“Man, you’re still hating on that?”
“No hate. I was just happy to be around to pick up your leftovers.”
“Yeah, I think they like to call boys like you scrubs.”
“Please don’t. Those days are long gone. Now I’m pulling my weight with the ladies.”
“Now it’s lady—one.”
“A’ight. You ought to know better than that.”
Jeremy shook his head again. “Haven’t you ever heard that anything worth doing is worth doing right?”
“C’mon, Jeremy. You’re not new to the game. You know it’s impossible for brothers like us to be tied down to just one woman. One? For forever? Forever ever?” he said in his best Outkast remix. “It’s not going to happen—and it certainly ain’t going to happen with me. Don’t get me wrong, I love Leigh. That’s my heart. But a leopard can’t change its spots.”
“Sooo. You guys are just going to have an open marriage?”
“I’m going to have an open marriage. She is going to lock those knees together.” Jeremy laughed.
“Look. Leigh isn’t new to the game. After college, we somehow managed to stay together even with my butt being traded to three different teams. She knows the life. Every pro athlete’s wife does. Hell, I’ve even been caught a few times. A couple of kisses, some flowers, and—you know—the apology tour. And everything is good to go. We’ll just play the game. Hopefully I’ll be better than my boy Tiger, and everything is gonna be all good. You feel me?”
Jeremy tossed up his hands. “My name is Les and I ain’t in that mess. You do you.”
“Always.” Roy smiled. “Now we’re supposed to be talking about you. And frankly, I don’t think that I’ve ever heard you say that you were having problems with the opposite sex. Has the world been turned upside down or something?”
“It feels that way,” Jeremy said. “The baby girl that got my mind spinning, I met at Freedman’s bachelor party.”
“Freedman—Dylan Freedman? Hell, I didn’t know he was getting married. How come I didn’t get an invitation?”
“Probably because he doesn’t like you.”
“Not like me? What’s there not to like?” Roy said, trying and failing to sound hurt.
“I don’t know. It might have had something to do with you always beating him up back in junior high.”
“Oh, please. Talk about carrying a grudge. Anyway, you met ol’ girl at the party, and…?”
“No, no. Not just any girl. I’m telling you that this chick really had it going on. She had the face of an angel and her body was just sick.”
“Let me guess, you recruited her to be a Dollhouse Doll and now she’s at the club driving you crazy?”
“Nah. Nah. It’s nothing like that. Though if Baby Girl was ever looking for a job she definitely wouldn’t have to audition. I mean, she had a lot of dudes up in there stuck on stupid—tongues rolling out on to the floor. Brothers were getting checked and dismissed on the dance floor.”
“Damn. Shawty sounds hot.”
“Trust me. You would’ve liked this girl. We probably would’ve fought to the death over her.”
“Aw. Damn. Now I really hate that I didn’t get an invitation to that nerd’s party.” Roy’s lips stretched. “So I know you stepped up and showed the fellas how a real playa put it down.”
“Well, I don’t want to brag.” Jeremy pretended to pop his collar. “But I tell you, man, I don’t know what the hell she did to me, but I can’t get Baby Girl off my mind. I mean it’s all the time. When I wake up in the morning, when I’m at work—” he gestured to the basketball court “—or even when I’m playing.”
“Did she cook for you? She might’ve put some roots on you,” Roy said, suspiciously.
Jeremy laughed. “Maaaan.”
“Nah. Check it. You’d be surprised what some of these females out here will do to land a successful brother—and you definitely have a big target painted on your forehead, baller.”
“Boy, squash that. Everything was all good and then the next morning Baby Girl was gone.”
“Did she leave money on the dresser?”
“What? No. What’s with you and Q with that?”
Roy shrugged. “I’m just saying that would’ve been really jacked up.”
“No money on the dresser.”
“A’ight. So y’all hit it and quit it. What’s the problem? Your butt is surely familiar with the term one-night stand.”
“I told you. I can’t get the girl off my mind,” Jeremy said, frustrated. “Twenty-four-seven—and I don’t know her real name. Then, check this, out of the blue she pops up at The Dollhouse with her girl—”
“Ahh. She swings both ways.” Roy bobbed his head. “I get you. You want advice on how to steal her from her lesbian girlfriend.”
“What? No. Damn, man. Will you stop interrupting and let me finish?”
Roy shot his hands up in the air. “My bad, my bad. Continue.”
“Baby Girl and her friend showed up wanting to hire the Bachelor Adventures to do her bachelorette party.”
He frowned. “I didn’t know you guys did bachelorette parties.”
“What am I, talking to an idiot? We don’t. That’s not the point. The point is that she’s engaged—about to marry some clown out here.”
“Ahh.” A light finally shone in Roy’s eyes. “I see. Daaammmn. So what are you going to do?”
“Normally?” Jeremy shook his head. “I’d fall back and play my position. I try not to play ball in another brother’s court, you know what I mean?”
“True dat. True dat.”
“But I don’t know, bruh. I got the girl alone in my office…and she’s definitely still feeling me…and I’m sure as hell feeling her.” Almost ashamed for even contemplating trying to steal another brother’s girl, Jeremy dropped his head. “Baby Girl got me twisted. And what’s crazy, I still don’t know her name. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
“Now that you mention it, you kind of look fevered around the eyes.”
“Can you be serious?”
“Aw, man. Don’t let it get you down,” Roy said, slapping him on the back. “These things happen.”
“That’s the best you got?”
Roy shrugged. “‘This too shall pass’?”
“Gee, thanks. I’m starting to remember why I don’t come to you for advice.”
“A’ight. How about this, ‘all in love is fair’?” he said, and laughed. He sobered looking at Jeremy’s expression. “You like this girl, go get her. Engaged isn’t the same as being married—right? Engagements fall apart all the time. Why the hell you think I’m trying to get my girl down the aisle as soon as possible?”
Jeremy reflected on the advice and liked what he heard. “You’re right.” He bobbed his head. “Thanks, man.”
“Heeey. That’s what I’m here for. Now that we got your bottom lip up, let’s go mop the floor with these clowns.”
“You got it.”
Chapter 13
“Positive!”
Leigh shook her head. “That just can’t be. It can’t be.” She pulled in a deep breath, said a prayer and then slowly peeled her eyes open again. The results of the pregnancy test were still the same. “Positive.” She doubled over and collapsed onto the bathroom’s tile floor. The headaches, the nausea and the missed period suddenly all clicked into place. “I’m pregnant.” Her announcement echoed off the bathroom walls and hit her with resounding force. “I can’t believe this. I can’t…” Just the thought of being someone’s mother seemed so foreign to her. She couldn’t even begin to process what the rest of the news meant.
Slowly but surely, those other questions started creeping into her head. “No. I can’t think about that right now. I just can’t.” However, her mind rebelled against her declaration and the needles started getting bigger and sharper. The memories tumbled faster until they rewound back to the moment during her torrid one-night stand when the condom had broken.
�
��Don’t go there, don’t go there,” she told herself. She didn’t want to be in this position. But reality kept slapping her around pretty hard.
Knock! Knock! Knock!
Leigh jumped, and then quickly pulled herself off the floor. “Just a minute.” Her eyes rounded when she saw the doorknob twist. She scrambled to grab the four boxes of pregnancy tests from off the counter and shoved them into the wastebasket. Thank God she apparently had the good sense to lock the door.
“Yo, Leigh. What’s taking you so long in there?” DeShawn asked. “We’re going to be late to our own engagement party.”
Leigh sighed. Just the idea of spending the entire night smiling and forcing herself to make small talk with a room full of people triggered another wave of nausea. She quickly slapped a hand across her mouth.
Knock! Knock! Knock!
“Leigh, honey. Are you all right?”
Finally, she managed to stave off the rising bile in the back of throat and answered. “Yes. I’m fine. Just…give me another minute.”
On the other side of the door, she heard DeShawn exhale a long, frustrated breath before turning and walking away from the door.
Once he was gone, she exhaled as well and turned toward her reflection in the mirror. The perfect flat-ironed hair, perfect makeup and soft, flowing, body-hugging Herrera gown in no way resembled the turmoil raging inside of her.
“How could this have happened?” Tears glossed her eyes, but she blinked them back before they could ruin her hour-long makeup job.
“Yo, Leigh!” Deshawn shouted. “Shake a leg!”
She rolled her eyes, but she knew that DeShawn had a thing about being late. “All right. You can do this,” she told herself, then forced the pregnancy-test results to the back of her head. After straightening her dress and inhaling several deep breaths, she finally emerged from her bathroom and joined DeShawn, who was pacing a hole in the living-room floor.
“Well, it’s about time.” DeShawn glanced at his platinum Cartier watch. “If we leave now and I drive at warp speed we may—just may get there twenty minutes late.”
Leigh’s thin veneer crumbled on the spot. “Fine. Then we won’t go.” She slapped her hands to her sides and spun around to head back to her bedroom. “You can let yourself out.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Deshawn rushed and grabbed her by her arm. “It’s all right. It’s cool. I was just buggin’. I’m sorry.” He flashed her a smile to try and patch things up. He raked an appreciative gaze over her gown. “You look beautiful, by the way.”
She crossed her arms, her irritation far from being alleviated. When she failed to recapture her smile, DeShawn got the hint that he was walking on eggshells.
“Again, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.” He switched over to his puppy-dog face.
Leigh sighed and gave him a “whatever” look. “C’mon. Let’s go. The sooner we get there, the faster we can get back.”
That answer probably wasn’t what her fiancé was looking for, but, again, “whatever.”
DeShawn rushed to help her into a light jacket and opened the door. “I mean it, baby. When the fellahs get a look at you, I’m going to be playing defense the whole night.” His smile broadened as if by doing so it would encourage her to do the same.
It did. After all, there was no reason for him to be in a good mood if she wasn’t.
“I don’t think that I’ve ever been a dude’s plus one before,” Quentin cheesed, snapping on his cufflinks. “I think that it’s only fair for me to tell you now that I’m not a cheap date.”
Jeremy rolled his eyes and checked his watch. “Are you ready, yet? Damn, cuz. I swear that you’re worse than a woman getting dressed.”
“Don’t hate just because my regime is a little more than cocoa butter and ChapStick.”
“Funny. Can we go now?”
Quentin struck a pose on both his left and right sides before finally giving the go-ahead. “Let’s roll.”
“Finally,” Jeremy mumbled and turned to leave. When they reached his front door, he opened and held it. “Your highness.”
“Don’t be an ass, Junior. Just point me toward the groupies.”
“It’s an engagement party. There’re not going to be any groupies.”
Q laughed. “Oh, my naive li’l cousin. Where there are ballplayers, there are groupies. I believe it’s one of Newton’s laws of physics. Look it up.”
Jeremy shook his head. “Where do you get this stuff from?”
“I told you, me and Wile E. Coyote are suuuper geniuses.”
Jeremy laughed as they finally left the house.
A half hour later, the cousins arrived at Vinoteque on Melrose. Jeremy tossed the keys to his Porsche to one of the young valets with a warning, “You break her, I break you.”
“Yes, sir,” the kid said, with a curt smile.
Strolling into the lush European-style restaurant, Jeremy noted that Quentin had indeed been correct. His groupie radar was beeping off the charts as he spotted pockets of leggy-and-toothy women clustered together just outside or near the restaurant lobby.
“Name?” a tall brother draped in black asked.
“King—Jeremy King.”
After running his finger down several pages on a clipboard, dude bobbed his head. “And you?” he asked looking at Quentin.
“Actually, I’m his plus one.”
“We’re cousins,” Jeremy quickly added.
However, Q swung his arm around Jeremy’s shoulders and pressing their faces together. “Kissing cousins.”
“Cuz, if you don’t get off me—” Jeremy warned only for Quentin to crack himself up laughing as he strolled into the restaurant.
“You two enjoy yourselves,” the maître’d said, rolling his eyes over Jeremy.
He just shook his head and followed behind Quentin. “You know I’m going to get you back, right?”
“I’ll sleep with one eye open,” Quentin said.
Jeremy shifted his attention around the crowded posh restaurant. “So many women, so little time.”
“Ahh. It’s been a minute since I’ve heard that line from you. Does that mean that you’re officially finished obsessing over your Baby Girl?”
“Let’s just say that things are put on hold until I can at least find her again.”
“Well, in a city of 3.8 million people that shouldn’t be too hard.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“Anytime.” Quentin popped him on his back. “Now let’s find some women and some alcohol—preferably in that order.”
The cousins melted into the crowd and easily struck up conversations. Before long, they rolled up on The Hoopstar and Drake Jennings.
“Well, it’s good to see that you two clean up well—especially after that ass-whooping me and Roy put on you.”
“Will you stop with that?” Roy said, suddenly popping up from behind. “How many times have I told you that Roy is my father? People call me DeShawn now.”
“Sorry, man. Old habits die hard. You didn’t start being DeShawn until you grabbed the spotlight in college.”
The best friends laughed, and then slapped palms and bumped shoulders.
“Thanks for coming, man.”
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Jeremy said. “I see you spit-shined yourself up as well. I’m impressed.”
Roy struck a couple of GQ poses. “Please. I always stay ready for my close-up.”
“I guess that means things do change. I thought all through fifth grade that your butt was color-blind.”
“Oh, you’re going to roll up in here and crack jokes?”
“You make it easy, man.”
“A’ight. You know I know a few embarrassing tid-bits about your butt, too.”
“We’re going to brick wall that, bruh, because I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I just bet you don’t.”
They laughed during another shoulder bump.
Truly enjoying the eveni
ng, Jeremy got down to the question of the night. “So when can I finally meet this imaginary fiancée of yours? Hell, maybe there’s still time I can talk some sense into her.”
“Better fall back. You scare this one away from me and I’m going to have to take you out back.”
“Oooh. All right.” Jeremy bobbed his head as his smile blossomed. “It’s like that, huh?”
“Just keepin’ it real.”
“Then mum’s the word.” He pounded Roy on the back.
His boy turned and surveyed the crowd. “I know that she’s around here somewhere. Yo, there she is.” Roy signaled Jeremy to follow him. They maneuvered through the growing throng.
Jeremy snatched a flute of champagne from a waiter’s tray without breaking his stride. But as he tossed back some of the bubbly liquid, he noticed a familiar backside—the height, the hair, the unbelievable curves.
It can’t be.
Then Roy tapped the woman on the shoulder. “Leigh, sweetheart. There’s someone I’m just dying for you to meet.”
Suddenly, the universe shifted into slow motion. Well, everything except for Jeremy’s heartbeat. It more than quadrupled in speed.
She turned beaming a beautiful smile—until her eyes landed on him.
Baby Girl.
Chapter 14
The night was officially a nightmare.
Leigh forced herself to blink several times, but the man in front of her remained the same. Judging by the look on his face, he was equally stunned to see her. That didn’t help calm the nauseating feeling inside her. To make matters worse, his cousin Quentin, at least she knew his name, strolled up to the small circle.
His face fell, as well. “Well, I’ll be damned.”
DeShawn’s smile rivaled the Joker in a Batman cartoon. “I know. I told you she was a dime piece, didn’t I?”
Silence.
“Hey,” DeShawn said with a note of warning. “Don’t look so hard, I don’t want you two doing those Jedi mind-tricks you do that cast women under your spell.” He laughed, but no one joined him. After another beat, DeShawn swung his arm around Leigh’s waist. “Leigh, honey, I’d like for you to meet my best friend in the whole world, Jeremy King. Jeremy, this is my baby girl, Leigh Matthews.”
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