“Listen. This is a crazy time for me, and everybody knows it. I need my teams—each team and each person on every team—to be on their shit and to stay on their shit. Before a call is made to me, you check everywhere. Anywhere. Even in the craziest of places so that my pregnant ass is not in a fucking basement about to search through crates. Take that extra step and look for something you think is not there, because I’m sorry but thinking to check the inside of the delivery truck’s cab is not a Hail Mary. It’s a missed pass. Does everyone understand me?”
Affirmations from every team member flooded the phone in unison.
“Good,” she said before ending the call.
Jaime eyed her two side-by-side units, landing on a chair wrapped with padding. She remembered a custom blue velvet armchair a client had changed their minds about. It would be perfect for the baby’s room, she thought, wishing she could be sure this was the chair she was thinking of.
She opened the first unit and flicked the switch up to further illuminate the space as she eyed the furniture pieces, artwork, and accessories she collected over the years. “Let’s see,” she said, setting her keys atop a wooden crate that came to her hip before she began to unwrap the chair.
Jaime pulled on the knotted rope and felt resistance. “Shit,” she swore with furrowed brows. She pressed her thighs against the chair to shift it to the left in case a knot was wedged between the chair and the crate beside it. It shifted. She pulled again and her body propelled back and slammed against a tall crate, rocking it. She looked up just as another small box tilted forward and dropped down onto her head.
Jaime cried out at the sharp pain as she fell forward onto the corner of the crate. She gasped in horror as her world spun, sending her crashing to the floor beneath her. “No,” she moaned as she felt a wave of nausea and sharp pain across her lower back and stomach as she felt unconsciousness was near.
“Please, God, no,” she cried as she fought for the strength to rise and failed.
She winced at the insistent pain radiating across her belly and wailed. With blurred vision, she looked up at the edge of her phone on top of the crate. “Help me,” she whispered, fading into darkness as wetness escaped her.
An ear-piercing scream stirred her as she felt her head raised slightly and placed on something.
“Oh Lord, my baby. Oh, my poor baby. Oh, Lord. Oh, Lord. Oh, Lord. Hold on. Help is coming. I’m here,” Virginia said to her as she stroked her hair back from her sweaty face.
“Mama,” Jaime whispered. “My baby, Mama.”
“I’m here. Help is coming,” Virginia whispered as she pressed kisses to her brow.
Jaime’s eyes closed as tears wet her face before she moaned at the spasms attacking her body. She heard the whispers of her mother’s prayers for a moment just before she slipped back into the darkness.
* * *
Luc stared out the window of the jet trying to fight the fatigue he felt. Flights back and forth between New York and Los Angeles, a showcase he set up for his artists last night, plus an early morning fuck with an eager woman he met last night had him worn out.
“Can I get you something... to drink, Mr. Sinclair?”
He released a yawn as he looked up at the flight attendant. A blonde beauty with a curvaceous body pressing against her uniform stood by his chair with an invitation in her crystal blue eyes. She made an offer to assist him, but he was clear that was asking something of him. He took a moment to consider following her to the rear of the plane to fuck her from behind as he twisted her tresses in his fist. “No, I’m good for now. Thanks,” Luc said, unable to muster the energy to get up and attack the pussy the way he’d discovered she liked.
Her disappointment filled her eyes before she smiled and walked away. He did lean over and look back to watch the sway of her buttocks in her pencil skirt.
“What’s up with you lately, Luc?”
He cleared his throat at the soft and raspy voice questioning him before he turned to eye Zhuri sitting across from him. Her pink ’fro was in its full glory and her oversized shades covered her eyes as she folded her petite body in her seat beneath a blanket. “Not a thing,” Luc finally answered as he shifted forward in his seat.
His assistant, Kendell, was eyeing him as well.
“Happiness ain’t between thick thighs,” Zhuri sang. “If you think so . . . you’ll be . . . disappointed by that lie.”
Luc eyed her as she raised her shades above her brows to give him a hard look.
Kendell chuckled.
Luc glared at him.
His smile faded.
“Bullshit!” Blaze called from behind him.
Luc raised a fist in the air in solidarity to the protest of her opinion. Life was lovely. Now that he opened the door to the endless possibilities of pussy, he was never alone, and his condom-covered dick stayed wet. And sometimes—most times—he barely thought about Jaime at all.
“You wildin’,” she said.
“I’m single,” he stressed.
“Heartbreak is some bullshit whether it happens to you or you cause it in someone else,” she said, bugging out her eyes before she dropped her shades.
“Fuck love,” he said.
“Of self, though?” she asked. “Sharing your body ain’t self-love, bro.”
“Take a nap, Oprah,” he drawled.
“Sure will. With peace, positive energy, and self-love for days,” she said, pulling her cover over her head.
She’ll be the fuck alright.
He checked the time on his diamond watch. They would be landing in New York soon. “Is the video ready?” he asked Kendell.
“Yessir,” his assistant said, handing him the laptop to view the footage of the showcase last night.
Luc put in his AirPods before he opened the device. He squinted when Zhuri walked on stage to applause and bowed before she took a seat at the piano. He had seen the performance live but not with the close-up view the video offered. He nodded at the emotions so clearly displayed on her face as she sang. Heartache. Joy. Passion. Sadness. She hit a high note and he felt the goosebumps that let him know she would be a star. Music was in his blood. Part of his DNA. It excited him more than the mouth or pussy of any woman could.
More than Jaime ever could.
He stiffened at that thought, curious of its origin.
“Luc.”
His eyes looked over to Kendell holding his phone in his hand. The look on his face sent a cold chill over his body. “What?” he asked, as his heart began to pick up its pace with fear.
“Jaime’s in surgery to save the baby,” Kendell said.
His hands gripped the armrest of his chair. From the corner of his eye, he saw Zhuri’s blanket lower. He looked at her. She took off her shades. Again, her feelings were easily readable on her face. This time it was fear and compassion.
“Luc. They want to talk to you.”
He stood and took his phone from Kendell as he made his way to the rear of the plane. “Excuse me,” he said to the flight attendant. He couldn’t remember her name. He could barely remember any of their names. All of them just tools to help him forget her.
Jaime.
He raised the phone to his ear as he looked out the window of the jet to the clouds it sped through. “Yes,” he said.
“Luc, it’s not good. They’re not sure if Jaime or the baby will pull through,” Renee said.
Again, a chill raced over him.
“Which hospital?” he asked.
“We’re at NYU,” she said. “Listen. We’re going to call Graham, too. I’m sorry but you know the situation with the baby. So we thought we should tell both of you.”
The feeling of a sharp slash across his chest was not as intense but it was there. Still.
“Luc, you there?” she asked.
“Renee, I’m on a plane coming back from LA. Can you keep me updated?” he said.
Now she was silent.
“Look, are you coming?”
That was
Aria.
He closed his eyes. He didn’t want to be sitting in a waiting room with the man she cheated on him with awaiting news of a baby he didn’t know was his.
But what if it is?
And what if it isn’t?
“Luc, look, you know where we are. The choice is yours.”
Beep. Beep. Beep.
Luc lowered the phone and released a heavy breath.
* * *
Graham felt uneasy. He couldn’t explain it or shake it.
He stepped back from the large canvas panel with his paintbrush in his gloved hand and old school R&B slow jams playing through his on-ear headphones. He eyed the piece he was doing of a mother holding her newborn son transitioning through to a grown man now protecting his mother. He bent his head to the side and studied it, before taking a step forward to add contouring to the muscles of the man. Since he arrived home from Jaime’s apartment that morning, he had begun sketching the idea out. All day long he had been consumed with it. Lost in it. It was far from complete. There was no rush.
Graham set the square wooden palette that held his mixture of oils down on a nearby stool. His eyes kept going to the work in progress as he cleaned his brushes. He was already making plans for the layering of colors he probably wouldn’t get to for days. He worked his shoulders as he dried his hands before he removed the sleeveless overalls he wore. Nude, he crossed the wide divide to the line of barnwood wardrobes against the wall. He paused with a soft grunt as that unease returned.
Maybe I’m coming down with something. Or it’s anxiety.
He grabbed his running gear and quickly dressed, stopping at the door to yank on his Northface bomber jacket, skull cap, and gloves. Running pumped him up and then calmed him down. With Biggie thumping in his ears and the chilly wind attacking his face, Graham ran to Brooklyn Bridge Park’s waterfront to enjoy the view of the bridge with the late afternoon sun still brilliantly bright amongst the frost of winter. Biggie’s “Juicy” played and he slowed down from a full sprint to a jog with the change in tempo.
“You never thought hip-hop would take it this far,” he rapped along with his all-time favorite MC.
His phone rang, interrupting the music. He slowed to a stop to pull it from the inside pocket of his coat and smiled at the old school photo of him and his parents when he was five years old. “Ma Dukes,” he said.
“Hey, Graham,” Cara said. “You running? You sound like a pervert breathing hard in your momma’s ears, son.”
He chuckled. “Yes, on the run. No, on the perversion,” he answered her. “I’m headed home now. Where’s Pops?”
“I’m here, son,” Tylar said.
“I’m on speaker?” he asked, carefully eyeing a pit bull that was walking his owner more than the owner was walking him. “You supposed to give somebody a heads up before you put ’em on speaker.”
“Boy, please, you ain’t saying nothing no one wants to hear,” Cara said.
He could imagine her waving her hand dismissively.
“Actually, son, there is something your mother and I wanted to talk to you about,” Tylar said. “Did you get the test results yet?”
He looked off at the bridge across the East River in the distance, thinking of all the emotions that had plagued him as he stood in the doorway of the nursery in Jaime’s apartment last night. Everything from joy to pain, but ultimately landing on hope.
“Not for a few more days I think,” Graham said, looking down as he kicked a pile of snow. “I’m ready.”
“We know you are, son, and so are we,” Tylar said.
During dinner with his parents one night after an SA meeting, he had been unable to keep the possibility of a grandchild from them when they talked about looking forward to it one day. Graham didn’t regret that decision, even though they could face disappointment when the results finally came in.
“And Jaime? How’s that going?” Cara asked.
Graham scowled. He didn’t know if it was from the cold whipping against his body without him moving and generating heat or the thought of Jaime and how he couldn’t completely forgive her for not telling him about the baby.
“You keep choosing men you end up cheating on . . . with me. Always second string for you. Cool. But with me possibly being a father you still don’t choose me, Jaime. I still don’t measure up?”
“We talked. Things are better, not best,” Graham said, leaving it at that.
“Son?” Tylar called, his voice sounding closer than it had before.
“Yeah, Pops,” he said, beginning to walk home.
“I will never be the one to ask you to be anyone’s fool,” his father began. “But I also have been blessed with so much forgiveness in my life that I have to encourage you to give that same blessing to someone you love.”
His mother had forgiven his father plenty. Graham had learned his past treatment of women from watching his father run through them with the same regard given to tissues—something to be used and then discarded.
“I hear you, Pops,” he said.
“Okay, here’s your mother.”
There was a slight rustling during the transfer of the phone. “Graham, let me add, if that whore personified can change—”
“Hey!” his father hollered out in the distance.
“Anyone can,” Cara finished calmly.
He laughed just as he received another incoming call. “Hold on, Ma,” he said, not recognizing the number. He answered the call. “Hello.”
“Graham Walker, please,” a female voice said.
“Speaking.”
“Graham this is Aria Livewell, Jaime’s friend.”
He frowned. Deeply. “What’s wrong?” he asked as he came to a stop, his body going tense with alarm.
“She fell at work today—”
Graham’s dropped his head and locked his knees to reinforce them.
“She’s in surgery at NYU Tisch Hospital.”
He looked up to confirm his location to decide if it was quicker to go home for his truck or just hop on a train. “I’m on the way,” he said.
“Graham, you know the situation. We told Luc, too.”
“I don’t care about none of that,” he balked. “I’m on the way.”
“Okay. See you when you get here.”
He switched back to his parents on the other line. “Ma, I gotta go. Jaime fell and she’s in surgery,” he said, checking for oncoming traffic before he crossed the street.
“Oh no, Graham!” Cara wailed.
“What hospital, son?”
“NYU Tisch.”
“Keep us updated,” Tylar said.
He ended the call and took off at a full sprint with his phone still tightly gripped in his hand. Graham made it home in record time and was thankful no overzealous cop decided to stop during his run and question him for suspicious behavior that wasn’t at all suspicious. Behind the wheel of his truck, he made his way across the Brooklyn Bridge to eventually hop onto the FDR. His heartbeat never slowed, and his hand gripped the wheel like a vise as he drove with speed, reaching the hospital in record time. Barely taking the moment to throw his truck into park, Graham dashed from the vehicle and raced into the hospital.
After getting instructions to the surgical waiting area, he quickly made his way there, trying hard not to run through the halls. He passed an open doorway.
“Graham!”
He stopped and turned to see Jaime’s mother in the doorway. His eyes dropped to take in the blood on her skirt and he knew then that Jaime’s condition—and that of the baby—was even worse than he imagined.
“We’re all in here,” Virginia said, looking as frightened as he felt.
“Thanks,” he said, retracing his steps to follow her into the room.
She reclaimed her seat next to her husband, who gave Graham a nod of welcome. Aria waved. Her head was on the shoulder of a man he assumed to be her husband. Her eyes and his shoulder were wet with her tears. Renee’s eyes were shielded by shades, but Graham didn
’t doubt they were as swollen and reddened as her friend’s.
“Grab a seat and try to send positive energy like we are, Graham,” she offered.
He nodded as he claimed a seat in the corner by one of the windows looking out at the city streets. The blue of the sky deepened as late afternoon transitioned into the early evening.
The air of the waiting room was silent and tense as the minutes ticked by into another hour and then another. He contemplated a world where Jaime didn’t even exist and felt utterly helpless and hopeless. He thought of losing the baby before he got to claim him and adore him, and he wanted to weep.
“Excuse us, everyone. Hello.”
He looked over at his parents standing in the doorway and although he never considered asking them to come—and was a grown, self-reliant, strong man—he was glad to see them.
“We’re Graham’s parents,” Tylar said, moving around the room to shake the hand of everyone as Cara gave them weak smiles as she rushed to her son.
She sat beside him and instantly gathered his larger hand into hers. He held it tighter as his father stood beside him with his back pressed to the window as he placed his hand on his son’s shoulder, offering silent comfort.
“Oh, Graham,” she sighed, resting her head on his shoulder. “My poor Graham.”
“We’re here son. We got you,” Tylar said.
Thank God.
His eyes kept going to the blood on Virginia’s skirt. Jaime’s blood. So much blood.
“From her head,” Virginia said, her face desolate.
His eyes shifted up to find she was looking at him.
“Jaime went to the basement to look for something and she took so long,” Virginia said in a haunted whisper. She stared down at the floor with dazed eyes as if replaying the scene in her mind. “I went down to look for her because we were going to lunch. And I wanted to see what she was doing down there. To tell her I was proud that she was so independent and could take care of herself in a way I never dreamed of for her. In a way I never did for myself. In a way that she never would have to accept anything from anyone for the sake of security. I never thought I would find her on the floor like that.”
She gasped and released a wretched cry as she bent over and covered her face with her hands. They were stained with some blood as well. Her husband hugged her as he bent to whisper comfort into her ear.
Her Pleasure Page 22