“So, are you gonna tell me about this Marcus guy, or what?” he called to me from the bathroom.
Scrambling to refasten my bra before he came back out, I yelled, “Yeah, sure!” Finally managing to hook it, I turned the bra around on my chest, slid my arms in and repositioned my ‘girls’ back in the cups, moving my arms to make sure it felt right. Satisfied, I reached for my shirt, and heard, “Need some help?”
Shit. How’d he get out here so fast?
He slowly pulled the shirt from my hand, helping me ease my arms back into it, one at a time. Then he pulled the panels together, sliding each button into its respective hole, with his strong hands working just under my chin.
“Thank you,” I said, feeling my pulse quicken again.
“You’re very welcome,” he murmured, kissing me again. I felt my body go from barely-warm embers to raging inferno in just a few seconds. My skin was tingling, mind racing, as I remembered the feel of his muscled back under my hands, as he moved on top of me, in me. Finally, a few agonizingly sensual minutes later, he pulled back again, smoothing my shirt until it was flat.
I cleared my throat, raked my fingers through my hair, and tucked my blouse into my pants as he picked up the tea glasses.
“Whoops,” he said, looking at the little puddle on the floor. “I’ll get a towel. You still thirsty?”
“Yeah,” I said, snatching one shoe off the floor, while visually searching for the other one. There! Under the recliner, where it all started…
Chapter Nine
It was a punishingly cold December in northern Virginia, almost a year since I met Jamal in that club on K Street, and six months since my divorce from Don was final. At first, he had acted like he was ready for some big, messy showdown—the new lawyer trying out his litigation skills, maybe—but in the end, he just signed the papers and gave me what I asked for.
Not that I had asked for much, anyway. All I really wanted was the furniture, the paid-off car, and my name back. The rest he took with him: the overpriced electronics I didn’t want or even know how to work, the artwork I hated, the real china dish set he had inherited from his grandmother, and his life-size John Wayne dummy.
That thing always creeped me out, standing in the living room with its fake hands planted on its fake hips, a fake smile under a big cowboy hat. I always hated westerns, and he thought they were the greatest thing to hit the silver screen. No wonder our marriage never worked. Some opposites just shouldn’t attract, I thought, slamming the door to my car as I rushed through the frigid air and hard-packed snow.
It hadn’t dropped fresh powder in a week, so the snow I was crunching through in my huge mukluk boots was that gross kind of snow: dirty, ugly, and concrete-like, with all the moisture sucked out of it. Nothing uglier than dirty, old snow in the middle of the city.
I unlocked my door, fumbling the keys a little and almost dropping them, when Jamal said, “Somebody’s here, foxy lady.” He had appeared out of nowhere, with no warning, yet again, nearly scaring me to death.
“I told you to knock that off!” I whisper-yelled, looking around to see who was there. The parking lot of my crappy apartment complex was empty, as always. Some days I swore I was the only one who lived there, and all the other cars and porch junk of the 100-plus apartments around me was just part of some elaborate movie set, tended by hundreds of invisible people, who changed things just a little now and then so it would be more realistic.
“He ain’t right here, but he’s here.”
“Ugh. Like that’s not cryptic, Jamal.” I growled a little, as I pushed against the door and forced it open. It tended to stick in the winter, with the difference between the warmth inside her apartment and the almost-zero temperature outside. Yet one more annoying thing to call the maintenance line about, leaving a message on some ancient machine that—based upon the arrival of exactly no one to fix any of my stuff—was checked all of never.
“Whatever. Just gimme a break, would ya? I need to get out of these clothes, I feel like I’m suffocating in all this wool—“
“Excuse me?”
I snapped around, startled by the sound of the not-Jamal voice. It came from a very young-looking black guy, his ebony skin shining with moisture, under a ridiculous-looking ski hat with multi-colored points all over it, like a jester’s hat. Completing the ensemble was a poufy navy down-feather winter coat, a Georgetown bull dog emblazoned on it, which made him look like he was about 6 foot 70 and weighed at least 1,100 pounds.
“Uh, yes? Can I help you with—“
“One of my friends gave me your number, but I left a bunch of messages and you never called back. So I asked him for your address, and he finally coughed it up, so here I am.”
“I see. Here you are.”
Jamal walked around in front of the guy, checking him out and sizing him up, like he either wanted fight him or try on his clothes. I waved my hand at him, like I was telling the leader of the band, That’s enough music! Stop playing!
“Look, lady, I’m not gonna try anything funny, I need your help. My little brother’s missing.”
Aw, crap. Not another one.
“Come in, sorry about my manners, it’s been a crappy day.”
“Well, no offense, but I don’t think your day could be worse than mine.”
I shuffled him in, shoved the warped door closed behind him, and started peeling my own layers off. “You’re right, I’m sorry. Again.”
“Okay.”
I yanked my scarf, gloves, hat, and coat off, then plopped down on the couch for my daily struggle with the mukluks. I had bought them in Alaska one summer, when Don and I went on one of our ‘discover the world’ trips. What a sad, pathetic joke that turned out to be.
Finally freed of the boots, I dumped them over by the front door, turning on a small space heater I kept nearby, so the boots and winter gear would actually dry instead of just stink up the place.
“Can I take your stuff?” I asked, motioning to his hat and coat.
“Oh, yeah,” he said, removing his coat to reveal the truth: it wasn’t the coat that made him look like a small giant. It was him.
“Do you play football or something?” I asked absentmindedly, as I tried to figure out where to hang his Shaquille-O’Neal-worthy monstrosity.
“Yeah. Offensive line. Who’s your team?”
“Oh, um, the bulldogs, like you,” I said, feeling rather proud of myself for figuring out who his favorite team was.
He laughed, a booming thunderous sound, and clutched his stomach. In my peripheral vision, I could see Jamal literally rolling on the floor, barely making any sounds because he was laughing so hard.
“What?” I looked back and forth from Jamal to this gigantic kid, completely confused.
“You really—you really don’t know?” still laughing so hard that tears were shining in his eyes.
“Know what?”
After a few minutes, the kid wiped his face and took a few deep breaths, reigning the laughter in so it was just a few hiccups and snorts.
“They’re the Georgetown Hoyas not the bulldogs. And their football team sucks. Just so ya know.” He pulled his hat off, handing it to me, with a little smirk on his face.
“Oh, whatever,” I said, smiling in spite of myself. At least I got the giant kid-man to laugh. Maybe now he won’t break me in half and throw me around like a puppet. Ha-ha.