Table for Two

by Nia Forrester

  Before reading ‘Table for Two’, and getting into Rand and Dani’s story, you might want to check out part 1, 'Coffee Date' and part 2, ‘Just Lunch’.

  About ‘Coffee Date’

  You can find out a lot about yourself during the course of a single day.

  On the anniversary of the most tragic event of his life, Randall “The Rocket” Reese must face down paparazzi outside his house, a big sister who won’t stay out of his personal life, and a coffee date with an “old classmate” from high school whom he barely remembers. His plan is to wallow in solitude, but Fate has plans of its own.

  About ‘Just Lunch’

  Randall “The Rocket” Reese is beginning to reclaim his life both professionally and personally, with a new outlook, and a new woman, Dani Erlinger, by his side.

  Rand and Dani are in in a comfortable groove that suits them both, but an unexpected invitation ‘just for lunch’ and a calamitous weekend excursion has them questioning whether they’ve become much too comfortable, much too soon.

  About ‘Table for Two’

  After taking a high-profile position, Rand Reese’s visibility is once again on the rise; but returning to the public eye also means revisiting some of the uglier parts of his past. That past has Dani questioning whether anyone can make a relationship work under the glare of fame and notoriety. Even two people committed to making it work.

  Table for Two

  Nia Forrester

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, distributed, stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, without express permission of the author, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages for review purposes.

  Copyright © 2017 Stiletto Press, LLC

  Philadelphia, PA

  All rights reserved.

  ~1~

  “This isn’t going to work out, Is it?”

  “No,” I say, shaking my head and taking a deep breath. “It isn’t. We should probably just stop forcing it, and …”

  “You sure?” Rand asks.

  “Yeah.”

  I wouldn’t go so far as to say he’s happy, but he isn’t nearly as broken up about it as I am.

  “Maybe if we just tried to …”

  “We’ve been trying,” I say wearily. “And maybe it just isn’t going to happen, and we need to accept that.”

  “Okay, but I don’t want you to …”

  “I’m not going to blame you,” I say, cutting him off. “It’s no one’s fault. It’s just … the way it is right now.”

  “Guys! Look!”

  We both turn our heads at the same time toward Little Rocket, sitting on the end of Rand’s bed. He is pointing at the television screen on which ‘The Transformers: The Movie’ is playing. By now, Rand and I have seen it well over a dozen times. I think I may even be able to recite some of the dialogue. The scene Little Rocket is drawing our attention to is the same one he always gets excited by, and calls out to us to ‘look!’ at.

  “Hey, man. What if I called Annie and asked her to come over and watch the rest of this with you?” Rand tries.

  “Nooooo!” Little Rocket wails. “Just you and Dani, Daddy!”

  “Rocket …” Rand begins in his stern voice, and I grab his arm to stop him. He gives me a look like, ‘what?’ and I answer that look with one of my own.

  “I don’t want him to cry,” I say in a sharp whisper, low enough that only Rand can hear. “We’ll do it some other time. I promise, I’m not blaming you. We just have to strategize and plan better.”

  Tonight, is Friday night. Date night.

  Whenever Rand is in town on a Friday, rather than in Connecticut, we make plans to go out for dinner, or to a movie, a club … something, somewhere. Ever since last year when we were feeling things out and I blasted him for keeping me a “secret”, he’s taken seriously this part of being in a relationship. So, we try to make dates, every week; the idea being that we could to go someplace nice. And for a while, it worked out fine.

  Then, we realized that our Friday nights were encroaching on his sister Freya’s Fridays. If we wanted to go out, we couldn’t leave Little Rocket with her every week. Garrett, her husband, has a right to Date Nights with his wife as well, after all. That’s when Annie the sitter was hired. She came in, played games with Little Rocket, got him in pajamas and sat around reading while he slept, eating whatever she wanted from the fridge and enjoying Rand’s state-of-the-art entertainment system.

  But the fly in the ointment happened when, on a couple of Fridays, Little Rocket took note of me and Rand, getting all dressed up, me putting on makeup, and Rand wearing “going-out shoes” as Little Rocket calls them.

  And, feeling left out, since then, he’s begun cooking up excuses to have us stay in.

  ‘My tummy hurts!’

  ‘My foot feels funny!’

  ‘I hate Annie!’

  And the worst one of all: ‘Dani doesn’t love me!’

  Leaving the house on a Friday has been impossible for about a month now. Rand insists we should go anyway, despite the complaints, but I can’t make myself do it.

  Little Rocket is a greater weakness for me than even his father. And even though on some level I know I should draw a line in the sand, who can do that with a kid who is saying—in behavior, and in words—that all he wants, is for you to just stay with him?

  “He’s playin’ you,” Rand says now. “Like a freakin’ … accordion.”

  He gets up from the bed, heading out of the bedroom.

  “That’s just ridiculous,” I call after him. “No one plays the accordion anymore!”

  Rand laughs, and shakes his head. “I’m getting a beer,” he says. “Want something downstairs?”

  “A white wine. And some of that cheese, please. The fancy one.”

  “The disgusting one,” Rand corrects me. “I won’t kiss you after you eat that. Just so you know.”

  I try not to watch his butt as he walks away. It’s an amazing, muscular butt. Like a rock, that’s what it’s like. I’ve taken to grabbing it a lot, like he does mine. Whenever I do, he smacks my hand away, which, perversely, only makes me want to do it more.

  When he’s gone, I turn my attention to Little Rocket again. My heart almost bursts open whenever I look at this kid, with his chubby nut-brown legs, the shade of the most perfect suntan ever, except natural; and the fat, glossy curls, wide, dark eyes with baby seal eyelashes, and sweet disposition.

  When I am around, especially in this bed, he crawls all over me, fitting himself under my arms, sitting on my lap, or between my legs. He tries to climb on my shoulders, urges me to lift him ‘like a barbell, Dani!’ and rough-houses with me because he still doesn’t distinguish between how his Dad, cousins and uncle plays, and how girls play.

  I will freely admit to anyone who might ask, that I am completely and utterly in love with him.

  So, it is only with a little regret that I reach for the bedside phone and call Amada, the acclaimed Spanish restaurant where Rand and I were supposed to be going for dinner, and cancel our table for two.

  Dinner winds up being broiled chicken breasts with spicy barbecue sauce, and 10-minute boil-in-the-bag jasmine rice that Rand throws together while I sit with Little Rocket, watching Transformers. We eat together in the kitchen, and then before he can get his bath, Little Rocket is asleep. It is only eight-fifteen by the time he is tucked in bed.

  “I told you,” Rand said, looking at me
. “He only stayed up long enough to know he’d played you, and then his little ass fell out.”

  “Yes, it’s true. He’s a very diabolical three-year-old.” I roll my eyes.

  “Look, it’s still early. What if we call Annie now and tell her to come hang out here, and we can still find someplace else? Maybe somewhere local.”

  “I don’t feel like it now,” I whine. “I’m full … we’re not dressed …”

  “Then don’t ever say …”

  “Rand, you know you weren’t really that into going out anyway. So don’t even try it.”

  “Yeah, but when my girl wants to get out of the house, I want to make it happen.”

  “You tried. You get brownie points for trying.”

  He looks at me for a moment and then shakes his head. “Nah, I know where we can go,” he says. “I’m calling Annie.”

  Although I feel a little guilty, and worried that Little Rocket will wake up and find us gone, I allow Rand to persuade me to leave the house when Annie arrives sometime close to ten.

  “We’ll probably be back around one,” Rand tells her. “Call us if you need to, but he shouldn’t wake up.”

  We’d both set aside the dressy stuff we’d planned to wear into Center City, and instead are in jeans; Rand with a long-sleeved black Henley, and me in a sleeveless, swing top that brushes my hips, and feels cool against my skin.

  I have only recently begun to get completely comfortable with sleeveless tops without having a pashmina, cardigan, or sweatshirt nearby. Running has made my arms much more toned and smooth, and I sometimes secretly admire them in the bathroom mirror.

  I don’t ask where we’re going, but after a few minutes, I think I know.

  “Hey,” I say. “Are we …?”

  “Yeah. Goin’ to Q’s. He’s having a house-party.”

  “Like a drug party?” I ask.

  “Yup. Exactly. A drug party,” Rand says, deadpan.

  He shakes his head the way he always does when he thinks I’m asking a stupid question, or being what he says is “goofy.” It’s a word that once might have hurt my feelings, like when I was a shy, overweight and awkward teenager. But somehow, he makes it sound like a term of endearment, and I smile whenever he says it.

  When we pull up at Quincy’s, there are dozens of cars lining his street, and filling his driveway. We circle the block, and find a spot one street over. Rand holds my hand as we walk back to Q’s house, and I feel myself puff up a little when I notice the attention we are getting from people milling outside, or arriving at, or leaving the party.

  It isn’t just that Rand is, well, Randall “The Rocket” Reese. It isn’t just that he is hot as hell—though both are reasons enough to stare—I think it is also because over the last few months, his swagger is back. I used to notice it when he was in the NFL and I would see him on television.

  During interviews, and even just watching him walk into an arena, I saw that his shoulders were squared, back erect, and he led with a subtly lifted chin, like a man challenging someone to brawl, or a … I don’t know … gladiator. He was so sexy then, it made me ache with an unnamed longing just to look at him.

  And when I met him again last year, one of the first things I noticed was that the swagger was gone.

  I wouldn’t say he was down and out, but he was kind of brooding; and staggering, though not yet on his knees. I think he’s past that. Now, he is upright again, standing tall, with a lot of swag. And I love that I might be some small part of why.

  As we brush by a group of people milling in the entryway, the first thing I notice is the absence of smoke—of any kind—in the air. The second thing I notice is the music, and the fact that Q’s living room has been completely emptied of furniture. His aquariums, all of them, are draped in black, and he has placed temporary barriers, probably to make sure no one topples one over. There is a deejay, and a dance-floor and the music is loud, but not deafening.

  Near the center, gyrating with a beer bottle in hand, is none other than Q himself. He is wearing a shirt that is either a tongue-in-cheek throwback to the seventies, or the ugliest shirt I have ever seen. And he is doing what is actually a pretty decent dancehall grind against a woman who, under normal circumstances might be considered out of his league.

  But, as Rand is constantly telling me when it comes to Q, ‘don’t count ol’ boy out.’

  And so, I don’t.

  After a moment taking in the lay of the land, Rand leans in and asks if I want a beer.

  I nod, and release his hand as he heads toward the most crowded part of the room, where people are standing in a thick cluster, and some emerge with drinks held aloft.

  I stand at the edge of the dance-floor watching Quincy and his woman-friend, and involuntarily, my shoulders start moving to the music. The song reminds me of Jamaica, where my best friend … well, my precariously-holding-on-to-an-old-friendship best friend … Trudie and I once vacationed.

  We were in a highly-controlled resort, where everything was Jamaican, but not too Jamaican. That meant that we could, in the colorful buffets for each meal, have either local specialties, or standard American fare. It was as though the management didn’t want to confront the possibility that there were some tourists who didn’t want to be in too foreign a country, and so provided them with all the familiar things they might eat at home.

  I loved trying all the new, exotic foods, some of which I knew were available in the States in certain places, but God, when was I going to have authentic Jamaican food if not in Jamaica? So, I had ackee and saltfish, fried breadfruit, codfish fritters, conch soup … any and everything they offered. Trudie, on the other hand turned up her nose and would only deign to have the scrambled eggs and pancakes for breakfast, burgers at lunch and only a grudging sample of the spicy escovitched fish at dinner.

  I spent the entire week frustrated with her unwillingness to be adventurous and eventually went out into the town with another woman, whose husband was similarly gun-shy and wanted to remain on the compound.

  Later, when I returned to the room, I found a discarded, used condom on the floor in the bathroom, near the trashcan. That evening, I noticed that Trudie couldn’t meet the eye of the steward who had been assigned to our room. Some things she wasn’t too afraid to try, I guess.

  “Danielle! Ma belle!”

  I look up and smile at Q who has left his dance partner to come greet me.

  “Hey,” I say. I kiss him briefly on his damp cheek.

  “Glad you made it out,” he just about yells in my ear, much louder than is necessary to be heard over the music. “Rand said you might not. Couple plans and all that.”

  I shrug. “That didn’t happen. But I’m glad to be here, though.”

  “Cool, cool. Lemme know if you want to check out the smoke room … have a little puff-puff …it’s like 1969 in there …”

  I laugh. “Oh. Well, that era’s one I’ve always wanted to visit, so …”

  “Just so long as your man says it’s copasetic,” Q says, looking over my shoulder.

  Rand is back, carrying two Coronas with lime wedges shoved inside.

  “As long as what’s copasetic?” he asks handing me one of the bottles and putting an arm around my waist, pulling me closer to him. I love the feel of his firm, hard chest, and lean closer still.

  “There’s a smoke room,” I say.

  “Oh. So I stand corrected.” He takes a swig of his beer. “It is a drug party.”

  Q holds up a finger. “Only the righteous weed. And the smoke room is by invitation only. You never know whether the friend of a friend who tagged along for the ride might be …” He makes the letters DEA in sequence with his fingers.

  “I’m straight tonight,” Rand says. “But Dani … whatever.”

  “Whenever you’re ready then, ma belle,” Q says, grinning at me. “Just holler, and I’ll take you there.” He sings the last words, in the tune of the song of the same name by The Staple Singers.

  “Nah, you ain�
�t takin’ her nowhere without me,” Rand says.

  “’Course not,” Q agrees. “Just let me know.” Then he dances back into the crowd, and the waiting arms of his lady friend.

  Rand turns me to look at him, a sly grin on his face. “You really tryin’ to get high tonight?”

  I shrug. “Maybe. If you’ll let me. Just …” I show him my thumb and forefinger with less than an inch between them. “Just a little high? I feel like I never do it right.”

  Rand laughs. “You only ever tried twice. And no, you never do it right.”

  Though Rand and I sometimes socialize with Quincy, it is almost never about buying weed from him. He is funny, quirky, and kind of an Afro-nerd like me. And I also kind of enjoy the thinly-disguised crush he has on me, and Rand’s low-key jealousy about that crush. I mean, Q is like a kindred awkward spirit and all, but … seriously? The idea that I could choose anyone over Rand is too ridiculous to entertain, but if he wants to entertain it, I’ll let him.

  We drink our beers for a while, and get two refills, swaying on the edges, watching the action until a song I like comes on, and I drag Rand out to dance with me. The classic Dawn Penn song, ‘You Don’t Love Me’ is perfect for a slow, sensual grind and we take full advantage of that, one of Rand’s arms locked around my waist, his free hand in the air, holding his beer aloft.

  I feel fuzzyheaded, wanton and now, with Rand moving against me, hella-horny. His hand slides low on my back and teases the waistband of my jeans, breaching a little under it, and pulling me closer. I close my eyes, pretending there’s no one here but us, and then feel his mouth on my neck.

  I exhale and then gasp when he nips me, and sucks a pinch of skin between his lips.

  “Rand …” I say.

  He likes to give me hickeys, and I’ve warned him not to, since the last time he got carried away like that was the night before a cookout at Freya’s. While I was pulling potato salad out of her refrigerator, I caught her eyeing a large one on my shoulder and rolling her eyes. I know we act like teenagers around each other sometimes, and for sure, Rand makes me feel like one. We are giddy, silly, and infatuated, and want to be together constantly; because he is my first love, and I am his second chance.