Sweet Sessions (Sweet Treat Series Book 3)

by Jamallah Bergman

  Now he was scaring the hell out of me as I moved in closer to him, holding his hand. “What’s wrong Lil Pud?”

  “Maybe we need to close the door.”

  I crawled around him, pushed over the door until it closed and sat back down next to him, “Alright, spill it son.”

  “I’ve been having feelings towards someone,”

  “That’s it.” I smacked him upside his head because I had really gotten scared as hell. “I thought you were dying you fool and you got a crush on someone.”

  “I’ve had a crush on this person for a long time now and I don’t know what to do about it.”

  “Have you told her yet?” And that’s when he really bit into his lip again. “Well, who is she? Is it Alicia from History or Linda from English because I know those two are constantly asking me about you?”

  “No actually, it’s with a guy Mel. I have a crush on a guy and I don’t know what in the world to do.” Tears welled up in his eyes.

  All I could do was sit there in shock as my best friend was coming out to me. “How long have you been having these feelings for him?”

  “Actually, I’ve had feelings for him as well as other guys for a very long time now.” He wiped his tear streaked face.

  I grabbed a box of tissue from nearby.

  He took out a bunch, wiped his eyes and face before blowing his nose. “I’ve only told you about this because you are my best friend.”

  All I could do was hug him, hold him as he kept crying in my arms. It was the only thing I could do for the last few minutes until we heard the doorbell ring which meant the pizza was here. Once he cleaned himself up, I told him, “You know I am your friend and I wouldn’t judge you because you are who you are. Do you know when you’ll tell your parents about it?”

  “When the time is right, I will for sure.”

  Well, that didn’t happen until Charles was in college during his junior year.

  I was shocked that he’d kept up the charade for so long without anyone knowing he was gay. He had been on the track team as well as the soccer team. Since the fact that he was so handsome, he could get any girl he wanted and often he did, but it never went any further than hugs and kisses he would tell me. But it was when he was in college that he fell in love with a guy named Simon, a man he had met at a gay bar and secretly been seeing for six months. When I first met Simon, I found him very attractive with dark blonde hair grey along the temples and sparkling green eyes that seem to make his dazzling smile even more brilliant. He was about ten years older and had traveled all over the world, met famous movie stars and musicians as well and I knew when I saw them together how much in love they were.

  Charles then had asked me to come and be with him when he told his parents. I had never seen a man so nervous in my entire life and in a way…I could only imagine what was going on in his mind when he sat with me hand in hand across from his parents at their dining room table.

  “What is it you wanted to talk with us about son?” Charles’ dad asked him.

  I felt poor Charles flinch but I held his hand hard enough as he looked at me and I smiled.

  “What’s wrong baby?” His mom reached over for his hand as he held it in his.

  “Momma, Dad, I’ve wanted to tell you this for a very long time but I didn’t know how you would feel about it. I’ve had this in me for a very long time now.” Taking a deep breath he finally said the words that he’d been wanting to tell his parents for years, “Mom, Dad, I’m gay.”

  Nothing was said for the first few minutes and I knew they must have been thinking hard about this. Charles’ mom was slowly tearing up but that’s when his dad got up from his chair, went around the table near where he was and with his arms spread out he said, “Come here son,” That was when Charles stood up and his dad put his hands on his shoulders. “I don’t care if you are gay because you are my son and I love you and always have since the day I first held you when you were born. Just as long as you are happy and healthy and enjoying life, that’s all that matters to me.” Soon his mom came over giving him a hug too as they all just basically hugged each other tightly through the tears.

  It was a beautiful moment that had me sobbing. After that moment, Charles introduced them to Simon and his mom fell in love with him while his dad admired his work. Eventually, they would all go on trips together to different places that Simon had houses in.

  Charles turned around and smiled so big.

  “Why hey there, Lil Pud,” I greeted him.

  When he gave me a hug, it was like a familiar feeling I always carried with me.

  “Melanie, I have something for you in my car that Simon got from Japan just for you.”

  “How is Simon doing?” We both walked away from everyone else arm in arm.

  “He’s coming home from Italy tomorrow. But he tells me often how much he loves and misses you. How have you been doing lately?

  “Been working hard and still writing down my thoughts.”

  “You still are writing songs. I remember always seeing you with some composition book, writing something down, singing to yourself.”

  “Well, a friend of mine told me about this guy who does demos and I’m going to call him up tomorrow to set up a time for us to meet.”

  “That would be great. I know you’ll do just fine with it, since it’s just a demo. Say, did your mom make her famous potato salad?”

  “You know she did along with your favorite, her buttery butter pound cake.”

  Charles bit his hand, as everyone knew how much he would devour my mom’s pound cake. “I always keep asking her for that recipe but she tells me she’ll never tell.”

  We both laughed and continued talking more until it was time for us to head on over to my mom’s house.

  Chapter Three

  “The next available appointment we have is like in three weeks with Doctor Averi. Now would you like in the morning or afternoon? Okay, I have an eight, eight thirty, ten, ten forty five and eleven thirty appointment available for the morning….I’ll pencil you in for ten forty five Mrs. Richards. I’ll make sure to send you an email reminder, is your email still Anna Richards nineteen forty two at yahoo dot com?...Great, I’ll be sending it to you right after I get off the phone. Have a great day.” I continued with giving her the confirmation and went onto the next call. This was my day to day thing I did. I answered phones, made appointments, canceled appointments, directed calls to doctors, got messages. Yup, this was my life at work and even though the pay was good, I hated working as a receptionist.

  It wasn’t until the calls kind of died down a bit that I was able to go to the bathroom, so I could call up this guy about the demo tape. I’d been in a bit of a rush this morning and didn’t get the chance to call him but now, I had the chance. Going into my purse, I looked for the piece of paper that had his number written down on it and once I found it, I dialed and waited for him to answer.

  It wasn’t until the third ring that a man with a pronounced strong voice came on to say, “Hello.”

  “Yes, can I please speak to Anthony?”

  “You are talking to him.”

  “Hi Anthony, my name is Melanie, a friend of a friend of mine referred you since you do such a great job on demo tapes.”

  “A friend of a friend you say. Who was this friend of a friend of yours?”

  I chuckled a bit. “Well, the friend of a friend of mine is name Aliana. Her roommate is my friend, so that’s how I got your number, from a friend of a friend of mine.”

  This time, I could hear him chuckle a bit. “Well Melanie, you said you wanted to know about a demo tape?”

  “Yes, well I heard you are the best out there and I want my tape to be just that, the best.”

  “How many songs do you plan on putting on this tape?”

  “Just six.”

  “Just six huh, well I will charge you only four hundred to do the tape. You can give me half upfront and the rest when the tape is done.”

  That sounded fair
I thought since most of the others I knew wanted to charge me triple that amount just for the six songs. “That sounds fine with me, when can we arrange to meet?”

  “When do you have a day off?”

  “Well, it won’t be until Wednesday, is that all right?”

  “Sure, Wednesday is fine. I just asked because I’m not available during the weekends because I’m usually out on gigs but can you come around ten in the morning and we can get started.”

  “Wednesday at ten but I do have another question to ask though.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “Where will I be going to on Wednesday at ten?”

  “Do you know where Baker’s Loft is?”

  “Of course, off of Lincoln and Randall.”

  “Yes, when you go inside take the freight elevator up to the fifth floor and I’ll be waiting.”

  “Alright then and thanks.” Hanging up, I went back to my desk to continue on with my job. I felt anxious. I had felt as if I were finally making some steps towards getting this long awaited project I had tried over and over again started.

  “So you made the appointment with Anthony huh?” Sara told me while we sat at a bar after work to eat dinner together since she was treating me this evening.

  “Yup, say have you ever met his guy before?”

  “Me, no but of course, Aliana spent a lot of time with him. From what I was told, he’s very handsome but you know Aliana’s idea of handsome is totally different than anyone else’s.”

  “That’s so true, remember that one guy she kept telling us about that she met in the bar? She kept telling me that he was too hot for words with curly brown hair and baby blues.”

  “Oh, my God! I so remember that and when we got to the bar, she was sitting with some guy that looked like he had done fifteen rounds with Tyson and when he smiled?”

  I literally choked on my pasta that I was eating. I grabbed my wine glass to take a long sip to get it my food down.

  “He had nothing but gold grill in the front of his teeth. I asked her the next time I talked with her, where the hell she dug up these guys from. You know what she told me, said she met this guy when he came into the shop to get his car fixed.”

  We both ended up laughing it up some more as the evening went on with more talk, food and wine.

  When I got home, I took a shower to relax after a long day. I went through the songs that I had planned on singing for my demo. I wanted to make sure that these were the ones I had wanted to do, even though I knew deep down I was going to use them. Last minute jitters I guess, I always did get a bit scared before I performed and I always ended up having a hot cup of tea to sooth my nerves, which helped plenty. “All I ask you lord is to give me the voice I need on Wednesday to be able to make this tape.”

  Baker’s Lofts was formerly known as Baker’s Textiles back in the forties and fifties. The building itself was built in nineteen forty’s and was the leading manufacturer for linen, cotton, wool, thread in our town as well as our state. But after Daniel Baker passed away in nineteen seventy two, his brother took over until he ended up becoming greedy and bringing down what his brother had done so well in. It was only about ten years ago when someone had bought the building from the city and decided to renovate the floors and make them into loft apartments which were reasonable.

  Actually, I’m lying, they were expensive as hell and you had to be uber rich or your grandma or some rich relative that no one in your family ever talked about because he or she was the ‘weird one’ left you a big chunk of change. I knew that if I ever hit the lottery, I would so get myself an apartment there. When I parked in the visitor’s parking lot after going through the security guard, I grabbed my purse and folder with my songs.

  Inside, a woman around my age sat behind the welcome desk. She smiled and said, “Hello, how may I help you?”

  “Oh, I was just going up to the fifth floor thank you.” I went over to the elevator, pressed the up button and waited, looking over towards the lady who went back to whatever the heck she was doing. I could hear it coming down and soon the doors opened up as I got in, pulled down the handle which let the doors down as I pressed the button that would take the elevator on up. Before I even got to the third floor, a rhythmic sound could be felt vibrating the walls and into my ears. I don’t know what it was but as I did make it to the fifth floor and opened up the door, immediately music flooded the elevator. Walking out into a very large open loft area where in the middle of the room, it was set up like any home. It had a huge living room set along with a dining room table and a setting for six. A beautiful dark cherry wood kitchen with shiny stainless steel appliances that glistened against the sunlight as everything looked brand new. But it was over towards the right of the loft to where I had heard the vibration of the music from behind walls of a room.

  I followed the music towards the room. There was a large window when I rounded the corner and once I peeked in, I saw a man sitting in front of a motherboard. He was busy into whatever he was doing as he continued to bob his head while turning knobs. When I tapped on the glass, he didn’t hear me at first but when I tapped even louder, he suddenly sat up, looking towards me as he got up from his chair.

  Damn, he was a tall drink of water, must have stood at least six foot six.

  He turned a knob or two before he came to the door. “You must be Melanie?”

  “That I am and you must be Anthony.”

  He walked out of the room, wearing a black t shirt that showed toned arms with his left arm lined with tattoos all the way up his neck with three crosses there. Giving me a hearty handshake, he continued looking over me before saying, “Did Aliana ever get anyone to sign her up?”

  “I don’t know if she did or not. But she told my friend you do some awesome work.”

  He chuckled while going over to a corner that had about three milk crates full of albums. Grabbing one of them, he brought it over to the table where I had been standing near. “Would you like a drink, some tea, or water perhaps?”

  “Yes, some water would be good.” Looking around the loft, I went to the window looking out onto Lincoln while traffic continued to go through it. I wondered how much money it cost him to live it up in this place. “You must have some great parties here.”

  “Yeah.” He handed me the bottled water. “I have one at least twice a month. I play some tunes with my band or I have a DJ friend of mine that plays for me in exchange for me doing some tapes for him. Speaking of tapes, this is how I normally do with getting the demo tapes done. Since you want to do six songs, we will do the recordings depending on how much time you want to take for each song. If you want to do like two songs a day or even if you want to do one song a day, then we can do it like that.”

  “I’d like to take my time with each song I sing. I want it to sound right for whoever will be listening to it.”

  “I understand. Nothing wrong with that. I’m fine with it. We can get started right now if you want.”

  “Great. Well, the first song I wanted to try is one that I wrote.”

  “You write your own music?”

  “Oh yes, I always have a song playing in my head off and on. I like to have my book with me at all times along with a pen, so I won’t forget what came up,” I told him while we walked over to the booth.

  He motioned for me to go on in while he went back into the room where I saw him when I came into the loft. “Now I want you to sing it just like you hear it in your head, take a deep breath, and let it all flow out. Let me get everything together real quick and once you are ready, just nod your head and I’ll start to record.”

  I nodded while shaking off every bit of worry that had settled itself in my mind, making me not want to sing. I hated this, I really hated that I got like this when it came time to record. But I had developed a system to where I would repeat the same words over and over again in my mind, ‘You can do this sweetheart, just sing.’

  I know it sounds silly but often times, it worked really wel
l because it always seemed to calm my nerves and let me get the words out. Looking over at him, I nodded and that’s when I saw a light that said ‘RECORDING’ in big bright red letters overhead as I began to sing my song. It was a song that I had written when I was in my teens, a song of falling in love and having your heart broken by that first love.

  His name was Reginald Campbell. At the time, I had met Reggie, which was a name that he hated to be called, when I was freshman. He was however, a junior with caramel skin, brown eyes that sparkled when he talked and a smile that blazed for days. Despite the fact that we was older, that made up for some amazing dreams of a first date, first kiss and of course, getting married and living happily ever after with kids. But of course, those were just thoughts that I often had when I saw him walking down the hall with his friends since he was very popular with everybody at school. This was due to the fact that he was on the football team and track. I would follow up behind him like a lovesick puppy, often getting to my own classes late because I was so stuck on him. I had written sonnets about this guy, pledging my undying love and admiration for him. But like most boys that I had dealt with at that unnerving age of first crushes, I was extremely shy when it came to expressing my feelings. I had wondered if he even knew I had been following him like I was and what the hell he would think about me doing it. Would he think I was crazy? Would he laugh at me?

  I wouldn’t find that out until one day when I was heading to my locker and saw him coming from around the corner. Now mind you, in the school I went to, each grade had their own halls and they were supposed to go only to the classes along those halls. The only time you could go outside the halls was to gym, exploratory classes, lunch and to the buses. So when I saw him coming, all I could do was stare.

  He walked up to me and stood there, leaning up against the lockers with a killer smile and dazzling brown eyes. “Hello.”

  I couldn’t get anything out. The words were just stuck there in my throat but luckily, I was able to say, “Hi,” back which made him smile even more.