by Liv Bennett
“I can’t say no to that.” She tugs a strand of hair behind my ear. Since when is she such a mother hen? I briefly explain to her about the attack and Adam’s shooting.
“What was Adam doing in your apartment building?” Her mouth is wide open with shock and worry. I can see Valerie asking the same question with a whole different attitude.
I glance down at my hands. “I don’t know, but I can guess why.”
She doesn’t prompt me, so I take my time to speak. It’s more of an explanation for me than for Bree. “I got a little emotional while Adam and I were dancing at the party. I didn’t want people to see me crying.”
“Did you cry? I didn’t notice it. You both looked like you were enjoying the song. Did you know it was Adam’s pick? He literally begged me for it.” A ghost of a smile flickers across her lips.
I shake my head disapprovingly. I should have known Bree was Adam’s partner in crime. “No, I didn’t know. It doesn’t matter anyway. When I started crying I didn’t want others to see my outburst, so I left. I think Adam thought I was upset with him and came after me to apologize. You know how stubborn he can be.”
“You’re lucky that he is.”
“You don’t need to tell me that! The guy attacked me with the intention of killing me.” I hug myself as the images of his kicks to my stomach flash across my mind.
“Do you have any idea who the guy might be or who he’s working for?”
I shake my head no. “I don’t have the slightest idea.”
“I can’t imagine our competitors stooping so low,” Bree says. “Any relative who may inherit money from you in the event of your death?”
“You know my sister. She wouldn’t attempt such a thing. Neither would my cousin or aunt.”
Bree raises an eyebrow. “So, no relatives who can benefit from your death. There is one other motivation…”
“Which?” I ask.
“You must have angered someone so much he’s taking his revenge,” Bree says apologetically.
I manage to elicit a snort. “That seems to me the most likely motivation. I have a long list of dry cleaners, cashiers, and waiters who hate me enough to plot my end.”
“In any case, I don’t think it’s safe to return back home soon. They may attack you again,” Bree points out and rightly so. But I’m not worried about that.
“I wasn’t planning to. I’ll squat at the hospital until I’m sure Jack is fine,” I say.
“You mean Adam, right?”
I review what I’ve just said and glance at Bree with embarrassment. “Just a slip of the tongue.”
“It’s the first time you’ve made this mistake around me.”
“Well, it’s also the first time I’ve had a blood-thirsty criminal kicking my brains out.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—” Bree looks miserable and I don’t want the night turn to more miserable than it already is.
“I know you didn’t mean anything. You know what actually saved my ass? But don’t tell it to Adam.” I tell her the part with my high-heels landing on the attacker’s feet. This instantly puts us into a laugh attack, under the angry looks of the other visitors in the waiting room. I deserve a little laughter, don’t I? But, my real laughter will come when I hear from Adam’s doctor. My nerves are over the edge and the lack of sleep isn’t helping either.
Finally, one of the doctors who took Adam to surgery shows up, and I jolt right up to my feet and run to him.
“I’ve got good news.” The doctor nods to Bree when she arrives. “We removed the bullet. Fortunately, it didn’t hit his heart, but he lost a lot of blood and will need a transfusion. We don’t have enough 0 negative blood reserves in the hospital. I’ve just got the Cedar Sinai’s officer on the phone to request some from their reserves. They’ll be sending it in a few hours.”
“Adam is 0 negative?” I ask, but without waiting for the doctor’s reply, I continue. “I’m 0 negative, too. Shoot, I drank alcohol a few hours ago.”
“Oh.” The doctor scratches his head. “How many hours ago was it?”
Bree tugs at my arm. “That champagne you drank was non-alcoholic. I arranged it so you don’t get… you know.”
I scowl at her words, trying to decide whether I should be upset with her or thankful. But I did feel light-headed as if I drank alcohol. Was it just an illusion?
“In that case,” the doctor interferes. “Would you like to donate for Mr. Garnett?”
“Nothing could stop me from donating my non-alcoholic blood,” I reply and follow the doctor to a room where a nurse makes me lie down on a long chair and sticks a needle into my arm. Bree sits by my side, cringing and hardly looking at my direction.
“Man up,” I joke but still can’t make her look at me. Instead, she gets up and excuses herself. I shouldn’t have made fun of her. Donating blood sucks, particularly when I’m tired and agitated.
After an hour of struggling in a half-sleeping, half-awake state, the nurse finally pulls the needle out and offers me a bottle of orange juice. I find Bree in the waiting room with a bowl of take-out fettucini alfredo with chicken. I couldn’t have been happier with her.
***
Fifteen hours past surgery and Adam is still in a coma. Bree and I took turns trying to sleep, but we’re both drained of our resources. I go to the vending machine to get coffee for us and when I return I find Bree talking to a nurse.
“Adam is awake.” Bree jumps up and down, as if fire has just cracked in her ass, and drags me by my arm behind the nurse. I manage to drop the coffee cups into a garbage can on our way and straighten my hair before I enter Adam’s room.
I don’t know what I expect to see after his surgery, but finding him so pale, broken, and beside himself, and his chest wrapped up in bandages, sends panic through my veins. I was beaten down for several minutes, but compared to me, Adam looks like he was trampled by a gang. I swallow the large lump of guilt in my throat and put on my calmest face as I move toward his bed.
“Hi,” he whispers without moving his cracked lips. His eyes are only half-way open. Why does he even want to see us? He should go back to sleep and recover.
Before I know it, Bree leaps the distance between the door and Adam, springs to his bed, and tightly hugs him, all the while letting out loud sobs. “Oh, Adam. I thought you would die. Thank God you’re alive.”
Crap, I’m a cold-hearted witch compared to Bree.
Adam closes his eyes and gives out an exhausted smile. “I’m not easy to get rid of.” Then he opens his eyes and shoots one long, flirtatious look at me. Even a bullet in the chest isn’t able to stop him from being the playboy he is. I’ll give him that.
“Bree, please be gentle,” I say. My voice comes out more edgy than I’ve intended.
“I’m okay, Bree. She’s just jealous.” Adam turns down to Bree and winks at her. “I have enough space here for both of you.” He eyes me as he tries to raise his bandaged arm but can’t move it beyond lifting his fingers. It breaks my heart, seeing him this vulnerable. I wish I could change places with him. But one thing is sure; if Adam hadn’t shown up in time I’d be in the morgue rather than a hospital bed.
Bree gets off the bed and pulls a chair to sit, without letting go of Adam’s hand. I walk toward the bed, to the side where he was shot, trying to imagine the deep hole in his chest. Will he have a scar for life? An irrevocable gift from me.
“It’s all my fault,” I whisper and bite my lips.
“Why?” He frowns. “Did you hire the guys to first beat you up and then shoot me?”
“Of course not, silly.” I roll my eyes slowly for an effect, biting my lips to conceal my smile.
I glance at Bree, whose face is now wet with tears, and motion her to the door. “We should let Adam rest.” She gets up and leans down over the bed. I stare at her in total shock when she plants a kiss on Adam’s cheek before leaving.
As soon as Bree is at the door, I run my fingers softly on the back of Adam’s hand.
&
nbsp; He doesn’t miss the chance to grab my hand and squeezes it. “I’m sorry about the party.”
I think for a moment to remember what he’s sorry about. “Ah, long forgotten. It wasn’t your fault anyway. I’m an emotional wreck, and I’ve come to terms with it.”
“The nurse told me that you gave me blood.”
I shrug it off. What is a pint of blood compared to him saving my life?
“Like I was singing to you last night; I’ve got you under my skin.” He closes his eyes, but a teasing smile stays on his lips. I shake my head in shock, wishing I had the guts to kiss his lips just to show him he’s not the only one who can play this game. But, I’m a coward. Have always been, will always be.
CHAPTER 4 - ADAM
Five years ago, I was asked to assist a summer course in Business at UCLA. Just a week before the classes began, my boss at the company where I worked assigned me to an important project that would leave me no time to attend the classes. So, I asked Jack, who was also an MBA graduate. Being my best friend and his own boss, he readily agreed to help me out. Six weeks later, he showed up with the most beautiful girl in his arms, as a perk of being such a good friend.
He called me to arrange a double date to introduce his new girlfriend. I would stop at nothing to meet the girl who won his heart. And from the excitement in his voice, I could sense she was a special one.
We reserved a table at the favorite Mexican restaurant of my then girlfriend, Pat, away from all photographers and TV cameras. Since Pat’s new album had become yet another big success, she became the big news.
Pat put on a pink shirt and navy jeans. “No need to intimidate the poor girl at the first meeting,” she joked. Only, she had no idea who would intimidate whom.
Pat and I had arrived at the restaurant a few minutes before Jack and his new girl did and ordered piña coladas while waiting.
Then she entered the room, tall, slender, and graceful, stealing the spotlight from every other woman and man in a one-mile radius. Even Jack’s appearance by her side couldn’t snap me out of my trance.
Holy hell, was such a beauty possible? Smooth, chalky skin, blue eyes, and cherry-red, plump lips. Her thick hair hung down to her waist in brown-blond strands. The red summer dress she was wearing had the first buttons undone, just enough to reveal the tops of her boobs, making every muscle in my body tense. My pulse leaped, and my eyes stung as if I was looking directly at the blistering sun.
There had been only a handful times in my life that made me believe in God’s existence, and this was one of those. God must have created her to show his subjects a glimpse of heaven, a proof that nothing was a coincidence but rather a part of his plan. A carefully arranged master plan that allowed Jack to get her, leaving me open-mouthed and jealous of my best friend for the first time during our nineteen-year friendship.
“She gets the same reaction every time,” Jack said, ending the hypnosis session both Pat and I found ourselves in. “This is Taylor.”
“Jackpot, she is a beauty.” Pat held out her hand. “Honey, you should go into the entertainment business. With your beauty, I would bet everything I have you’d hit it big.”
“Oh, wow, Pat Carter. I’m a big fan.” Taylor grabbed Pat’s hand with both hands and flashed the most beautiful smile that could melt the entire Arctic irreversibly, and I felt all my insides liquefy in a flash.
“She’s got good taste, too,” Pat said. “Don’t screw it up, Jack.”
Then Taylor moved her attention to me, boring the most intense and seductive eyes into mine, right into the depths of my soul. “Hello, you must be Adam.” Blinking her long, lush eyelashes, she stretched out a hand toward me.
My hand rose without my control and grasped hers. Just the brief second our eyes met and hands touched, I felt exposed, vulnerable, raw, and self-conscious all at once. My body jolted with her feathery touch, as though I received a blow in the chest. I found myself plotting the most outrages plans to get this unearthly beauty in spite of Jack, Pat, and the five-carat diamond ring I’d bought for her. Taylor had to be mine or else my existence would only mean endless suffering.
“He’s normally not like that.” Pat laughs and tabs on my shoulder, saving me from my embarrassing speechlessness.
“Pleasure to meet you,” I could finally say. She gently pulled back her hand and sat beside Jack and across from me.
I ran my eyes around the restaurant just to make sure nothing was wrong with my perception and they landed on Pat, who was gazing at me with a newly found curiosity.
“Baby, are you all right? You’ve turned all pale. Look at your lips.”
I smiled and then forced myself to plant a kiss on her lips. Much to my surprise, they didn’t have the sweet, smooth taste that always welcomed and comforted me. I could kiss the elderly lady at the next table and would feel the same. Just a matter of minutes was enough to turn Pat into a stranger in my heart. Taylor could turn everything upside down. “Nothing is wrong with me.”
Nothing was wrong with me. I’d just happened to find the one and only woman my heart was yearning for since the day I started laying eyes on women. What could be wrong with me?
Taylor excused herself to go to the restroom. I couldn’t help but watch her as she walked away, swaying gracefully like a tulip in the spring breeze. As if her beauty wasn’t enough, she had an ass so firm and round that only a Black woman could have rivaled it. For the rest of the evening, I took every opportunity to admire her beauty. It was one of the most tormenting, yet most pleasurable, hours of my life. Everything about her was nothing less than superlative.
The words that came out of her mouth were sweeter than honey, her smile like the first rays of the dawn, and every time she flipped her hair over her shoulders, I imagined wrapping those strands of hair around my fist and pounding my cock into her until she screamed my name. I could have done that everyday, and more than once a day, if I hadn’t taken up the new project and had been the one to give that summer course, as had been my original plan.
I missed the chance to be at the right place at the right time to get to know Taylor and make her mine, because of my work. Since then, I promised myself that work would never be the top priority on my list.
Fortunately, life gave me another chance to be at the right place at the right time, just before a mother-fucker gangster could take Taylor’s last breath. Even though it meant for me to be shot. I’d rather get shot a dozen times than let Taylor die. I love her to death, and I pray to God every day that one day she’ll believe my feelings for her and grow to love me for who I am.
A faint knock on the door pulls me back to present. I open my heavy lids and let my eyes adjust to the sunlight looping inside. My throat is too dry to speak, but I utter a low “Yes.”
“May I come in?” I hear Taylor asking.
For the love of god, please come in and never leave. “Yeah, why not?” I offer her a big smile as she appears behind the door.
“Hi,” she says shyly as she closes it. Apparently, having hosted a deadly bullet close to my heart for half a week ago won’t stop my body from reacting to her the way it’s always done. The pale blue t-shirt she’s wearing is showing hints of the black, unpadded bra underneath. Too dangerous to put on such a t-shirt around the newly-operated-upon me. Had doctors known Taylor’s effect on me, they’d post a ban for her in neon signs at the hospital entrance.
“Hi,” I reply. The huge flower bouquet and balloons on the table across my bed grab my attention. “Thanks for the flowers.”
“Huh?” She looks around and stares at the flowers. “They’re not from me.” She proceeds toward them, picks up the card from the bouquet, and reads it aloud.
“I shouldn’t be shocked to see someone else wanted to shoot you, too, but I am.
Get well soon and go on breaking innocent women’s hearts.
Your Pat.”
I smile in spite of the bitter memories of my last months with Pat. How would everything have been different, had Taylor
not showed up in my life? “I think I should call her to say thank you.”
“Are you in touch with her? I mean regularly?” Taylor asks.
“I haven’t talked to her since… since we broke up. She didn’t want to have me around, and rightly so.”
Taylor pulls a red rose from among the flowers to smell it and sits on the edge of the bed, only an inch away from my hips. I could easily pull her over to me. Her skirt rolls up, revealing her smooth thighs, the view stealing my breath away.
“It smells delicious.” She arches an eyebrow and shoves the rose toward my nose.
“No, you smell delicious.” I grab her hand gently, ready to let her go, in case she intends to pull it free. Only, she doesn’t. I snap the rose away with my other hand and pull hers close to my lips, my eyes searching her face anxiously for a reaction. Instead of stopping me, she stares at me, perhaps unsure of what to do. Oh, hell, who am I kidding? She’s letting me play with her hand, just because she thinks she owes me her life. Even so, I can’t prevent my body from taking every opportunity to have her close.
I brush my lips across her delicate knuckles and roam up toward her fingertips. She hums and closes her eyes. A tint of a blush sweeps across her face, and her chest rises. The sight of the hard peaks of her breasts sends jolts right to my balls. Slowly, I part my lips and slip her middle finger inside my mouth. I watch her face with fascination, while I roll my tongue around her finger. Her eyes fly open when I lick the sensitive flesh between her fingers, and her chest heaves up and down in short breaths, making her breasts appear doubled in size.
Is she picturing my tongue down there between her legs, as I am? Is she aroused? Or annoyed? Her face doesn’t reveal anything.
“Adam, please,” she says but doesn’t pull away. I give up and release her hand and give the rose back to her. After a minute of disturbing silence during which she gazes out the window, she faces me. “Why did you break up with Pat? You were the couple everyone talked about. Everyone thought you, two, loved each other and would marry some day.”