Games Women Play

by Zaire Crown

  He carried her back to the bed and wanted to finish with Tuesday lying on her stomach. She had no problem with this because it was her favorite position. So when he climbed on top of her, she lifted her ass to give him access to the pussy.

  It must’ve been his favorite too because he kept Tuesday like that for a long time just stroking her with slow but powerful thrusts. His deep groans and the sound of his headboard thumping against the wall kept Tuesday wet, but he rode her ass for so long that by the end she was in his ear begging for him to come. When he finally did, the feel of him erupting inside her was enough to trigger another orgasm for her.

  When they were done, and as he lay on top of her dozing off, Tuesday didn’t want to ruin the moment by telling him then, but it was on her mind. They were definitely going to have that talk in the morning and she was not looking forward to it. She just lay there awake, enjoying the warmth of his body covering hers, figuring it would probably be the last time.

  Tuesday woke up the next morning to an empty bed. Marcus was gone; searching the house revealed that he’d taken Danielle with him. She looked out front and saw that only her Honda sat in the circular driveway.

  Tuesday wondered why he didn’t bother to wake her up if they were leaving and had no idea of where he was going or when he would be back. She thought that was awfully rude.

  Then she considered the time and the fact that it was a school day and guessed he just went to drop Dani off at Bishop Burchram. It was a quick errand so he probably decided not to bother waking her. If so, he would be back in a few minutes.

  Tuesday didn’t know if he’d already eaten but thought it wouldn’t be a bad idea to have breakfast waiting for him when he returned. It wasn’t like it was going to cushion the blow, but she figured that hearing what she had to say on a full stomach couldn’t hurt.

  His being gone also gave her a chance to do a little snooping. She opened up a few drawers and peeked into a few closets just to see what she would find. Tuesday wasn’t expecting to run across any bundles of cash or kilos of cocaine, but she was looking for anything suspicious. After all, Marcus wasn’t a drug dealer but the feds had mistaken him for one for some reason.

  Her trained eyes saw no telltale signs that he was involved in anything illegal. She found a bunch of paperwork from Abel Inc., which she’d already figured was his father’s company, but she didn’t find anything that made him look dirty.

  The only thing that stood out to her was what she didn’t find. There weren’t any pictures of his family. The few she did see were just of Danielle, and Marcus wasn’t in any of them. Tuesday didn’t think too much of that because she wasn’t cool with any of her family either and didn’t have many pictures of herself lying around. She decided to stop being nosy and start breakfast.

  Opening his cupboards did stir her OCD when she saw how disorganized his shelves were, but Tuesday resisted the urge to restock everything. She didn’t want him to come home to the sight of all his food stacked on the kitchen floor while she had a mini freak-out because he had three different brands of canned peas.

  Marcus did come home to the sight of her standing over the stove scrambling eggs in nothing but one of his long T-shirts.

  “That’s a good look,” he said, standing in the kitchen doorway with a smile. “It don’t take me long to get ’em trained.”

  “Boy, shut up! Did you eat something?”

  He came and wrapped her up from behind. “I sure didn’t, but I want to soon as I’m done with breakfast.”

  She bumped him with her elbow. “Stop being nasty!”

  He kissed her on the neck. “I’m sorry, babe. I don’t know how to be no other way.”

  There was a recess in the kitchen that served as the breakfast nook and that was where they sat down to eggs, sausage links, hash browns, and croissants from a can. The windows looked out onto a spacious backyard with a manicured lawn and privacy hedges. Tuesday noticed a chunk of it was roped off by the stakes that construction workers use to map out the area where something is being built soon.

  “What you got planned back there?” she asked. “Adding on to the house?”

  “Naw,” he said, scooping a forkful of eggs. “Had thought about dropping a pool for Dani, but something came up that made me think twice about it.”

  “What? Is everything okay?”

  “Nothing life or death,” he said, responding to the concern in her voice. “It’s just that I might not keep the house as long as I thought.”

  She flashed back to his dinner in L.A. and remembered the big move he and his accountant hinted at. Tuesday knew that it was all connected but he wasn’t jumping to fill in the blanks for her.

  They finished breakfast in silence because as Tuesday thought about her secrets, she realized that Marcus still had a few he was keeping from her. If he and Danielle were about to leave, then where were they going, and why was he keeping it so hush-hush? She also asked herself did she really need to come clean about everything when it was obvious that he was about to bail anyway. Because of that, Tuesday decided to play at being “Tabitha” a while longer and didn’t feel guilty about doing it.

  So after breakfast she screwed him again right there in the kitchen. Tuesday was just going to use his big dick for all it was worth. If she wasn’t going to get money, then she was damn sure going to get sex to make up for all those nights she went to bed horny. If nothing else, when Face came to collect, she was going to die a well-fucked bitch.

  He hit her on the prep island with her legs wrapped around his waist, but when Tuesday complained about the granite counter-top, he tossed her over his shoulder and fireman-carried her to the bedroom where they finished the deed.

  They lay across his bed naked as newborns while Marcus used his finger to trace circles on the small of her back. He marveled at the curvature of her body, her pouty lips, and pretty green eyes. He snickered to himself then shook his head as if remembering some inside joke.

  “What?” she asked, noticing his smile.

  “Nothing.”

  “Why you lookin at me like that?”

  “Nothing. I’m just thinking to myself.”

  She pressed him. “Then tell me what you thinkin’ ’bout.”

  “Ain’t no way to say it without sounding corny as hell!”

  “Try.”

  Marcus propped himself up on his elbows and took her face in his hands. “How can I say you are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen without it sounding like some fake-ass line? How could I tell you how absolutely perfect I think you are without coming off like I’m running game?”

  There was a sincerity in his voice and eyes that knocked Tuesday breathless. Over the years she had been told that she was fine a million times by a million different niggas but never with such eloquence or conviction. She actually blushed.

  She looked away embarrassed. “Boy, shut up!”

  “I’m serious,” he said, turning her face back to his. “But the best part is that it doesn’t begin and end with that, because your looks are just an outward reflection of your inner beauty. You’re kind, you’re smart and funny, and got a good heart. Plus, I just know that when the time comes, you’re gonna be a great mother too.”

  Tuesday expressed a “thank you” with her eyes that she couldn’t articulate with her lips, and he repaid them with a kiss. It sparked another make-out session with a lot of tongue-play and roaming hands but they didn’t fuck again because they were still satisfied.

  Although it did spill over into the shower, where they took turns lathering each other up under steaming hot water. As insane as his ripped body looked, Tuesday thought it was even sicker when it was wet and glistening.

  They enjoyed watching each other get dressed too. She pulled fresh underwear from her bag and he admired the view as she squeezed her ass back into the stretch pants. From his boxers, he dove into another Polo shirt with a fresh pair of jeans.

  It was time for Tuesday to go. As much as she hated to, she had to che
ck on a few things at home, including Nicholas.

  They stood at the door holding each other in silence. It was another one of those moments when they both seemed to be waiting for the other to say something.

  “You know you still owe me,” he said, gripping her hips.

  She laughed. “Between last night and this morning, I paid you back and then some.”

  “I’m not talking about that. I mean from the game we played at Chuck E. Cheese: Question five. You owe me a big favor that you can’t say no to.”

  She had already forgotten about that. “What is it?”

  He whispered in her ear: “You gone find out in a little bit. I just thought I would remind you.”

  Tuesday still assumed that he was talking about something sexual. “Well, I don’t take it in the ass without a commitment. I can’t just hand out backstage passes to anybody.”

  He laughed. “You’re such a classy lady. I’ll make sure to keep that in mind.”

  On the drive home Tuesday thought that maybe it was time for her to get out of Dodge. Rather than just sitting around and waiting for Face to come kill her, she considered some places she might slip off to. There was no family she had a connection with here, A.D. was gone, the team was broken up, and even Marcus was about to leave with Danielle. From where she stood, there was nothing keeping her in Detroit.

  Her money situation was the only thing holding her up. Things were so tight right then that Tuesday figured she probably couldn’t scrape together ten thousand in cash to run with. Tushie had always been good with her money and Tuesday hoped she could tap her girl for some bands. That small piece of change wouldn’t last very long, but it might be enough to put some distance between her and a bullet.

  The longer she considered it, the more this seemed to be her best and only option. She was just going to leave. Get together what she could, borrow a few more, then jump in a car and put Face, Dresden, The Bounce, and all the other bullshit in her rearview.

  She would go someplace where she didn’t know anybody and that would allow her to start fresh. She would stop doing sticks and get a legit job. Over the years Tuesday had compiled enough fake identities that she could use any one of them to start a new life and have the paperwork to back it up. In fact, she had enough to start over as Tabitha Green providing nobody did an extensive background search on her. Plus with a little more money, she could get an identity package from Percy that only the feds would be able to see through.

  Speaking of the feds, Tuesday still felt she owed Marcus a heads-up about that, even if she didn’t owe him the truth about herself. She hoped to see him and Danielle one more time before leaving, but if not, she’d just give him a call while she was already on the road. She knew that was cowardly and preferred to tell him face to face.

  But before she got ahead of herself, she needed money.

  She needed her girl Tushie, who she secretly hoped would decide to come with her. Like Tuesday, Tushie had no children and no real ties to the city, being that she moved there from New Orleans after Katrina. Tuesday would even be cool with moving down that way if Tushie wanted to go back home.

  She tried Tushie’s phone, and when she didn’t get an answer, she headed straight for her house.

  When Tuesday parked in front of her house, she saw that both of Tushie’s cars were slotted behind each other in the driveway. Her old school Cutlass was toward the rear, blocked in by the Hummer H2, which had become her everyday whip. This gave Tuesday hope that she was home but just too busy to answer her cell.

  For Tuesday, hope was quickly changed to concern when she reached the side entrance to find the security door unlocked and hanging half open. She announced herself by calling Tushie’s name but when she got no response, Tuesday cautiously went inside.

  Concern became full-blown panic when Tuesday entered and found the crib ransacked. The kitchen right off the side door wasn’t too bad, but the living and dining rooms were trashed. Furniture was flipped, the floor was littered with the contents swept from the shelves and countertops, along with the drawers, which had been yanked out and dumped. As a reflex she immediately pulled the Heckler from her purse.

  When Tuesday saw that her girl’s flat-screen and PlayStation were gone, she figured it was just a B & E by some young niggas from the hood. She prayed that Tushie was somewhere out with De’Lano. These type of niggas were typically cowards and only kicked in doors when they were sure nobody was home.

  Tuesday went searching through the house but it was in the bedroom that she found what she most feared. It was wrecked in there too: emptied drawers, a broken lamp, a mound of clothes on the floor that had been snatched from the hangers in the closet. Tushie was on the bed.

  Her best friend was naked, only partially covered by a sheet. Her eyes were still open; she’d been shot right between them. Blood spread out from her head and was soaked into the bedding.

  Tuesday doubled over feeling like she’d been punched in the stomach. A scream exploded from her that sounded more like the cry of a wounded animal.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Pain, anger, pity, regret, but no tears. There wasn’t any time and this wasn’t the place to mourn. Tuesday had just stumbled onto a crime scene and there was still much that had to be done.

  She was definitely going to call the cops on this one, but was going to make sure that she was long gone first. Tuesday had enough experience with the Detroit Police to know that they would treat her more like a suspect than the Samaritan who phoned it in. They would ask her who she was, what was her connection to the deceased, and Tuesday having her own unregistered gun would be the thing that got her driven away in cuffs. The last thing she needed was to spend the next seventy-two hours at the First Precinct being hammered by questions she couldn’t provide the answers to.

  Plus she had her own theories about what happened here. But they were only theories.

  The primary one being that this was an execution disguised as a robbery gone wrong. Tuesday noticed that, while the place was trashed, it wasn’t trashed in a way to suggest that the murderers were searching for anything of value. Just poking around, Tuesday came across some of Tushie’s jewelry—which would get far more than the TV and game console taken from the living room. It was what made Tuesday suspect that they were taken just as a front. This had nothing to do with burglary: it was a hit.

  It was only by chance that Tuesday stepped on Tushie’s phone among all the debris and clutter on the floor. She picked it up and dropped it into her purse for the time being. She was going to check it later to see if there was anything in it that might help to explain why her best friend was dead.

  If this wasn’t about money, then what was it about? Sure, they had all made enemies, but of the crew, Tushie was just as cautious as she. Tuesday couldn’t imagine that this was revenge taken by one of their marks. She sensed a much bigger and more complicated scheme at work here; Tuesday also sensed that she was very much a part of it.

  Tuesday knew that Tushie kept her money in a lockbox on a high shelf in the closet, and checking, she saw that it was still there. This was another reason for her to have doubts about the burglary angle. Niggas who really did that B & E thang were trained to scout such places and would’ve thought to look there.

  The girls didn’t keep many secrets from each other, which was why Tuesday knew exactly where to find the lockbox and how to open it: 38-24-56. Tushie thought it was fitting that the combination be the measurements to the insane body that had earned her the money inside, as well as everything else she owned.

  Along with some important documents relating to her house and ownership of the club, Tushie had stashed away twenty-seven thousand in cash. Tuesday did hope it would be more, but couldn’t complain, because it was more than she presently had. She dropped the stacks of fifties and hundreds into her bag.

  Before leaving, Tuesday wiped down the box, the door handles, and anything else she might have accidentally touched. She’d watched enough cop shows to know
that all forensic technicians needed was a partial fingerprint or the tiniest piece of DNA to place you at the scene of a crime.

  On the way out of the bedroom Tuesday gave her girl one last look. The dark and beautiful Louisiana stallion who had mesmerized men in life looked peaceful and serene in death. Wrapped in white linen with a crimson halo surrounding her head, she was like some macabre artist’s interpretation of an angel.

  Tuesday felt like a piece of shit for stealing her money, but figured better her than the dirty cops who were going to search the house. Tuesday justified it by telling herself that Tushie would rather she had it than them. That and her desperate situation was enough to convince her.

  However, she still felt so trifling that Tuesday avoided her reflection in all the mirrors she passed on the way out.

  Strange shit was going on, and while Tuesday didn’t know what the fuck was up, she was almost sure that whoever killed her girl would be coming for her next.

  While her first instinct had been to run, to protect herself by getting as far away from the city as possible, the sight of her girl dead had replaced the instinct to survive with the need to unravel this mystery—and the darker taste for revenge. She still planned to leave but was going to put a bullet in the muthafucka who did that to her partner and friend.

  Tuesday did over a hundred on the Jeffries, stabbing downtown to her condo. Had she not been in such a rush or preoccupied with the image of Tushie’s pretty face with a nasty bullethole right between the eyes, Tuesday might have noticed that the security booth outside the underground parking garage was empty. The guard, whose job it was to check the parking passes of all the incoming vehicles to her building, was not at his usual post. The booth was never left unattended. If one guard went on break, there was always another there to relieve him. Tuesday would’ve noticed this on any other day under any other circumstances and immediately known that something was wrong.