Can't Just Be His Friend

by Tina Martin

  “So you actually thought I was gonna hit you?”

  “Maybe,” I said shrugging my shoulders. “How many more times are you going to ask me that? Forget about it, okay?”

  “Let me say this, and I’m done,” he said submerging his hands in my loose hair. “I would never hit you. I wouldn’t harm a hair on your head, Tiffany. I love you,” he whispered, looking intently into my eyes. Then he kissed me, to which I immediately pushed him away, the reflex of a woman who was taken, who was in a relationship. And Reggie’s kiss was so sudden and real I was caught way off guard and intrigued at the same time. He picked me up and sat me on the counter. I wrapped my legs around his waist.

  We locked lips once more. I massaged his back. He massaged mine. I breathed hard. He breathed harder. I could see love in his eyes. I could feel it in his touch, the energy flowing through his lips to mine. Chicken frying. Grease popping. It was getting hot up in that kitchen.

  Reggie had a good grip on me too. Even if I tried to push away again it would be for naught, so I didn’t even try. He had me feeling so many emotions but at the same time, there were so many questions I wanted answers to. Was he really in love with me or was he doing this because I had a boyfriend? Was all this sudden affection brought on by my relationship with Derrick? I hoped I was wrong about my theories. If Reggie was going to love me, I wanted him to do it because he wanted to, not because he had a little competition for my time and attention.

  We were still smooching when I heard Patricia say, “Something sure smells good up in here.”

  “Sure does,” Mom said right after.

  I was so startled, thinking about how they just waltzed right on in my apartment without so much as a knock, about to catch me and Reggie hugged up in the kitchen. Reggie let go of me and stood there looking in my eyes as if he just realized what we had been doing for the last five minutes. We didn’t say a word to each other. I quickly wiped my mouth with my forearm, thoroughly washed flour from my hands, fixed my hair, brushed a dusting of flour from Reggie’s shirt, then Reggie and I joined our parents in the living room.

  “Hi Mom. Hey, Pat,” I said.

  “Hey,” Patricia said. “What’s that you cooking in there?”

  “I’m frying some wings.”

  “They sho’ smell good. I’m hungry too,” Mom said.

  About that time, Reggie came walking out of the kitchen.

  “Hey there Reggie,” my Mom told him.

  “Hey Georgia. Hey Ma.”

  He joined them on the couch while I went back into the kitchen. Don’t know why I felt so guilty, like I was sixteen and got caught in the act of kissing a boy, but it was a very uncomfortable feeling for me. I couldn’t even go back in there. I waited until all the food was done so they could join me in the kitchen.

  “Y’all can come on in now,” I told them. I had place settings on the four chair dinette with the food in the center – the chicken, mashed potatoes, garden salad and macaroni and cheese.

  I tried to shake the sensation of feeling like I was in trouble for kissing Reggie. Actually, I think I was more concerned with Mom and Patricia finding out. I felt like they knew what I had done just by looking at me. Boy did I feel awkward. I avoided making eye contact with Reggie. I wasn’t sure what I was feeling at the moment. I couldn’t avoid Reggie too much longer though. My Mother could pick up on just about anything. The woman could read me like a third grade book.

  “Tiffany, you okay, honey?” she asked me. I knew it was coming sooner or later.

  “Yeah. I’m fine Ma,” I said as I dropped a spoonful of mashed potatoes on the table instead of my plate. Yeah, I’m fine huh?

  “You sure? You seem a little nervous.”

  “I’m okay.” I passed her the dish of potatoes to get her off my back.

  We dived into my well-prepared meal. Forks and spoons clanging against full plates was all you could hear. I couldn’t believe how quiet we were. I glanced up at Reggie a few times and both times, his eyes were locked on me like a target.

  Crap, I thought to myself as I looked back down at my plate.

  “So Tiffany, I’m sure Reggie told you that he ain’t with Shontay anymore,” Patricia said like she was trying to give me a verbal nudge.

  “Yeah. He told me.”

  “So what happened with that, Reggie?” my Mom asked him. I thought I would just die right there where I sat.

  He told her, “She wasn’t the one.”

  “Oh. Well it’s a good thing you recognized that.”

  “Yeah. It is,” he said, agreeing with her.

  I kept myself out of the conversation. That is until I remembered how Reggie told me that Shontay broke up with him, not the other way around. Just now, he made it seem like he ended their relationship. I had to find out what really happened.

  “Reggie, I thought you said Shontay broke up with you?”

  “Nah. I broke up with her.”

  I thought about Shontay’s tearful plea in my living room that day. The girl had it bad for Reggie. He could snap his fingers and tell her to drop to her knees and she would do it. I had to get more details.

  “So did she cry or put up a fight for you?” I asked him.

  “Yeah. She cried.”

  “And you didn’t feel sorry for her?”

  “I mean, she understood.”

  “Understood what?”

  “The reason why I broke it off with her.”

  Mom and Patricia were quiet as me and Reggie went back and forth until Patricia asked him, “Why did you break it off with her?”

  “Because I’m in love with someone else.”

  He shocked me with his comeback. I looked at him after he made the declaration, knowing that he was talking about me.

  “I didn’t know you were seeing someone else, Reggie,” Patricia responded. “Tiffany, did you know Reggie was seeing someone?”

  Before I could answer, Reggie said, “Yeah. Tiffany knows who I’m talking about.” He gave me that demanding stare again.

  “Oh, you met her, Tiffany?” Patricia asked me with keen attention.

  Meanwhile, my head was spinning, heart pounding. Patricia was throwing question after question while Reggie was basically telling me he wanted to be with me via a general discussion over dinner with our parents present.

  “Ah…um…yeah. I met her,” I responded to go with the flow. I didn’t know how long Reggie was going to drag this out.

  “You’ll love her too, Ma. She’s beautiful from head to toe. I love absolutely everything about her.” Reggie was putting it all out there.

  At that point in the conversation, I could no longer eat. I was so stunned, I don’t even think my taste buds were working. Suddenly, mashed potatoes were beginning to taste like blah.

  Patricia told Reggie, “Yeah, but there’s more to a woman than her looks. What makes this woman so special?”

  “Hmm, there are so many different things. She’s smart, she’s funny and she loves me more than any woman on this earth ever would, other than you of course.”

  “And how long have you known this woman?”

  Reggie smiled, then said, “A while.”

  Reggie is in love with me, I must have said fifty times in my head while I sat quietly pretending to be clueless.

  Then I had to get up. The heat was definitely on me. Mom was starting to cut her eyes my way and it wouldn’t be long before Georgia Water connected the dots. I had to take a few deep breaths to regain my composure. I went into my bedroom and shut the door behind me.

  “This can’t be happening,” I said softly. But it was happening. Reggie was in love with me. A few minutes later, I heard taps at my door.

  “Tiffany, you in there?” Reggie asked.

  I didn’t want to let him in. Here it stood he already told me he was in love with me. Even though it was not directly, still he made it known. Now, he wanted to tell me how he felt in private, behind closed doors.

  I let him in and immediately, he pushed me up against th
e backside of the door and started kissing me again. He was rough and greedy as he sucked on my lips.

  “Mmm…I love you so much,” Reggie mumbled through the kissing. “All these years I’ve loved you…I’ve never loved anyone as much as I love you, Tiffany.”

  “Reggie, stop,” I said trying to end this all-out attack on my lips.

  He paid me no attention…just kept touching me and said, “Don’t say things you don’t mean.”

  “Reggie, we shouldn’t do this.”

  “Oh yes we should.” He was reckless, kissing me on my neck and all over my face as if he was making up for lost time. He steered me towards the bed and knocked over the lamp on my nightstand.

  “Reggie, see what you’ve done. I know Mama heard that,” I told him and as the words left my mouth I heard Mama yell, “Tiffany, everything all right in there?”

  “Yeah,” I yelled back to her. “Everything is okay, Ma.”

  “Reggie, I’m gonna kill you.” I picked the lamp up off of the floor and sat it back on the nightstand.

  Reggie walked up to me again and put his arms around me. He leaned forward to kiss me and I dodged his sumptuous lips.

  “I’m in love with you, Tiffany. Do you hear what I’m telling you?”

  I heard it, but I couldn’t believe it. All the years I wanted to hear those words from him and finally, he was there saying them to me.

  “You don’t feel the same way about me?” he asked.

  I had a decision to make. Either I could say yes and live happily ever after with Reggie, or I could say no and find out more of what Derrick was all about.

  “I…ah…I don’t know how I feel right now but I know we can’t…um…you know what I mean.”

  That was hard for me to do. I had the ideal chance to have Reggie all to myself but I chose not to go with my heart for one reason and one reason only. I didn’t want Reggie pushing up on me because I had a man and he wanted to take me away from him. I wanted Reggie’s love for me to be genuine. I wanted him to love me because we had something special, a lifelong friendship. We had a history.

  “Ah’ight. I’m sorry.” Reggie returned to the kitchen table and I followed.

  “What were y’all doing in there?” Mom asked me.

  “Nothing, Ma. Reggie was playing around and knocked over a lamp. That’s all.”

  “Oh…okay,” Mom said as she brushed my hair down with her fingers. Apparently, I didn’t do a good job of it after Reggie got a hold of me.

  “So Tiffany, why didn’t you invite Derrick over?”

  “Because I just wanted it to be us…the family.”

  “Oh. Okay.”

  Reggie shot a mean look my way. “And he definitely ain’t family,” he said, as if that needed to be reiterated.

  Patricia changed the subject. “This was really good, as always,” she said. “Wasn’t it good, Reggie?”

  “Yeah it was.”

  “Well, I hate to eat and run, but I gotta get going.” Patricia stood up preparing to make her exit.

  “Me too, hun.” My Mom joined Patricia.

  They grabbed their purses and bounced. Reggie didn’t leave. He sat on my couch, then took the picture of me and him off the table. It was the same one Derrick had picked up.

  I walked to the kitchen to place dishes in the dishwasher.

  “Hey Tiff, you remember this?” he asked me as he raised his tone so I could hear him.

  “What’s that?”

  “The day we went to the beach and it started raining. I picked you up and spun you around and your Mom snapped this photo.”

  I stood in the doorway with a dishcloth in my hand. “Yeah. I remember that day. That’s my favorite picture of us.”

  I remembered that day well. I recalled how the water splashed on me at all angles, just like we were in the ocean but we weren’t. We were standing on the shore actin’ like fools. Me and Reggie were playing a silly game of tag and after he caught me, he picked me up and spun me around.

  I threw the cloth on the kitchen table then sat next to Reggie on the couch.

  “Those were the days, huh?”

  “What you mean those were the days…we still have fun, don’t we?” Reggie asked.

  “Yeah.”

  The incident over dinner was squashed. Reggie didn’t bring it up again after our parents left and neither did I. As far as I was concerned, the conversation never had to happen again. I took a pillow from my couch and popped him over the head with it. Then he picked up a pillow and it was on.

  It was not surprising that we still behaved like a couple of big kids. I whacked him hard and he got me good too. My hair was flying all over my head, then Reggie picked me up and spun me around again like we were out on the beach in the rain again.

  “Reggie, put me down. I’m getting dizzy.”

  I landed safely on the couch where he’d dropped me. Then he leaned over the top of me and kissed me again. I knew I should’ve made him leave, I thought. But his sweet lips felt smooth against mine. I received his kisses with ease. Reggie stood up and took off his shirt. Before I knew it, he was climbing on top of me, again, kissing me – slowly. His warm tongue teased mine. His body was hot and heavy as he used the couch to sandwich me, eager to convey in action what he had already spoken in words.

  “Mmm,” he breathed hard. “I love you.”

  I’d never felt so wanted in my life. Reggie was all the man I hoped for. I had so many wants from him. I wanted to marry him. I wanted to make love to him. I wanted him to father my children. I wanted him more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life.

  “Ah Reggie…baby.” I braised his back with my fingertips. “Reggie, I love you so much.”

  We fell on the floor, showing our wild, out-of-control affections for each other. And when we hit the floor (both of us laughing), my pictures fell off of the table. Did I care? Nope. At that very moment, I would not have cared if a black hole swallowed the entire planet. I was with Reggie, the love of my life and for the first time in our history, I had his complete and undivided attention.

  Reggie pulled my shirt up over my head and indulged my chest with his charming kisses. My heart must have skipped beats with each kiss. I inhaled and exhaled rapidly to brace myself for his love.

  Then the doorbell rung.

  “They’ll go away,” Reggie told me as he kept kissing me.

  “No, Reggie. I gotta see who it is.”

  “No, baby.” He was breathing heavier than I was. “Just let them go away,” he said, breathing harder. I watched his chest move in and out as he hovered over me like a helicopter.

  “Reggie, it’ll only take a second, okay?”

  Reggie didn’t want to stop but he let me up. I ran to the door and checked the peephole to see who it was.

  “Reggie, Derrick’s here!” I was so shocked to see him standing there I couldn’t think straight. “Um, Reggie, pick up those pictures and put them back on the table.” I hurried to put my shirt back on and brushed my hair down.

  Once everything was in order, I opened the door. Derrick was standing there with a single red rose.

  “Hi Derrick.” I rubbed my hair down once more, in case I missed a few strands. It wouldn’t look good for me to stand there with wild hair while Reggie was there. Reggie joined me at the door to see who it was.

  Derrick was heated. I could see it all up in his face. He had every right to be. Honestly, nothing happened between me and Reggie besides some aggressive touching and kissing. I guess Derrick was a little bothered by the fact that Reggie didn’t have on a shirt.

  “What’s going on here?” Derrick asked. “Am I interrupting something?”

  I laughed it off. “No…we were just having a pillow fight.”

  “A pillow fight…aren’t you too old for that?”

  Oh no he didn’t, I thought to myself. He had some nerve asking me that.

  Reggie responded before I had the chance to. He said, “Nah she ain’t too old for that but you’re a little too old fo
r her, ain’t you, playa?”

  “I’m gonna act like I didn’t hear that,” Derrick replied. Then he focused his attention on me. “Tiffany, what is he doing here?”

  “What?” Reggie yelled. “I’m standing right here. Don’t ask her no questions when I’m right here in your face, dude…you wanna know what I’m doing here, you ask me!”

  “Reggie, calm down for a minute,” I told him.

  “Why you telling me to calm down? You need to check your man. I’m cool.”

  “Look Reggie. I just came over here to see my lady,” Derrick said smoothly. “I could care less about you.” Derrick only made the situation worse.

  “Tiffany, I promise I’ma hit this dude in his mouth,” Reggie said, making fists.

  “Reggie!” I had to block Reggie from getting outside. “Stop it! Why can’t y’all get along? Come on now… stop it! Derrick, come in and Reggie, can you please calm down. Please?”

  “Ah’ight.” Reggie walked over to the couch and sat down while Derrick sat on the loveseat.

  Reggie was still fuming like he was going to jump up any minute now and attack Derrick. I sat beside Derrick on the loveseat. As soon as I sat down, Reggie got up off of the couch and started walking over to where we were sitting. I didn’t know if he would hit Derrick or what. Whatever he was doing, Derrick didn’t look like he was scared at all. I’m sure he could hold his own, but I wasn’t going to let the two of them fight over me.

  Reggie got closer to us, then leaned down in front of me. He whispered, “I’m gonna get outta here before I hurt somebody.” He said it loud enough for Derrick to hear him. Then he kissed me on the cheek. “I love you.”

  Reggie was bold coming at me like that while Derrick was sitting right there.

  “I said, I love you,” he said louder.

  “Love you too, Reggie.”

  Reggie grabbed his shirt off of the couch and left.

  “What’s up with him, Tiffany? I mean, I can’t have a decent relationship with you because of your friend?”

  “I’m sorry, Derrick. I don’t know what’s up with Reggie.”

  Oh, I knew what was up with Reggie all right. Reggie wanted me. But if Derrick didn’t know that already, I sure wasn’t about to tell him.

  “I know what’s up. The man is in love with you. That’s why he doesn’t like me. I’m taking his place. I’m the enemy. He feels threatened by me.”