by Nicole Falls
At any rate, I’d stayed long enough and didn’t want the night to get uncomfortable so I headed over in Mimi and P’s direction to say my goodbyes. Before I could move three steps, I felt a hand at my elbow. I turned to see James.
“Yo, can we talk for a second?”
“I’m actually about to leave, James. I don’t have a second.”
“Damn, so that’s how you gonna act? A nigga show genuine interest in you and you act like you too good for him? You ain’t all that, lil mama, trust me.”
“Oh please, I was enough to make you bust as soon as you got a whiff. Don’t get mad you couldn’t keep up,” I said, patting him on the shoulder as I attempted to move past and continue on to say goodbye to the happy couple.
James grabbed my arm again, a bit more forcefully. Before I could retract my arm from his grasp once again, he was snatched up. I looked over to see him held up against a wall in midair, legs dangling.
“You good, QB?”
“Yo, what the hell is going on?” Pierre asked, “Put that nigga down, G!”
“I’ll put him down when he apologizes to QB for disrespecting her.”
“I ain’t apologizing to nobody. That hoe disrespected me when…” James started but trailed off as the grip around his neck tightened.
James was on the lighter side of the melanin spectrum, so the increased pressure immediately showed in his reddened face. He was trying to fight, writhing around, but barely being able to breathe only made his struggle more intense.
“Awwww, c’mon bruh,” Pierre said, trying to break the hold on his cousin, but he was brushed aside.
“You wanna try that apology again, bruh?”
James couldn’t speak, so he weakly nodded. He was released and shoved into my direction. He stood there gasping for air trying to catch his breath, when he caught a clap on the back to prod him along.
“He can barely breathe, Holyfield. Give him a moment, damn,” I said.
“I don’t give a fuck, QB. The man should have left you alone when you asked,” he said and then turned to James, “Well? Tell her you’re sorry for being a disrespectful hoe ass nigga and putting your hands on her.”
James choked out something that sounded like an apology, but that wasn’t good enough.
“I don’t think she heard you, my man. And that ain’t what I told you to say. Speak up.”
“I’m sorry for being a disrespectful hoe ass nigga and putting my hands on you,” James mumbled and quickly walked off.
Shortly after that altercation, I said goodbye to P and Mimi and on my way out, I was stopped again.
“Wait up a sec. I’m bout to head out now, too. I’ll walk with you because I don’t know where that crazy mothafucka went and if he laid another hand on you,” he said, eyes darkened to the point of looking damn near black, “Just…stay right here while I say my goodbyes…please.”
I opened my mouth to say I could handle myself and before I got a word out, he placed a hand on my chin forcing me to make eye contact. We stared at each other for a few seconds before I inclined my head in acquiescence. He quickly jogged over to say goodbye and followed me out of that yard straight into my bed. That night we nearly knocked my bed out of its frame with the sheer force of our fucking. He was driven, like a man with something to prove and I fought to give it back to him as good as he was giving it to me, but soon fell powerless as he once again ruled me utterly and completely.
“James was being a disrespectful asshole and he woulda stepped up for any female being harassed like that,” I said.
“Naw naw, his style is usually more ‘my name is Bennett and I ain’t in it’, but the minute you were involved, all bets were off,” Mia replied, “So go unbreak his heart, sis. Otherwise, I’ma gonna call you daily and play a clip of Fred Sanford saying you big dummy for the rest of your life.”
Sadly, that wasn’t an empty threat. Once Mia and our friend Danie got into it over a game of Uno. Danie was cheating and stacking cards that were unrelated in order to win the games. Every time she saw Danie—for at least six months, she woulda quote Katherine Jackson’s emotional speech in the Jacksons: An American Dream to her. Danie had to hear “You’s a lie and you’s a cheat” over and over and over and over again. While it was amusing to be on the outside of one of Mimi’s trolls, it would definitely not be as fun to be on the inside.
“Fine! I’ll text him.”
“You’d better. Otherwise…” Mia trailed off.
“Yeah yeah…bye, girl.”
“Tonight. You will contact him tonight.”
“I said I would, damn! Now let me go so I can wash this deep conditioner out of my hair.”
“All right, chica. Talk to you later.”
“Later.”
I pressed the button to end the call, and then navigated back to my iMessage. I knew just how I would break the ice now.
U Up?
Almost immediately the three dots appeared on my screen letting me know that a response was being typed, but as quickly as they appeared, they disappeared. I gave him a few minutes to respond, and then I picked up my phone to call. The call rang through, going to voicemail so either he was actively ignoring me or something happened to his phone while he was trying to respond to my initial texts. Either way I wasn’t gonna sweat it. If he wanted to talk, he’d hit me up. The ball was in his court now.
***
I couldn’t sleep. It wasn’t like him to not return any sort of communication from me promptly. I looked at my phone for what had to have been the hundredth time that night. Since my initial text, I’d called and texted a couple more times, but no response. In the span of a couple hours I’d gone from being sad to angry to scared. I was probably overreacting, but after radio silence for too many hours I was worried. I decided to ride over to his house to make sure everything was all right.
When I pulled onto his block, I saw his car in the driveway immediately. All of the lights were on in the front of the house, so I assumed all was good. This sent me right back into anger mode. I barely put my car in park before running up the stairs and laying on his doorbell. It took a few minutes for movement, but when he finally opened the door I could tell that he had probably fallen asleep and I’d awakened him.
“Oh, so you’re alive. Ok cool,” I said and turned on my heel to make my way back down the stairs. Before I got too far, he grabbed my arm.
“Man, bring your silly ass on in here.”
“I mean, I just came by because I texted you earlier and it looked like you were responding, but then the dots disappeared. So then I tried calling you a couple times, but there was no answer. So I gave it a few hours because maybe you were…busy or something, but then you never responded to any of my follow up texts. So I assumed that you must’ve been kidnapped and they were holding you hostage and your phone as ransom.”
“So you came to rescue me from the kidnappers…in that?”
I looked down at my outfit, realizing that I was still dressed in my tiny romper pajama set. I had been so hellbent on making my way over here that my attire hadn’t even crossed my mind.
“I was gonna use what I had to get what I want,” I replied.
“Something is seriously wrong with you,” he said, laughing, “So what’s up?”
“Nothin’. You was sleep?”
“Yeah I must’ve dozed after the game.”
“Oh.”
We sat there in silence for a few minutes before I grabbed his hand leading him to the bedroom. We could talk later, for now I just wanted to be with him—laid up on some caking shit. As soon as we crossed the threshold of his door, I stripped down to my birthday suit and slid between his covers. He just stood there staring for a minute or two before I raised a brow, silently asking if he was going to join me. He stripped to his boxers and turned off the light. Climbing into bed, he laid beside me, not touching. About five minutes passed when I realized that if I wanted to be held, I’d have to initiate contact. I turned to face him and he was lying flat on
his back, arms to his side. I burrowed into him, wiggling until we were in spoon position.
I held my breath as his arms hung there limply around me until he finally tightened his hold. It was then that I released my breath and relaxed into his body. Our breathing synched pretty quickly and I felt myself drifting into sleep. Right before I’d completely given myself over to Morpheus, I felt his lips gently kiss my forehead. The last thought I remembered having before falling asleep was that I wished I could stay here forever.
I woke up before him the next morning. During the night, I’d ended up draped almost completely on top of him. Though he was completely out of it, a certain part of his anatomy certainly was not. I felt him hardening as I moved out of his arms to go use the bathroom and take a quick time out. I was still a little nervous about us actually talking this through. I knew that it was inevitable, but I was cool with putting it off as long as possible. We could just fall back into our routine and everything would be all good. But just the thought of not getting any clarity made my anxiety ratchet all the way up, so I threw on one of his tees and headed to the living room to find my phone. I needed a quick session with What’s Going Om before he woke up.
About five minutes into my meditation, I felt a shift in the room’s air and knew he was awake. Though my eyes were closed, I felt him over me…hovering as if he wanted to interrupt, but decided against. I finished my meditation and followed my nose on over to the kitchen. He stood at the stove, shirtless with a pair of ball shorts riding low on his waist. I padded over, pressing myself into his back and snaking my arms around his waist. This was usually my signal for some hanky panky, but today I just wanted to be close. Needed to be close. He shifted so that I was by his side instead of behind him and pressed a quick kiss to my forehead.
“Good morning.”
“Hey…” I said before stepping away to set the table.
I went into the fridge to grab some juice when I saw a familiar blue label peeking up at me from the bottom shelf. I grinned as I pulled the bottle of prosecco up, bringing it over to the table to decork and pour us some. He finished cooking, plated our food and we tucked right into eating. A few moments of silence passed before I spoke.
“Thank you.”
He reached across the table and grabbed my hand, pressing a kiss to my palm, “No problem.”
“Hey…are we good?” I asked, nervously drawing my lower lip into my mouth and biting down.
“If you’re good, I’m good,” he replied.
I wanted to ask a few questions about what we were and what we were doing, but I didn’t want to kill the vibe we had going now. He was good and so was I…and for now? That was good enough for me.
PUCKER UP
I need a favor. Big favor. Huge favor. I’m calling in my ace in the hole favor for real this time. PLEASE call me when you can.– AceofStace
I stared at this text message from my little sister and laughed. At least once monthly she called in her “ace in the hole” favor from me for things ranging from the silly and mundane to others that were slightly more serious and involved me dipping into the paltry savings I’d managed to amass. Stacie was twenty-one and doing a summer internship at a boutique advertising firm while on summer break from university.
My little sister fancied herself the young, Black Lorraine Twohill. I had no idea who the hell that was, but Stace made sure that she ran down the woman’s entire employment history, her trajectory, and her current rank on Business Insider’s List of Top 50 Chief Marketing Officers—number one, naturally. I wasn’t quite sure where this passion for marketing—of all things—came from. Stacie and I were raised in a household where practical jobs were touted as the end all be all. My parents expected both of us (and our younger brother Eric) to go college, major in disciplines with distinct career paths, and end up with a steady job; which is how she ended up on my couch for the summer during this internship.
Our parents didn’t appreciate her switching her major on their dime. They didn’t understand Stacie saying she was pursuing social media marketing as her focus nor that the space could lead to some pretty amazing opportunities for her as she ascended through the ranks nor that the trajectory of media and advertising had shifted to a more digital presence and their daughter was actually operating within the new bounds of traditional business. My parents also still subscribed to the paper copy of our hometown paper, had a house phone—rotary dial at that, and the computer they owned still had a floppy disk drive. I don’t know why they refused to move with the times, but it only served to make the relationship between them and Stacie tenuous at best.
I navigated to the FaceTime app and initiated a call to Stacie. Whatever ridiculous favor she needed now was sure to be accompanied with a series of hysterical faces. Stacie should have been an actress with her flair for dramatics. As I waited for the call to connect, I busied myself with examining my face in the reverse image splayed across my screen. I looked a lil haggard, despite my best efforts not to.
Last night was spent wasting time on someone who barely deserved it. Hours of arguing with my…I hesitated to call him boyfriend because at this point I wasn’t sure what we were. At one point, I definitely would have thought to call him the love of my life or the man of my dreams or my future husband, but all I could think to call him now was “that nigga over there”. Kevin and I have been together…off and on…for about three years. I met him on my very first day of sophomore year in undergrad and he was my first…everything—kiss, love, and eventual fuck. I was hyper focused in high school on maintaining a 4.0 and perfect attendance that my mind was rarely focused on boys. All of that went to the wayside once I literally ran into Kevin during my second year. I was so busy running my mouth that I didn’t notice him or the boxes he was carrying. It was move in day and we collided in the lobby, just outside of the elevator. After apologizing profusely and him reassuring me that it was fine, we kept running into each other in various places on campus. Eventually he asked me out and we began dating.
For the first two years everything was going well, but this last year has been a hot mess. I honestly needed to just end it, but I figured we were going through a rough patch since we were fresh out of undergrad and learning how to maneuver through the “real world”. He’d yet to find work, which was a huge bone of contention for him as my leisure time was usurped by my job as a counselor at a residential school for developmentally delayed teens. Some days my hours were round the clock if I was on call. He often commented on me having to leave if paged and assumed that I was lying about where I was really going or what I was really doing—as if I wasn’t blindly in love with his silly ass. So blindly in love in fact that I’d taken him back after catching him not once, but thrice cheating on me with some dog walker bitch in his parents’ subdivision.
The FaceTime call had barely connected before Stacie began, “You know you’re my favorite sister, right?”
“Little dude, I’m your only sister. What do you want?”
“You don’t know that? Daddy coulda been a rolling stone…or mama a thot. You don’t know their lives.”
“You know I don’t like you, right?”
“But you love me and that’s all that matters. So anyway…favorite sister in the whole entire universe who I love more than life itself, what do you have planned tomorrow morning from about eight in the morning ‘til noon?”
“Binge watching Dear White People.”
“So nothing…great. So listen, you know how I’m working on that big campaign for Pucker Up Cosmetics, right?”
“You mean how you’re fetching lattes for the executives and account managers who are working on the campaign…?”
“Now is not the time for you to be a hater, sissy. This is serious. So we have a shoot in the morning and I was calling to confirm with all of the people who were on board to be there and…one woman just called back and backed out at the last minute. Something about not being sure this campaign was a fit for her…which…her loss. Anyway, I�
�m stuck here sis and was wondering…how would you feel about being a viral video star?”
Since we were on a FaceTime call, my expression of narrowed eyes and a scowl of displeasure was clearly visible. “You guys don’t have alternates? You can’t step in? Why are you calling me to do this?”
Stacie visibly stiffened…and I knew some bullshit was forthcoming. “Ok so remember when you asked me to use the super fancy photo printer here to print out those pics we took when we were out for Mo’s birthday?”
“I never asked…”
“Well, one of your photos kinda got mixed up in the pile of headshots of the alternates and my direct supervisor liked your look and insisted I call ‘the mocha honey with the megawatt smile’ immediately. If I would have told him that you weren’t one of our alternates, I would have looked like a screw up and you know they’ve been looking at me sideways every since I messed up Dean’s latte order two weeks ago. I can’t have another blemish on my record, I need to complete this internship and get a glowing review, sissy,” Stacie ended her diatribe on a pout with puppy dog eyes that she knew I hadn’t been able to resist since…ever.
I slowly exhaled and asked, “So I just have to show up and show off some product?”
“Basically…”
“And it’s only for those few hours?”
She nodded enthusiastically, a slow smile creeping onto her face because she knew she had me.
“You know you’re gonna owe me big for this. Like first born naming rights big for coming through and saving your ass once again.”
“Ahhhhh, see that’s why you’re my favorite big sister! Thank you! I have to be here for the shoot in the morning, so we can ride in together. I’ll fill you in on the details when I get home!”
