, the three niggateers are back again.”
Both Brian and Tyrel turned their heads in his direction.
“Niggateers, nigga?” Tyrel said with an eyebrow raised.
Brian shook his head. He couldn’t help it; he began to laugh. “That was mad corny,” he said, laughing harder.
Tyrel joined in the laughter. “Where the fuck you get that shit from?”
Will, who was cracking up with them, shrugged. “I just made that shit up, son.”
“Corny,” Brian said, tears leaking from the corners of his eyes.
“Yo, you an idiot, nigga,” Tyrel said, wiping at the corners of his eyes.
All three friends heartily laughed tension away from the room.
Tyrel looked at Brian. “Where you get this nigga from?” he said, motioning his head over in Will’s direction. Brian shook his head. “I stepped in a pile of him back in third grade. I haven’t been able to get the motherfucka from under my shoe since then.”
Tyrel laughed even harder and said, “I have the same fuckin’ problem.”
All three friends laughed for a few more seconds before winding down.
Tyrel looked over at Brian when they did. “So, sup, nigga. You sure you down? You sure you don’t need more time to think about shit?”
Brian shook his head as Carla ran through his mind. “Nah, son. I’m good.”
“You sure, nigga? We don’t need you to be backin’ out and shit.”
“I said I’m good, son. I’m in. No backin’ out.”
Tyrel watched him with a skeptical eye for a long second before nodding. “A’ight then. Let’s plan this shit.”
19
Deahnna was still smiling.
Three days and just two phone conversations had passed since her evening with Jawan, and the smile that had spread across her face as she’d taken the cab home at two in the morning hadn’t gone away. As a matter of fact, instead of shrinking, her smile had actually grown wider.
She’d made love to Jawan.
It had been an unplanned and a very spectacular event. One that Deahnna had absolutely no regret over. The fear and apprehension she’d felt initially quickly disappeared as she and Jawan sat on the couch together, as though they always sat on the couch together. The familiarity, the connection, couldn’t be denied. Their being at the dance had been no coincidence. It had been deemed that the time had come for them to get together, and fighting that just didn’t make any sense. So as they sat on the couch, his arm over her shoulder, Deahnna refused to go against the grain. She wouldn’t fight the desire to touch and be touched. She wouldn’t hesitate when the touching became kissing. She wouldn’t press down on the brakes when the kissing led to undressing. And she wouldn’t stop when the undressing led to sex that made her toes curl.
Deahnna smiled as she walked down Jamaica Avenue on her way home, the October wind having no effect on her. Her time with Jawan had been so simple, so free, and so perfect. There was nothing that could have made it any more amazing. Well, no, that wasn’t true. The only thing that could have made their time together even more incredible was if she’d had the opportunity to wake the following morning in his arms. Getting up and leaving hadn’t been something she’d wanted to do, but Brian was home, and even though he was her child, there was still a certain level of respect that she felt she owed him.
Speaking of which, hopefully he’d be home when she got there. She and Jawan had another Friday night date scheduled, and, although it would only be their second date, Deahnna knew that more would follow. It was time to have a talk with her son, something they hadn’t been doing much of lately.
She smiled as wind whipped all around her. Friday couldn’t come fast enough. She was looking forward to seeing Jawan and his intense, brown eyes again. She hurried across the street, and as she did, her cell phone rang. She dug in her purse, pulled it out, looked at the caller ID, and then connected the call. “Hey, girl,” she said.
Her friend, Heather, said, “And why haven’t you called me?”
Deahnna laughed. She’d known this was coming. “I’m sorry, girl. I had a busy weekend.”
Heather sucked her teeth. “Apology not accepted. You go out on a date on Friday, and I had to call your ass for details? Nope. Apology not accepted at all.”
Deahnna laughed again. “Please forgive me,” she said as the J train rumbled by overhead.
Heather said, “We’ll see. Forgiveness will be based upon the amount of juicy details I receive. And considering how deep in the dog house you are at the present moment, the details better be very, very juicy.”
Deahnna shook her head. “You’re crazy,” she said.
“No. I’m getting married in six months. I’m just simply getting my living-vicariously-through-you skills perfected now, because things will be changing drastically for us very soon.”
“Whatever, Heather. You guys have no kids. Your lives won’t change that much.”
“Yet,” Heather said. “We don’t have any yet. But we will in about three months.”
Deahnna stopped walking, while people continued to rush by her, anxious to get out of the cold. “What? What do you mean you will in three months? Heather, are you pregnant?”
“Huh? Hell no, I’m not pregnant!”
“But you just said in three months you’ll have a child.”
“I was talking about a puppy!”
“A puppy?”
“Yes. Ivan’s brother’s rotty is pregnant. In about three months, we’re going to get one from the litter.”
“And how exactly is that like having a child?”
Heather sucked her teeth. “I don’t know, but, shit, I’ve heard so many people say that a puppy is worse than a child.”
Deahnna shook her head and started walking again. “You’re stupid, Heather.”
&nb
sp; Heather laughed. “Anyway, will you tell me how the date went?”
Deahnna smiled. “The date was very nice.”
“OK. So what did you do? You didn’t really just go to the movies, did you?”
“Yes, we did just go to the movies.”
“Boring.”
“It was not boring. The movie was excellent. And after the movie, we went back to his place to watch a DVD that the film was based on.”
“Are you serious? That’s what you did?”
“Yes.”
“Boring,” Heather dragged out again.
“It was not!”
“Whatever. So at least tell me that there were some extracurricular activities going on while the movie played.”
“Well . . .” Deahnna paused and thought about the soft, deep kisses that led to both she and Jawan being naked in his bed. He’d been considerate with the way he’d moved inside of her. She’d felt every inch of him, as he did what had been necessary to make her climax, powerfully. Sex wasn’t unfamiliar to her, but passion like that had been.
“Well?” Heather asked.
“Well, we did share a glass or two of wine.”
“OK, and after the wine?”
“After the wine, I went home,” Deahnna answered, deciding to keep to herself the information about the night of passion.
“That’s it?” Heather asked. “That’s all you did? Watch a movie, and then have wine and watch a DVD?”
“Yup.”
“Was the DVD a porno? At least say that it was.”
Deahnna chuckled. “No, it wasn’t a porno. It was a cartoon version of the movie. Well, actually, the movie is based on the cartoon.”
“So you went to the movies and then watched cartoons?”
“Yes, and we had a great time.”
She couldn’t see her, but Deahnna could tell Heather was rolling her eyes as she said, “That’s so lame.”
“It wasn’t lame at all,” Deahnna countered. “It was nice and intimate.”
“And there was no sex? No kissing? Nothing?”
“Well, we kissed a little.”
“But you still went home?”
“Yes.”
“Well, then, that means that the kissing must not have been all that.”
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