Heard It All Before

by Michele Grant

  She talked into the receiver in her hand. “Listen, Renee, I understand what you’re saying and all, but I don’t think you have anything to worry about. Tammy is always gonna make a play for anything with pants on. No, really, she tried to make a play for my dad once. You gotta just ignore it. Besides, Gregory wouldn’t touch her with a pole. Don’t start inventing shit. You and Greg are hanging in there just fine. Listen, Roman’s here so ...”

  I loved the way she called me Roman. Just her and my moms. I sat down in her chair and pulled her down into my lap. She curled right up like she’d been there a million times before. Damn, she was sweet. I took the phone out of her hand.

  “Renee, this is Rome.” Jewel just smiled and leaned farther into me. The things I could do with this little honey. Umm, made me wanna holler!

  Jewel flicked on the speaker so she could hear. “Hiya, Rome. Whassup?”

  “Ain’t nuthin’ going on but the rent; you know how it rolls. Uh, listen, Jewel and I fittin’ ta jet, right? So, could she like get back to ya?” What I wanted to say was “Quit trippin’, manage ya own neurotic life, and let Jewel have one of her own.” But I chilled. I liked Renee (sort of), but she was too damn mood swingy for me. And needy. She needed Jewel, she needed Greg, she needed to be fly all the damn time, she needed attention—she needed a lot o’ shit.

  “You trying to corrupt my girl?” She sounded like she was sorta teasing and sorta not.

  “Renee!” Jewel rolled her eyes.

  Renee tried to play the innocent role, like she wasn’t trying to start some shit. Enough she was trying to jack up her own love life, she had to mess up Jewel’s too? “What?” Renee sounded all hurt and shit. “I gotta right to know! You don’t ever take time out in the middle of your workday! I just wanna know what the occasion is.”

  “Seems to me like she was taking time out to talk to you.” No one said shit for about a minute. I looked right at Jewel the whole time. I could tell she understood I was trying to set the rules straight up. If we were gonna do this thing, I deserved at least equal time to what she spent hanging with the girls. At the very least.

  Finally, Renee came across with a fake little laugh. “Yeah, I guess that’s true. Well, y’all have a nice time. I’ll call you at home later, girl.” She hung up the phone ... abruptly.

  Jewel reached over, flicked the speaker off, and settled back. “You trying to tell me something, player?”

  I wrapped one arm around her, and she rested an elbow on my shoulder, bringing her hand up to touch the side of my face. Miss Jewel had a nice touch. She tried to play all tough, but she was a cuddler at heart. I liked that.

  I tipped her face up to mine. “Yeah.”

  “Yeah?” Her voice was kinda quiet and sexylike.

  I tilted my forehead forward so it leaned against hers. “Equal time, baby.” Her eyes met mine for a second before drifting shut. I couldn’t resist; I brushed my lips against hers. “Ya understand?” I brushed again, very softly. Then I leaned back.

  Her eyes flew open, and she looked at me, seriously. “So we’re gonna do this dating thing?” Her fingers traced along my face, my jaw, my neck. She really was a toucher. Almost like she couldn’t help herself from exploring. Cool how a simple touch could move something deep inside.

  I answered her. “Oh yeah, we gonna do this thing.”

  “Like exclusively or are we still playing the field?”

  I frowned. I didn’t like the way she said that. Like she was going to have to clear out a whole bull pen of brothers for my ass. Before I could ask her what the hell she meant by that, she traced a finger, then her lips across my forehead.

  “Quit frowning, Roman. I was asking to be sure of you. I haven’t played the field in so long, shit, I forget how to get to the ballpark! And I doubt I remember how to get from base to base!” She laughed. Her laugh was a rich sound, like chocolate bubbling on the stove.

  I smirked; it was too good an opportunity to pass up. I grabbed her face and brought it close again. “Batter up.” I laid one on her. I guessed those kisses on the cheek and little teasing kisses today had her thinking I was kinda slow in this field. Not this boy! My lips told her I meant business, and she kinda gasped in surprise. The minute the mouth was open, I was in for the prize. I was in this kiss to find out a little about the sensual side of Miss Jewel and to let her understand a little about where I was coming from. What I was bringing to the table, ya know?

  I slid my tongue in and out in slow, deliberately unpredictable strokes. Then I’d pause for a minute and lick round those lips, take a nibble here, a nibble there. I was hitting her with some of my best tricks. She made a sorta kittenish sound in the back of her throat before she dove into the kiss with enthusiasm. Go ’head, Miss Jewel. We had a little thrust-and-parry action going on for a while there.

  Going on instinct, I shifted her round so she was kinda straddling me and leaned back. The chair tilted back, and the change of angle pressed her pretty tight up against me. I wrapped both arms round her to bring her closer and settled back into the kiss. She smelled good, like something tropical. Her chest felt real good against mine. For real, I didn’t know whose hips started grinding first. Okay, maybe I started a second before she did. What I did know was that one minute I was going slow and easing along real cool, and the next minute I was rock hard and ready to rumble. Time to chill.

  Damn. I let out a groan of my own. I sure didn’t wanna stop, but our first time together was not going to be in this damned chair in her office!

  I ordered my hips to quit moving and put my hands on hers to stop her. Immediately, she lifted her head and took a deep breath. I lifted her chin so I could see her face; I liked what I saw. Flushed cheeks, eyes bright, lipstick smudged—little pleasure, little struggle for control, no regrets. “That was at least first base, Miss Jewel.”

  She let out a quick laugh. “Yeah, it started coming back to me.” She blinked. “If you hadn’t stopped, I’d planned on rediscovering home.”

  I really groaned this time. “Don’t say that. I came to take you to lunch, not have you for lunch.” I looked away from her before I changed my mind. The message light was blinking on her phone. “Your light’s blinking.”

  “What?” She turned and almost fell out of the chair before I caught her. I tilted the chair back up, and she hopped out of the chair. “Damn, boy, you’re dangerous!”

  “What?” Now I was confused. I been called a lot of shit but dangerous? Never.

  She shot me a look as she tried to brush wrinkles from her skirt. Silk was nice but it sure did wrinkle all to hell. “Yeah, dangerous. One kiss and I forget I’m running a business here.” She smiled at me. “You ought to bottle whatever it is you’ve got, boy.” I reached for her again to show her exactly what I did have, and she sidestepped me with her hand out. “Stay over there for a minute now; don’t play.”

  She picked up the phone and hit a button. “Suzanne, what’s up?” She listened for a sec. “Okay, send him back; it’ll only be a minute.” She hung up and reached for a folder on her desk. “Potential client dropped by,” she explained to me.

  “Lunch another day?” I asked her. I knew what it was like trying to run your own place.

  She looked over at me in surprise. “No way, unless you’re in a hurry. This’ll only take a second.”

  “Why ya think I’m not in a hurry, Miss Jewel?”

  She opened the folder and smirked. “You didn’t kiss like a man in a hurry.”

  She had me on that one. “You want I should make myself scarce while you do your client thing?”

  “Nope. I suspect you came to see me in action. Why don’t you hang out and watch?” She shot a little smile in my direction.

  “You think you know it all, doncha, Miss Jewel?” I teased.

  Her tone was real serious when she answered, “No, but I do hope to find it all out, Roman LaChayse.” She looked back down at her folder.

  Ya gotta like a girl like this, huh? I walked over to the conferen
ce table in the corner and sat down to watch her. I sat back to enjoy the view.

  Suzanne walked in. “Mr. Collins to see you, Miss Capwell. Can I get anybody anything?” She looked at me, and I could tell she was wondering who the hell I was.

  Jewel and I shook our heads as the guy walked in. When he cleared the door, I stood up. He looked over at me. “Roman? What the devil are you doing here?” William Collins and I shook hands.

  Jewel smiled and looked back and forth between the two of us. “William Collins, this is Jewel Capwell ... my girlfriend.” Miss Jewel didn’t blink when I said it, just extended her hand for the shake. “William and I are working on a golf community planned for North Plano. His company is designing the houses, and Montgomery Design is doing the landscaping and plotting the golf course,” I explained to her, and went into a brief detail of what the housing community was going to be like.

  “Small world,” Jewel said. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Collins. What can the Capwell Agency do for you?” She motioned for him to sit down before moving back round her desk. I saw her glance at the chair for a sec before she glanced over at me; we exchanged a quick smile. We were both thinking about what could have been happening in that chair. She sat down pretty quick.

  William caught the look and smiled. “Am I interrupting something? I realize I dropped in unannounced.”

  Jewel actually blushed. Didn’t know women still blushed. But her face turned red, and she looked flustered as hell—that’s a blush, right? I thought I’d better save the day. “Jewel and I are going to grab a bite to eat, William. Would you care to join us?”

  “No thanks, I really just came by to ask if Ms. Capwell could round up a few people for us to use out at the North Plano site. We need a receptionist or two and at least three administrative assistants with Microsoft Office skills. Oh, I guess in all, we’ll need twenty people out there helping us get set up, handling the administrative side, and showing people around.”

  My baby had recovered her composure and sounded like a real professional. “Of course, we’d be glad to help out. Tell me, how’d you hear about the agency?” She had a pen and was writing notes.

  “Truthfully, we’re trying to use a lot of minority contractors on this project. So I got your name off a list.” He smiled over at me. “The same list I got Roman’s company from. I must say, you two have sterling reputations in your individual fields.” William was such a good ol’ boy.

  Miss Jewel smiled. “Thank you, that’s nice to hear. Let me work on getting a good group of people ready for you. Would you like to have final screening?”

  “No, I’ll go with your judgment. Already I know you have excellent taste in boyfriends.” He chuckled at his joke. White folk and they humor, man.

  “Yes, well”—she shot me a look—“I’ll call you tomorrow morning, and we can finalize the details. I assume you have our package with the basic rate structure and billing procedures?”

  William stood up. “I sure do, and I look forward to hearing from you.” He turned to me. “Roman, I’ll see you at the meeting tomorrow afternoon. Y’all have a good lunch now.” He left.

  The door barely closed behind him when Jewel threw down her pen and glared at me. “Don’t you think it’s a mite coincidental that Mr. Collins came to see me the very same day you came to take me to lunch? I can get my own clients, Roman.” She got up from the chair.

  I shrugged. “Don’t go drawing conclusions, Miss Jewel. It’s a small world; I didn’t have shit to do with it. The fact that we both have a stake in the same project means I’ll get a chance to see you more than once every two weeks. Equal time, remember?” Women! They sure could put two and two together and come up with nine. I stood up and walked over to her.

  “And what’s all that damned ‘girlfriend’ stuff?” When she was angry, she gestured with her hands. Waving ’em all over the place.

  Now she had my attention. “Well, aren’t you gonna be?”

  She frowned. “Gonna be what?”

  “My damned girlfriend!” I never been long on patience.

  “I wouldn’t call it that! And why you have to say it like that?”

  “Like what?” I took another step toward her. “And what would ya call it?”

  “Uhh ... a friend? We’re friends?” Her shit was lame and she knew it.

  “Ya think I kiss my friends like I kissed you?” We were standing toe to toe; I was getting all up in her face. I wanted to make this point clear.

  She shrugged. “We’ve only been out twice. I haven’t known you that long.”

  “There’s a time limit we gotta stick to? You gotta rule book?” Not another one with the damned timetables.

  “Well, no, but—”

  “But what?”

  “You don’t know me!”

  “I like what I know so far. What about you?”

  “You seem all right so far.” We’d have to work on her ego stroking.

  “Aw, shucks, Miss Jewel. You’ll turn my head with all them flowery words.”

  She looked real exasperated. “What if I don’t like whatever happens next?”

  “Dump me.” I planned to make sure that didn’t happen. This was one boy she wasn’t gonna dump easy. Just to irritate her, I added, “And if I decide I can’t stand ya ass, I’ll dump you, how’s that?”

  “Yeah, fine. You make it sound so sexy.” Her face was all tight, like she swallowed something real sour.

  “Hey, listen, if it’s there, it’s there. I think between us, it’s there. Two weeks, two months, two years, what’s the difference? Why ya gotta kick up drama where there is none? Why make things difficult when they can be real simple?” Poor thing—she looked like she really wanted to believe we could be something, and this wasn’t another tired little episode to be pissed about later.

  “I guess you’re right.” She neither looked nor sounded sure.

  “So?” I was losing patience with the conversation again.

  “So, let me let it marinate for a minute.”

  I sighed.

  “What?”

  I shook my head. “It’s about you women and your li’l insecurities. I figure, hey, if I’m here, I’m here for a reason, right? If I don’t wanna be here, I’ll leave. Simple.”

  “Simple.” She tilted her head to the side and assessed me as if checking my overall mental health.

  I met her gaze and held it. “Why not?”

  “Why not, indeed?” She smiled some.

  I reached out and captured her hand. “Indeed.” Sometimes ya just gotta smooth shit out. “So we’re doing this thing, you and me, okay?”

  “Okay, then.” She smiled some more. “But, Roman, know this—I don’t share.”

  My eyes narrowed. “Uh, me either.”

  Jewel nodded. “I notice you don’t shy away from the tough conversations, a little bit of an in-your-face style.”

  “I notice you have a bit of a temper there,” I countered.

  “I notice you gave as good as you got.” She smiled, pleased with herself.

  I sighed. This one was gonna be a handful. I looked at her and grinned, but whatta handful! “Since ya noticing everything, did you happen to notice I’m starving?”

  She picked up her purse and smiled. “Yeah, let’s roll.”

  I couldn’t help but glance back at that chair as we walked out. Another time, no doubt.

  11

  His Turf

  Jewel—Thursday, July 17, 7:35 p.m.

  I turned left and knew I was terribly lost. I was also scared shitless.

  I was rolling through South Dallas, right? Roman was all hung up on this equal-time concept, so I said I’d come over to his place tonight. I had been doing well too. But somewhere I messed up the whole Colorado/Sylvan Road thing, and now I was in deep shit. The sun was about to set, and believe you me, this was nowhere to be lost after dark! Not like gunshots ringing out or anything, just not necessarily your safest neighborhood—hence all the damn crime-watch signs. Drugfree-zone signs. C
urfew-for-kids-under-eighteen signs. Friendly little signs reminding us no guns were allowed within twenty feet of certain establishments—not so much of this on the Northside. It was generally assumed that guns should be left concealed and at home.

  I passed two more streets, and there was no doubt about it—I was lost. I made a U-turn and headed back for the expressway. But somewhere this road split, and now I had no idea what direction the damned interstate was. Not a good time to realize my sense of direction was for shit. I really meant to get GPS as one of the options in this car. Well, wait, I could use my cell phone. Uh-oh, terrible time to realize my cell phone was dead, and I had no car charger.

  Thank God, a gas station. Looked pretty deserted but probably safe. I was pulling in.

  The front door was bolted, but I could see someone inside. I pulled up and read the sign: USE SIDE WINDOW AFTER DARK. Ah, hell, not a good omen, not good at all. Here I was, rolling a brand-new Lexus and I gotta get out and talk to some man through a side window?

  Okay, act grown, girl, buck up! There was nothing to freak about, just get out of the car, set the alarm, and go ask the man for directions. I got out, clicked the alarm button, and jogged up to the 2’ x 3’ bulletproof glass pane that they called a service window. Service, my ass. An Middle Eastern guy was inside watching a Seinfeld rerun. A plaque made with Marks-A-Lot and toilet paper proclaimed him to be Ahmed Davi.

  “Hi.” I paused. The man never looked up. I noticed a red button with a sign, PUSH HERE TO USE SPEAKER. Lord have mercy, grant me patience. I pushed the damn thing. “Hi!”

  He looked over. “’Ello, need gas?”

  “No. Can you tell me how to get to Harlowe Lane?”

  “Barlawn Main?”

  Ah, shit. You tried not to get down on the whole America-as-a-melting-pot theory until you had to deal with it face-to-face two minutes from sundown in the middle of the hood. Then you’d really rather have someone a little less, uh, ethnic behind the bulletproof glass.