Cabin Fever

by Shani Greene-Dowdell et al.

  Gripping her waistline, I entered her roughly from behind. I held her close as I attempted to pound away my frustration.

  Damn you, Jayne.

  I blocked out Mandi’s howls and imagined the sounds Jayne would make. The way Jayne’s body would adjust to my curve. How tight she would be, how wet. The way she would say my name. It all consumed me, and within minutes, I released inside of the condom.

  Falling onto the bed, I counted down the moments before I would send Mandi back home. She satisfied a primal desire and helped relieve my immediate frustration, but this fix was only temporary. The underlying problem still festered—the need to be with Jayne.

  Chapter 2

  Jayne

  Altered Reality

  “We ain't getting no younger; we might as well do it

  Been feeling all the while girl I must confess

  Girl, let's just get married.”

  Jagged Edge’s lyrics were playing smoothly through the huge speakers in the event center. I was seconds away from marrying my best friend. He stood at the end of the aisle, waiting for me with a larger than life smile on his face.

  Everything was perfect.

  My alarm sounded at that very moment, dragging me kicking and screaming out of the event center, away from the love of my life, out of a beautiful dream, to the present moment. Coming down from the high of a make-believe land where I was seconds away from being Ned’s wife was torturous. Wasn’t it enough that I couldn't have him in real life? Why couldn’t I have him in my dreams? Well, for one, to have him there, I had to stay asleep.

  I sealed my eyes tight and tried to fall back into a deep enough slumber to take me back to the fairytale land I was pulled from. Afraid that if I moved to turn off the alarm, I would be too jarred awake to meet him at the altar again, I laid perfectly still. In a few more seconds, it would automatically snooze, and I would be there with him, once again.

  When I fell back asleep, I indeed found Ned at the altar. Thank God, he was still in love with me and wanted to marry me. He was there for me like he would always be—in my dream. Jagged Edge’s lyrics began to play again as a huge smile plastered on my face.

  When I arrived at the altar, he smiled and looked at me with so much adoration. He loved me, and that much I always knew, deep down. The alternate reality of him marrying another woman wasn’t in the cards, nor what he wanted. He had only gotten trapped in a relationship with Eliza because she won the pregnancy race. But she didn’t matter right now. This moment belonged to us.

  I blinked, and things shifted. Having an out-of-body experience, I looked at myself stand beside Ned. We had just committed to spending our lives together, and it was time for Ned to kiss me. I was so ready for it that I could feel his lips touching mine from the sleep to awake realm.

  Suddenly, he pulled back his bride’s silky white veil, and it wasn’t me that he was about to kiss. It was Eliza, the woman who stole him from me. The woman Ned deemed worthy enough actually to meet at the altar.

  Eliza wrapped her arms around him as he leaned in to give her what should have been mine—a passionate kiss that would seal them together forever.

  My eyes popped open to the sound of my alarm blaring. I didn't fight it this time. Turning it off, I cursed daybreak and my job. If it weren’t for those two things, I would have never been interrupted by my alarm in the first place. I would still be laying in bed, enjoying something I seemed only to be able to find in an unconscious state—love, even if it was tainted and fleeting.

  As I turned off my alarm, I realized it was Friday, and the date reminded me of my best friend’s performance tonight in Atlanta. I promised Alise I would be there for her as she christened our friend Jeb’s club with her soulful voice, and I couldn’t wait to get off work and hit the highway. After today, I was on vacation from my job as a home health physical therapist.

  Just as I was thinking about how much I needed to escape my present dilemma, I wondered if Xander would be in Atlanta. He wasn’t Ned, who only showed interest in me for sex. No, Xander was the opposite. He was walking sex, but he wouldn’t touch me if I was butt naked and begging him to.

  Even though our relationship was sexless, when I was with Xander, I didn’t think of Ned. Xander knew how to get and keep my attention by talking to me or doing something fun, but my desire for him to kiss me, touch me, do something more had become overwhelming. I couldn’t take his or Ned’s rejection anymore.

  ✩ ✩ ✩

  I had front-row seats, and the drinks were flowing and delicious. Club Elite quickly filled to capacity. When Alise hit the stage, it was standing room only.

  Alise was a natural. I was glad more and more people recognized her talent. My friend could sing her butt off, and her digital sales were proof that the world was listening.

  Smiling, I watched her performance, while ever so often glancing around to see if Xander would be joining our group. He never showed up, but I got a chance to hang out with Jeb and Tameka, and Bruiser and Alise. All the couples were out tonight, looking beautiful, except Channing and Kemara, who were home attending to their newborn baby girl, Camiya.

  Since I was the odd man out, I thought about my cousin, Astalia. She lived in Atlanta, and I should have called her to let her know I would be here so that she could hang out with us. Since I didn’t connect with Astalia at the club, I planned to link up with her the next day.

  My girls and I had another great night together. By two in the morning, I was ready to get back to my hotel room so that I could get some sleep.

  After getting dressed the next afternoon, I went over to Astalia’s apartment and caught up with her. It had been a year since I saw her, but it seemed like yesterday. She told me the mundane details about her job, and I told her what had been going on with mine, which wasn’t much at all. Then, she dropped a bomb on me.

  “I need to find a tall, dark, and handsome professor and convince him we belonged together,” was what she said. Oh, and she added that she had a deadline for finding him within two weeks. “I have to have him by Christmas.”

  “By Christmas?” I parroted with laughter. “You’re joking, right?”

  Her somberness halted my laughter. She was serious.

  “Why do you need a man so fast? And why does it sound like if you don’t find him, you’ll be strung up by your feet and beaten? What will happen if you don’t find him?”

  “For one, Mama is going to skin me alive.”

  “Aunt Sky? Why?”

  She went on to explain the big, fat, chocolate lie she repeated to Aunt Skyler over the past six months. She told Aunt Skyler about a passionate love affair she was having with a professor at the university. He was dark, tall, and one step away from proposing to Astalia.

  While Aunt Skyler was preparing to plan a wedding, there was no handsome professor. Astalia made him up to quiet her mother’s demands that she get married and have her some more grandbabies. Instead of telling the truth that there was no professor to bring home, Astalia was prepared to sift through every man in Atlanta, looking for one that fit the description.

  I set my wine glass down on the table and stared at her. “You really stepped in it this time, Stalia. Where are you going to find a whole man by next week?”

  “I don’t know, but at this point, I feel like finding an escort service and dishing out half of my savings account to buy a date who fits the description. Mama thinks it’s simple to find a good man. Well, no, it isn’t 1990 anymore. Men these days are taken, transitioning, or just plain out dogs.”

  Well, she wasn’t lying, but she still was in a tight spot.

  During our talk, I slipped up and told her I wasn’t over Ned. She looked disappointed, but we both had big enough crosses to bear without judging the other. She wanted to know why Ned was still in my life, and I wanted to know why she gave Aunt Skyler the most sought after description of a man, knowing good and damn well a single, straight, dark, and muscular man with those attributes was a rare commodity in Atlanta.
/>   I had zero confidence she would find this mystery man, but on a long shot, I told her about the speed dating event at Jeb’s club tonight. With some coaching, Astalia agreed to go, and now, I was by her side, giving her the moral support she needed on her quest to find this make-believe man.

  For speed date night, I dressed in a black midriff dress and black strappy heels. I wore my hair straight and flowing to my shoulders. I was ready to help Astalia find her mystery man, but who was I kidding? This year had been nothing but one relationship woe after the next for me. While I was there for her, I might as well keep my eyes wide open for my own prospects. A single woman in this day and age could never have enough prospects.

  Instead of being a bed of roses, my love life was more like a bed of thorns. Ned played enough games with my heart to last a lifetime. I hadn’t completely moved on from him, but I did have a little situation going on with Xander. Sometimes, I didn’t know which was worse, Ned playing mind games or Xander playing video games.

  Every time Ned pretended to want me, I was there to play his game as if I liked the prize of looking stupid in the end. Xander’s rejection of anything beyond being gamer friends only sent me rebounding to dreams of Ned more times than I cared to admit. Wedged between these two men was a place I was dying to escape.

  I met Ned in high school. He was the football quarterback, and everyone knew he was going to make it out of Lafayette and go to the NFL. I rooted for him to make it, but it didn’t matter to me if he made it or not. I loved him with all my heart, and I would have loved him just the same if he were a short-order cook.

  After we graduated, I went to physical therapy school at the University of Alabama and Birmingham, and he went to Auburn University with the entire football league following his every move. We kept in touch through phone calls and texts. We hooked up every weekend that we could. I attended as many of his games as possible with the distance and schoolwork.

  In my fourth year of college, when I was finishing my undergrad work, I got the news that Ned had torn his ACL and PCL during practice. With both of those ligaments torn in his leg, his football future ended before it began.

  While I grieved the loss of his football career with him, I also felt guilty about being a bit relieved, knowing that we could now be together without his rigorous schedule hindering us.

  By the time I graduated from college at 24, I was looking forward to settling down with Ned. Hopes of marriage, a house, and a family were all on the horizon until the day I checked social media and realized he had made those things come true with someone else. I spent the next few years begrudgingly keeping myself available for a married man who used to be my main boyfriend. Now, I was finally trying to break the hold he had over me.

  One night, when I was hanging out with my girls, Tameka, Kemara, and Alise, who were all coupled up with their men, I met Xander. He was the odd man out, just like me. He was the life of the party, lively, talking smack, and hitting on every girl that passed by him.

  Seeing him show interest in other women kept me from falling for his charm. We were all just having fun, enjoying the spirits, and conversation. That was as much as I would allow myself to make of our exchange, even when we ended up sitting next to each other, shooting the breeze.

  “You remind me of the character Katara from Mortal Combat,” he said randomly.

  “Do you mean Kitana?” I asked, scrunching up my face. It was a corny pickup line, but I chuckled when he nodded and started talking about the game.

  “Yep, I used to play it all the time. I guess I’m a little rusty on the names.”

  “I love that game. I used to play it all the time,” I admitted.

  “Cool. She’s beautiful.”

  The way he looked at me when he said Kitana was beautiful while telling me I looked like her gave me chills. Why was he staring at me like that?

  “Thanks. I never thought that I resembled her, but I love the game. It’s a national treasure. I’ll never get rid of it.” I laughed and hit him on the arm, trying to change the direction of our conversation from flirtatious to innocent.

  “Maybe after we leave here, we can play a game at your place,” he said.

  I smiled. I never had a man pick me up with an offer to play video games. This was new, but I decided to play along.

  Staring into his dark eyes, I only allowed myself to look away to check out his dark brown hair and a silky brown five-o'clock shadow. His brown eyes drew me back to them, and I studied the darkness in them that could easily be neglected due to his beauty. Broad cheekbones held a big smile chiseled into his facial features. Ever so beautiful, his smile never reached his eyes. Xander was a handsome enigma, carefree but troubled in some kind of way.

  It was challenging to do, but I pulled my eyes away from his, away from his brown, kissable lips that helped to sculpt his gorgeous face. My bragging rights for Mortal Combat were still in effect, so I bragged about coming out on top if we were to play the game.

  Xander said his goodbyes to everyone, and when he got to me, he asked me to hand him my phone. I did, and he called his phone so that he would have my number. Then, he saved his info into my contacts under “No, I’m On Top.”

  Xander winked as he left the table, and it didn’t take long for me to find myself in my car, texting him the directions to my house.

  By the time he arrived, I had freshened up and lit a candle. When he walked through the door, I expected him to snatch me into his arms and commence to snatching my soul out of my body. I wasn’t a fan of one-night stands, but when I hooked up with someone at the club, fucking was all that was on the agenda once they reached my house.

  That didn’t happen with Xander. He didn’t kiss me, seductively walk me to my couch and fuck me like there was no tomorrow. Nothing remotely close to sexual intimacy occurred.

  Uneasy lines formed on his forehead, and he simply smiled and said, “Nice place.” Xander looked around at my earth-toned colored furnishings and then back to me. He appeared a bit nervous about being here, which was a far cry from the overly confident man I met at the club.

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Well, come on in,” I invited him into the living room with a nod of my head.

  His dazzling brown eyes traveled to my feet and then slowly back up to my eyes, making sure to take me in completely. Xander walked over to the gaming console. “So, are you ready for this?”

  I searched for the true meaning behind his heated once over. The words “are you ready for this” would have been innocent, but coming out of his mouth, they were sin. Staring at him with lust oozing from my pores, I asked myself if I was ready for a night with Xander. I didn’t want to be presumptive, but I had a good feeling he felt the same as I did.

  “Uh. Yeah, I guess,” was my reply.

  “Good, because this is going to be a night you won’t forget.”

  “I hope so.” I didn’t mean to say that aloud, but I did want this night to have a happy ending.

  All the air burst from my bubble when he said, “It will go down in the video gamer hall of fame.”

  Ah, yeah—no. I was always wrong about what men wanted from me. Walking over to the console to turn the damn thing on, I was a bit peeved.

  “Sure it will,” I mumbled.

  I read too much into what Xander wanted out of the night. He did not lay one hand on me. We engaged in combat duels and laughing fits until eventually, I did beat him bad, resulting in a fatality of his character.

  “I guess you can say you won once,” he bragged. He had already won ten times before I finally reigned victoriously, and I wasn’t even sure if he had given me that victory.

  Shrugging, I said, “I said I would end up on top. I didn’t say I would be on top all night.” I laughed.

  Sitting on the couch, holding the controller in his hand, he looked into my eyes. I didn’t mistake the ‘I want to kiss you’ stare. I wanted the same thing, badly. So badly that I could feel a surge of magn
etic energy pulling me closer to him as he inched toward me. He was so close that I could feel his breath on my face.

  “I should go.” He pulled back.

  “No.” I leaned toward his warm breath, chasing it as it retreated away from me. “You don’t have to leave. We can play another game.”

  “It’s late, and I know you’re probably tired.”

  I was the furthest thing from tired. I still had all of the pent up energy I had when he arrived. That energy needed an outlet. He was the outlet.

  “Well, you know what they say. I can sleep when I die,” I said to make humor.

  He chuckled and offered me a quick hug that didn’t allow for any intimacy. Maybe I should’ve been glad he pulled away that night three months ago. He could have treated me like Ned and pulled me along on a chain for years, knowing that he was leading me nowhere. At this moment, it felt like the same hurt, though.

  Xander only got close to me because his friends were my friends. Kemara married Channing, then Tameka’s stubborn butt married Jeb. Alise fell for Bruiser, and it seemed like the only logical thing left was for me and Xander to fall in love.

  Well, that wasn’t going to happen. The domino effect wouldn’t take me down next since Xander was not feeling me like that. He spent the last three months getting close to me then retreating like he did the first night, which brought me back to the reason I was back at Club Elite tonight with Astalia.

  My cousin had an outlandish goal to find a man to take home to her mother, and I needed to get laid with a warm-blooded man with no strings attached. That would be better than another night of dreaming about ‘what if the past had gone right’ with Ned or feeling undesired by Xander.

  Chapter 3

  Xander

  Fear

  “Riley, no! What are you doing? Wait, please, don’t do this—”

  The sound of fear in my mother’s voice, followed by her screams, shook my core. Growing up, a recurring thing in our home was for Riley Macon to come home high out of his mind and turn all of his animus on my sweet, unassuming mother. His callused, heavy hand striking delicate flesh rattled the thin walls of our two-bedroom trailer, wrecking my tiny preschool spirit all too often. His harshness ripped our peace into shreds and made my silent fears grow louder each day.