by B. M. Hardin
I entered the bedroom to find candles all over the place as if he’d known that tonight was going to be the night.
I tried not to pay attention to how messy the room was.
At least he could have straighten up first before he’d tried to be romantic, but in an attempt to not ruin the moment, I focused on Tristan and his every move.
He led me to the bed and motioned for me to sit down. I took a deep breath and tried to relax.
This was the right decision.
I’ve never been more in tune with and attached to anyone else in my entire life.
Was it true love?
It definitely felt like it was going to be.
It had only been a few months, but this felt like the real thing.
Tristan was the real deal.
Tristan had voiced his feelings for me on several occasions and I knew for a fact that he was all in this and that the ball was in my court.
He showed me that he loved me on a daily basis, with everything that he did and everything that he said. He’d told me that never before had he considered settling down, until he met me.
I had to admit, I was feeling the exact same way.
So, with that being said, he’d earned the right to be my first…maybe even my last…and hopefully my only.
“Are you sure?” Tristan said as he got down on his knees in front of me.
Still, instead of speaking, I kissed him.
I kissed him with everything that I had in me.
I poured my fears, my love and my soul into the kiss that I placed on his lips.
I was sure.
I was ready.
He pulled away from me with a smile and then slowly pulled my knees apart.
He pushed me, lightly, so that I positioned myself on my back as he made himself comfortable between my thighs.
“Relax,” he said.
I hadn’t noticed that I was shaking until he spoke.
It wasn’t that I was scared at this point. I was just excited, horny and ready for some action!
Shut up and put your damn mouth on it already!
And finally, Tristan did just that.
For the next hour or so, Tristan did things to me that I’d only seen on pornos or late night TV.
He did things to me that felt so good that I wanted to punch him in the top of the head or in the chest while he was doing them.
It was better than I’d ever imagined it would be.
It felt to me like crack felt to a crack head their very first time getting high.
Making love to him left me breathless.
Indeed losing my virginity to him had left me speechless and little did he know, he was going to need the stamina of three men for the next few days, because I had thirty years of making love, all the way to straight tearing it up, to make up for.
As Tristan wrapped his arms around me, I couldn’t have felt more complete in my entire life.
It was the perfect ending, to a perfect night.
And this was only the beginning.
***
“Oh my, he popped that cherry didn’t he?” My sister Cheyanne asked.
“He popped it all of a hundred times ago!” I laughed as she started to squeal and then proceeded to ask questions, begging for details.
Since that night, Tristan and I had been screwing like rabbits.
All over the house…and let’s not mention the things that we’d done outside of the house or at the park, two restaurants…and did I mention the public library?
Don’t judge me, but I just couldn’t help myself.
Tristan was now talking wedding, and baby talk and the whole nine yards.
I was ecstatic at the thoughts of a future together. And the fact that I now had a steady plus one.
“I’ve never seen you like this before.”
“That’s because I’ve never been in love before…until now,” I responded honestly.
Yes, I was absolutely in love with Tristan and I wasn’t afraid to say it. I would shout it from the highest mountain if I could have.
I felt as though this, what we had, was the one thing that I’d always been missing.
I couldn’t believe that I’d thought that I was happy without it and I would do anything that I could to make sure that I never had to live without it again.
Oh how I loved me some Tristan!
Cheyanne smiled at me and we continued to talk and enjoy our monthly outing that we made time to have with each other.
During our conversation, I saw that Delilah called twice back to back but I let her go to voicemail just like I always did.
I still hadn’t spoken with her since she’d moved but her voicemails only said that she was just calling to see how I was doing.
In other words, she was just calling to be nosey, and I could do without her meddling.
Christmas was only two months away, so I figured that I would eventually need to call and speak to her, just to get the address to send a check for Bryson.
But that was about it.
My sister and I finished up our lunch and decided that we should definitely take the time to invite our other sister the next time that we got together.
Lauren was our other sister, but she damn sure didn’t act like it.
Other than making sure that she sent her part to cover our mother’s hospital expenses, we rarely heard from her.
She and her husband were both pediatricians, so of course their schedules were busy, but truth be told, that wasn’t the only reason that she preferred to stay away.
And I knew why.
Before my sister Cheyanne married her husband, years ago, she had been engaged to an investment banker named Rodney.
I’d tried to tell her that I could see straight through Rodney’s lying, cheating ass and I often told her that he was a wolf in sheep’s clothing but Cheyanne was blind to his charm, his wit and his big bank account.
But all of the signs were there and I could see them as clear as day.
All she had to do was pay attention, but she didn’t want to. Any, every, warning that you could think of was right there, front and center, but as I said, my sister didn’t see it.
Oh maybe she did and just didn’t want to admit it.
Anyway, long story short, I spotted him and our sister Lauren coming out of a hotel together one day.
Now, Lauren had always been odd, and an easy target for bullying and things of that nature coming up, but still, she knew right from wrong and no matter how invisible she may have felt, that didn’t give her the right to sleep with her sister’s fiancé a day before the wedding.
We were family and family didn’t do that to one another.
Lauren was forever labeled as nasty as hell in my book and I was going to tell her just that that night at the rehearsal dinner.
I followed her outside only to find that she and Rodney were meeting to chat on the side of the restaurant.
I heard her tell him that she loved him and how Cheyanne always got the guy and how she felt that he should be with her and marrying her instead.
She told him that he was her first and that she just couldn’t live without him.
She deserved to be smacked, but what he’d said to her, hurt her far more than me slapping her would have.
He told her that what she had meant nothing to him. He told her that it was fun but that he was still marrying Cheyanne. He even had the nerve to tell her that they could still have sex on the side even after he married our sister.
Nasty bastard!
Anyway, Lauren cried and said that that wasn’t enough for her anymore and told him goodbye. She’d said that she couldn’t stand to see them together and even said that she wouldn’t be attending the wedding.
She ran off, crying, with her head in her hands.
Ever since that day, Lauren has kept her distance from us all.
Even though Cheyanne hadn’t married him, she still never came around.
She’d even had a destination wedding to
keep from being around us and didn’t tell us that she’d had our niece until she was already a week old.
I wasn’t sure if it was because she hated Cheyanne that much or if it was because he’d turned her down after he’d used her but whatever it was, it was enough to make her stay as far away from us as possible.
On the flip side, I told Cheyanne of my suspicious of Rodney and another woman that night once more, in one last attempt to save her from him and his friendly penis.
Though I had the proof, and solid facts, I couldn’t bring myself to tell Cheyanne that it was her own sister that he was sleeping with so I lied and said that I’d overheard him on the phone with another woman.
Cheyanne still acted as though she didn’t believe me and needed more proof but the next day right before saying I do, she looked at my face.
I told her with my eyes that I was telling the truth about him. I confirmed with the look on my face that I was indeed right about him and that she was making a huge mistake.
Simply reading and trusting the look on my face, she threw her flowers in his face and left him, mouth open, in shock at the altar.
I couldn’t have been more proud of her at that very moment. She’d done the right thing.
The funny thing was that she hadn’t put two and two together after Lauren dropped out of the wedding at the last minute saying that she was too sick to get out of bed to attend.
Cheyanne never even questioned her but Lord knows she should have.
But, anyway, that was years ago and it was far past time for us to do better with the whole sister bonding thing.
All three of us.
There was a time that we were as close as sisters could be and to be honest I missed those times. Though Lauren had always stayed to herself, her sisters were the only people that she’d let close to her.
Not to mention, that Cheyanne and I on several occasions had to go to war for her. We didn’t play about Lauren. We didn’t play about our blood.
But life was too short and even though Lauren acted as though she hated us, we all still loved her.
No one else really knew what her problem was. They simply used the excuse that she had always been odd, but I knew that it had something to do with the whole Cheyanne and Rodney situation, but I never told a soul.
I only hoped that one day she would get over it all, especially since now she was married, and simply come back around and be our sister like she used to be.
Maybe we could use our mother’s birthday in the next few weeks to get her to come and hang with us.
Maybe.
After lunch, my sister and I parted ways and I called Tristan to see where he was.
“I’m at the bank. Where are you?”
“I was on my way home, but since you’re not there, I’ll go to the store. I’m going to get some candy for the trick-or-treaters tonight,” I smiled as I spoke to him.
It was Halloween and though I wasn’t particularly into the holiday, I just felt like giving.
“Oh, okay. By the way, would you mind if I brought a few extra things to your place? I’m there all the time anyway so I just figured---”
“Sure.” I answered before he’d finished his sentence.
As long as I can spray it for roaches first!
Although I’d thought it, I dared not say it.
I didn’t want to offend him, though I had been saying small things about picking up after himself a lot lately.
He didn’t make much fuss about it.
He would simply do whatever it was that I’d said.
So, that showed that he was willing and I could work with the willing.
We got off of the phone and I headed to the store as planned.
Call me crazy, but it seemed that since I had been in a relationship, men had been coming from every direction; even more so than they always had.
It seemed like no matter where I went it was always someone trying to step to me.
I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t flattered.
I would also be lying if I said that I didn’t size one or two of them up every now and then, because I did.
I’d seen a few that would have looked good by my side, a few others that seemed to be good potentials, but I had Tristan and he was more than enough for me.
Though there had been this one guy at the gas station that pumped my gas.
He’d asked me what my name was and immediately asked me to run away with him
He told me to quit my job and travel the word with him. Seeing that he was being chauffeured, I was sure that he had some big boy money.
He was attractive too.
But I had to decline.
He frowned when I told him that I was in a relationship and even said that I was still fair game since I wasn’t married yet, but after seeing that I wasn’t going anywhere, he kissed my hand and walked away.
Where had he been all of my life?
But luckily, the love that I had for Tristan was everything that I needed and he meant more to me than money.
He meant more to me than anything in the world.
And he assured me that he felt the same.
In the store, randomly I threw bags of candy into my cart.
I knew for a fact that Tristan had changed me. Never before had I even thought about passing out candy or doing something extra that I didn’t have to do.
Never before had I been so happy and full of life, until Tristan came into my world.
I was always on cloud nine. I always felt so good.
Tristan had saved me in so many ways, and he would never understand just how truly thankful I was for him.
For some reason, after a while, I got the strangest feeling that someone was watching me.
I was right.
I turned around to see a woman that I didn’t know, staring at me.
Being polite, I smiled at her but she didn’t smile back.
Instead she acted as though she hadn’t been looking at me at all.
But I wasn’t stupid.
She had definitely been watching me.
I shrugged and concluded that maybe she liked my outfit or something and I continued picking up candy.
Once outside, I loaded the car with the bags and once I got in, like always, I started the car, placed on my sunglasses, even though it was October, glanced at myself in the mirror and then checked my surroundings.
And what do you know…
There she was---again!
She was sitting in her car, only a few spaces from me, just staring at me as if she wanted to punch me in the face.
The issue was that I didn’t know her and I was sure that she didn’t know me.
Judging by the car that she was in, sister had a few bucks I was sure, but that still didn’t explain why she was watching me.
We made eye contact and this time she didn’t even pretend as though she wasn’t looking at me.
Instead she half smiled, or maybe it was a sarcastic smirk, whatever it was, she’d done it and then hastily drove away.
Who is she?
*********
Chapter Five
My new assistant was working on my last nerve!
She was so damn slow!
And I’m not talking about just pace wise; oh no, she definitely had a few screws missing in that tiny little head of hers.
I’d wished that I’d seen this side of her during the interview process but I hadn’t.
I felt as though I had been tricked, bamboozled.
Maybe she has a twin or something that interviewed for her because there was no way in hell that she the same nicely dressed, proper speaking woman that I’d interviewed that day.
And no one could tell me any different.
Nevertheless, I was trying to hang in there and give her a chance but she had better get her act together.
“Knock, knock,” Hunter said knocking on my door.
I smiled at him and the tall, black gentleman that was with him.
I forced
myself not to give him the full body exam.
I was already taken.
“Just wanted to introduce you to Karl. Karl this is Tori, our Senior Vice President. Karl is taking the management position that we had open since Lou took over for Richard,” Hunter finished his introduction.
That job was supposed to have been Tristan’s!
We’d watched for that phone call, but they’d never even called him for the interview.
Tristan asked everyday if anyone had said anything about the opening and I’d always asked him if he’d received a phone call.
He seemed to be losing faith and didn’t understand why he hadn’t gotten the call.
But now I know why.
If I had to guess, it was a personal hire for one of them. Either that or someone was owed a bigger favor than I was.
Either way, I was extremely disappointed for Tristan but I guess everything happens for some reason or another.
They disappeared and another knock came shortly after.
I looked up and it was Tristan.
He hadn’t been back to my office since the day of the interview.
I smiled at him genuinely as I got an eyeful of his attire. He was always dressed to impress which was one thing that I loved about him.
I took pride in my appearance as well, so I loved that he did the same.
“And what have I done to deserve such a beautiful surprise?” I asked him, standing up to hug him.
My door was still open so I didn’t want to do too much by giving him a kiss. I hadn’t even told anyone at the office that I had a man yet.
“Well, I needed to see you,” Tristan said rather timidly as he took a seat.
I could tell that something was wrong.
He was definitely acting out of character and his whole vibe was just off.
“What’s wrong?” I asked him sincerely.
“I just got fired. Something about budget cutbacks,” Tristan said.
“Really?” I asked him and reached for his hand.
Hearing the news not only made me feel bad for him, but it also made me a little angry.
The job here at our firm would have been perfect and right on time had they really considered him for the position like they were supposed to.
“Is there anything that I can do?”
Tristan just shook his head.
I wished that there was something that I could do. The idea of firing my assistant and giving him the job crossed my mind but I knew that now, he wouldn’t take it.